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.

Frontline Hot Take

By -

kash

Moments ago, I finished watching the premier of the PBS Frontline special about the Federal Reserve. It was pretty good, although there wasn’t a single morsel of information that was new to me (I mean, come on, this is just about all I read and write about, so a general interest program isn’t going to be novel for me). The attitude of the program was actually pretty softball, since my own disposition, were I to be the show’s producer, would be to have the American public mentally file away Ben Bernanke and Jerome Powell in their heads right next to Josef Mengele and Jeffrey Dahmer.

I must comment on one person, however: Neel Kashkari. To Mr. Kashkari’s credit, he was the only current Fed official who had the balls to get in front of a camera. Those of you familiar with Neel’s disposition will not be surprised to know he maintained his role as the Fed’s tireless apologist, and he held the Fed’s candle high and proud throughout the entire broadcast.

(more…)

Hosed

By -

Imagine the following scene.

You are walking on a street, toward the crest of a hill. You can hear the crackling of flames, and you can see the orange glow in the sky as cinders spiral slowly down from above you. Upon reaching the crest, you can see an entire neighborhood engulfed in a conflagration.

And there I am with a hose, pointed right at the center of the flames.

You assume, incorrectly, that I am dousing the flames with a powerful stream of water. You soon discover that the liquid shooting out of my hose is, in fact, gasoline, and I am doing my best to point the hose where I think the gas will be most effective.

“What the hell are you doing?”

(more…)