Thankfully

Thankfully the US is enjoying one of the longest economic expansions of the post-war period (101 months and counting)

Thankfully that economic expansion is starting to result in job growth for the parts of the economy that have lagged during this expansion

Thankfully the Trump Administration has, so far, failed to enact the most troublesome parts of its agenda

Thankfully the developing world continues to experience rising wealth, income, and living standards

Thankfully technology continues to produce answers to our most vexing problems

Thankfully renewable energy continues to grow and displace carbon-based energy around the world

Thankfully gender and racial equality is on the rise and white male dominance is on the decline

Thankfully literacy rates continue to rise rapidly around the world

Thankfully almost 100,000 students in the NYC public school system got a computer science class last year

Thankfully the NY Knicks are young, hungry, play hard, and are winning

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone

#Random Posts

Comments (Archived):

  1. bsoist

    Thankfully Terri didn’t break her arm when one of her students accidentally knocked her over at recess the other day.Thankfully Becky arrived from LA this morning.Thankfully Billy avoided any parade traffic leaving your beautiful city this morning.Thankfully the Giants look terrible so maybe we can see a win at FedEx tonight!

    1. Tom Labus

      Maybe hold on the Giants for a few weeks. What a year!!!

  2. awaldstein

    Thankfully we are working at the most interesting time imaginable with the very real possibility of truly changing the world for the better.

    1. sigmaalgebra

      How ’bout we just start with the US and get that done, first? Okay?

  3. William Mougayar

    Really good list.Glass half full all the way!Happy Thanksgiving to my US friends.

  4. pointsnfigures

    Happy Thanksgiving.

  5. Lawrence Brass

    Thank you Fred for this blog, for still committing to writing every day and for the dedication you put into philanthropy. You make a difference.Also thanks to the people that visit this place, I am very fond of you and I love the diversity of your thinking and your characters. It is always a pleasure to read you.

  6. jason wright

    thankfully there are some good people in the blockchain space. not easy to find, but they are there. it just takes time.

  7. Tom Labus

    Have a great day with family and friends. All the best to all.

  8. JaredMermey

    Thankful for many commenters here who open my mind to different views through thoughtful, articulate posts and for conversation that — while often covering important topics where it is easy to let passion overtake reason — is generally respectful and many grades above what is elsewhere in media.(And hopeful that the Knicks are for real as opposed to getting all of our hopes up a year or two too soon.)

    1. JamesHRH

      KP is the real deal.

      1. JaredMermey

        He is great and has potential to be an all-timer. He looks exhausted on his bad nights. Need more pick n roll in the offense to let him score more easily. But given early season results this is just nitpicking.

        1. JamesHRH

          NBA fans – maybe all sports fans – should be thankful for the historic influx of talent into the league ( KD, Russ, The Beard, Kyrie, The Greek Freak, KP, Simmons, Embiid, Davis & Boogie in NOLA) – the list is much longer.Knicks fans are to be forgiven for fearing that their owner will mess up their good fortune.

  9. JLM

    Thankful for God’s blessings on all of mankind. Be good to yourselves, your families, and mankind. Best wishes to all.Remember those in the military deployed overseas.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…

  10. JimHirshfield

    Thank you for thanking.Happy holiday.

  11. JamesHRH

    Great list.I have a quibble, but I am thankful for quibbles and for freedom of expression so I willl keep it to myself!Best wishes to Clan Wilson and to all of the AVC community.

  12. rich caccappolo

    Fred, I like the list. Your Thanksgiving posts are thought provoking and memrable each year – for which I am thankful.

  13. iggyfanlo

    FredThanks for writing this blog with such consistency… the content is great, but the community better… Have a great weekend

  14. Pete Griffiths

    Thanks for the blog. It’s a huge commitment.

  15. Adam Parish

    Happy Thanksgiving Fred from a daily reader.

  16. Vasudev Ram

    A sort of appropriate poem (heard it as a kid from my grandpa):Excerpt:”Thanks, thanks to thee, my worthy friend,For the lesson thou hast taught!Thus at the flaming forge of lifeOur fortunes must be wrought;Thus on its sounding anvil shapedEach burning deed and thought.”Full poem:The Village Blacksmithby the poet Longfellowhttp://www.hwlongfellow.org…The Life of Henry Wadsworth Longfellowhttp://www.hwlongfellow.org…

    1. Lawrence Brass

      Thank you dear friend for all the knowledge you gave me during this year. It was a pleasure to work with you. Looking forward to repeat in 2018.

