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.

Proxy Trade War

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The latest from Binkius Hippo: The trade war is a proxy for the fight between democracy and autocracy in the digital age.

The trade war is not about fighting for jobs. 25% tariffs will not work.

GM is spending $1.5 MILLION to create EACH job position at Lordstown assembly. The Peterson Institute estimates that it costs $900,000 for each steel worker job. These type of skilled-trades jobs pays $3/hour in Taiwan and $1/hour in China. Korea is a bit more expensive than Taiwan, but Vietnam and Thailand are much cheaper.

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Decision 2024

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Now that the long-awaited Mueller investigation is done, the predictable camps have formed: one calling for impeachment, and another wanting to just put the entire matter to rest forever. In a few weeks, the latter camp will succeed.

But I think it is more worthwhile to look ahead – – far ahead – – to anticipate what might be next. A combination of history, politics, and financial markets blend together into some intriguing possibilities, and I would like to offer my own theory as to what the next six years may hold.

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Derailed

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I’m a libertarian at heart, and as such, I believe that, with few exceptions, pretty much the worst entity to handle any task is a government body. Therefore, over a decade ago, when Californians were sold a pipe dream about a high-speed rail (HSR) that would whisk them from San Francisco to Disneyland in just 2.5 hours, I rolled my eyes.

I didn’t keep my eye-rolling private. Five years ago, in this post, I mentioned the HSR project:

fiveyears
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