The regional stock brokerage firm I've been working with for 25 years has disinvited me. I love them because I could deal with real people. Real people are expensive, and regulations become ever more intrusive. They say they can no longer handle accounts of people who live outside the United States.
In setting up new accounts and making sure that deposits get to them, and bills are paid from them, I am encountering a whole bunch of hurdles with KYC – know your customer – requirements, two factor authentication, and over-automation of functions that simply can be done better by people. I thank God for my other brokerage account, with Charles Schwab, which employees real, breathing people who are usually pretty good at solving problems. The bottom line is that I have not had much time to write.
A couple of articles distill my impression of where things are going. This piece from The Financial Times has been widely quoted – I first saw it on zero hedge. Whereas women in the developed world are becoming more and more liberal, men are becoming conservative. This graph sums it up.
Inasmuch as women are the ones who bear children, and liberals don't much believe in them, this does not bode well for the birth rate in the richer countries. The article notes a that good conservative on average wants three children, a good liberal is satisfied with one, if that, and only after having some fun and starting a career. As it takes two to tango, the portents are not good.
And so what, one might ask? Eight billion people is enough. Yuval Noah Harari claims 7.5 billion of us are superfluous, and the optimal number is maybe two billion. Jan e Goodall would go for 0.5 billion or so.
Whether by a quirk of evolution or some sinister plot, it appears likely that old Gaia will be host to fewer of us in times to come. Nobody has made a convincing argument to the effect that the “controligarchs” - new coinage - have a mechanism in place to determine who those few will be. My best guess is it will be those who show up. Those of us who feel like having kids.
The Centers for Disease Control is totally tone deaf. Bobby Kennedy Junior's Children's Health Defense organization has the headline ‘A Very Dangerous Medical Experiment’: CDC Expands Vaccine Schedules for Kids, Pregnant Women and Most Adults. The CDC refuses to draw conclusions from the facts that demand for Covid 19 vaccines has cratered and the general public is increasingly leery of even ordinary vaccines. I recently wrote about the push underway to rekindle panic about measles and get those MMR shots into arms.
So, what has the CDC done? They have gone an added new vaccines to the schedule for children under 18, increasing it to a total of 78 jabs. These new ones include Covid 19, RSV, flu and pneumococcal disease. Their paid shills on Substack, Eric Topol and "local epidemiologist" Katelyn Jetelina will surely have pieces flogging the new jabs shortly.
Meanwhile, have you read about research into the interactions of various vaccines? Research on the causes of autism? Investigation into the double digit drop in human fertility over the last three years? I haven’t. You neither?
Oksana took me for a practice drive today. We merged onto Brovarsky Prospect, the major east-west artery in our part of town, the only convenient way to cross the railroad tracks. She had practiced merging for a couple of hours with her instructor the other day. She says it worked better, and I am sure it will improve over time.
She considers me a nervous Nelly for not wanting to ride with her as she goes on her practice runs. I tell her that driving is inherently dangerous, all the more so for a new driver. It would be a disaster for the kids if something happened to one of us, an absolute catastrophe if an accident wiped us both out. As far as I'm concerned, if I’m not needed she can get her driving experience by herself.
The objective of today's outing was to practice the route she would take tomorrow from Livoberezhna to piano lessons with Zoriana. I pointed out that a #44 city bus takes that exact route. All she has to do is get there on time. It would spare her worry about traffic, parking, driving at night and all of that. While I remain convinced that she does need to learn how to drive, I don’t need to be there as she does it.
Oksana's driving is expensive in more ways than one. I used to do most of the grocery shopping, bringing home an average of 30 pounds in my backpack and shopping bags. Now she can fill her shopping cart and dump it in the car. There is even less room in the refrigerator. It doesn't really bother me being relieved of that chore, and we can afford the groceries. I simply note that it is a significant change in our routine. All things have to change over time, and it is probably good that she get in the practice of shopping before I become so old and decrepit that she is forced into it.
Just as I set out to get the girls from school, we heard air raid sirens. Longer and louder than usual. The buses wouldn't be running. Luckily we have a car so Oksana and I could pick them up on time. On the way home Alexander, our mechanic called. He owns a nondescript neighborhood garage with no signage whatsoever but lots of cars parked on the curb. On yesterday’s map, it is where the green bicycle route crosses the approach to the new bridge. We dropped the car off for service and walked home.
That's the news from Lake WeBeGone, where the temperature broke 40°F for the first time in a couple of months. I rode my bike to the kids' school yesterday to pick them up, left it overnight and rode it home this morning. The buds are forming on the magnolia. The dogs still skate, and kids walk on the ice on the pond, but not for long. Things are looking springlike.