Take a guess which orange politician let me down — On December 31, 2021, I published an article in which I made 22 predictions for 2022. As I caveated at the start, the article was written in declaratives but of course, it was simply speculative. That said, I’m a firm believer that predicting the future has a formula: Chart the…

Plus: The dire warning about landlording in “It’s a Wonderful Life” — Greetings to our 50+ new subscribers this week. I’m Jared A. Brock, your friendly neighborhood corruption correspondent. Here’s your Medium binge-reading: American Taxpayers Will Pay Nearly $1 Trillion in Interest Next Year. Does anything else think this is suicidally stupid? Want To Be Happy in 2023? Repeat This Four-Word Phrase. The key to happiness…

Does anything else think this is suicidally stupid? — Earlier this week, the US Treasury Department announced the federal deficit for November was $248.5 billion. That’s $248,500,000,000. A whopping $750 in interest-bearing debt for every person in the country. For a single month. How in the world is it possible for a government to overspend a quarter-trillion dollars in…

The key to happiness is ancient — “When a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.” — Samuel Johnson When I was eighteen years old, I got in my car with three friends and took a month-long road trip from coast to coast in celebration of our graduation from…

The USA will collapse under the weight of taxation unless we radically reform the economy now — Taxes are a very good and a very evil thing. Taxes are how we pay for: The roads and bridges and sewers (thank God) The undersea Internet cables so we can Zoom with Grandma from Europe The military to protect our nation and the police to protect our streets The…

Christmas is looking bleak for millions of working families — Greetings to our 100+ new subscribers this week. I’m Jared A. Brock, your friendly neighborhood corruption correspondent. Here’s your Medium binge-reading: All I Want for Christmas Is for the Rich To Stop Robbing the Poor. At the very least, I’d like investors to stop pretending like they’re good people. “It’s A Wonderful Life” Is…

At the very least, I’d like investors to stop pretending like they’re good people — I was playing ping pong with a friend a few years ago and I was bemoaning the inescapable fact that our world is plagued with evil. He stopped for a moment and said with complete sincerity: “Yeah, but at least you and I are good people.” I haven’t been able…

Spice up your tired holiday soundtrack — Some Christmas songs were made to disappear — Ludacrismas, Bob Dylan’s Must Be Santa, and all Taylor Swift covers come to mind — while other songs like White Christmas and Let It Snow will be around for centuries to come. While I’m partial to classics like Silver Bells, I’ll Be…

We’re becoming a world of slumlord Pottersvilles — “This town is no place for any man unless he’s willing to crawl to Potter… get out of here.” There are two traditions in my family that you need to know about: We watch Frank Capra’s legendary 1946 classic It’s A Wonderful Life every Christmas without fail. Whenever a new…