Victims of The Cultural Revolution
I’m reading the book of my long ago communicant, Wang Youqin, and all of my old wonder and bafflement and confusion about how the Cultural Revolution could have occurred has come back to me. How it did happen, “what” happened, even “why” it happened we all get by now. But no scholar, Chinese or non, that I have read understands the “How could it have happened?” The answer to that question lies in something unfathomably deep in China’s soul.
Securities Investment Thinkings 1.0
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Lookin' Hard At
¡Ole! Miss -3 Texas DE&I
UGA -15.5 Mizzou
Loo -9.5 Va. Tech
Ga. State Jimmy Mad -5.5
USC Wershington -3.5
Bama -3 Elle Esse Yeux
Two years ago I was in Providence, Rhode Island with my son for Thanksgiving with my daughter. We went to a bar to eat and drink and the obligatory Detroit "Lions" game was on the bar TVs. In sports nothing says Thanksgiving like the "Lions" game. Nothing says dreary like the "Lions." That Thanksgiving 2021 game against Chicago was dreary, the "Bears" won 16-14, but I thought Detroit's quarterback didn't look half bad and I thought their coach, who I did not know, looked like a football coach. I liked the way he looked, he looked like Bill Cowher. He was impressive looking. That was all. That was Dan Campbell's first year coaching Detroit. They finished a so-Detroit 3-13-1.
On Thanksgiving 2022 my son and I were back in Providence and we watched the "Lions" game on my daughter's couch. I thought the "Lions" looked good! My son demurred and I demurred to him. I thought they were going to win! They didn't. They lost to an excellent Buffalo team 28-25. That was Campbell's second season and the "Lions" finished 9-8! For the "Lions" that's practically the Super Bowl!
I started following the "Lions" and Dan Campbell a little bit, just checking their scores. I have noted that here. Their first game in 2023 was an excruciating loss, I forget to whom. But by God, Detroit is now 6-2. ...Which means they could finish 6-11. But I don't think so. I think they'll make the playoffs this year.
Yesterday, I googled Dan Campbell. "MCDC". MCDC? "Motor City Dan Campbell". Ha-ha, I liked that. Why? Why was he given the nickname Motor City Dan Campbell? From Wikipedia:
In his introductory press conference the following day, he famously said,
"This team is going to take on the identity of this city, and this city's been down and it's found a way to get up. This team's going to be built on, we're going to kick you in the teeth. ... We're gonna get knocked down and on the way up, we're going to bite a kneecap off. ... Before long we're going to be the last one standing. Any loss that we take, we're going to feel the full pain from it and not be numb to it."
"When you come in here, you're going to get beat up. I'm talking about the team. Not the city. Tourists are welcome."
Detroit fans nicknamed Campbell. They ate that press conference UP, man. Fucking inhaled it like glue. Bill Cowher with his jut jaw and face was all Steel City. Dan Campbell with his face and his personality is all Motor City. I'm rooting for the "Lions" and MCDC now. Not at the expense of the "Dolphins" but as a secondary interest, like I do Nebraska as second to Pitt, like I do Nottingham Forest as second to Manchester City. And I look forward to watching the "Lions" on TV on Thanksgiving Day in my daughter's new apartment in Waterford, Connecticut. I like their colors. Go "Lions"!
Holmes' Supreme Court Opinions. 8.
Pullman Co. v. Adams, 189 U.S. 420
Decided March 2, 1903.
A scant three-page opinion. No dissent written or noted.
This is an action for taxes, brought by the revenue agent of the state of Mississippi against the Pullman Company.
This is a dumb case is what this is.
Mississippi is dumb. Always has been dumb. It is the Supreme Court's, and Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.'s, disagreeable duty to assume sense where there is an explicit want of it. Holmes is gentle on Mississippi in this opinion and that is in keeping with pragmatism's gentility. Everybody has got their story, even the humblest, and we should listen to them respectfully, a posture also adopted in the preceding case, Bleistein v. Donaldson Lithographing Co. Mississippi was here trying to do a simple thing: tax a railroad for the privilege of operating within its borders. Easy shit. But its laws were dumb:
"§ 3317. A tax on privileges is levied as follows, to-wit: . . . § 3387. Sleeping car companies: on each sleeping and palace car company carrying passengers from one point to another within the state, one hundred dollars, and twenty-five cents per mile for each mile of railroad track over which the company runs its cars."
