Holding my lawn in contempt

Hey Friends,

Here in the USA, GDPR shrank by 0.4% during this first quarter. Despite this fact, my lawn is having a bull market with double digit growth.

Unfortunately, dandelions are up by a staggering 3%, a report that comes on the heels of me bending over to pick out every single one by hand (I had my back adjusted for inflation). Most weeds and bare spots are down two tenths of a percent after last years seed investment and larger overall spending on watering the lawn.

I guess what I’m really saying is. It’s Spring!

Anyway.

Much like my lawn, and the economy, everything in life incorporates math and our emotional intelligence to navigate it.

I’ll talk about that more in a moment.

But first, The News.

Here’s what happened in the headlines this week.

Hot Takes

Week 17 of 2022

How Much Is It? Evidently, the price was right, because Elon Musk’s offer to buy Twitter was accepted by the board. The left is crying and the right is celebrating. Normal people are still tweeting aimlessly into the air and non partisan marketers are still creating threads that tell you how they went from zero to a million in 6 tweets.

So is Elon Musk’s soon to be ownership of Twitter a danger to society or a boon for free speech? Here’s a short thread I posted on the matter. Click to read the whole thing.

Playing Two Suited. Donald Trump was held in Contempt of Court, which would be big news if Elon Musk hadn’t bought Twitter. Donald will be charged $10,000 per day that he does not comply with subpoenas issued by the NY Attorney General’s office. What does history tells us about holding an ex-president in contempt of court?

Nothing. Trump is the first ever.

Trump has appealed the order, but, to use a Euchre term, that might be reneging. We’ll see how this trick plays out over the coming days.

A Few Points Below Prime. Amazon Had a $4 billion loss for the first quarter of the year, but it wasn’t for lack of trying since my Prime membership pricing went up.

Amazon CEO, Andy Jassy, when he delivered the less than rosy report turned around, took a picture of it, and sent an email asking investors “How was your report?” It was great! 👍 –– Not so great. 👎

Don’t Pay That Yet. I hope you still owe on your student loans because those may or may not be cancelled soon. Biden is in a teetering spot on the issue right now, but he said it’s not going to be as high as some have proposed. Critics of the measure have said they would prefer to give their tax breaks to billionaires and large businesses, and not regular people.

Here’s another thread from me on the topic.

Regular or Menthol? The FDA is proposing banning menthol cigarettes, and flavored cigars mostly because they taste better than regular cigarettes – which is how many start smoking.

The FDA says it will solicit comments from the public before finalizing a decision, but isn’t sure how many smokers will live long enough to give their opinion. According to the CDC, 480,000 people die each year, and the rest of us are stuck with a $300 billion bill.

Don’t say Disney. Speaking of… Disney may no longer have to pay their own taxes after DeSantis got involved, eliminating the parks dedicated tax district. This was so obviously a retaliation for the mouse’s response to his bill affectionately referred to as “Don’t say Gay”. Another thing DeSantis is not saying is the $1 billion cost this puts on Floridians.

I covered this in this week’s article, which I will get to right now.

Here’s The Gist.

Ron's Math Doesn't Add Up

The Gist

This week, Governor Ron DeSantis is trying to tell me the way I learn is irresponsible.Not only does science support my tactile learning style, but so do gender stereotypes. It’s also a gender stereotype to avoid one’s feeling(s) because it doesn’t seem “manly” enough. (“manly” can present as an austere personality, lots of throat clearing and a general lack of feelings other than anger).

How does that make you feel?

Governor DeSantis, while banning books that have too many trigger words in them, says “Math is about getting the right answer…It’s not about how you feel about the problem.”But how does Ron feel about decades of research and hundreds of studies from education researchers? Read The Article

That’s it for this week. Have a great weekend!