Joel Bowman, briefly shirking kitchen duties in Buenos Aires, Argentina...
While our dear readers in the US may be enjoying their third or fourth helping of Thanksgiving leftovers (another round of turkey sandwiches, anyone?), the festivities are only just beginning down here at the other end of the Americas...
Each and every year, regardless of where in this wide world we find ourselves, your editor’s wife insists on throwing a grand feast for all the American expats, refugees, orphans, wanderers, peripatetics, vagrants etc. she can gather near.
We’ve hosted “foreign soil” Thanksgivings in the Easts (Middle and Far) and the Americas (North and South)... across Northern Europe and in our own country of birth, the Great Southern Land... in winter and summer, hemispheres East and West...
This year (in under an hour), we’re expecting around thirty guests to descend on our BA residence... many from the US, with a few Aussies, Argies and Brits thrown in, plus one Japanese and one Colombian, for good conversational measure.
Having shared this tradition with folks across lands near and far, of varying creeds, cultures and canons, we’ve found the collective experience of pausing to give thanks to be a universally appreciated ceremony. With all the distractions of modern life – from the political parade to the world of mammon... antisocial media to public folly... and the whole panem et circenses constantly nagging at our attention – simply appreciating what we’re grateful for is something we too often overlook.
On which note, in addition to family and health, poetry and jet fuel, malbec and Brahms and thick cut bacon, we propose a toast of thanks to you, our Sunday Sesh community... for your readership, your patience and your feedback. We’ve rather come to enjoy these weekend musings, sharing our humble observations of the world with you. And we’ve learned a thing of two along the way, from your comments and discussions.
So, thank you.
If there are topics you’d like to see covered in future editions... sacred cows you think should be slaughtered... public personas you feel stand in desperate need of scorn and ridicule... let us know in the forum below.
And don’t forget to invite friends along to join in the fun, be they from the left or the right... or, as with our (imminent) lunch guests, apolitical refugees, orphans, etc., abandoned by their former party and looking for a new home, a new way of thinking.
For now, we’re wanted back in the kitchen... but we’ll return next weekend with your usual dose of cynicism, skepticism and epicureanism.
Meanwhile, you’ll find the past week’s articles from Bill archived, below...
Cheers,
Joel Bowman
I'd like to see more coverage of the misallocation of capital that happens because of our credit addiction and reckless US monetary policy. The USA spends $4T in health care EACH YEAR and yet we're the unhealthiest on the planet. Covid 19 was canary in the coal mine. Africa saw far less death from Covid. According to one study 88% of Americans are metabolically unhealthy. Related to health is food. We waste 40-50% every year and 71% of all food sold in the USA is ultra processed. https://ebm.bmj.com/content/26/1/1
Joel, you guys are doing a great job! Keep up the good work! Here's my 2 cents:
I have ZERO interest in crypto currency as an investment.. Some here are interested, but I don't give a damn! If you never mentioned Bitcoin again, I would not care. But I am interested in the future of a digital currency here and in the rest of the world and its effect on me and my family.
I love the personal stories of you, Bill, and others -- keep them coming! Makes my day reading them.. Bill is especially very talented in story telling.
Continue the focus on energy and possible investments in this area. IMHO, energy shortages caused by incompetence will be the major world issue in the coming decades, providing excellent investment opportunities.
Continue with your excellent analysis of present and future economic trends. As a caregiver for my wife, I have limited time to try and keep up with the important economic stuff and depend on BPR to point out possible earthquakes and train wrecks coming my way.
Not too much politics, please! Just when needed to explain what's going on in the economic world. I don't know what your politics are (guess mostly toward the right), and don't really care that much. The comment section provides plenty of space for us to vend out our political opinions. If I need more politics, I will go to other Substack forums.
One complaint -- your FRED graph axes are almost impossible to read on my computer. Can you make them bigger (separate window?)?