      1. Vasudev Ram

        Thank you too for the same reasons, Lawrence my friend. The looking forward is mutual too.

    2. sigmaalgebra

      > Thus at the flaming forge of lifeOur fortunes must be wrought;There’s a point to that.

  17. Andu @ Widgetic.com

    The longest sustained economic expansion in US history occurred for 120 months between 1991 and 2001. If we hit June 2019 without a recession, we’ll officially be in the longest economic expansion in US history. And when an inevitable contraction comes, and a market correction occurs.

    1. Richard

      1) Compounded growth is arguably a better metric than time.2) The rate of growth of debt should be factored in.

      1. JLM

        .At GDP growth rates sub 3%, much of what is called “growth” is just taking balance sheet debt and throwing it at the income statement.We are positioned to experience 4-6% growth if we get out of our own way.It will not last forever, but nothing does.JLM http://www.themusingsofthebigredca...

        1. sigmaalgebra

          We can grow, and quickly, well past the horizon, without either bubbles or crashes, but to do so we can’t be just totally stupid as we were before 1929 or 2008. It’s not necessary to be really smart. It’s sufficient not to be just totally stupid.

  18. Rob Underwood

    Thankfully there are construction workers, plumbers, electricians, and laborers who with their hands, minds, and bodies build and maintain the core infrastructure that makes nearly all of our businesses and lives possible.Thankfully we have first responders – police, fire fighters, and EMT, who protect us every days, including holidays.Thankfully there were members of our military (and intelligence services) willing to lay down their lives to protect our nation in wars recent and long ago; thankfully there are fellow country people who serve in our military today.Thankfully Charles Smith and I survived our partner Thanksgiving workout at CrossFit South Brooklyn.

  19. cavepainting

    Thanks to you and the community for creating what is easily the best place to hangout on the internet. Hard to find a place where there is as much diversity of thought, nuanced takes and respectful disagreements. The conversation here makes a real difference in enabling better understanding of the opposite POV.

  20. Greg Hills

    Great list.I’m a mech eng living in Green Energy Plan Ontario energy-poverty purgatory so I’ll just ignore the “carbon-based energy” jive.

    1. JamesHRH

      I have felt your pain and feel for you regarding the future pain that will be caused by some of the jive talking your Premier is doing (the rebates plan may be the singles most cynical thing ever executed by a CDN politician).

