Tony Pierce reminded me that two formative parts of my youth entered the world on this day…
42 years ago, on July 25th, 1980, one of the greatest albums of all time came out: AC/DC’s Back in Black, the band’s first album after the death of original vocalist Bon Scott. Brian Johnson debuted as the vocalist on this album, and it ended up being the third best-selling album of all time.
I’ll open with a direct quote from the newsletter: 75% of middle-income families say their wages are falling behind inflation, according to a new report from Primerica and Change Research. 77% say they’re expecting and preparing for a recession, with 71% already cutting back on spending to help make ends meet.
Corporate profits are at 70-year record highs. Since 2020, the after-tax profits made by corporations who aren’t in the business of finance have grown by a trillion dollars:
Tap to view at full size. You can also see this graph at its source.
There was a record level of stock buybacks: $882 billion! A stock buyback is the act of a publicly traded company (one that issues stock to the public) using cash to buy its own stock on the open market. This reduces the supply of the company’s available stock, raising its price, which is what shareholders like.
I’ll close with another direct quote from the newsletter: “The average S&P 500 CEO received $18.3 million in total compensation in 2021, an increase of 18% in one year. During that same period, average hourly earnings for workers fell 2.4%.”
At the same time, you’ve got the hue and cry from the executive class, with that same old “nobody wants to work” refrain. It’s nothing new, and suggests that the current situation isn’t a labor shortage, but a wages and worker treatment shortage:
That’s one of the challenges of having “the courage of one’s convictions” — the prerequisites are courage and convictions, neither of which Hawley appears to have in an appreciable quantity. He stoked a crowd with a lie, and ran when he had to deal the consequences of said lie.
I think the whole thing is best summed up by Michael Fanone, a D.C. police officer who was injured during the January 6th sedition that Hawley encouraged and then ran from: Josh Hawley is a bitch. And he ran like a bitch.
And before you say “No, this is the fringe,” let me disabuse of that false notion right now. This is the new mainstream, and it’s been part of the alt-right playbook for years now:
For family, friends, and the curious, I’m posting some selections from my camera roll from last month’s trip to London.
Day 1
Our flight left Tampa on Friday evening, and we landed in London on Saturday morning, a little before 9:00 a.m. local time.
Upon deplaning, we saw a couple of Queen tributes. Here’s the first one..
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…and here’s the second:
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We made the trip from Gatwick to London in pretty short order on the Gatwick Express, which ends at Victoria Station, and we took a cab to the hotel from there:
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Auth0, my employer, put us up at the Sea Containers hotel, located right on the Thames’ south bank and just west of Blackfriars. Here’s the view from our hotel room.
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After a nice post-flight shower and change of clothes, we stepped out the hotel’s riverside doorway and took our first proper trip selfie…
Again I remind you: see if you can have someone else check your work. There’s a chance they’ll catch something you might have missed because you’re a little too close to it.
Also: There’s nothing wrong with loving Jesus, but that’s quite different from looooving Jesus.
