The Economy & Investing

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Slight Uptick in GDP, but Pink Slips Are Up, Too! 

There has been a bit of positive news on the economy recently. GDP is up slightly. And inflation is slightly down. Neither is significant. It feels temporary to me. On the negative side, US companies continue layoffs. I listed about a dozen examples on Nov. 22. Here are some more:

* Meta is backing out of a major New York office deal as it prepares to cut budgets across the company.

* DoorDash will lay off 1,250 employees.

* Crypto firm Kraken is letting go of 30% of its workforce.

* The mainstream media is doing it, too. CNN slashed more than 200 jobs, Gannett (owner of USA Today and dozens of local newspapers) cut 6% of its news staff, Paramount Global laid off 30 employees, and NPR is cutting more than $10 million from its budget and freezing hiring.

Worth Watching

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The Hunger 

Directed by Tony Scott

Starring Catherine Deneuve, David Bowie, and Susan Sarandon

Released in theaters Apr. 29, 1983

Available on various streaming services, including The Criterion Channel and Amazon Prime

The blurb from The Criterion Channel promised a “sensual slice of modern gothic horror” with Catherine Deneuve and David Bowie as “cinema’s most stylish vampires.”

That, The Hunger delivered. And more. There was Susan Sarandon, early in her career, and a host of compellingly odd secondary characters, including a brief Christopher Walken cameo. (See if you can find him.)

The movie is based on a book of the same title, written by Whitley Strieber. I liked it. The plot is engaging. The direction and cinematography are artsy-fun and experimental. The style is high-David-Bowie. The music is great. And the sensuality – well, we are talking about Catherine Deneuve and Susan Sarandon enraptured in bloodsucking lust!

Critical Reception 

This is not a movie for your basic horror movie fan. It was panned by almost all the critics when it came out.

* “The Hunger is an agonizingly bad vampire movie, circling around an exquisitely effective sex scene. Sorry, but that’s the way it is, and your reporter has to be honest.” (Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times, Oct. 2004)

* “The movie reeks with chic, but never, for one minute, takes itself too seriously, nor does it ever slop over into camp.” (Vincent Canby, New York Times, Aug. 2004)

Later reviews were better. Some much better. One called it “a cinematic work of art that has stood the test of time.”

You can watch the trailer here.

Worth Considering

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The COVID Response. What We Got Wrong.

Part IV: Shutting Down Outside Activities

Do you remember that, beginning in March of 2020, on the advice of the WHO and the CDC, the US began issuing mandatory stay-at-home orders? California was first, on March 19, and was soon followed by 42 states and territories.

We were all so terrified of COVID, and knew so little about it, that almost nobody objected.

And do you remember that, although we were allowed to go shopping for “essentials,” there was a total ban on outdoor activities, including concerts and sporting events?

I was a bit surprised by that. Being outdoors – even in a crowd – seemed safer than being in a small indoor space with people you didn’t really know.

But what seemed absolutely insane to me was when they closed down the beaches and parks. Being surrounded by people in an outdoor stadium felt like it had some level of risk. But being outside on a beach or in a park, where it was easy to distance yourself from others? What was the point in that?

There was no point because it never did make sense.

Yet, the mandates were issued and enforced without a shred of evidence that they worked. On the contrary, studies done soon after the outbreak – early in 2020 – showed that being outside greatly reduced the risk of infection. And by a very significant degree.

But those studies were ignored. They were ignored by the CDC. And they were ignored by the mainstream press. Instead, we were shown hypothetical, mathematical models of the virus spreading outdoors at alarming rates.

And then, just like the other falsehoods we were told to believe, the obviously idiotic lie about the danger of being in outdoor spaces was no longer front-page news.

Beaches and parks were gradually and quietly opened, though outdoor venues continued to be shut down in most places. That seemed somewhat sensible, despite the fact there had been evidence since the beginning that the risk of attending outdoor concerts and sporting events was actually quite low.

For example, a study of 64 college football games during the 2020 season involving 1,190 athletes found zero spread of COVID during game play based on three postgame PCR tests over the course of a week – likely because of the outdoor setting and short duration of close contact, researchers said. And another study published in Nature magazine in November of that same year showed that the vast majority of transmissions were happening indoors.

Those studies were conducted early in the pandemic. Why didn’t we hear about them then? And why did we continue to keep outdoor activities shut down for more than two years? (California, the first state to do it, was also the last one to open them up again in March of this year.)

Looking at the 2020-2021 mandates now, it’s obvious that they were not just unnecessarily severe, but also irrational.

And yet we accepted them.

