There are two types of climate-change-ologists who get into discussions about electricity: those that recognize that economics, jobs, taxes, subsidies and re-elect-ability all play a factor in decision making and look for incremental solutions to problems; and those who believe that mankind has gone too far and needs to rejoin our original state with nature, forgetting that the changes in our life span and quality of life are directly related to our access to energy (also known as de-growthers)....

From 1911 to 1986, bringing a canary with you into the coal mine made up for the lack of other PPE. Not surprisingly as the saying foreshadows, the canary would die when levels of toxic gas would reach levels that indicated danger for humans. Indirect, but effective. Similarly, applications to MBA programs may be the canary in the school mine. Not as a direct measure of sentiment towards the cost/benefit of college, but as an indirect one.  Last year, at...

Show Notes: Welcome to the hottakeoftheday podcast.  I’m your host David Ramsden-Wood.  Got to tell you, I’m excited about this and not just because of that intro music.  The support of everyone in 2019 and the growth of the hottakeoftheday- it just felt like there was a lot to explore in more than in 1300 characters a day on LinkedIn. Today is the first podcast, we are recording January 1st 2020 and we are saying hello to a new decade. In the show...

I had a really good post teed up for today about canaries, coal mines and MBA applications but, like all good battle plans, they fail when they encounter an opponent, and today saw a pretty big opponent. MBAs can wait. The Pentagon confirmed Thursday night that General Qassim Soleimani was killed in a U.S. drone strike in Baghdad. Not surprisingly as I write this, oil spiked to over $63/bbl in Asian trade, (no- it wasn't quite $63/bbl December...

Source: Quillette, written by Maarten Boudry At the root of our climate problem, writes Pope Francis in his ecological encyclical Laudato Si, lies our human pride and arrogance: “The misuse of creation begins when we no longer recognize any higher instance than ourselves, when we see nothing else but ourselves.” Coming from a Catholic Pope, such sentiments are hardly surprising. For centuries, Christians thinkers have railed against pride as the first and worst among the seven deadly sins. But...

Since 1978, college tuition has increased 1375%, which is 4x the rate of inflation and has led to a quadrupling of student debt since 2005 to $1.5T. Those are staggering statistics when you consider the advice passed on from parents to their kids: go to college, get an education and get a great job. I don’t know that it’s that simple anymore. As I wrote in a previous post, I had a model built for how much it would cost to send my two sons-...

20 years ago today, the world woke up to discover that the world hadn’t ended, computers didn’t malfunction and perhaps, the rumors of impending demise were slightly exaggerated. The media likes things to be grandiose and sell ads. Cyclone weather bombs, shooters on every corner and climate change. We had a nice evening with friends, played euchre and slept in.  Maybe not going to sell any ads, but that’s life.  #hottakeoftheday