Slope of Hope Blog Posts

Slope initially began as a blog, so this is where most of the website’s content resides. Here we have tens of thousands of posts dating back over a decade. These are listed in reverse chronological order. Click on any category icon below to see posts tagged with that particular subject, or click on a word in the category cloud on the right side of the screen for more specific choices.

Fed Ahead

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As a reminder, this Wednesday is one of the year’s eight FOMC days in which, yet again, we sit up and wonder whether (a) the Fed will inch interest rates up a miniscule amount, thanks to the oh-so-fantastic global economy or (b) the Fed will do absolutely nothing, telling us for the 972nd time that they are data-dependent. Good Lord, how can you even stand the suspense?

Meanwhile, the only thing happening on my screen that is even a little interesting is that our friend crude oil continues its gentle, consistent downtrend, and quite remarkably, for the 7th day in a row, its low and high are both lower than the previous day.

0725-crude

A Butterfly Made of Sugar

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On that chilly January afternoon after school, i walked into the town library, needing to get a couple of books for a school paper I was assigned. I had made it about halfway over to the shelves when I heard a girl’s voice: “Tim!”

I whipped around, surprised to hear myself called. The voice was from a stunningly beautiful girl my own age whom I had known from my prior school. We had our own summer romance a year and a half prior, which she had broken off, and I thought I’d never see her again. And yet here she was.

That was a moment in time that changed a lot of lives. She told me later she wasn’t sure if she should get my attention or not, thinking that perhaps I would be upset with her and just storm off. But in that impulse, that very young woman decided to take a small chance to see what would happen. And, thus, here I am, as are you.

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