But the truth will out, as the Bard said. And when the public began to be aware of the facts, what did the CDC and the government and the major media do? Did they correct the inaccuracies? Did they investigate how and from where the misinformation had come?

No. They simply stopped talking about it. And we stopped hearing about it.

If you check the CDC’s COVID guidelines now, you will find no mention of the danger of going to parks and beaches or attending outdoor events. Instead, you will find a recommendation to “spend time outside when possible, instead of inside,” advice they should have published two years ago. “Viral particles spread between people more readily indoors than outdoors,” they now say, “because the concentration of viral particles is often higher [indoors] than outdoors, where even a light wind can rapidly reduce concentration…. You are less likely to be infected with COVID-19 during outdoor activities because virus particles do not build up in the air outdoors as much as they do indoors.”

Fun and/or Interesting

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The Future Looks… Connected 

According to Peter Diamandis, by 2032, “every person on earth will have access to the web with speeds and capabilities far beyond what heads of nations and Fortune 500 CEOs had just a few decades ago. This revolution in connectivity will ignite a renaissance of innovation, and once again transform our planet.” Read more here.

Mental Telepathy Is Coming Soon 

Elon Musk is amazing. Rockets. Electric Cars. And now Neuralink, which will connect human thought to computers. Click here for details.

Fun and/or Interesting

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In the Nov. 4 issue, I told you what I think of kale… the latest trend in Hollywood style eating. BJ, a golf buddy, agrees. He sent this handy tip for the next time you have kale for dinner.

A Word to the Wise

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A paraprosdokian – from the Greek para (“beyond”) and prosdokia (“expectation”) – is a figure of speech in which the latter part of sentence or statement has an unexpected twist. The twist is often humorous. Here are some examples of how it’s been used:

* Winston Churchill: “You can always count on Americans to do the right thing – after they have tried everything else.”

* Groucho Marx: “Outside of a dog, a book is a man’s best friend. Inside of a dog, it’s too dark to read.”

* Homer Simpson: “If I could just say a few words… I’d be a better public speaker.”

* Fran Lebowitz (in an essay from The Fran Lebowitz Reader: “Any child who cannot do long division by himself does not deserve to smoke.”

* Douglas Adams (in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy): “The [alien] ships hung in the sky in much the same way that bricks don’t.”

* Henny Youngman: “Take my wife – please!”

Postscript

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More Dumb Students 

As I pointed out on Tuesday, college students today know lots about white male privilege. How do they do when asked some basic academic questions, like the kind you’d expect a 6th grader to know?

Tuesday, December 6, 2022, Delray Beach, Florida


Notes From My Journal

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Last Saturday Was a Special Day at Rancho Santana…

It was my last day at Rancho Santana after a three-week stay. And I participated in two events that made it extra special.

In the afternoon, I attended a sixth-grade graduation ceremony at a local grammar school.

I’d been asked by a former employee of the ranch to “chaperone” her daughter. I had no idea what the duties of a chaperone would consist of, but I felt honored by the invitation and accepted.

I met the girl and her mom at the school, and we joined a procession traveling from the schoolhouse to a church about a quarter-mile up the road. At the church, I listened to two energetic sermons by two local preachers and two horrendously off-key arias sung by a woman dressed for a discotheque. We then traipsed back to the school, where I sat for another hour, listening to other speeches before the certificates of completion were distributed and more speeches were made. It was as elaborate as any college graduation I’ve ever attended.

(In Nicaragua, for some reason, first-grade and sixth-grade graduations are a big deal. And they are taken seriously. The kids are spotless in their freshly washed and ironed uniforms. And the parents – particularly the mothers – are dressed up, too.)

Afterwards, I was invited back to their house for a family party. I demurred, because I had another important event to get to: a 25th anniversary party for Rancho Santana, which would be commencing in about half an hour.

This, too, was a fancy affair. The central courtyard between the pool and clubhouse was lit up brightly and festooned with decorations. The dress code was black, white, or silver, and nearly everyone in attendance complied. Most of the women wore dresses. Some wore gowns. Most of the men wore jackets. Some wore tuxedos. There must have been 200 people there, a third of whom I’d never seen before.

About two hours into the evening, it was time for speeches. I was the last to go. After noticing the crowd getting more and more fidgety as the previous speakers droned on, I abandoned my prepared remarks and simply told everyone that the secret to Rancho Santana’s success was our policy to sell property only to good-looking people. It was the shortest speech of the evening, and many people said it was the best.

From My Work-in-Progress Basket

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The Rule of One vs. Listicles: What’s the Deal?

