Business news suffered a bunch when "how is the Dow doing" became "how is the country doing." It suffered more when "how is the Dow doing" became a read of the collective actions of a bunch of Markov bots. That's the dirty secret nobody wants to talk about: the very same technology that can't come up with a knitting pattern is responsible for filling your 401(k). Again, I think we'll be talking about it A BUNCH as soon as the market rips. Basically, all these bots have hidden the volatility until it breaks through, and when it breaks through it's newsworthy. But in the meantime yeah - when the whole world is bent on telling you everything is normal when all the details indicate it ain't, it's frustrating.

And you're right - nobody wants to talk about food. It's another example of a system that doesn't run the way you're told it runs and bad inputs lead to bad outputs. The beef and dairy industry is 14.5% of the world's greenhouse gas emissions. Also, 73% of the dairy industry's profits are government subsidies. Crops? We pump $16b in subsidies into crops every year so that we have too much of it but China pumps $165b so now it's a trade problem, innit?

In both cases, the system is functional as evolved. In both cases, the system is fragile to shocks from places you wouldn't think.

I dunno. I realized a couple days ago that an ascendant feudal power running out of places to expand and fueled by an irrational need to homogenize describes Germany in 1934 and China in 2020. And I realized that a country released of all environmental regulations that collapses in recession only to be rescued by socialism as engendered by a rich genteel billionaire describes the United States in 1932 and could easily describe the United States in 2020 or 2024. In both cases, things worked out in the end. And in both cases, it was dicey AF in the interim.