Poker lesson

Strike Force Five on Stephen Colbert. Here is the extended interview.

The Wall Street Journal reports that the UAE on it's own attacked Iran took out an oil refinery on Lavan Island.

Trump phone: 500,000 pre-orders. No phone and no sign of a phone.

Trump's delusional post on Mother's Day.

Bad news for Trump, not awesome news for Democrats.

Gas Tax holiday.is stupid. Less than half of it goes to consumers. 

Iran holds the Strait... and Straights are a 1 in 255 hand in 5 card stud. It is 1 in 25 in Texas Hold 'em... in other words, it's a pretty good hand.

Joyce's diary

May 10 1987

She notes it is Carol Markley's birthday and the temps for the day were 88 high, 63 low,

Steve went to work 12-5. Merlon worked in the patio this morning and cleaned up the bushes and trees. He went to Vinton to get seeds while I cut spinach from the garden. I got two white garbage bags full!! (side note from Steve here: Mom hated spinach) Marty and Carol came on a motorcycle with a xxxxxx. Mim gave me white xxxxxx and Steve a pool bar - cute, Kat called and said pictures of Jon on the way. Merlon got everything planted today & then he started to water. It is so dry. 

I fixed steak, spinach, and french fries for supper. Steve worked on his invitations to the kids. Mim didn't get home until 9:15 tonight. Aaron OK, no chicken pox. 

 

Sunday Funnies

I thought I was the only one unable to access my bank account because I live abroad. Apparently Pope Leo has the same problem.

Not my sense of humor but Mark Hamill gets a pass from  me.\

Market manipulation? Umm, yes. Bet the temp at CDG and make money!

Given the price of gas, Kitt is now a Chevy Vega.

How it started....

How it's going....

Tim Cook loves me.

Trust me Bro

Happy birthday David Attenborough!

 

Happy retirement Eric Rodgers! My mentor despised you and a good deceased former athlete of yours thought you were outrageously overrated. 

Andrew almost attacked? Like the woman he's with here? Her name is Virginia Gruifree. She committed suicide thanks to the treatment she received from this POS while Ghislane Maxwell looked on... like she is here.

Eric, Rachel, and me in Iowa.

Eric at Paddy O'Rourkes in Cedar Rapids.

Ka$h Patel Bourbon... no ethical problems there...

Three members of the National Championship Ohio State Football Team have spoken out because the U is desperately trying to sweep this under the rug.

Who is worried?

Sorry #GymJimJordan....

HBO made the entire documentary available on Youtube.

No shit Sherlock.

No Shit Sherlock... Trump's TACO's no longer work.

How best to avoid Iowa's #1 rated cancer award? Create you're own filtration.

My parents gardened more than anyone you've ever met. Fortunately, they never participated in Naked Gardening day.

Best gay guy to follow on X is Tim Miller.

Cujo's great day was interrupted by me being fearful this Sudanese boy would drop his younger brother while trying to manage Cujo's leash. No children were harmed in the making of this picture. Cujo, however, stepped on something so bad I had to carry him for the ten minute walk home. His recovery is going well.

This is the shit he lives for. 

Sadly, Itrust Iran more than my own government now.

By the time you know it's too late

Here if the vlog version of this post:

What does it take to block someone?

I unfriended and blocked Randy at the start of the war. Why am I still seeing anything from him?

Vape flavors! Those who vape push their drug of choice more than anyone.

JD Vance comes to Iowa to audition for 2028. I love the Iowa response.

Wow! A rich family proud to pay taxes?

A year ago Lukas asked what stock I thought was undervalued. I said unquestionably Google. Since then stock up 158%

We often don't know something bad happened until it already happened. By definition a recession is called after that fact. In 2008 NBER didn't declare a recession until December 2008.

In Chuck We Trust?

To see the vlog version of this post: 

 

On May 4 the UAE was attacked by Iran for the first time in weeks. 

Oil refinery in Fujairah was hit.

This is a stunning pic of the oil refinery burning as an Emirates plane departs from DXB. 

The Project Freedom plan of the US is to have ships hug the coast of the Oman. The problem? This water is too shallow for giant container ships. (I've gone snorkel diving in here. I can't imagine giant ships trying to navigate this.)

Happy birthday to my former Teaching Assistant Omar Mabrouk. Omar is an Econ grad from UAEU and the first to be part of Omicron Delta Epsilon Econ honor society.

Speaking of economists...

