In 2005, author David Foster Wallace was asked to give the commencement address to the 2005 graduating class of Kenyon College. However, the resulting speech didn’t become widely known until 3 years later, after his tragic death. It is, without a doubt, some of the best life advice we’ve ever come across, and perhaps the most simple and elegant explanation of the real value of education.
THIS IS WATER – By David Foster Wallace from The Glossary on Vimeo.
We made this video, built around an abridged version of the original audio recording, with the hopes that the core message of the speech could reach a wider audience who might not have otherwise been interested.
Category: Philosophy, Video
Click to enlarge ~~~ Source: Gallup Some key data points: • The average retirement age has crept up by four years over the past two decades, from 57 in 1991 to the current 61 • The average nonretired American currently expects to retire at age 66, up from 60 in 1995. • More than half of nonretirees…Read More
Category: Data Analysis, Wages & Income
Can two senators end ‘too big to fail’? Barry Ritholtz Washington Post, May 10 2013 Last month, an unlikely pair of senators — Sherrod Brown, an Ohio Democrat, and David Vitter, a Louisiana Republican — introduced a non-binding resolution calling for the end of the implicit subsidies that “too big to fail” (TBTF)…Read More
My longer form weekend reading material: • How the Case for Austerity Has Crumbled (NYRB) • The changing nature of work: Increasing automation is fundamentally shifting the nature of work away from ‘making stuff’ towards personal services. (piera) • That’s a ‘Depression’: Europe’s Double-Dip Is Officially Longer Than Its Great Recession (Atlantic) • This Is…Read More
Category: Financial Press
5 Reasons that Both Mainstream Media – and Gatekeeper “Alternative” Websites – Are Pro-War Why There Is So Much Pro-War Reporting There are five reasons that the mainstream media and the largest alternative media websites are both pro-war. 1. Self-Censorship by Journalists Initially, there is tremendous self-censorship by journalists. A survey by the Pew Research…Read More
Category: Think Tank, War/Defense
Succinct Summations week ending May 17, 2013. Positives: 1. The S&P 500 and Dow continue to hit new all-time highs. 2. Nikkei rises above 15,000 for the first time since Jan 2009. 3. U.S. retail sales grow 0.1% v expectations of -0.4%; Excluding autos and gas climbs by 0.6% v expectations of +0.3%. 4. Japan…Read More
Category: Markets
Click to enlarge Fewer U.S. shares are available to purchase, which is driving prices higher. Repurchases are magnifying gains in U.S. stocks, and are poised to lift prices further, as seen in the Wilshire 5000 Total Market Index. According to Bloomberg, it has risen “more than the market value of all U.S. companies since…Read More
Category: Corporate Management, Investing
@TBPInvictus here. Things have not been going well of late for the ideologues who also wax economic regarding inflation, interest rates, austerity, etc. They’ve been wrong at every turn. Luskin, Ferguson, Bowyer, Laffer, Kudlow, the WSJ editorialists, and so on. Been a bad five or so years. As Barry has repeatedly pointed out, it is…Read More
Category: Commodities, Really, really bad calls
