Bitchin Dave's newsletter

I've been thinking about the advent of AI, and how we really don't know *what* it is, how it will be used, or how it will affect us. And yet, AI is the answer to everything!  And it will cost all kinds of jobs! And it will make our lives better (or worse, I'm confused)! The headlines promoted by companies tell a story that they want to tell, but ignore what's actually driving this: an opportunity to "rightsize their workforce" under the guise of innovation.  To the companies: lower payroll = more money to the wealthy investors!   So instead, I prefer to focus on the fact that each new innovation does change some aspects of ou...

A few weeks ago, we heard about a few people getting sick on a cruise ship, from something most of us had never heard of: the hantavirus.  Then, a couple of people died, and some others got pretty sick and the news media started to do what they do best: breathlessly report on it.  It's the next pandemic! Scientists, particularly those with experience in diseases and epidemiology, were drowned out.  The truth is that while this is "something," it's not quite what it has been built up to be.  It's treatable if caught early. Different strains spread differently, but generally you have to be in very close quarters. It originates via rat droppings, and much of it originates in Arge...

What happened a few weeks ago with Spirit airlines is maybe a little dispiriting (pun intended) for several specific reasons: we lost a low cost carrier that drove the competition to keep pricing down, there were many thousands of workers who were laid off, and we got a not-so-great lesson in economics. It's that lesson that I wanted to talk about.  Spirit was a Fort Lauderdale - based airline, and that made it an employer of note in my hometown.  Did I love them?  No.  Had I ever flown them?  Also no.  But they drove some amount of economy here locally.  Sometime around 2016, Frontier looked to acquire them, but the price point was too low, and the sharehol...