We assume that the last words mean what afterwards was expressed by an amendment, "over which the company runs its cars in this state."The Pullman Company is an Illinois corporation.
And they contended that the tax on their "assumed" intrastate traffic was an unconstitutional burden on interstate commerce.
So that was a fail.
Then they contended that,
...section 195 of the state constitution, which declares sleeping car companies to be common carriers...
And thus that they were forced to carry Mississippians point-to-point intrastate.
Fail:
The company cannot complain of being taxed for the privilege of doing a local business which it is free to renounce. Both parties agree that the tax is a privilege tax.
But the Supreme Court got no help from Mississippi's laws:
We are somewhat embarrassed in dealing with the case because we are not quite certain whether we rightly interpret the intimations upon the subject in the judgment under review. If the Constitution of Mississippi should be read as imposing an obligation to take local passengers, the question for us might be which, if not both, the clause of the Constitution or the tax act, is invalid. But we assume that the opinion of the Supreme Court of Mississippi intends to meet the difficulty frankly, and when it says that the argument against the tax drawn from the above interpretation of the Constitution is fallacious, we take it as meaning that no such interpretation will be attempted in the future, and we take it so the more readily that we can see no ground for a different view. If we are right in our understanding, the judgment of the supreme court was correct for the reason sufficiently stated above.
Judgment affirmed.
Beard to La-La Clip-Clip
From Woj/ESPN:
The 76ers sent Harden, P.J. Tucker and Filip Petrusev to the Clippers for Marcus Morris, Robert Covington, Nic Batum, KJ Martin, a 2028 unprotected first-round pick, two second-round picks, a 2029 pick swap and an additional first-round pick that will be routed from a third team, sources told ESPN.
Monday, October 30, 2023
Michigan "Scandal" Deepens
-The BALL BOYS are involved.
-WSJ reports the university has pulled its contract extension offer to Harbaugh.
This thing, whether scandal or less, is so clownish that it stains the reputation of Michigan as a serious institution.
Justice Holmes Supreme Court Opinions. 7.
This is out of order. I missed it. It was decided Feb. 2, 1903.
Bleistein v. Donaldson Lithographing Co., 188 U.S. 239.
This is an opus for the time, the majority opinion, by Holmes, is 13 pages long. The case is also notable for two other reasons. First, this opinion drew a dissent, by the Great Dissenter himself, Justice John Marshall Harlan Pause: Wonder what his parents intended him to be when they named him? Unpause, in which Justice McKenna joined. Second, Holmes here, and the Supreme Court majority, reverse an apparently unanimous three-judge federal Circuit Court of Appeals decision authored by Holmes Civil War frenemy and future Supreme Court brother Horace Harmon Lurton. Justice Harlan's dissent is almost entirely cut-and-paste of Judge Lurton's opinion. Very interesting.
This is a copyright case, part of a class of cases that we now call intellectual property that is a linchpin of a modern economy but which in 1903 was new, restrictive on holders' rights and primitively formulated. The statutes governing here were passed only in 1891 and revised in 1895. In this case the subject was the unauthorized use by defendant of images produced by employees of plaintiff to promote a circus.
We shall do no more than mention the suggestion that painting and engraving, unless for a mechanical end, are not among the useful arts, the progress of which Congress is empowered by the Constitution to promote. The Constitution does not limit the useful to that which satisfies immediate bodily needs.
Copyright in the fin de siecle was limited to the "useful arts", only to those "which satisfies immediate bodily needs.” Artwork? Egad, what is the world coming to!
"We shall do no more than mention": that is classic Homes-ese, dismissive. As this,
It is obvious also that the plaintiff's case is not affected by the fact, if it be one, that the pictures represent actual groups -- visible things.
For my delimited task Bleistein is an important opinion by Holmes. The passage below encapsulates Holmes-isms: the dismissive, the reference to famous personages, the jurisprudential zinger. Beyond my writ, Holmes here was what he was indifferently: brilliant, far-sighted, eloquent, and right.
But even if they had been drawn from the life, that fact would not deprive them of protection. The opposite proposition would mean that a portrait by Velasquez or Whistler was common property because others might try their hand on the same face. Others are free to copy the original. They are not free to copy the copy.
The copy is the personal reaction of an individual upon nature. Personality always contains something unique. It expresses its singularity even in handwriting, and a very modest grade of art has in it something irreducible which is one man's alone. That something he may copyright unless there is a restriction in the words of the act.
...The least pretentious picture has more originality in it than directories and the like, which may be copyrighted.
