@zachweinersmith
New Book out this summer: Sawyer Lee and the Quest to Just Stay Home. Other things of mine: Bea Wolf, A City on Mars, and SMBC Website: www.smbc-comics.com Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/ZachWeinersmith?ty=h
No, meaning productivity gains were cruising along due to huge tech leaps in the 20s and 30s, but that didn't translate into a vibrant economy until after the war, and especially in the 1950s. Economies are weird.
Think that's part of it. Big question is whether machine-learning is starting to deliver a boost, but as far as I can tell econs disagree.
I'm the type of dork who prefers to view the world through stats, but of course that doesn't obviate any particular person's suffering!
No, nonfinancial. Nonfarm did pretty well too though.
I understand, and I have friends with similar trouble. Productivity is important to my mind because it's future potential for everyone's lives to be better (especially when you see wage growth), but it's more a long-term effect. The 1930s were a boom for productivity that only paid out later.
Before you tell me the stats are false because Trump, the fired former head of BLS says the stats are still trustworthy, plus there's been a lot of bad econ data lately, in employment and GDP.
Remember the famed 1990s productivity boom? Post-covid era is now beating it. That includes nice wage increases, and an even higher rate of growth in the non-financial corporate sector. I continue to be surprised nobody cares about this, outside massive dorkwads.
Vaxxed and relaxed baby
Rank credentialist classism, spouse.
Ha, and I didn't even mention the tariffs.
You're always told growing up that girls are grody, but you never really understand it until you live with one.
A while back we were joking here about how a little over a year ago, some economist must've looked at a monkey's paw and said "I wish regular people appreciated textbook economics more."
Like he could've just come out of the White House every morning like a cuckoo clock, said something outrageous to make his base happy, then went to golf. And people would call him an economic genius because he grew gdp and tamed inflation. But here we are.
Stock market tanking again today and oil *way* up. What's crazy is Trump could've just rode out the current regression to the mean on inflation, combined with an apparent productivity boom. Instead, did the opposite of econ 101: kicked out workers, reduced immigration, started wars of choice.
Pervert
(because properly "tragedy" ought to involve a striver against fate ultimately undone by their own nature)
But now the public is so primed to associate "tragic" with death, you can use it for a breakup or DUI or whatever, and people click through only to be disappointed by rampant aliveness.
I've noticed this new(?) thing where clickbait headlines use the phrase "tragic details emerge" in a context that has nothing to do with death, presumably to trick you into reading. I kind of... love it? Like for decades, lit nerds complained that "tragic" gets overused and is generally inaccurate.
Right??
I got my own early copy and my 11 year old stole it and is now on her second read (I had shown her portions, but not the final draft). She spent the day quoting it to me, which was slightly surreal. Interestingly, she really liked some of the jokes I thought were less clever?
That would require me to be able to draw a squirrel!
Daniel and Kelly welcome Dr. Scott Solomon back on the show to talk about his new book Becoming Martian: How Living in Space Will Change our Bodies and Minds.
www.iheart.com/podcast/105-...
4-panel SMBC comic update. A lawyer in a suit is passing an envelop to a man sitting at a desk. The lawyer says he was sent by the employee's wife to serve him these papers. The employee is shocked, saying that he loves her, and trails off saying she loves him too. He pulls the papers out of the envelop. It's filled with blank construction paper. The lawyer adds that she also sent crayons and horsie stencils, prompting the man to say "HOORAY!" happily.
I need to do an upbeat comic week one of these days. They all end with hooray.
COMIC ◆ www.smbc-comics.com/comic/serve
PATREON ◆ www.patreon.com/ZachWeinersm...
STORE ◆ smbc-store.myshopify.com
This seems prescient.
@zachweinersmith.bsky.social
smbc-comics.com/comic/2006-0...
Today's comic appears to have the wrong caption! Correction soon.
That's okay, I talked to him during a seance recently and he said he didn't want me to.
Section of the comic strip: THE BOOK HAS AN INTRICATE BUT EASY-TO-FOLLOW PLOT INSPIRED BY PG WODEHOUSE AND AGATHA CHRISTIE! IT HAS A WRITING STYLE INFLUENCED BY JEROME K JEROME, EVELYN WAUGH, AND JANE AUSTEN! BOOK NERD! HEAR MY WORDS! WE ARE A DWINDLING BREED!
Hullo yes inject it directly into my veins 😄
Eeeeeee!
Full comic here: www.smbc-comics.com/comic/serve #smbc
Few will appreciate this joke idea but I laugh every time I see it.
Great sentence from the part of Wodehouse's career where he gets good:
"The floor was crowded with all that was best and noblest in the country; so that a half-brick, hurled at any given moment, must infallibly have spilt blue blood."