The Transparent Advisor

by Danno I was watching the Team USA basketball team on Sunday, and the first thing that struck me was the "Tokyo 2020" on the sidelines.  In case you didn't catch that, we're actually in July of 2021. Among all the noise, I had almost entirely forgotten that the Olympics were cancelled last year.  As I pause and look back, it would be easy to say that 2020 was a shit year.   While it was certainly a remarkable year, it couldn't possibly have been all bad. We as humans are in a constant state of progress.  That's not a political statement.  There are always people experiencing whatever problems or pain-points they are experiencing, then prioritizing and trying to solve.    Most of the time, that progress is small, almost unnoticeable, and seemingly inconsequential in the big picture...  but it adds up over time. Ever notice how every 4 years it seems like every Olympic swimming or running event has a new Olympic record by 0.01 seconds?   Or how players on the

Lots of Help Wanted signs around these days.  It's more than just anecdotal, at the lower end of the wage scale, business owners are having a hard time competing with Unemployment payments.  Although we have the highest wealth discrepancy in many decades, encouraging people to stay home and collect money is not the answer to growing the economy.  I t's a problem. I didn't have a problem with largely shutting down the economy last year.   I accepted that it was an emergency situation, and that it was better to accept the severe short-term economic pain in order to minimize the long-term pain (although some areas were more emergency-like than others).  Now I fall on the other side of that... we are way past the emergency situation.  I understand the need for a social safety net, but you can't reward people for continuing to stay at home.  Employers should not have to raise wages just to compete with "enhanced" Unemployment.  Outside of the "emergency situa