Project For The Day -- Jackie Kennedy -- March 4, 2024

Locator: 46670BOOKS.

My "fun book" for the week. There were multiple reasons for choosing this book. Perhaps the number one reason: as a travelogue and geography lesson for that area between McLean, VA, up to Manhattan, and then up the Hudson River Valley to Vassar, an area that has always intrigued me and where I have spent some of the best days of my young life, also coming of age.

A lot of this happened in the early 50's. I was born in 1951. 

Poughkeepsie, NY:

On the second page, a description of her trip from Vassar to her stepfather's McLean, VA, estate, via train.

• a 25-minute bus ride from Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, NY,
• train to NYC; transfer from Grand Central Station to Pennsylvania station
• train to Washington, DC, and then a short bus ride to McLean or thereabouts, I suppose

The estate:

The book: Camera Girl: The Coming of Age of Jackie Bouvier Kennedy, Carl Sferrazza Anthony, c. 2023.

The first two pages:

Then, while dating, not yet married:

Jackie's Vietnam Report that she completed for the senator:

Everything Everywhere All At Once -- We've Gone From "Goldilocks" To "Gilded Age" -- March 3, 2024

Locator: 46667US.

Updates:

Later, 7:53 p.m. CT: this is pretty funny. Shortly after posting the original post below, maybe an hour ago, this popped up, The WSJ:

Exuberance is back in markets. A frenzy over artificial-intelligence technology has stoked a monster run in Nvidia shares. Major stocks indexes are clinching repeated records. And even bitcoin is threatening to set a new high.

In times like these, financial advisers caution clients not to let a fear of missing out drive their decision-making. They encourage them to diversify their holdings and stick with dollar-cost averaging—investing a fixed amount of money at regular intervals—because attempts to predict a market top or bottom rarely pay off. 

Jordan Buchanan, a 35-year-old Navy officer stationed in Virginia Beach, Va., opted not to renew his certificate of deposit when it matured in January, even though he could have gotten a 5% yield. Instead, he plopped $10,000 into

Nvidia

,

Super Micro Computer

,

Amazon.com

and

Microsoft

, among other stocks.

His portfolio is up 17% this year, outpacing the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite’s 8.4% advance.

I know the shoe shine man is advising his clients to get out of cash. I have no plans to read the rest of The WSJ article. I'm going to the movies.

Original Post

EV implosion.

Bitcoin.

Ozempic.

Nvidia.

US equity markets hitting all-time records. Sometimes all-time records go back as many as two years.

The "trillion-dollar club" gets bigger. 

MMFs. 5%.

Apple Card pays 4.5% and guarantees $1 million. The FDIC max: $250,000.

PCE.

New phrase: "no rush to cut." No cuts in 2024?

US shale. WTI at $80. OXY can cover dividend at $40.

US infrastructure. CAT at record highs.

Presidential election.

AI.

Metonyms: Wall Street, Nvidia, Bakken, Ozempic.

Gaza.

Ukraine.

Sweden. NATO.

Asymmetric warfare on steroids: Red Sea; Ukraine.

Rule changes: IRA-RMDs, 529s.

DEI, ESG out. Returns in.

Private companies --> to the moon. 

Jobs everywhere.

Southern surge. 

Dune: Part 2. 

**************************
The Gilded Age

*****************************
"No Rush To Cut"

Two New Tags: 1920s And GildedAge -- March 3, 2024

Locator: 46665B.

Two new tags: 1920s; GildedAge. 

In five words or less:

By the way, check out that typeface. How, at a glance, can you tell that it's not Aptos? Easiest way, look at the one-story "g" and the "a."

***************************
Change In Blogging Rules

My rule is to link "everything" in order to make it easier for readers (and myself) fact-check things -- particularly my typographical errors.   

But linking "everything" is tiresome, tedious, and takes up time. Starting today I will be very selective which screenshots from twitter that I link.

************************
From Twitter

*******************************
Dune: Part 2

 

The 1920s Roared After A Pandemic, And The 2020s Will Try -- Bloomberg -- April 15, 2021

Archived.

Early in the article: 

In all probability, though, the U.S. will continue to wrestle with "secular stagnation," an economic plague of developed nations. Preconditions include an aging population, slow labor force growth, and weak demand for credit, which is why the disease is resistant to traditional monetary remedies. The latest evidence that investors aren’t holding out much hope the coming decade will break out of that mold: The yield on inflation-protected 10-year Treasury notes is around negative 1%, down from 4% during the ’90s tech boom.

Despite the differences, by copying what was done right in the Roaring Twenties and avoiding what went wrong, Americans can make the 2020s a success—by today’s standards, anyway.

The world of 2021 is “a muddled mix of the Twenties in a lot of ways,” says Rutgers University economist Eugene White. Stock prices are high in relation to corporate profits, as then. Today’s suspicion of international institutions such as the United Nations and World Health Organization would be familiar to a traveler from the 1920s. Race relations are once again straing, though Black Americans are in a far better position than they were a century ago. Tariffs rose under President Donald Trump, as they did in the 1920s. Americans continue to complain about overbearing government, as they did during Prohibition. The 1920s was the first decade in which the rural population was smaller than the urban one; in the 2020s, rural White America is feeling disenfranchised after having gone strong for Trump’s failed reelection.

My thesis: I don't see any comparison between the 1920's and the 2020's. I see 2021 - 2026 very similar to 1949 - 1965.

Link here.