Kids’ independence and arithmetic. Financial manipulations and expectations. Witkoff treason

Zoriana took the bus to school for the first time today. She was excited – and conscientious. She had me look at the online map to see when it was coming. I told her it was ten minutes away – better wait for the later one. No! She pulled herself together frantically, ran to the corner, and phoned from the bus to tell me she just got it at 8:25.

She called ten minutes later to tell me that the school was locked. Nobody there. I reminded her that people usually don’t arrive until five of, often a little late. Take a note that the 8:45 bus will get her there on time. While she was on the phone, I asked her about a math problem she showed me this morning:

(29+37-18)/ 6 + 5 * (15- 8) / 5 = ?

I reflected on how this differed from what I remembered from third grade in the USA. While we studied the same four basic operations, I don’t remember order of operations being introduced so early. My recollection was that the worksheets had kids write down all the intermediate results.

Anyhow, what Zoriana showed me was computing the expression in the first set of parentheses in her head to get 48, then dividing in her head to get 8, and writing that down. She next did the second set of parentheses and second expression in her head to come up with the answer. At any rate, fairly demanding but she had no problem. The answer was 33, which doesn’t agree with the expression above, showing only that I don’t remember exactly. But you get the idea.

Ninth-grade Eddie also showed off. He described a game of coin flips. You start with one dollar. You get to flip a coin as many times as you want. Every time it comes up heads you double your money. The game ends and you keep your winnings when it comes up tails. How much should you pay to play this game?

Eddie understood the math very well. His difficulty, as always, was clearly and concisely presenting the problem to me. The issue we talked about with his language teachers a couple of weeks ago.

Here’s a very practical bit of mathematics. Tether gets a great deal of very positive press for its stablecoins. Quoth the Raven points out that they artfully dodge the question of an audit. They have done it for a long time. They are based in El Salvador. What could go wrong?

A couple of months ago, stating that I assumed that the vaults were regularly audited, I naïvely recommended their XAUT gold token as an alternative to Bitcoin. Not so. They are not audited. There is a significant need for an honest gold-backed crypto, but this is probably not it. Meanwhile, Bitcoin, which is honestly backed by nothing except its uniqueness and its scarcity, is staging a rally.

My play of the moment is silver. Here’s Don Durrett’s letter today. See also Alasdair MacLeod, Andy Schechtman, Rick Rule, Jim Rickards, Dunigan Kaiser and just about all of the best-known names in the precious metals space. The silver miners got pounded a couple of weeks ago for no obvious reason. We know from a long history that the big players are adept at market manipulations over the short term, but ultimately the fundamentals win out. I have liked Durrett since reading his book How to Invest in Gold and Silver a year and a half ago. I think his theory is sound and his timing is right.

That’s the news from Lake WeBeGone, where the strong man is enduring his third minor cold of the season. None of them have made me feel really sick. First was a week of sniffles, second a month of coughing, and this one three days of having no voice. All of them made me feel weak, but not feverish or unable to function. The kids are also sick periodically. It is providential that Zoriana is able to get herself to school, freeing Oksana to drive Marianna.

Steve Witkoff’s involvement in the Ukraine negotiations has always been weird. I recently opined that Trump blundered in appointing him. There is increasing call from both parties in congress to get rid of him. And, it is turning out, he has a long history of close ties to Russian oligarchs in the New York real estate business. I hope Trump has the good sense to cut his losses sharply and soon. He needs to do the right thing in opposing Russia’s savage aggression, and salvage his credibility to deal with United States problems such as immigration, health insurance, deficits and the like.

As for me, I don’t feel the energy for the major blog piece I’m writing on how humanity might recover its will to reproduce. Fortunately, the Russians and my family have given me enough material to produce something every day, in addition to which I have finished reading the Naomi Wolf book, another entitled “Sex Scandal” about undermining the distinctions between men and women, The Repo Market about how treasury securities undergird the economy, and Henry Ford’s “My Life and Work.” Don’t know if I will review any of them.

Graham