that's a wrap, one income family, renewables, and more
RWL #306
Greetings from the University of New Hampshire! My students have finished their finals and all that is left is some grading. As long-time readers know by now, my tradition is to take a quick snap of the classroom after the students have left. During the semester, I often come into the classroom before any of the students arrive, so an empty classroom is not unusual. But standing here after they have all left - it’s a different kind of emptiness.
That’s why, after I get my picture of the empty classroom, I always play Jackson Browne’s The Load Out.
Now the seats are all empty
Let the roadies take the stage…
But when that last guitar's been packed away
You know that I still wanna play
So just make sure you got it all set to go
Before you come for my piano
In fact, because I am a sentimental sap, I made my own video this year…
We had a College cookie competition this week - I thought of it as the Cookie Dome so I could retain my tough-guy identity (jk) - but I made some White Chocolate Dipped Cranberry Oatmeal Cookies which were amazing and didn’t win at all.
https://www.lifeloveandsugar.com/white-chocolate-dipped-cranberry-oatmeal-cookies/
With cookies it’s not whether you win or lose but how many you get to eat.
Finally, I get stats from Substack on what you are clicking through on. I thought I might start sharing which link was most popular from the prior week. Last week’s most popular link (other than my Retiree paper - thanks for your interest) was the Atlantic’s Why America Has So Few Doctors. If you missed it, check it out.
Ok, that’s it from me. Off to grade. Happy Hanukkah to my Jewish friends! As usual, willing good for all of you, have a great week and I present you with the links!
Read
What: EconLib, Scott Sumner, Can you raise a family on one income?
https://www.econlib.org/can-you-raise-a-family-on-one-income-ready/
Why: Short but interesting post by economist Scott Sumner who is always interesting. From the post:
We now have higher expectations. Suppose you are a median worker that wished to reproduce a 1960s lifestyle. How do you do this? You’d move into a 1200 square foot ranch house with one bath in a working class immigrant neighborhood. To get a car as unreliable as a 1960s car, you must buy a cheap 15-year old car. To get a TV as bad as a 1960s TV, you find one that someone left out at the curb. You give up your cell phone. No vacations by jet, it’s a drive down to Disneyland. You get the idea.
At the end of the post-practicum seminar I teach seniors, I take a session or two and talk about personal financial management. I spend a lot more time talking about how to think about spending and saving than they expect (they want me to talk about stocks - I already taught them the basics on stocks, and the bottom line is most people shouldn’t be trading stocks anyway). The basic advice is to live within your means and set your priorities. My wife and I raised a family on one income, or maybe 1.2 incomes, once she started working part-time remotely when the kids were out of diapers and in school, though some years she didn’t work at all. This was a choice we made as a family - she wanted to be a stay-at-home mom. I told her I would support her choice. So we made it work. If she had worked full-time, we could have had a much grander lifestyle, but we aren’t grand people and don’t need that sort of thing.
I told my students a bit of advice that I have mentioned before, but it is worth repeating. Tyler Cowen mentioned in a podcast that he recommends two things for a financially stable life: good real estate and cheap hobbies. Good real estate means a solid house in a safe neighborhood, close to (cheap) things you like to do. That’s the LHH - close to the coast, close to a university, close enough to Boston. That gives us easy access to nature and culture. And best of all, my commute is 2 minutes by car or 15 minutes by foot. The second bit, cheap hobbies, is also important. What is the cost of engaging your hobbies? I am very into photography, though I haven’t been doing much for the last few years since I was exploring making visual art. Once you buy a digital camera, the marginal cost (the cost of taking one more picture) is basically zero. My students got a kick out of me telling them that I have camera lenses that are worth more than the Adventure Van (that’s my 2004 Honda Odyssey that I tool around in). Yes, my camera gear is expensive, but I accumulate it over time and once I have bought it, it has near zero additional cost. I can spend a day shooting and processing, happy as a pig in s**t, and not have spent an additional penny. Same with my kayaks. One time purchase (used, on Craig’s list - kayaks do not hold their value - don’t buy new!), and after that, zero operating cost. Combine the two hobbies - photography and kayaking - and I can be totally happy for days and days at zero cash cost.
Yes, you can live on one income. You have to be thoughtful and you have to set priorities. Good real estate and cheap hobbies is the way to go.
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Watch
What: TEDxDanubia, Why renewables can’t save the planet, Michael Shellenberger (17 min)
Why: Shellenberger is a Californian pushing back against Progressive orthodoxy on a variety of fronts. This video was made in 2019, before the Russians began their attempt at genocide in Ukraine, but he highlights how choices by countries like Germany to stop using nuclear power have made their energy grids more fragile, and now we know that the Russians were always planning to take advantage of that fragility strategically. I am hopeful that we will see a resurgence of interest in nuclear power. If you are serious about climate change and see it as an existential threat, there are two things you should be pressing your politicians for:
Nuclear energy now. It is zero-emission. The waste is not nearly as problematic as the Green absolutists would have you believe, and it’s much less problematic than fossil fuels and frankly “renewables” (watch the video).
Debt reduction now. The last several administrations, starting with W. Bush through to the present one, have been spending our children’s future like drunken sailors (a pox on both of their houses - D & R alike). We have a national debt over 100% GDP. If you really think climate change is a looming threat, we are going to need to be able to finance a lot of infrastructure upgrades - like seawalls and drainage. If we can’t borrow because we are already neck-deep in debt, we won’t be able to respond to the expected crises and all the predicted dystopian calamities will come to pass.
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Listen
What: The Journal, Uncontrolled Substances, Part 1 (30 min)
Why: The Journal is produced by the Wall Street Journal and is free. It focuses on investigative journalism. This piece is about an online behavioral health provider called Cerebral, that I was not familiar with. I do think these online behavioral health providers are the future of outpatient behavioral health. But this Journal series (it is four parts - you can grab the rest) show how things can get sketchy, fast, when you mix together the go-go growth model of the internet and Silicon Valley, with the deliberately staid world of behavioral health. There is a lot of risk, especially when you get into prescribing controlled substances, like Adderall, for profit.
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What: Honestly with Bari Weiss, The Twitter Files and the Future of the Democratic Party With Silicon Valley's Congressman (68 min)
Why: Weiss interviews Congressman Ro Khana, representative of the district that includes Silicon Valley. He’s definitely a Progressive but he has some interesting things to say about free speech. He’s a bit too fond of industrial policy for my taste, but this is a thoughtful conversation. Michael Shellenberger (in Watch) lives in and writes about Khana’s district. Weiss’s podcast is quite excellent - I recommend subscribing.
Thanks for reading and see you next week! If you come across any interesting stories, won't you send them my way? I'd love to hear what you think of these suggestions, and I'd love to get suggestions from you. Feel free to drop me a line at mark.bonica@unh.edu , or you can tweet to me at @mbonica .
If you’re looking for a searchable archive, you can see my draft folder here: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1jwGLdjsb1WKtgH_2C-_3VvrYCtqLplFO?usp=sharing
Finally, if you find these links interesting, won’t you tell a friend? They can subscribe here: https://markbonica.substack.com/welcome
See you next week!
Mark
“The meaning of life is to find your gift. The purpose of life is to give it away.” – Pablo Picaso