stevenkesslar

new Netflix-produced 2:10-long movie just out yesterday on Netflix in the US about the oft-told story of the Uruguayan rugby team stranded in the Andes after a 1972 plane crash.......a Spanish production with Uruguayan and Argentine actors and a reported budget of over 65 million euros........some scenes were filmed at the actual crash site.......has already won several 2023 film festival awards with many more pending this year.....most of the actual survivors watched a showing of it during pre-premiere screenings......fantastic score, effects, cinematography, even make-up (gore, prosthetics).......dubbed English with English subtitles.........exceedingly emotional at the end (have the Kleenex ready!).....rated R for violent action scenes, gore, and brief graphic nudity (the survivors being cleaned up in the showers after rescue)......
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Society_of_the_Snow
https://time.com/6551709/society-of-the-snow-true-story-netflix/
 
 
 

Let's get back to facts and the real world.  The December jobs report came in today and blew past expectations indicating that the US economy remains strong and resilient. there is no recession in sight.   Facts actually do matter.
The US economy added 216,000 jobs in December | CNN Business
WWW.CNN.COM The US economy added 216,000 jobs in December, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data released Friday, blowing past expectations and capping off a year of...  

I agree with @BSR on this one.  To put it in apolitical terms, it goes like this.  It is a fact that my Dad was always a conservative.  It is a fact that I have always been a liberal.  We were both deficit hawks.  In fact, since I got my values from him, he made me a deficit hawk.  Neither one of us viewed it as being a particularly ideological or partisan thing.  It was more the idea that you just don't do things that don't make financial sense.  You don't bury yourself in debt so deep you can't get out.  It is a very bad investment strategy.
I think most Americans see it that way.  
NEW SURVEY: 9-IN-10 VOTERS CALL FOR BIPARTISAN FISCAL COMMISSION AS NEW SPEAKER TAKES HELM
To paraphrase one of the poll results, 90 % of Americans agree that the huge national debt is a problem that needs to be addressed on a bipartisan basis.  I think it would be better if we could all agree that it is not primarily a political problem.  It is an investment problem.  If all of us want a growing stock market or a stable and growing real estate market, this just doesn't help. 
Stated even more simply, 9 out of 10 Americans have basic financial common sense.  We don't want to be buried in debt.  So, like in the 1990's, we should focus on the fact that some type of compromise to do something about massive debt that creates a bad investment environment is doable.  And, just like in the 1990's, it can be done if we all insist on it.
A Surplus If You Can Keep It:  How The Federal Budget Surplus Happened

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Here's the positive thing about what you are doing, Auggie.