I learned from the Smartless podcast today that Colin Jost was an Econ major at Harvard. As much as I love him on SNL, I can't imagine anyone seeing this kid and predicting he'd someday become a legendary cast member... and dear god, marrying Scarlett Johansen? Dude married UP!

In Presidential Succession the first to take over is the Vice President, followed by the Speaker of the House. Third in line is the President Pro Tempore of the Senate. As Trump was attacked at the White House Correspondent's dinner the designated survivor was Chuck Grassley. 

This has blown up on social media. Outrage that the 92 year old could be President. I don't get the outrage. I've never voted Chuck and I never will but I respect him. I'd rather have him as President than the guys ahead of him.

******

And finally... Happy Cinco Demayo. I have no tequila in my apartment so I hope you have a Margarita in my honor. 

Lessons from Star Wars

 May he the 4th be with you.

Hillary Clinton is often criticised for her book It takwes a Village. The right has a twisted taek that it undermines family values. Of course it doesn't but hypocricy is nothing new for the right

George Lukas made one successful movie before Star Wars: American grafitti His grand vision of a space opera a pipe dream. He got it made thanks to luckand creative geniuses around him. 

I Won't bore yoyu with details but anyone who sees Star Wars without the music knows how important John Willams' music is to the endeaour

The crawl at the beginning briefly explaining what's going on is thanks to Brian DePalma. 

And even more important was George's wife Marcia. Remember the climatic ending where you think the Moon of Yavin is going to be blown up? In seconds it's incinerated if the rebels aren't successful in blowing up the Death Star? That is thanks to Marcia Lukas, the Editor.

The Hollywood joke is that a movie is made three times: By the writer, the director, and the editor. When it comes to editors George married up. 

Trump has has created a village of grifters and idiots who do not remotely understand how little they know about Iran and its history. He is constantly proclaiming all the ways he has already won this war. At this point it's beyond TACO (Trump Always Chickens Out). My president lives in an alternate reality and that scares the shit out of me. 

On Sunday he declared that all is good. The US military will escort ships through the Strait of Hormuz. The problem? That's not enough. The Strait is a chokepoint. In Supply Chain terms it's a bottleneck. Miller sold more beer when it created a wide mouth can. Chokepoints and bottlenecks matter. 

 

Sunday Funnies

 "The gays" have a good sense of humor.

I really like George Hahn.

When will Lindsey come out? Or be outed?

Gender differences are real.

Shared by a former MAGA friend.

Eating at the trough of Crypto. Keep in mind CryptoBros spent more on the 2024 election than the defense industry and pharmaceutical industry combined. 

I am having major Taco Bell withdrawal.  

The best funny news? Trump is now more unpopular than he was after January 6.

Choose your Modality

We all learn and remember things in different ways. I can't remember why I walked into the next room. I have often looked for my car keys while they are in my hand. So to be clear, I' am not claiming to be a god on this subject.... but... I have a strangely bizarre memory. For anything that is in my deep knowledge I can remember exactly where I was and the circumstances where it happened. In talking to a bestie he said he couldn't remember my invite for him to fly from NYC to CR in the summer of 2014 with me picking up the expenses (he was a poor graduate student). He was like, really? "Yes," I replied, "I was in the basement of my house when I made the offer. It was the day after my Dad's funeral."

The point? Since we learn in different ways it's important to offer information in ways that work for anyone you are trying to teach. 

As a guy with 10K students from the UAE and several thousand in the US, the stories my former students tell me that they remember from my classes is my analogies, metaphors, my ways of breaking complex topics down to bite sized pieces. I'd add that I have a willingness to say "I have no frickin' clue" when hit with something I don't know. (My colleagues like to BS that they are experts on EVERYTHING.)

The main lesson I learned during Covid is that the choose your modality concept is real. You learn best by reading? Go for it! I gave students transcripts of my lectures. You are a visual learner? You have my videos. for those into audio they'd play it again before they slept. Nothing helps your memory better than studying before you sleep. 

***** 

For the next two weeks I will be making making my daily vlogs available on this blog  Is this a great idea? I have no clue. I can write almost as fast as I can type so let's see... 

Flunk Day

A tradition dating back to 1911, each spring the outgoing student body president at Coe College gets to to call Flunk Day. On Flunk Day all classes are canceled. Any papers due or scheduled exams pushed back to the next class. Flunk Day is a massive party and a great time is had by all - students, staff, and faculty.

