Blog Archives - Jay Evensen

Could long Covid be a factor in today's labor shortage?

8/31/2022

I still hear it in polite company.
Some people question whether the pandemic is real. When I mention that I knew four people who died from it, they immediately want to know whether these folks had some other illness or infirmity (two did, two were otherwise healthy and fit before the virus struck; all died as a result of it).
Others say they don’t worry because they have had the virus, had mild symptoms and are therefore immune.
Armchair health experts abound.

A hero's legacy in Afghanistan and Utah

8/26/2022

“One year ago today. I haven’t forgotten. I hope America hasn’t forgotten.”
That was the sentiment repeated again and again on Darin Hoover’s Facebook page Friday. He is the father of Marine Staff Sgt. Taylor Hoover, one of 13 American service members killed by a suicide bomber at the entrance to the airport in Kabul exactly one year ago. The blast came amid the chaotic, frenzied last minutes of the U.S. evacuation from Afghanistan.
One person who never will forget is Azim Kakaie.

Who pays for those forgiven loans? You, the forgotten one

8/26/2022

In 1876, Yale professor William Graham Sumner perfectly described the problem with President Biden’s student loan forgiveness program, using an algebraic argument involving four people he labeled A, B, C and X.
“As soon as A observes something which seems to him wrong, from which X is suffering, A talks it over with B, and A and B then propose to get a law passed to remedy the evil and help X,” he wrote in an essay. “Their law always proposes to determine what C shall do for X, or, in better case, what A, B, and C shall do for X...

Student loan forgiveness isn't what it's touted to be

8/24/2022

I have married children struggling under the weight of student loans. I should be happy for them, except that their loans are not of the federal variety, so they have to keep paying.
More importantly, I should be happy for the American people because so many federal student loans have been forgiven. That’s the narrative from the White House. But the facts tell me otherwise.
Politicians, especially during an election year, are great at distracting the public with shiny objects that hide harder truths.

How billions in pandemic relief money went missing

8/19/2022

The New York Times calls it “one of the largest frauds in American history.” Indeed, it would be harder to find one responsible for stealing more of your tax money.
Beginning with the Trump administration and lasting through the first part of the Biden administration, Congress passed three separate stimulus relief packages in an effort to help people and businesses affected by the Covid-19 pandemic, totalling about $5 trillion in various loans and grants. But many of these programs involved handing out massive amounts of money on little more than the honor system, with little, if any, oversight. A lot of Americans apparently were absent on the day their schools taught lessons on honor.
As the Times described it, Uncle Sam gave money to people in prison, to people specifically labeled on government roles as on a “do not pay list,” to people who called their front yards “farms,” and to people both imaginary and dead.

The real lesson from the Inflation Reduction Act

8/19/2022

The truth can be hard to find in Washington, especially during an election year.
The Biden administration and Democrats in Congress are touting passage of the Inflation Reduction act, for a variety of reasons, even as many economists and the Wharton School of Business say it won’t reduce inflation.
But they especially tout one of the bill’s main provisions, which is to provide $80 million more to the IRS, much of which, they say, will be used to audit rich people and make sure they pay what they owe.

What people said after the market crashed in 1929

8/12/2022

Readers of the New York Times must have felt relieved on the morning of Nov. 15, 1929, barely two weeks after an historic stock market crash, to read a summary of the Department of Labor’s latest monthly employment report.
“American industry is fundamentally sound and undisturbed by the recent financial upheaval,” it said. “The stock market break has not caused reduction in employment … (and) it might bring more money into industrial development.”

Maybe now we can forget about a gas tax holiday

8/12/2022

Maybe now we will stop hearing nonsense about the need for a gas tax holiday.
Earlier this week, AAA reported that gasoline prices had fallen below $4 a gallon in much of the land (not in Utah, however, where they were $4.65 on average as of Friday, according to AAA). This is still far above the nationwide average price a year ago, which was $3.19, and it’s miles away from the $1.15 a gallon recorded in Salina, Utah at the dawn of the pandemic on April 23, 2020.
Remember that? Probably not, because you were stuck at home, with nowhere to drive as the economy shut down.

Can a new third national political party succeed?

8/3/2022

If your reaction to the nation’s newest third party, the Forward Party, was a sustained yawn, you’re probably not alone.
This isn’t the first attempt to harness what ought to be the enormous power of the political middle — people so tired of the politics of extremes that they are longing for an alternative. A recent Gallup Poll found 43% of Americans identifying as political independents, far more than the 27% each who identified as Republicans or Democrats.

Will winning the lottery make you happy?

8/3/2022

I work all night, I work all day to pay the bills I have to pay
Ain't it sad?
And still there never seems to be a single penny left for me
That's too bad
— “Money, money, money,” by Abba

Somewhere in America, most likely in Illinois, someone is a newly minted billionaire (or merely a multi-millionaire after taxes).
And if the people who run the Mega Millions lottery ever find that person — the one who picked the right number at a gas station in Des Plaines — Americans will once again have the idea reinforced in their heads that the infinitesimally thin chance of getting a whole lot of something for nothing is the key to happiness. Never mind that, as gobankingrates.com reported Tuesday, “The odds of winning the Mega Millions or Powerball are slim — but the odds of your life devolving into chaos if you somehow pull it off are actually quite good.”

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