ballpoint

When I was little, we were so poor, that on my 6th birthday, my mum put 3 candles on a cake and put it in front of a mirror.

Last weekend I was on the couch. My wife poked me to see if I was still alive. I opened my eyes and she sighed.

Barristers in the UK are set to go on strike. Screw them, I'll just make my own coffee at home and take a flask.

The family is gathered around the dinner table. First child says "mummy, how did I get my name?" Mummy says "well, when we were leaving the hospital after you were born, a flower petal floated down and landed on your head, so we named you "petal"". Next child asks "how did I get my name?" Mummy says "when we were leaving hospital after you were born, a cherry blossom floated down and landed on your head, so we named you "Blossom""". Third child says "ughughughugh" Mummy says "yes, Brick?"

My dad is a man of very few words. He once said to me, “Son;”

My dog can do magic tricks. It's a Labracadabrador.

Trump can't help spouting off and shooting himself in the foot. Now openly admitting that he had the top secret SCI documents in his house, where they were stored in cartons, while trying to make a point against the FBI: And one of his attorneys isn't doing much better. While claiming that the pictures released by the FBI don't show how his office normally looks, her denial included the words "anyone who has visited President Trump's office - he has guests frequently there" Trump admits that he had the documents, his attorney admits that the area was open to frequent visitors. The clown show continues. Maybe he's going to plead insanity?

I can't wait for the future

Volcker didn't have to worry about the huge debt to GDP ratio that Powell does, meaning Powell faces a huge predicament, as the Chicago Fed laid out in this White Paper presented at Jackson Hole: "When fiscal imbalances are large and fiscal credibility wanes, it may become increasingly harder for the monetary authority to stabilize inflation around its desired target. If the monetary authority increases rates in response to high inflation, the economy enters a recession, which increases the debt-to-GDP ratio. If the monetary tightening is not supported by the expectation of appropriate fiscal adjustments, the deterioration of fiscal imbalances leads to even higher inflationary pressure. As a result, a vicious circle of rising nominal interest rates, rising inflation, economic stagnation, and increasing debt would arise." https://www.kansascityfed.org/Jackson Hole/documents/9037/JH_Paper_Bianchi.pdf In short, Powell sees his choice between being Volcker or Arthur Burns (Fed Chairman from 1970 - 1978, whose "president friendly" policies - Nixon appointed him in 1970 and gave him instructions to ensure easy access to credit when he (Nixon) was running for reelection in 1972 - are widely seen to be a major cause of the high inflation over that period). This White Paper argues that Powell's choice is really between “sustained high inflation” or “depression.” Or, to put it in terms of previous Chairmen, between Arthur Burns and Benjamin Strong - the Fed Chairman who overtightend the world into the great depression. He can not be Volcker, and many analysts are still predicting that he will be forced to pivot sooner rather than later. On top of this, the question of political will to must still be considered. In order to placate the voting public, the right fiscal decisions aren't always (some would argue very rarely, or never at all) made. A point well made in this brilliant 2007 quote by Jean-Claude Juncker when Prime Minister of Luxembourg: "We know what to do, we just don’t know how to get re-elected after we have done it."

"It was man who ended the Cold War in case you didn't notice. It wasn't weaponry, or technology, or armies or campaigns. It was just man. Not even Western man either, as it happened, but our sworn enemy in the East, who went into the streets, faced the bullets and the batons and said: we've had enough. It was their emperor, not ours, who had the nerve to mount the rostrum and declare he had no clothes. And the ideologies trailed after these impossible events like condemned prisoners, as ideologies do when they've had their day". - John le Carre And that 'emperor' who had the nerve was Mikhail Gorbachev. RIP.

They can always move to the Huawei App Gallery.