Category: The Big Picture

The First Week of January Test, 2014: How Does it Feel to Be Back After the Holidays?

Monday, January 6, 2014 at 11am
By John Friedman

Dark and early this morning, before even mentioning his favorite and seemingly ever-present traffic jam on the Sunol Grade, long-time KQED traffic guy Joe McConnell said it nice ‘n blunt:   It’s back to the grind for most of us today.   It’s a common enough phrase, but hearing it […]

Free Money: How the Free Money of Medicaid Expansion is Better than the Free Money of a 401k Match

Friday, November 22, 2013 at 1pm
By John Friedman

Never turn down free money, you hear people sometimes say, right? And if free money were a more common thing, why, then you’d hear it said a whole lot more, but it ain’t (because, you know, TANSTAAFL and if-it-looks-too-good-to-be-true and such) so you don’t. But free money does in fact […]

San Francisco Realty Realities Bite or Nourish, Depending on Which Side You’re On

Friday, October 25, 2013 at 12pm
By John Friedman

I am fortunate to live in Noe Valley, San Francisco, California, USA, North America, Earth. I am doubly fortunate to have bought a house in En-Vee Ess-Eff See-Eh in 1996 (though admittedly the downside of this time scaling is that it puts me well into the second half — final […]

The Treasury’s Checkbook: Healthy or Not Healthy as We Peer Into the Debt Default Abyss?

Wednesday, October 9, 2013 at 10am
By John Friedman

Looking at a couple of statements from your day-to-day checking account, I tell new clients in our first working meeting, is like looking at the lab results your doctor orders when you have a physical. Staring out from those pieces of paper [pdf files] are a bunch of numbers that […]

The Last Act of Love

Friday, October 4, 2013 at 7pm
By John Friedman

Tom Friedman died at 3:43 p.m. today, Central Time. A bit later Nurse Ellen said, “See, I told ya. He waited until all four of you were here. It was his last act of love.” *  *  * We have, all of us, embedded deep within our biological self, a […]

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