Field Notes Premium Edition

Just what I needed…on a day when my knees and back are hurting, a reminder of my inevitable decrepitude lands in my inbox.  Yippie.  To be clearer, my annual Social Security benefits statement just arrived.   At full retirement age—67 for me—Uncle Sam will send me $2,872 a month until my oxygen subscription expires. If I wait three [Read More] …

The Benefits of Pursuing a Stupid Dream It’s not an Oscar or an Emmy, but I’ll still take it.  I awoke a couple of weeks ago to an email congratulating me on winning the grand prize in a screenwriting competition. The award was for a romantic comedy I completed earlier this year.  I was surprised. The script had been doing [Read More] …

The Horse Is Out of the Barn   I come to today’s dispatch by way of a reader named Patrick.  Patrick asked what might just be one of the most relevant questions today in crypto. Take it away, Patrick:  I’ve read your views on bitcoin and crypto in general and agree with much of what you say. [Read More] …

Time to go way out on a thin limb.  We are just over a year away from the 2022 mid-term elections that will see a host of Congress-folk up for re-election.   Here’s my two-pronged prediction:  The Democrats lose Congress.  The stock market has a pretty good last quarter of 2022.  Let’s start with the Democrats…(and, by the way, this isn’t political; it’s [Read More] …

Change happens, whether “the system” likes it or not.  Of course, the system is always late to the party. At first it refuses to go. Then it sees that the party is happening, even as it insists that the party is altogether stupid. Then…well, the system joins the party, pretending all along that it knew this was going to be the [Read More] …