...
...the act, [i.e. statute] however construed, does not mean that ordinary posters are not good enough to be considered within its scope. The antithesis to "illustrations or works connected with the fine arts" is not works of little merit or of humble degree, or illustrations addressed to the less educated classes;...Certainly works are not the less connected with the fine arts because their pictorial quality attracts the crowd, and therefore gives them a real use -- if use means to increase trade and to help to make money. ...the ballet is as legitimate a subject for illustration as any other. A rule cannot be laid down that would excommunicate the paintings of Degas.
It would be a dangerous undertaking for persons trained only to the law to constitute themselves final judges of the worth of pictorial illustrations...some works of genius would be sure to miss appreciation. Their very novelty would make them repulsive until the public had learned the new language in which their author spoke. It may be more than doubted, for instance, whether the etchings of Goya or the paintings of Manet would have been sure of protection when seen for the first time. At the other end, copyright would be denied to pictures which appealed to a public less educated than the judge.
...the taste of any public is not to be treated with contempt.
THERE is Holmes' pragmatism.
...We are of opinion that there was evidence that the plaintiffs have rights entitled to the protection of the law.
The judgment of the circuit court of appeals is reversed; the judgment of the circuit court is also reversed, and the cause remanded to that court with directions to set aside the verdict and grant a new trial.So far, and by a l-o-n-g stretch, this is my favorite opinion by Justice Holmes. This is Justice Harlan's dissent.
Judges Lurton, Day, and Severens, of the circuit court of appeals, concurred in affirming the judgment of the district court. Their views were thus expressed in an opinion delivered by Judge Lurton:
"What we hold is this: that if a chromo, lithograph, or other print, engraving, or picture has no other use than that of a mere advertisement, and no value aside from this function, it would not be promotive of the useful arts within the meaning of the constitutional provision, to protect the 'author' in the exclusive use thereof, and the copyright statute should not be construed as including such a publication if any other construction is admissible. If a mere label simply designating or describing an article to which it is attached, and which has no value separated from the article, does not come within the constitutional clause upon the subject of copyright, it must follow that a pictorial illustration designed and useful only as an advertisement, and having no intrinsic value other than its function as an advertisement, must be equally without the obvious meaning of the Constitution.
It must have some connection with the fine arts to give it intrinsic value, and that it shall have is the meaning which we attach to the Act of June 18, 1874, amending the provisions of the copyright law. We are unable to discover anything useful or meritorious in the design copyrighted by the plaintiffs in error other than as an advertisement of acts to be done or exhibited to the public in Wallace's show. No evidence, aside from the deductions which are to be drawn from the prints themselves, was offered to show that these designs had any original artistic qualities. The jury could not reasonably have found merit or value aside from the purely business object of advertising a show, and the instruction to find for the defendant was not error. Many other points have been urged as justifying the result reached in the court below. We find it unnecessary to express any opinion upon them in view of the conclusion already announced. The judgment must be affirmed." Courier Lithographing Co. v. Donaldson Lithographing Co., 104 F. 993, 996.
I entirely concur in these views, and therefore dissent from the opinion and judgment of this Court. The clause of the Constitution giving Congress power to promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited terms to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective works and discoveries, does not, as I think, embrace a mere advertisement of a circus.
BOO HARLAN, BOO HARLAN!😁
Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. Supreme Court Opinions. 6
Knoxville Water Co. v. Knoxville, 189 U.S. 434
This opinion was issued on March 23, 1903. It was the standard five pages in length.
This is a complaint for a penalty against the Knoxville Water Company for charging and collecting water rates in excess of the rates fixed by the ordinances of the City of Knoxville.
How in the world is this a Supreme Court case?
The water company pleaded that the ordinances...violated the obligation of contracts between the city and itself, and deprived it of its property and liberty without due process of law, and so was contrary to the Constitution of the United States.
Okay. Fair to say that in no conceivable contemporary universe would this case be considered to raise a federal question, much less to implicate the Constitution. Different world.
It has been a while since I read this opinion and I don't remember it so approaching it from our stated purpose, what it might show of the influence of Holmes' "experience" and his philosophy of pragmatism on his judicial opinions, what might we expect to find here?
In The Path of the Law Holmes wrote that predictability is the non plus ultra of lawyering and judging. To this, very early, point in his time on the Court, Holmes has been deferential to the states, a stance that I cannot clearly connect to the culture of this time, less than forty years removed from the Civil War, a time when I assume the emphasis needed to be on United rather than States, but which does provide some ground, however unsteady, for prediction.