  21. sigmaalgebra

    Thankfully the US is enjoying one of the longest economic expansions of the post-war period (101 months and counting) Since the crash of 2008, we went 2/3rds as long as the Great Depression getting out of the mess. That was wastefully, harmfully, incompetently too darned long.We were OUT of the Great Depression with 2-3 jobs for everyone in 90 days flat after 12/7/1941 when we started to take things seriously. The Great Depression seriously hurt US social and psychological capital, and we are still paying the price. No doubt the eight years of Obozo’s grotesque incompetence (following W’s grotesque incompetence) down to actual sabotage of the US (dumping on England and Israel, helping radical Islamic terrorism, screaming about “global warming,” bringing back a new version of US slavery) seriously hurt the US for decades to come.We’ve got to just stop that stuff that it’s okay to have the economy sick for years at a time.There’s an old statement:Recession is the easiest thing in the world to stop: Just print money. Isn’t that immoral, inflationary?Nope.Instead are just replacing the money supply destroyed by the crash: The money was created by the multiplier effect of banking. During the recession, bank lending shrank and, thus, so did the money supply.Usually in the preceding boom, the money supply expanded too much from out of control banking. So, replace some of the money created in the bubble and then put on new controls to keep banking from multiplying that new money. That pair is what, finally, eventually happened in both the Great Depression and the Great Recession — print new money and put on new banking controls. Simple.The elitist, idiotic, highly principled, moralistic economists and business leaders are willing to watch people suffer and die, families destroyed, abortion rates, alcoholism, drug abuse, suicide, domestic violence, violent crime, etc. go through the roof to keep up their moral principles and ignorance. Instead, again, just print to replace the destroyed money and then put banking controls in place to stop the bubble threat.Thankfully the Trump Administration has, so far, failed to enact the most troublesome parts of its agenda No such “parts” were listed, and I’ve seen none. E.g., Trump wants the US to stop the push to a new version of US slavery and to enforce the long standing US laws, policies, and procedures for immigration. Trump wants to protect the US from radical Islamic terrorism. Trump wants to get nukes out of the Korean peninsula. Trump wants to get the US balance of trade back into balance. Trump wants to bring manufacturing back to the US, especially in the poorest central cities. Trump wants to get, and now keep, the US economic growth rate well over 3% per year and, thus, generate enough new jobs and tax revenue to solve some of our very serious problems. Etc.Thankfully the developing world continues to experience rising wealth, income, and living standards Good for them. I wouldn’t want otherwise. But the US has not been doing nearly well enough, and I believe that the US should put the US first. Apparently so does Trump. To too great an extent, those other countries are doing well by taking jobs of US citizens. That’s much of why we have 90+ million US citizens out of the labor force. Trump wants to correct that; so do I. Some of the corrections will hurt some of the foreign countries.That interest in foreign countries is to paper over the bedrock drive to flood the US with cheap imported products and labor. Then tens of millions of well qualified US workers lose their jobs and can’t afford even the cheap products. Bummer.That excessive importing is ugly stuff: Tens of millions of US families are seriously hurt or destroyed. US economic strength is hurt. The imported people become a new version of slave labor and have little chance of assimilating or prospering in the US for decades. We’re creating social, economic, and political problems that promise to last 100+ years. This is one more way a strong country can destroy itself.Thankfully renewable energy continues to grow and displace carbon-based energy around the world “Renewable energy” is an uninformed, misinformed, wasteful, destructive, especially for the developing world, quasi-religious, flim-flam, fraud, subsidy scam. Wisely Trump is ending it.Thankfully gender and racial equality is on the rise and white male dominance is on the decline Sexism and racism are the top two and very worn cards in the Democrat dirty politics deck, and NYC is 80+% Democrat.”Gender equality” is the worst large scale thing to happen to US females since the slavery of the 19th century.The “liberation of women” has resulted in more deaths than from any of Hitler, Stalin, Mao, or Pol Pot.To quote E. Fromm, The Art of Loving, Men and women deserve equal respect as persons but are not the same. Fromm went on to explain that it was the French Revolution and its high concern that any differences would lead to tyranny got Western Civilization to try to make men and women just the same in every possible respect not totally forbidden by anatomy. Well, it doesn’t work. As my wife lamented shortly before she died, “This equality stuff got me into a whole lot of trouble.”Females are to be cherished, treasured, protected, loved, cared about, cared for, taken care of, etc. while they concentrate on doing great things for the next generation. Else we won’t do well enough for the next generation.This “equality” is in part a case of eating our seed corn. Too much of US economic growth since 1960 has been from having women struggling to make money instead of doing well making babies.For females, “equality” is a huge, cruel, destructive, catastrophic step down for the US and especially for the females.This “equality” stuff has females trying to go from pretty patent leather shoes to steel toed work/combat boots, from child care, K-12 teaching, and compassionate health care to the Marines and Army Rangers. Meanwhile the birth rate is so low we’re going extinct. Rock solid guarantee: That stuff won’t last. Darwin is enforcing this guarantee.Thankfully … white male dominance is on the decline WHAT? I plead innocent. But, now, the suspected “war on white men” is confirmed! All doubt is removed! Cat’s out of the bag; toothpaste out of the tube. History is made and cannot be changed!This one’s a keeper!It wasn’t just Obozo who hated white men but the whole Democrat party!And the Democrats expect to get net votes that way? Maybe in Manhattan, SF, and DC but nowhere else.Government A lot of Fred’s list has to do with US government:Apparently bad government is always a threat. So, we let the bubble of the 1920s continue. The bubble burst, and we let the Great Depression continue. The Great Depression spread and led to three dictatorships that started shooting at us.With work usually at least excellent and at times brilliant, we worked our way out of WWII. Then we went dumb again in Viet Nam. That continued for 20+ years before citizens on the streets had to give some strong lessons in Foreign Policy 101 to “the best and the brightest,” a lot of elites, etc. Thankfully our system from our Founding Fathers let the citizens give that lesson so that it worked.From the Viet Nam nonsense, we enabled OPEC, got massive inflation and 22% per year prime rates, killed off the S&L industry, distorted much of the US economy, hurt lots of people and families, got the destructive LBO craze, etc.The OPEC wealth enabled Saddam, and we got Gulf War I. We did that one well, only a few hundred allied soldier deaths. But enabling OPEC was a big mistake, one we paid for at very high prices in Gulf War I and otherwise. Bummer.Then leading up to year 2000, with dumb monetary policy we blew another bubble.Then dumb dumb de dumb dumb W thought that in a few months he would dump Saddam and leave Iraq a democratic shining city on a hill. Elitist, thoughtless, careless W. Huge waste, maybe $7 T in current net present value.And dumb W got the housing bubble going. W was so dumb that the US was willing to elect even dumber, actually hates the US, Obozo. Then the W housing bubble burst, and Obozo did way too little about it. Obozo continued to waste US blood and treasure in absurd Islamic countries.Now, thankfully, we have Trump: Smart, strong, guy. Beat the GOPe, the DEMe, and the DEM media. Funded his own primary campaign, e.g., with his Boeing 757. Can’t be bought. We retired crooked, criminal, national security disaster, bribe taking, sexual predator supporting, lying, nasty — really, just angry and degenerate — Hillary and, thus, thanks to Trump, dodged a very serious bullet that might have seriously hurt the US and the world.Ah, Hillary — pride of the Democrat party. We need two strong political parties, but the Democrats need to clean house and renovate.We’ve gotta be careful, guys. The threat of really bad government is with us always. We’ve got to pay close attention and make our voices heard by our politicians. The Founding Fathers gave us a great Constitution, but it’s up to us to make it work, and we have to work at it everyday or it will fail as it has too often in the past and maybe even much worse.E.g., just now, we’ve got Pelosi and Schumer and their buddies in the media, with too much help from Ryan and McConnell, out to start a maybe violent civil war.

