Notes From All Over, Part 1 -- Yesterday, He Was A Clear And Dangerous Threat To US Security -- Today, Simply An Impeached President Who May Never Stand Trial -- December 19, 2019

Politics: now we know why the US House rushed through the Articles of Impeachment as fast as they did. LOL. Members had to catch planes to get home for the holidays. Less than 24 hours after voting to impeach the president -- said to be a clear and dangerous threat to US security -- the chairperson pockets the articles; obfuscates her intentions; and, the US House adjourns for the year. The US Senate, not getting the articles from the US House, also adjourned for the year. Except for an impeached judge about a decade ago, this is unprecedented, that a call for impeachment did not lead directly to immediate trial. Yesterday the US House found Trump so dangerous to national security, they impeach him; today they go on break for at least two weeks. Am I spelling "hypocritical" correctly? I've never seen the nation treated so shabbily by the lower house.

Christmas, Baby Please Come Home, Darlene Love
Two hours of Darlene Love and David Letterman: link here. Thank goodness for YouTube, the "Smithsonian" for music, movies, and television.

Market: all three major indices hit new all-time highs.

Student debt, national: two data points I heard today -- and an observation --

• the data points
• 44 million Americans hold $1.5 trillion in student debt
• an undergraduate education is said to be worth $45,000/year in salary (a person with an undergraduate degree on average is said to earn $45,000/year more than a person without an undergraduate degree)
• the observation: 
• back to that first data point: $1.5 trillion / 44 million = $34,000 (average)
• if the "average" college graduate lived like a non-college graduate, for example a person working at McDonald's), the loan could be paid off in one year.

Comment: I don't have a dog in this fight. I no longer care one way or the other but it sure is fun to see how folks get so worked up over something so trivial in the big scheme of things. Things that seem a bit more important perhaps. Homelessness. Opiod crisis. Affordable and accessible health care for all.