It's always good for someone to see the downside of everything.  You're good at it, Auggie.  Mike Wilson at Morgan Stanley is better.  He probably predicted about 1,010 of the 3,830 recessions predicted in the last year. 
Wall Street’s biggest bear Mike Wilson is now predicting an end-of-year stock rally is ‘more likely than not’
The only scary thing to me is that the guy who has been wrong the most for the longest is now saying it is blue skies ahead.  Hope he is right for once!
But let's put voodoo prognostications aside and channel our inner Warren Buffets.  It's all about long term value. It's all about gradual wealth accumulation.
I'll say this two different ways.  One down to earth, and one snobby.
My Dad, a conservative who ran his own small business as an architect,  instilled in me the value of investing, and owning a home.  When my Mom and him died, both almost 100, about half their net worth was in their home.  That is true for most working class and middle class Americans who own homes.  It is why owning a home is, was, and will be part of the American Dream.  And a huge stabilizer in the US and global economy.
Now here's the elitist part.  You're not a very good conservative, Auggie.  If you want to talk the CEO of GE Capital into starting multi-billion dollar home lending programs for working class and minority home buyers, it helps to have that whole conservative schtick down.  You know.  About climbing the ladder through hard work.  Investing.  Buying a home.  Building wealth gradually.  A few other things that help are having a boss known as the mother of the anti-redlining movement, and having the Chair of the Senate Banking Committee on your side.  It also helps when the CEO, Greg Barmore, is a capitalist who believes in capitalism.  And the ability of his company to help middle class and working class America build wealth gradually.   All of this was my reality.  And it is why in the 1990's we had this sweet spot where working class and minority net worth went up gradually and significantly.  Thanks in large part to people being able to buy homes.
You are right about asset bubbles, which is a whole story in itself.  But, basically, the subprime lenders spent roughly 2003 to 2006 figuring out how to royally fuck up lending concepts that had worked well for about 15 years, by being greedy and stupid.  Don't blame working class families for that.  Blame AIG, Countrywide, and Bear Stearns.  I've always been curious how Washington Mutual and GE Capital morphed from the sane lenders I knew in the 80's and 90's to the subprime lenders of 2005.  But I think it was mostly about greed and ego.  That's what former WSJ reporter Bethany McLean argued in All The Devils Are Here, the Bible of the subprime/Wall Street greed debacle.
I have a friend in SF who is kind of the poster child for what you describe.  A bit over a decade ago he bought a condo in SF at exactly the right place at exactly the right time.  The value of his condo went up like a rocket ship.  Then, in 2020, thanks mostly to COVID and people wanting to move to the burbs or Sacramento, his condo was exactly the wrong place at the wrong time.  Was it a bubble?  Maybe, maybe not.  This much is true, though.  Even after a huge drop in value, like six figures, the condo is worth way more than he bought it for.  Had he kept renting, which he did for the first decade I knew him, he would be far, far, far worse off financially today.  Especially in SF, where rent is insane.  I was a renter in SF for a decade, while I escorted and bought homes in places where they were mostly affordable.  So you're not wrong about asset bubbles.  But I'm not wrong about homeownership. 
The big regret of my life is that the subprime lenders were allowed to fuck up the American Dream for a while.  We could talk about who ran the Banking Committees and regulatory agencies from 2003 to 2006, which is precisely when that happened.  But that would sound too partisan.  Thankfully, even the subprime lenders and derivatives traders failed to fuck up homeownership permanently.  So we are back in business.  People do have money.  Home equity is not cash in pocket.  Which is actually a good thing.  That is what my conservative Dad taught me.  Don't treat your home like a piggy bank.
Are we in a home asset bubble now?  Maybe, maybe not.  You're (supposedly) a conservative capitalist.  So surely you understand supply and demand.  Am I wrong to think that the demand for homes is strong, and we have a lack of supply?  And that, even if mortgage rates went down to 4 %, that would only drive demand higher without fixing the supply problem?  That is partly because, thank God, the majority of Americans - not just a few old rich people - own their homes.  And they mostly own them with low fixed rate mortgages.  Which is a huge bedrock of financial stability.
So even if some of the value in homes is a "bubble" it is a small percentage of the value.  Especially for anyone who has owned their home for years or decades.  My best guess is we may replay the 1990's, and not the Great Recession.  Meaning from 1990 to 2000 the average price of a home in LA went up a little bit, in dollar terms.  But it went down something like 20 %, adjusted for inflation.  I think demand is too strong and supply is too weak to drive the kind of foreclosure crisis we had in 2008, which tanked home values.  Most important, nobody allowed the subprime lenders back in the market.  Very few Americans have mortgages that were designed to explode.

That article you posted above about how most Americans have "less savings" is also a great example of how to write a "the sky is falling" headline.  I've worked with a lot of reporters in my life.  Including one who won a Pulitzer based in part on data that a college professor and I helped him put together on bank redlining.  I know a bit about how it's done.
The article notes correctly that net worth is at a "record high" based on the Fed report I cited above.  It states that the driver - homes and stocks - tend to be forms of wealth that are "more prevalent among wealthier households."  I'm okay with that definition.  But, by that standard, 2 in 3 Americans own homes.  So 2 in 3 Americans are "wealthier households"  whose net worth is at a "record high".  Explain to me again why the sky is falling? 🤔
I'm betting on Glenn Neely being right, and the stock market reaching all time highs.  Maybe some of his schtick is voodoo.  But it also makes sense to me based on the chart above.  It's true that we have just seen a huge run up in consumer debt,  And that consumers have "less savings".  It is also true that this is because for a while people were encouraged to stay home.  And getting on a plane was a pain in the ass.  So they were forced to save, and got government checks to boot.  For some strange reason, savings went up and consumer debt went to record lows.  So now what we have is people spending money and going into debt at the same rate they were before the pandemic, when the economy and stock market were growing. 
Explain to me again how this tells me the sky is falling?  Because it seems like the economy is growing - 5 % GDP growth last quarter.  And even the bears like Wilson are now bulls.
 