Thirty-Five years ago I had the honor(?) of calling Flunk Day. As a budding weather geek I was excited by the prospect of calling off classes on a warm spring day. Unfortunately for me the weather didn't cooperate and a high of 59 on a sunny/blustery day is remembered negatively by my fellow Kohawks. It's safe to say the 1991 Flunk Day isn't remembered as the perfect weather Flunk Day I dreamed it would be. Because Iowa weather is unpredictable the 1990 Flunk Day ended with a massive storm spawning tornadoes that took out electricity for most of Cedar Rapids. I remember navigating my way back to campus with no working street lights on First Avenue. 

Unquestionably, the best Flunk Day weather was 1993. David Hayes lucked out. 90+ degrees. A porta-potty was tipped over with a guy in it. When he was freed from it, the TKE ran into the pond at Chapman's Fun World to wash off. When he emerged naked nobody cared or noticed because, well, quite a bit of alcohol had been consumed... and in the early 1990's not everyone had a camera on them.

Simpler times.

Another tradition of Flunk Day is the Flunk Day newspaper. For my year I asked former Coe Cosmos editor Denise Stade to write/edit mine. IMHO Denise produced the funniest paper in Flunk Day history.

The headline picture of the Cost Most was me dressed as Alfalfa from the Little Rascals. For the AOTT costume party Tony Alt dressed as the Church Lady. Tony was Vice President with me and then ran unopposed to replace me. I think that says something good about the job we did in office, but I digress...

Flunk Day is an awesome Coe tradition. I am happy I was able to be a part of it. :-)

Day of giving... day of gratitude

In the multiverse the chances of me ending up at Coe were low. My eyes were too bad to do the Air Force Academy so majoring in meteorology at Iowa State was my plan. Then I met Bill Spellman at Coe. I knew that day in the summer of 1985 that I was coming to Coe to major in Economics... but this post isn't about Professor Spellman. But it is about Coe.

I am not good at knowing when to express gratitude and who to thank. I am blessed with awesome mentors and besties. They know who they are... but have I made sure they know how much I appreciate them?

What about complicated relationships? The most complicated relationships in my world are with my siblings. The one year I worked with Upward Bound was enlightening. Stick with me here. I'll connect the dots.

Upward Bound is an awesome program that used to be run out of Coe College. I volunteered for them when I was student and came to work for them in the summer of 1993. I was excited to be in Voorhees Hall which had just been renovated so we had air conditioning in the summer. Previously they stayed in Greene Hall - my hall. As an RA I was the last to move out and my bestie's fiancée came and had a conversation with me while I was showering.  I later said to Rahul, "Well, you've never seen me naked but Audrey and I had a great conversation while I was washing up."

Connect the dots, Steve... connect the dots...

The students in Upward Bound come from crazy families. Hearing their stories made me realize that even though depression and substance abuse runs deep in my family - brother, aunt and uncle committed suicide - I actually had a pretty good childhood. None of us kids ever worried about a roof over our heads or food on the table. My cold distant German father made sure of that. Dad and I reconciled our differences before his death; for that I will always be grateful.

How is this connecting dots?

Although I was 39 before I truly understood Dad's philosophy when I did it hit me like a ton of bricks. He cried. I cried. Dad didn't cry. Again, his standard is cold German. 

You do your best for the people you love. 

Sounds simple, but we all know it's not. I've morphed his philosophy to "know who you will take a bullet for and walk it backwards." 

When my mentor Bill Spellman died then Coe President Jim Phifer said he admired the fierce loyalty of Billy's gang.  If you want more on that scroll back to an earlier episode of this vlog.

Land the plane, Steve, Land the plane.

I can't buy stock in Coke because I want to love the product and not be upset at the stock price. 

The best addition to Facebook was the "it's complicated" feature to describe relationships.  That's me with Coe College. As much as I love the place they've also screwed me over, more than once. They also screwed over a few other people I'd take a bullet for so... yeah... it's complicated.

What's different now? None of those people are in power. The guy in charge... the President of the college is my friend Dave Hayes. Dave is a good man. I could give you a thousand reasons why I know that it is true but I won't. Simply know I cried with joy when he was promoted. I felt the better about my alma mater than I have felt in decades. 

As a fellow member of the Dismal Science (it's what we economists like to call ourselves we are part of a club. For those of us in the club... the ones taught by Spellman, Wu, and Vaidy there is a bond.

Seriously, Kranz, land the fracking plane.

Today is Coe's day of giving. It is with gratitude and love for my alma mater that I am happy to give back. It is an institution facing tremendous headwinds but it made me the man I am today so thank you Coe.