Knowing Me, Knowing You: The Key to Understanding the American Experience

Here is my hasty entry to last year’s Vanity Fair Essay Contest. They asked what reality is to Americans, and did we ever have a grasp of it. It’s full of generalizations, but I hope there’s something worthwhile in here.

Human Rights Campaign? Not for all humans.

Donna Rose, the first and only transgender member of the board of the Human Rights Campaign has resigned because the president and the rest of the board would not take a stand and sign on a statement demanding transgender inclusion in the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, a legislative proposal several groups have tried to push since 1994. Read her resignation letter here.

Playing cards: Luck and access to credit

I never realized just how much luck goes into credit until I saw the Federal Reserve cut its key interest rate by another half percent. I’ve read in the papers that this is a desperate attempt to restore stock trade and that, so far, it has worked. I imagine that investors must have access to debt if money is to freely flow in the stock market. I am completely making that up.