 

The thing that is also interesting, and somewhat inexplicable, is that when it comes to inflation the US is doing so much better than  (name a country on the planet Earth.)  Right now escaping the misery of inflation is increasingly a good reason to live in America.
Current inflation rate:
United Kingdom  8. 7 %
Australia  7 %
Germany  6.4 %
Euro Area  5.5 %
Mexico 5.1 %
India  4.8 %
France 4.5 %
Canada  3.4 %
Russia  3.2 %
United States  3 %
This does suggest that the causes of the post-COVID global inflation spike are ............. well ............ global.  Last year when inflation was peaking the US was in the middle of that list of major nations.  Pretty much everybody was sharing the misery.  Now the US appears to be recovering from the spike quicker than most of the rest of the planet.
The good news on inflation probably helps explain why the looming US recession has been MIA for about a year now.  Europe is on the brink of recession.  And high energy prices seem like a logical thing to blame that on.  While US gas prices are still relatively high, they are down from a national peak of almost $5 last Summer to $3.57 now.  That's one thing that could be fueling an apparent soft landing. 
This is all good news.  The stock market sure seems to think so. 
We may be climbing a wall of worry.  But we still have to climb out of an inverted yield curve, which almost always ends in a recession.  (In 1966 it didn't, so there is hope.)
 

I agree with @BSR on this one.  To put it in apolitical terms, it goes like this.  It is a fact that my Dad was always a conservative.  It is a fact that I have always been a liberal.  We were both deficit hawks.  In fact, since I got my values from him, he made me a deficit hawk.  Neither one of us viewed it as being a particularly ideological or partisan thing.  It was more the idea that you just don't do things that don't make financial sense.  You don't bury yourself in debt so deep you can't get out.  It is a very bad investment strategy.
I think most Americans see it that way.  
NEW SURVEY: 9-IN-10 VOTERS CALL FOR BIPARTISAN FISCAL COMMISSION AS NEW SPEAKER TAKES HELM
To paraphrase one of the poll results, 90 % of Americans agree that the huge national debt is a problem that needs to be addressed on a bipartisan basis.  I think it would be better if we could all agree that it is not primarily a political problem.  It is an investment problem.  If all of us want a growing stock market or a stable and growing real estate market, this just doesn't help. 
Stated even more simply, 9 out of 10 Americans have basic financial common sense.  We don't want to be buried in debt.  So, like in the 1990's, we should focus on the fact that some type of compromise to do something about massive debt that creates a bad investment environment is doable.  And, just like in the 1990's, it can be done if we all insist on it.
A Surplus If You Can Keep It:  How The Federal Budget Surplus Happened

The Absolute Worst Predictions of 2023
PREDICTED BY: A WHOLE LOT OF PEOPLE …
CNBC, Oct. 10, 2022: “JPMorgan’s Jamie Dimon warns U.S. likely to tip into recession in 6 to 9 months” Bloomberg, Oct. 17, 2022: “Forecast for US Recession Within Year Hits 100% in Blow to Biden” The Economist, Nov. 18, 2022: “Why a global recession is inevitable in 2023” Bloomberg, Dec. 6, 2022: “Wall Street Chorus Grows Louder Warning That 2023 Will Be Ugly” Wall Street Journal, Jan. 2, 2023: “Big Banks Predict Recession, Fed Pivot in 2023” Fox Business, Feb. 6, 2023: “Bank of America ‘still forecasting’ 2023 recession” POLITICO, April 4, 2023: “Jamie Dimon warns of new economic storms ahead” CNBC on April 12, 2023: “Fed expects banking crisis to cause a recession this year, minutes show”