One of the ideas I’ve written about over the years is something I called the “Rule of One.” It wasn’t an original idea. It was a compilation of similar ideas that I rolled into one package and recommended as a useful tool for all sorts of projects and challenges. And it was the subject of a question I received last week from JW:

“Ever since I discovered your Rule of One, I’ve been trying to use it with my writing and video content. While I find it easy to focus on one individual theme or topic, I always seem to run into the same problem: I rely on listicles or try to include several tips instead of focusing on one. As an example, my video titles always end up being something like ‘5 Ways to XYZ’ or ‘3 Big Mistakes with XYZ.’ I want to provide as much value as I can, but it feels like I’m violating your rule when I do it this way!

“Do you have any suggestions for me? Are listicles something I should avoid altogether, or do they serve a purpose?”

This is something I’ve been meaning to write a book about for some time. In case I never get to it, here’s the short version:

The Rule of One is not meant to be a straitjacket. It provides focus and clarity, from which you get a kind of forward motion that you can’t get any other way.

In my books about entrepreneurship, I recommended it as a way to maximize the odds of building a successful business. In my writings about personal development, I favored it as a way to make quick progress in learning a language or developing a skill. In any challenging endeavor, the Rule of One will help you get past the common hurdles that slow down and eventually stop people from accomplishing difficult goals.

JW’s question was about writing – applying the Rule of One to writing essays, blog posts, and the like. And where “listicles” fit in.

Here’s what I think:

Listicles are great for creating curiosity and motivation, and for helping your reader understand the breadth of a given topic (the number of things that could or should be considered). If, for example, you want to write a piece about retiring overseas, you might create a listicle about the 10 best seaside retirement locations or the 10 best mountain locations or the 10 least expensive places to live, etc.

What we’ve found in publishing thousands of essays and blog posts over the years is that listicles are good at attracting attention and holding it for the several minutes it takes to read through the listicle. We know this because we track reader response to marketing copy, and the “open” and “click-through” rates of listicles are very high.

Readers like listicles because they are generally quick and easy to read. And as a rule, they are easy to write. The research takes a bit of time. But composing the list is usually quick.

Easy to write. Easy to read. Listicles are light fare – comfort food for the curious mind.

So, if you want high consumption rates on your blog posts, listicles are a good way to go. They will get you eyeballs, and that is nothing to sneeze at. (I publish them occasionally myself, when I come across one that catches my eye – one that I think my readers will like.) But they won’t get you avid followers or fans.

That’s because listicles cannot do what a single focused essay can. They cannot do the heavy work of explaining anything that is complicated or profound. They cannot change your reader’s world view. They cannot change how your reader views himself.

If you want a deeper relationship with your readers, you must dig deep. You must take them somewhere they’ve never been. And that is what we writers must do if we expect our readers to want to read more of what we want to say.

Note: My comments about listicles to not apply to lists. It’s perfectly okay to include lists in an essay that is singularly focused. It’s okay, for example, in an essay whose purpose is to argue that inflation is going up or down, to include 10 reasons why.

But as I said, listicles can’t do the hard work of writing. Because the hard work of writing is thinking. Not just lateral, superficial thinking (the kind you do when you compose a listicle), but vertical thinking. Digging into your subject.

If you want to get serious about any topic, you must give your reader an idea that is in some way different and in some way deeper than the ideas he already has. And the only way you can do that is by spending hours reading, researching, and thinking about the ideas you are coming up with before you open your laptop and put your fingers on the keyboard.

Listicles are horizontal. Wide but shallow. Rule of One essays are horizontal. Narrow but deep.

If your goal is to attract attention, listicles are a good way to go. But if your goal is to change a mind and develop a loyal reader, you must go deep.

Worth Reading

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Building a Story Brand 

By Donald Miller

240 pages

Published Oct. 10, 2017

Donald Miller has a blog called “Story Brand” about advertising. He also has an advertising business. His USP (Unique Selling Proposition) is his expertise in creating simple, believable stories about… well, about USPs.

It’s a topic I’m familiar with. And a thesis I embrace. So, I was expecting to like the book. And I did. Miller is a good writer. By that, I mean he is a good thinker who can articulate his ideas clearly and concisely.

In Building a Story Brand, you’ll get plenty of good, individual ideas that will be eyeopeners for novices and reminders for pros. But you will also get Miller’s blueprint for how to write the perfect story brand. One that is simple, believable, and emotionally persuasive.

I recommend it for copywriters, marketers, CEOs, and anyone who wants to create stronger advertising for a business, a non-profit, or an organization of any kind.

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