• TIME MANAGEMENT IS ABOUT ALLOCATING ENERGY TO OPTIMALLY ACCOMPLISH PRIORITY TASKS in a realistic time frame, and with reference to personal ‘bandwidth’ – one’s energy or mental capacity to handle tasks – which is an essential factor in productivity. Chief impediments include: (1) Taking on tasks from inability to say No, which then pre-empts existing obligations & priorities; and (2) Underestimating the degree of interruptions & distractions from colleagues, calls, personal life issues. Reminder that DCG is still scheduling Q4 courtesy Lunch & Learn sessions “Working Smarter Not Harder,” focused on Time Management techniques.
  • AMERICA CONTINUES TO BIFURCATE INTO THREE ALMOST DISTINCT NATIONS: (1) Liberals – “globalized, bi-coastal, wealthy, internationalized, with higher percentages of college-educated & pseudo-credentialed, mostly in control of the nation’s culture & politics – as defined by the administrative state/ bureaucracies/ media/ academia/ foundations/ corporate boardrooms/ Silicon Valley/ Hollywood, along with the elite echelon of military, professional sports, arts & entertainment industries; These are the’zoomers’ who stayed home during the pandemic, earning about the same or more than in pre-quarantine days; (2) Conservatives – the vast interior between the coasts where food grows, oil & gas gets pumped, timber is cut, building materials fashioned, and things get built by the folks who kept driving trucks, and millions who lost their jobs, spent their savings and borrowed trying to save their homes & small businesses while following the orders of the ensconced; and (3) Activist Leftists – who believe they deserve ‘equal’ lives, and that a Socialist society, with security of government-provided food/ shelter/ education/ insurance, will accomplish this without having to commit their lives to work & competition for money, many willing to literally burn down the capitalist structure.” We’re almost certainly past the point of reconciliation among these disparate groups, so the only certainties in our future are Uncertainty and Change. [VICTOR DAVIS HANSON]
  • THE VALUE OF A U.S. DOLLAR against other major currencies is now 20% above it’s long-term trend, in the 11th-year of a typical 7-year upswing. Even during the last financial ‘busts’ (2002 and 2009), the dollar continued climbing, and has held World Currency Reserve status for over a hundred years. However, the Dollar has been consistently losing ground to other global currencies (Europe/ Japan/ UK/ Swiss/ China] and presently holds below 60% of foreign exchange Reserves. “The last five global empires issuing Reserve Currency, 94 years each on average, did so until they became no longer trusted to pay their bills… Currently, the U.S. owes some $18 trillion net – 73% of our GDP and far below the 50% threshold that has often foretold past currency crises… With fundamentals deteriorating, the post-dollar world is coming – possibly currency blocs or even digital currencies.” [FINANCIAL TIMES – 8/28/22]
  • NOMINATIONS FOR OUR ‘MOST DESTRUCTIVE’ SO-CALLED MAINSTREAM POLITICIANS who, in one lifetime, have pushed a reasonably cohesive country towards a cliff, by fomenting today’s “bitterly divided, poorly educated & morally fragile society, by pushing cynical identity politics, socialism and open borders, and successfully maneuvering the once reasonably unbiased American media into a hysterical left wing mob”: https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2018/07/the_10_most_destructive_americans_of_my_8_decades.html
  •  THOUGHTS FOR THE WEEK:  Ads of the past that would be banned today on YouTube: https://youtu.be/Q7PpOXSObjU

P.C. UPDATE: “Contemporary history textbooks are now so politically correct as to be comic, with very minor but currently fashionable characters given considerable space, whereas people of major consequence farther back are given very little space or none at all.” //  Of President Biden’s top political appointees, six in ten have virtually zero private sector experience, and on average 2.4 years of business experience.  [LBN EXAMINER]

It’s been only six decades since the world was connected through technology to a “single source of information presenting the American version of reality – a few thousand media executives & producers promoting their point of view through movies and print. “Media shaped the choice of what was important, what should be learned, what defined the norm and issues of race/ parenting/ sexuality/ speaking/ dressing/ work/ retirement/ investing, based on their perspective on Truth and how to think about politics of government/ history/ war/ ethics – and effectively shaping today’s global narrative.”  [REG WILSON]  

Los Angeles County’s Guaranteed Basic Wage Program has started paying out $156 million – $1,000 weekly for the next three years, to each of a thousand residents who annually earn below $56K single or 96K with family of four. The recipients were randomly selected from 180,000 qualifying applicants.