Thanks for confirming my point.  The sky is falling!  The sky is falling!  The sky is falling!
I read @EZEtoGRU's point about staying on the topic of recession.  So I will only focus on how the two things are related.
I'm actually a bit surprised how pissed so many people are about inflation.  I don't feel the sting.  But I'm a Gay man with a decent income and high net worth.  Which I think is the point.  Everyone in my family and friends who is like me feels about the same.  
The people I know who bitch about inflation are people with lower incomes struggling to get by.  My tenants are among them.  They are working class families with kids, mostly, who are mostly one paycheck away from doom.  The main way I have contributed to their fate is keeping all their rents way below market rate.  It helps me, because they are stable tenants who don't move.  But they don't have much net worth.  And I'm pretty sure inflation in a family with kids hurts a lot more.
I think what the polls say loud and clear is that young people are the most pissed.  Because they are the least likely to own homes or stocks.  Because they are young.  And they are the most likely to be paying rents that have gone up a lot.  So it probably feels like no gain, all pain.  That is factually incorrect.  Because as I noted above their net worth doubled.  Prices did not double.  But if what that means is you have some stocks that you don't touch, and meanwhile your rent goes up a lot, you might be pissed.  Even if your income is going up as well.  At some point, if you have to spend less, that could cause a recession.
Now that student loans kicked back in, the best estimates seem to be it could shave a fraction of 1 % off GDP growth.  So that won't kick an economy growing in the most recent quarter at 5 % into recession.  But 40 % of borrowers missed their first payment.  So it has to be causing some pain.
Meanwhile, the two thirds of America that own homes, who tend to be older, are making out like bandits.  I'll personalize it.  My monthly housing cost is about $2000 a month, which includes a mortgage with taxes and insurance.  How much has it gone up since 2019?  Pretty much zero.  And it is far and away my biggest monthly expense.  Now my pool servicing has gone up.  I'll guess maybe $25 a month.  Life sure sucks, doesn't it?  Meanwhile, my home equity is just not keeping pace.  It only went up about $200,000 since 2019.  Life sure sucks. doesn't it?  Somehow, I can manage to pay the $25 more a month to service my pool.  And the extra $30 or whatever it is that groceries may cost when I go to the store.  If we have a recession, please don't blame it on me.
I think the broader economic principle is that when people have higher net worth, they tend to spend more and save less.  As I noted above, that is exactly what happened in the 1990's.  And, by the way, we used some of that growth to pay down government debt.  There's a thought! 
You can say that it is good or bad.  But it is real.  And it drives economic growth, not a recession.

fact-check verb   investigate (an issue) in order to verify the facts. "I didn't fact-check the assertions in the editorial" Actually, Auggie, consumers are running on record net worth.  
The Average American’s Net Worth Jumped 37% in 3 Years
You've done an awesome job of persuading me you are emotionally committed to the idea that the end is near, the sky is falling, and of course there is, was, and will be a recession - always and forever, until the management changes.
That's the part that sucks.  The not so sucky part is that homeownership is at a record high - two in three Americans own their homes - and home values are up.  Most Americans have very stable and low fixed rate mortgages.  Or just own their home free and clear. Most data I read suggest young Americans have it the worst, and are pissed.  Like especially young families who want to buy homes at sky high interest rates.  That said, the net worth of Americans under 35 doubled in three years, from $16,000 to $39,000.  It can't suck that bad, can it?
This is one of the main reasons median net worth increased from $141,100 in 2019 to $192,900 in 2022.  Sucks, huh?  I know from past posts that you'll now pivot from "The sky is falling!" to "It's a bubble!"  Which one is it?  While you are figuring that out, I calculated that the additional $51,800 in net worth for a typical American would buy 3,985 Big Mac meals at $13 a pop.  Hungry, anyone?  That should keep the economy going for a while.
Consumer debt is lower than it has been for most of the last half century.  It was even lower during the pandemic, thanks to lots of enforced savings because people couldn't go to Italy.  So they just remodeled their home instead.  And of course add in all that government money. 
If the question is, "what might keep us out of a recession?", the ability of consumers to spend more would be one good answer.  To put it in relative terms, right now at 10 % of income consumer debt is LOWER than it was in the early 90's, at the start of the biggest bull market in our lifetimes.  By the end of that bull market consumer debt rose to 13 % of income.  Which of course partly helped fuel the boom.  If the future is anything like the past half century, consumer debt is below average and is more likely to go up than down now - fueling economic growth, corporate profits, and higher stock prices.
Now I'll put on my prognosticator hat.  What might drive growth and keep us out of a recession?  I have two answers, citing three people who are smarter than me.
When Stanley Druckenmiller was actually predicting the sky was falling after the 1987 crash, some voodoo stock chart guy named Glenn Neely predicted the biggest bull market ever.  Druckenmiller now admits he was wrong, but is also a lot richer.  Neely admits he was right, and is also a lot richer.  Sucks to be them, huh?  Neely called a one year bull market last June, predicting the S & P would hit something like 5500 in 2024.  So far he looks to be right.  He is also predicting the bull market will keep going for years, with corrections along the way.  His thesis is that capitalism and free markets are going to win.  Frankly, right now, I'm a bit pessimistic.  Vlad had a much better year than everyone thought he would.  That said, China and the US both seem to want to keep the global economy chugging.  So it's a scary and uncertain time.  But Neely could be right.
Druckenmiller could be, too.  I think his call on the big federal debt bomb is correct.  He said at a conference earlier this year that government can and probably will kick the can down the road until the 2030's, when the trust funds for things like Social Security run dry.  Meanwhile, he is big on NVDA and AI.  He said that booms like that can last for years.  It's too soon to tell.  But so far he is right.
I'm personally skeptical about AI.  I'm more worried about how it will shred jobs than how it will increase corporate profits.  That said, this video is worth watching.  It's the CEO of Nvidia.
The thing that worries me is his seemingly guileless tone when asked repeatedly about all the havoc AI could wreak.  He's more worried about his own company's survival than the impact of the technology on the world, or jobs. 
That said, if you watch nothing else watch the last four minutes or so.  To quote him, he says "It's a big deal, because it's a complete reinvention of the computer industry."  New networks, new switching, new computer design, new software, new data centers.  All driven by us stupid passive investors, who are piling money into NVDA and SOXL and their ilk.  It's capitalism, and it sucks, right?  But I could see this driving a boom and a bull market, just like in the 90's.
If we survive AI, things might be okay.  It could actually drive prosperity.  If that happens, like Druckenmiller, I hope the government spends some of the windfall capital gains taxes on reducing the deficit.  It happened in the 1990's.  It could happen again, if we could just agree.  Think about that while you're munching on your 3,985 Big Macs, Auggie.  😉

