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Revisioning Government for a New Democracy
The bizarre experience of the current presidency has made abundantly clear that the US government requires an overhaul. Least the current administration take the entire hit for incompetence and kowtowing to the military-industrial complex, evidence of delusion, misappropriation, and doublespeak may be readily traced to successive Republican and Democratic administrations. The result is a parody…
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How I stopped smoking…
I managed to inveigle my first pack of cigarettes when I was twelve years old from my Grandfather. During the summer months prior to Eisenhower’s first term for the presidency, “Eisenhower for President” and “Stevenson for President” cigarette packs in colors of red, white, and blue could be purchased at tobacconists. I told my grandfather…
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A way forward from the Covid-19 morass
The likelihood is Covid-19 is not over and done with at the end of May or June. The curve may be flattened, but unless new cases are identified through testing followed by contact-tracing, the US will be buffeted by the continuing emergence of hotspots. The most likely places for new hotspots are the same heavily…
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Exchanges should require naked shorts to buy back shares
Equity short sellers come in two basic varieties: First, “naked shorts” who borrow shares from another account to sell the shares to be repaid later, and second, “sellers against the box” who possess the shares they sell short. Sellers against the box are hedging a position, holding the shares that are sold. The bulk of…
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Is the Securities and Exchange Commission asleep at the wheel?
During the past three weeks, shorting of stocks and indices has increased tenfold to twentyfold. Shorting is selling a stock or index not owned, but presumably “borrowed” from an account of a person or entity. In this way, presumably, the number of shares sold “short” cannot exceed the number of shares available for public trading.…
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Masks Unmasked
No sooner than the impeachment soap opera to besmirch Trump ended, the coronavirus came galloping. Following his victory, Trump was elated, but elated may have become inflated. Trump sued news outlets, rearranged White House personnel, adlibbed at rallies, and thumped his chest over “the greatest economy ever”. One must admire his energy. But where Democrats…
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Nincompoops
During my childhood, my grandmother’s greatest delight was to leave our bungalow in the Hispanic neighborhood of Rosewood to visit the old Spanish settlement centered at Olvera Street in downtown Los Angeles. There we would eat enchiladas and tacos, and I learned how to fold tortillas, so that the butter would not run. My grandmother…
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It Can’t Happen Here
During the 1960s a band called the “Mothers of Invention” produced a song called, “It can’t happen here”. Among the places it couldn’t happen was Kansas. I suspect the Mothers had in mind the 1960s revolution of pot, psychedelics, and sex. But I think of the song in a different light and this is in…
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Surveillance State and Opinion Management
Thanks to the dog-and-pony impeachment show that assuredly is the product of the Democrat’s desperation to find a suitable candidate to oppose Donald Trump in the 2020 election, the reality has become obvious that the government is not the government of, by, and for the people. Rather the government is of, by, and for the…
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No More Cardinal Newman’s Idea of a University
What is it like to be a professor today in “soft disciplines” defined as “other than science, technology, and engineering”? The humanities and social sciences are soft disciplines. Psychology, sociology, political science, language, gender studies, business majors, and the like are soft disciplines. Soft disciplines have in common complex causality, weak and competing methodology, disciplinary…
Inquiry & Opinion