Then there are the facts. They are supposed to control all. A case may be distinguished from precedent because here the car was red but there the car was blue. Facts provide some surface friction but a determined court can motor on over them.
I predict that here, in a dispute between a water company and a local government, that Justice Holmes will side with the government. Let's see.
Ooh. The facts are decidedly not on the water company's side. Holmes:
...the company undertook as follows: "Said company will supply private consumers with water at a rate not to exceed five cents per one hundred gallons"...These are the words relied on by the company.
Clear. But to the water company,
They are assumed to contain an implied undertaking on the part of the city not to interfere with the company in establishing rates within the contract limits.
Oh really, water company? So when the city of Knoxville lowered the rate within the contract limits you were deprived of your constitutional right to property. Get the fuck outta town.
The trouble at the bottom of the company's case is that the supposed promise of the city on which it is founded does not exist.
We discover no error in the record, and the judgment of the Supreme Court of Tennessee must be affirmed.
Judgment affirmed.Sunday, October 29, 2023
Ohio has become an obsession to James Franklin. PSU played way too tight against them this season. The team, I sense, is feeling the weight of his obsession. After the 2018 loss Franklin was at his most emotional:
“I'm pretty upset right now because I am hurting for those guys right in that locker room. I know how hard they've worked. The reality is that we have gone from an average football team to a good football team to a great football team. We have worked hard to do those things, but we are not an elite football team yet. As hard as we have worked to go from average to good, and from good to great – the work that it's going to take to get to an elite program, it's going to be just as hard as the ground and the distance that we have already traveled. Scratch and claw and fight. Right now, we are comfortable being great. I am going to make sure that everyone in our program, including myself, is very uncomfortable because you only grow in life when you are uncomfortable. So, we are going to break through and become an elite program by doing all the little things. Lose by one point this year, lose by one point last year, you make that up by all the little things. By going to class consistently so the coaches don't have to babysit you and we can spend our time developing you as men and as people and as players, and not be babysitting little things. …It's all the little things that are going to matter and we are going to find a way to get from being a great program – which we are just so everyone is crystal clear. We are a great program. We lost to an elite program, and we are that close. We have gotten comfortable being great, we will no longer be comfortable being great. We are going to learn from this and grow from this, and we are going to find a way to take that next step as a program because we have been knocking at the door long enough. It is my job as the head coach, I am ultimately responsible for all of it. I will find a way, we will find a way, and with all the support of everybody in this community and everybody on this campus and the lettermen and everybody else, we are going to get this done. I give you my word, we are going to find a way to take the next step. I can read off all these stats, but the stats don't matter. We are done being great. We’re a great team but we’re not an elite team.
“I'm pretty upset right now because I am hurting for those guys right in that locker room. I know how hard they've worked. The reality is that we have gone from an average football team to a good football team to a great football team. We have worked hard to do those things, but we are not an elite football team yet. As hard as we have worked to go from average to good, and from good to great – the work that it's going to take to get to an elite program, it's going to be just as hard as the ground and the distance that we have already traveled. Scratch and claw and fight. Right now, we are comfortable being great. I am going to make sure that everyone in our program, including myself, is very uncomfortable because you only grow in life when you are uncomfortable. So, we are going to break through and become an elite program by doing all the little things. Lose by one point this year, lose by one point last year, you make that up by all the little things. By going to class consistently so the coaches don't have to babysit you and we can spend our time developing you as men and as people and as players, and not be babysitting little things. …It's all the little things that are going to matter and we are going to find a way to get from being a great program – which we are just so everyone is crystal clear. We are a great program. We lost to an elite program, and we are that close. We have gotten comfortable being great, we will no longer be comfortable being great. We are going to learn from this and grow from this, and we are going to find a way to take that next step as a program because we have been knocking at the door long enough. It is my job as the head coach, I am ultimately responsible for all of it. I will find a way, we will find a way, and with all the support of everybody in this community and everybody on this campus and the lettermen and everybody else, we are going to get this done. I give you my word, we are going to find a way to take the next step. I can read off all these stats, but the stats don't matter. We are done being great. We’re a great team but we’re not an elite team.
