Our world is vast yet intimate, complex yet traceable, ancient yet immediate, often regressive, sometimes compellingly timely, and occasionally progressive. It is resilient but not invulnerable, abundant but not equitable, knowable yet never fully known—where signals of things to come are seldom subtle. Noise is loud, outcomes judge intentions—the good, the bad and the ugly. The world is finite, interdependent, and unforgiving of illusion. Wisdom is often a conveniently ignored nuisance, rather than a catalyst for clear perception and disciplined action.   THE WORLD AT WAR Thank you, readers of FINGER ON THE...

BOX OF CHOCOLATES “Life was like a box of chocolates. You never know what you are gonna get.” —Eric Roth, 1994. That from the exceptional Tom Hanks movie, Forrest Gump. A movie, your humble scribe always thought it was wonderfully incongruent: constancy of character shapes history… How cool and how wrong! Donald J. Trump His posture alone shifts global trajectories. He is political weather—unavoidable, disruptive, and impossible to ignore. As Mark Twain — or perhaps Charles Dudley Warner — observed: Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it. With that, however torturously, back to the...

CTOADS® is a collaborative, non-linear journal—a unique interactive social and political discourse platform that I architected some years ago. Regrettably, it was a decade ahead of its time… The “dirty wall?” That would be our world! It is vast yet intimate, complex yet traceable, ancient yet immediate, often regressive, sometimes compellingly timely, and occasionally progressive. It is resilient but not invulnerable, abundant but not equitable, knowable yet never fully known—where signals of things to come is seldom subtle. Noise is loud, outcomes judge intentions—the good, the bad and the ugly. The world is...

Do not take a deep breath if you are fearful of missing something… In no particular order… On the home front… Keeping score: Trump vs. Trump Core inflation is 2.4%. Me, your humble armchair-macro-economist, Steven J. Manning, opine anything lower than 2% would be disastrous to the economy. And: wage increases are outpacing inflation! Hurray! Fuel, eggs, housing, healthcare (coming soon), all down. Taxes coming down a bunch second quarter. And… Not bad, not bad. GDP over 4%. Your 401K’s, all healthy! You, your family, your friends and neighbors are all employed. Trillions and trillions in foreign investments. It is...

Good morning.

We promised “no homework” for the holidays.

Oh well… I [Manning] cannot help myself but “lay a bunch of this stuff on you,” likely to send some to do some cool reading. At least I hope so…

THE WORLD WORKS AROUND GIANTS. WHEN GIANTS COLLIDE, THE WORLD FRACTURES.
Think: the Global Authoritarian Surge vs. Democratic Stability.

Just when you thought politics in the US could not get uglier, while the Dems. and Republicans are in their perpetual, entirely undignified/despicable fight for political power, 42 million people stopped receiving SNAP benefits. That is FOOD-STAMPS, people! 1.2 million people in the military among those. Imagine the indignity to families with a head of household serving in the military, getting in line at food-banks!

Bears repeating: Where does an 800 pounds Bengal tiger sleep? Anywhere it wants to! This is a comment on the mighty economic sledgehammer that is the U.S. economy. And the entire faux tariffs warfare waged by the E.U. and essentially all rest of the word.

Where does an 800 pounds Bengal tiger sleep? Anywhere it wants to! This is a comment on the mighty economic sledgehammer that is the U.S. economy. And the entire faux tariffs warfare waged by the EU and essentially all rest of the word. But for the massive value of all things traded—gained, given away, over-valued, de-valued—the whole affair would be amusing. Did anybody in the world—setting China aside for a moment—truly expect serious bargaining with the U.S.? How gracious was Trump to allow a bit of time (precious little) for self-serving serving, face-saving protests by many, with the EU leading that parade? Give honest consideration to the massive “win-win” outcome. As for China, that is a monumental

My mind is a cacophony of unanswered questions. So much on my mind that I need clarity on.

Someone explain all this to me. Some examples of intellectual juxtapositions I explore in my book, [Like] EXPLAINING BITCOIN TO BUDDHIST MONKS.

Jeans, jeans and more jeans. Not genes!

No, I am not getting paid to pitch this to you. If reading this, Phil, I really should be.

If this big (uncomfortably “small”) world of ours intrigues, challenges, puzzles, scares, inspires, confounds, amazes, infuriates (or whatever) you, I urge you add Phil Balboni’s very short and exceptional stuff to your daily read. For the price of a modest dinner out on any summer evening, forty-six US bucks, you get a one-year subscription to the GlobalPost. What a great daily read! Exceptional information, entirely to the point with no superfluous stuff nor word-salads. Gosh, I for one, get smarter with every read.

I (Manning) heard that Al Gore was spotted buying a heavy Irish wool sweater. Yes, this is a comment on the Antarctic ice cap NOT shrinking. On the contrary.

If every “AI machine” gets turned on simultaneously, your TV will dim, and your food will spoil in your refrigerator. The answer: China will put some 35 dirty coal plants online this year. The US, none. The US has clean burning coal AND Trump just green-lit the building of relevant sized nuclear plants. Finally.

Speaking of intellectually bankrupt, hardcore antisemite, committed/institutionalized anti-American, neo-….

“Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water…” Great line associated with Steven Spielberg’s famous movie, JAWS.

Just when we think it is OK to go to sleep with the belief that the world will have changed for the better by the time we wake, the world, just like Spielberg’s mythical, menacing Jaws (“Bruce”), rears its ugly and scary head.

The world remains at war…