It's not at all clear what the long-term effect of the pandemic will be, but it's clear that there will be an effect and a big one. The biggest changes will come in aspects of society and the economy that were already under flux. In this note, I want to focus on retail and the restaurant industry. Retail was already in free fall for many reasons, including the impact of Amazon, which deliberately focuses on changing people's shopping habits. Corona Virus has dragged a few new shoppers to Amazon. Time will tell if habits have changed permanently. In the end, the competition between Amazon and "bricks and mortar" will boil down to economics. This is where my thoughts have been wandering lately. How is it possible for Amazon to ship a $6 package of Gatorade powder for free and compete with the local grocery store? The answer seems to be in a shift of perception. When you shop in a "brick and mortar" store, you are basically touring their invent...

I have refrained from writing about the perfect storm South of the Border since most people will not find anything new in what I have to say and others (American Republicans) will simply deny whatever I say for reasons that inspire this essay. There are three mental health issues that center around Trump but cannot be "blamed" on him. Not entirely. But let me start with Trump himself. He is plainly a malignant narcissist - a condition that has progressed into psychosis as he is backed into a corner by the self-evident gap between the world he lives in and the world the rest of us are stuck with. Building an alternate universe is the very definition of psychosis , but psychosis is a symptom not a "disease". It is linked to all kinds of underlying conditions. Nor is "psychosis" the end of the story with Trump. For example, he exhibits an astonishing willingness to sacrifice thousands of lives to serve his purpose (whatever that is). This puts him i...

I'm no expert, but I can see when "experts" are 180 degrees from each other. For example, in an interview with New York Times "Daily ", an expert economist is asked where all these trillions of dollars of the bailout money are coming from. He seems to think that all Federal funds are either collected in taxes or "borrowed into existence". The implications are that it will take generations to "repay" all these massive loans. This seems factually wrong in several respects if you know "Modern Monetary Theory (MMT)". MMT is not exactly a "theory" needing proof. It is simply a description of how things work in the accounts of a sovereign nature when it comes to its sovereign currency. For one thing, all government funds spent are materialized "out of the blue". This applies to all spending all the time and not just in times of crisis. The exception which is not really an exception is government borrowing that covers t...