“ It's getting everybody to commit to waking up every single day and trying to be the best you possibly can be, and we haven't done that. We've gotten to a point where we are great, and we're comfortable with being great. That's the issue. We haven't broken through with these types of programs yet. That's everything. Every single thing matters. I'm going to be all over all of it. Myself, the coaches, the players, the trainers, the doctors, the facilities, the administration—all of it. Because no one's happy with this. Our fans aren't happy. I'm not happy with it. I could sit here and say it's a moral victory and all that because we lost to a higher-ranked team by one point. No. It's not good enough. So, if I drove everybody crazy the last four years, we're going to take it to a whole other level.
“It's all the details. It's all the little things. It's finding a way to overcome adversity consistently. It's, like I said, going to class to consistently. It's getting to meetings on time. It's having your phone turned off in the meetings. It's not settling for a "B" in a class when you could've got an "A". It's taking notes in every single meeting—every single meeting. Not because the coaches told you to do it, but because you want to be great. It's the coaches making sure that that's the standard. That we don't settle, we don't make excuses, we don't allow it to happen. There is a way to be unbelievably successful in life, in football. That's what we're going to do. And we have let little things slip by. That isn't happening, because those little things that have slipped by is one point last year and it's one point this year. It's not happening anymore. You guys thought I was a psychopath in the past? You have no idea. And I don't want you to take it the wrong way. I'm not saying that from a negative standpoint. I'm not a negative guy…we grow every single day and we challenge ourselves every single day and we get uncomfortable. We get comfortable being uncomfortable and break out of "great" to get to that next phase.
“I’m not going to sit here and say it was good enough. It wasn't good enough. And again, I don't want anybody to misinterpret anything. I'm not blaming the players. I'm not blaming the assistant coaches. It's on me. James Franklin. …James Franklin. [emphasis in original] And we're going to get it done together, but ultimately, I'm responsible. I'm going to make sure it gets done, no matter what.
It is one of the greatest, er, most elite, speeches I have ever heard a sports coach give.
It is one of the greatest, er, most elite, speeches I have ever heard a sports coach give.
That was his second straight one-point loss to the “Buckeyes”. The obsession started there. After watching extended highlights of the 2017 and 2018 games I can see how the obsession would develop. I just saw the 2017 game with my own eyes—and in condensed version—and I still don’t know how they lost that game. PSU was no. 2 in the country. Opening kickoff: TD. Then it was 14-0. James was delirious, jumping and hugging quarterback Trace McSorley. Then it was 21-3. It was 35-20 after 3Q. It was 38-27 with 5:42 LEFT IN THE GAME! And STILL they lost.
2017 was one of the most exquisitely painful losses I have ever seen in college tackle football. And that’ll make ya obsessed.
2017 was one of the most exquisitely painful losses I have ever seen in college tackle football. And that’ll make ya obsessed.
You can see the seeds if the tightness that I sense in the 2023 game in that 2018 speech. This year’s QB, Drew Allar was in tears as he faced the media. It is a truism of sports that when you play the game you play best when you play loose. PSU was tighter than a 10-year old’s asshole this year. No wonder, they were playing for an obsessed, self-described “psychopath” who vowed in 2018 to “drive everybody crazy to a whole other level.” That is how you want to coach 19-year old Drew Allar? No. James has to let go of his obsession, lighten up and loosen up or the Ohio game will consume him and his future PSU teams. Godspeed, James. Sincerely. 🙏
AP TOP 25
1. UGA
2. Michigan
3. Ohio
4. Half Ass U
5. Wershington
6. Nike (up tyoo)
7. Texass
8. Bama (up uno)
9. Paterno-Sandusky (up uno. Absurd.)
10. Oklahoma (down 4)
11. ¡Ole! Miss. (up uno)
12. Notre Dame University du lac (up tyoo)
13. Elle Esse Yeux (up tyoo)
14. Mizzou (up tizzou)
15. Loo (up twee)
16. Oregon State (down FIVE)
17. Fly Boyz (up tyoo)
18. UU (down five. GUUD.)
19. Rocky Top (up tyoo)
20. UC at Midwest La La (up twee)
21. Toolane (up uno)
22. ROCK CHALK JAYHAWK
23. Jimmy Mad (up tyoo)
24. University of Southern Midwestern California
25. K-State
2. Michigan
3. Ohio
4. Half Ass U
5. Wershington
6. Nike (up tyoo)
7. Texass
8. Bama (up uno)
9. Paterno-Sandusky (up uno. Absurd.)
10. Oklahoma (down 4)
11. ¡Ole! Miss. (up uno)
12. Notre Dame University du lac (up tyoo)
13. Elle Esse Yeux (up tyoo)
14. Mizzou (up tizzou)
15. Loo (up twee)
16. Oregon State (down FIVE)
17. Fly Boyz (up tyoo)
18. UU (down five. GUUD.)
19. Rocky Top (up tyoo)
20. UC at Midwest La La (up twee)
21. Toolane (up uno)
22. ROCK CHALK JAYHAWK
23. Jimmy Mad (up tyoo)
24. University of Southern Midwestern California
25. K-State
Narduzzi Has Lost the Locker Room. Gulp.