  22. K_Berger

    Thanks Fred.

  23. donaldtrump2020

    why all the hate against White males? cultural suicide by the leftist libtards once again. Native indian tribes were killing each other long before Columbus set food in America. Ditto for the Incas and Mayans. Black people were sold into slavery for profit by their own kind – usually members of opposing tribes that lost in battle. Why all this male feminist hate against white males?

  24. donaldtrump2020

    Why all the hate against white males? Arnt we all equal?

  25. donaldtrump2020

    85% of homeless are men 76% of suicides are men 70% of murder victims are men 92% of deaths in the workplace are men 7% of men get custody after a divorce 97% of war deaths are menThe joke is feminism; the idea that society opresses women is laughable. Feminism is weak women using their gender as a reason for being weak and need to go to seminars and listen to some shag talk about female empowerment to feel validated

    1. pointsnfigures

      not that simple. lots of nuance to this problem and it’s not feminism. this assumes a fixed pie. in entrepreneurship we are about growing pies and giving everyone a seat at the table

      1. donaldtrump2020

        the liberals have made it such that is Bad to be a white man. Victimization of the white male as a scapegoat for all of societies evils. No wonder Trump won!

        1. pointsnfigures

          To be a victim, you have to accept the victimization.

  26. DJL

    Happy Thanksgiving. As a middle-aged white male, I have a lot to be thankful for. My family, my work, my God, and to be living in the greatest country on Earth.The idea that I am at the center of everything bad about America is not one of them. It is racism at it’s most destructive. I love people of all races and backgrounds. They are my friends and my support network. I embrace anyone – except those who want to destroy what I value.I am not responsible for the plight of any other race, religion, gender or political party. In fact, I am proud of what I have accomplished. The decline of the “white male” is also the decline of the core family, the decline of the local church-based community, the decline of a moral core, and the decline of a great generation of Americans who prayed, fought, bled, and died so that others could “celebrate” when they became a minority. God bless the white American male. They made all of this possible.