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The Gates Depression

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44 Comments

  1. Dear Catherine

    In the Notes for ‘Questions for Catherine’ you are asked you about flip phones and you reply that you’re researching them. Can you please briefly explain what is so special or different about flip phones and what their significance or advantage is?

    Also, many thanks to the subscriber who shared his extensive information on assessing web browsers.

  2. Dear Catherine

    What an excellent report! You have given me so much to think about.

    You suggest writing letters to public officials. When I hear this I imagine an old Colonel Blimp type chap getting all indignant and threatening that he’s going to write a letter to The Times, convinced that this will put the world in order. I suspect that in reality when letters arrive they are opened and if there is a cheque enclosed it is taken out. Then rest is put in the wastepaper basket.

    I loved your Hypocrisy Awards. I found this link to the Tucker Carlson clip in which he reports on some of the offenders you mentioned:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFNvcw12d08

    At the end of Carlson’s clip he says, “They simply don’t care enough about your opinion to bother with what you think.” In such a world, where lobbyists influence outcomes and elections are manipulated, would my writing letters really accomplish anything other than wasting my time?

    Later on you talked about the American bankruptcy epidemic. Let’s spare a thought for people in counties which do not have bankruptcy laws. In Germany, for example, there is no personal bankruptcy, no second chance. (In German the word for ‘debt’ and ‘guilt’ is the same.) Bankruptcy in Germany is only available to companies, which means that people can never escape. They must carry their debts with them until they die. As far as I know there is no personal bankruptcy in China https://www.gdlaw.ca/blog/2019/06/no-personal-bankruptcy-laws-in-china.html
    or in Viet Nam or in a host of other countries, especially those with a strong culture of face-saving. People there must turn to the black market where they get caught in a spiral of debt which with usurious interest rates spirals out of control. If they don’t pay back everything plus interest on time they or their family members wind up being maimed or killed as a punishment and also as a lesson to others as to what happens on those who renege. One way people try to get out of this debt spiral is by selling their organs, but I expect that now, if the law of supply and demand are still working then the glut of people selling their organs will shift the supply curve upwards meaning that the price these desperate people get for their kidneys will drop significantly. Compared to this, bankruptcy doesn’t seem so bad

    To end on a happy note, I am indeed looking forward to hearing your causes for optimism as I am to your next report.

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