Pat Narduzzi draws ire of Pitt players after postgame callout
I wondered if that might be the case after last week’s lack of discipline against Woke. A player got flagged for a penalty on a play that should have won it for the “Panthers”. That play led to Pitt’s excruciating loss. I worried that that loss rent the team.
Still, I didn’t see last night’s beatdown by Notre Dame coming. Neither did my Big Brother, who predicted a Pitt upset. Narduzzi’s teams don’t lose like they did to Woke; they don’t lose 58-7 to anybody. It was the most one-sided loss in Narduzzi’s head-coaching tenure.
There have been other incidents. Narduzzi called out Pitt fans for booing quarterback Phil Jurkovec as Narduzzi vowed to stick with him…right before he benched Jurkovec. The Jurkovec transfer itself, along with his coordinator at Boston College, was another. That was a complete disaster.
This Pitt team will finish with the worst record of any of Narduzzi’s teams—and the record don’t lie! They are a bad team. And Narduzzi losing his players is another, and the most ominous, incident. The wheels have come off in Oakland.
Saturday, October 28, 2023
thank you
1st and 10 Wisc. own 11, 1:58 4Q. DON'T BE STUPID WISCONSIN. DON'T TRY TO GET IT ALL BACK AT ONCE!
That wasn't very nice
The Boogers went for it on 4th and 10 from the 50. They didn't get it. Ohio has the ball, 2:55 left. I don't think Ohio should risk running any more plays. Just take a knee! Several knees!
Boogers 10 #3 Ohio 24, 5:15 4Q
Fine, that's fine. Could you not give up ONE more point in 5:15? Puhleaz?
Minnehaha 93 Miami 45's 79, 6:21 4Q
Miami Heat Injuries
Oct 28
Caleb MartinSF
StatusOut
Martin (knee) is out for Saturday's game versus the Timberwolves.
Kevin LovePF
StatusOut
Love will not play in Saturday's game against the Timberwolves due to a shoulder injury, Anthony Chiang of the Miami Herald reports.
Josh RichardsonSG
StatusOut
Richardson (foot) is out for Saturday's game versus the Timberwolves.
Jimmy ButlerSF
StatusOut
Butler will not play in Saturday's tilt against the Timberwolves for rest purposes, Anthony Chiang of the Miami Herald reports.
Telling
FT Motown 118 Chitown 102.
Minnehaha 80 Miami 45’s 73, End 3Q. Jimmy’s not playing (“rest”). K-Lo: 27’, 3 pts 1/5 (1/4), 6 assts, 3 to’s.
Wisc. 10. #3 Ohio 17, 7:14 3Q
All I need, noble Boogers, is a loss by 14 or less. That’s ALL I need.
CREDIT POJO?!
5 things to know about a stunning week for the economy
Prolly not. 🤷♂️
The U.S. economy continues to defy gravity.
Data this week showed the economy growing at the fastest pace in nearly two years from July to September. Other reports have also showcased the resilience of the economy.
It's a stunning development, considering that at the beginning of the year, many economists predicted that the economy would tip into a recession as a result of the Federal Reserve's aggressive interest rate hikes.
So what gives?
Here are five takeaways about today's economy, including why forecasters are cautioning that the strong growth may not last.
The economy's strength has been a surprise
The economy got its latest report card this week — and it was very good.
The U.S. economy grew at an annual pace of 4.9% in the third quarter…
…
"The economy is just incredibly resilient, navigating through lots of different headwinds and posting a really boomy-like quarter," said Chief Economist Mark Zandi of Moody's Analytics.
And it all thanks to the consumer
There's a key reason why growth has been so strong: all of us.
Americans have been opening their pocketbooks in a major way, buying more cars and Taylor Swift concert tickets.
…
Personal spending is being propped up by a very strong job market, with an unemployment rate below 4% for 20 months in a row.