On Wednesday, December 13, 2023, the Federal Reserve announced that it was holding the federal funds rate steady. This was not surprising and was anticipated. However, the Fed indicated that it would likely start lowering rates early next year and announced that it anticipated three rate cuts in 2024. That was surprising and markets reacted … Read more
With the public release of ChatGPT, AI has caused a lot of excitement as well as a lot of fear. The concern is that AI will take over the world and supplant humans in a variety of jobs. These worries are generally baseless and they ignore the numerous ways that AI might genuinely help humans. … Read more
As we approach the 2022 United Nations Climate Change Conference, commonly referred to as COP27, in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt in mid November, there is a lot of coverage about climate change. Most of the reporting has basically come to accept that we will live in a hotter world and that is… okay? This normalization … Read more
A couple years ago I wrote that the future looked positive. Turns out, it did, but not for very long. There were significant improvements in many areas. Unfortunately, inflation has tempered the benefits and now looks to be the reason (excuse?) to slam doors closed. I took the stance that inflation was transitory. I thought … Read more
I love data visualizations. I was playing around in R and wanted to create a streamgraph but didn’t really have any data that would lend itself to that type of visualization. Then I came across an article at McSweeney’s and decided to use that. Typically I try to stay away from political topics here, but … Read more