Americans in debt

Many a story bemoans how half the American public cannot put enough coin together today if faced with an emergency exceeding $400.

Sounds downright scary? It is. For a rich country and by its own marketing the largest superpower in the world, this glaring stat reads incongruent with what might appear logical.

Here is my personal take on where the train went off the rails. Behaviors manipulated by media and marketing observed in everyday life reveal some obvious scams designed to sell/buy more than one might afford or need -

Sense of entitlement (among variety of demographic) - wanting things one cannot afford but lets buyer look Insta worthy

Retail Therapy - that shopping is sold alongside the myriad cocktails of legal drugs to the unsuspecting and uneducated masses as being therapeutic - really?

Buy bigger - brands from large home improvement stores to auto companies actually touting the notion that bigger is better flies in the face of talk show hosts and other financial wizard sleazeballs trying to advise one to downsize (anecdotally I have observed that the larger the SUV on the road the shorter the lone driver in the vehicle)

Low low rates - an entire system designed to make borrowing appear as a panacea for what ails the consumer - net result no savings.

Comments

A few good books

On an informal mission to read one book a week as long as the eyes allow for such ambition. Fiction or non is not important as long as it entertains and /or educates. To that end the past few weeks have brought a bounty in the form of some wonderful and then not so engaging literature. Among the notables are - Non fiction category: 1. Good arguments by Bo Seo (how to handle a dispute or debate the most efficient way possible) 2. Genesis by Eric Schmidt (and former US Secy of State Henry Kissinger, who recently passed) - how AI might affect our lives as we know it 3. One in a billion - Zarna Garg (an autobiographical look at an Indian born American woman with a bindi narrated in a standup format - yes it is at times cliched but still funny) Fiction: 1. Personal by Lee Child (a vigilante story with Jack Reacher the giant, nomad protagonist of Child's novels goes hunting for a sniper) 2. Ramayana unraveled by Ami Ganatra (she might disagree about it being a work of fiction but oh wel...

Back in DC

This time for a tech conference in the realm of what else? AI. But applied to an oft neglected space called Knowledge Management. The latter is a community of practice that focuses on analyzing, organizing and making available reams of data that have been gathered over time by various functions within an organization for anyone in the company to utilize. This function or process is ripe for applying AI agents (or agentic AI framework) and optimize for better outcomes. It was informative. More rewarding was getting acquainted with folks who practice this craft as well as learning of what they see in the corporate or public sectors. Since the venue was Washington DC it also afforded me the chance to take evening strolls albeit the weather was trying. With wind chill in the single digit it still is a glamorous place to perambulate through history absorbing what this country has been through since its founding days. I was able to visit the place Lincoln was killed along with his monument t...

Costa Rica

Our first foray into Central America. That elongated isthmus that forms the geographic boundary between two vast continents of North and South America. Specifically landing for NYE 2026 in San Jose, Costa Rica. Capital city for this region that does not have its own army, instead relying on its big bro the Estados Unidos to the north is a metropolis of approx. 500K people. Largely wilderness and with both a Pacific and Carribean/Atlantic coast the country is rich in bio diversity. In Spanish it means the rich coast so named by Columbus landing in early 16th century and being mesmerized by the local tribes sporting gold jewelry. Our stay included visiting the foothills of a large strato volcano called Arenal and enjoying the naturally heated thermal baths for a while. Lunching amidst lush forest and watching indigenous species of avian noise makers fly overhead. Toucans, some sort of pea hens, multiple song bird species completed the spectacle. Iguanas and a lonel...

Brown Motion

Search This Blog