Finally finished the last episode last night.  If the measure of great film is it makes you think and feel a lot, including lots of conflicted feelings, this was an LGBTQ masterpiece.  But also a very hard watch.  Even though both male leads are adorable eye candy.  Do they have an award for eye candy that is nevertheless painful to watch?  🤔  Matt and Johnny  deserve awards for that alone.  As well as for their subtle performances.
I ended up reading Reddit discussions of each of the last three episodes, since I was curious what others thought.  Some thought Hawk was a selfish monster who never really loved anyone.  Others thought he was madly in love, but it always came out sideways.  Pretty much everyone loved Tim.  Although several people got the memo that Hawk's actions in the 50's had a certain cruel logic to them.  Given that government and society were breathing down the necks of men who loved men.
I found the 60's and 70's episodes particularly frustrating.  The world was literally on fire.  And Nyswaner situated Tim and the supporting characters right in the middle of these freedom movements.  But most of the plot was about how Hawk and his family were trapped, and lost, in a cage of Hawk's own creation.  I kept wanting those episodes to be about Tim, and how he was changing.  That actually could make a good sequel.  But I understand why the focus was on how Hawk was stuck.  In some alternative Gay universe, this movie will win a porn award for the most horrific three way ever. 🤢
Given that none of this was in the book, it was necessary to take the movie where it wanted to go.  Which was a path to repentance and redemption for Hawk.  That was very moving, even if Hawk was not easy to love.
The film went to very emotionally searing places that the book didn't.  I think it will stand as a masterpiece and memorial to all the lives and loves that were lost due to homophobia and hate.  Including internalized homophobia, and self-hatred.  So the ending fit quite well. Hate you, Roy.  Love you, Tim. 
And I'm delighted that Matt Bomer gets to live the life the character he played never did.  That - and all the lives and love and commitment that went into making it even possible - redeems everything.

Cohn was drowning in hate, being a vain gay and Jewish in the 50's, with an ugly scar running down his nose. A Shakespearean character of his own making, especially after he was awarded power and fame from the Rosenberg trial at the age of 24. The self-hatred among gays in the 50's is what struck me in this story. The closet was a very ugly, Hell-ish place to live. The fact that Joe McCarthy and his ilk were mostly Catholic was the second most disturbing truth from the series. Unforgivable cruelty and evil, all for the sake of power and fame.
Most young gays today have no clue that our government behaved the way it did in the 50's. Do they teach this stuff in red state schools? Absolutely not. I doubt much of this gets taught in blue state schools. The suicide rate during the McCarthy era was staggering.
As for acting, Jonathan Bailey stood out for me. His character was incredibly layered and complex. Given how he speaks in real life, I thought his acting was amazing.

Finally finished the last episode last night.  If the measure of great film is it makes you think and feel a lot, including lots of conflicted feelings, this was an LGBTQ masterpiece.  But also a very hard watch.  Even though both male leads are adorable eye candy.  Do they have an award for eye candy that is nevertheless painful to watch?  🤔  Matt and Johnny  deserve awards for that alone.  As well as for their subtle performances.
I ended up reading Reddit discussions of each of the last three episodes, since I was curious what others thought.  Some thought Hawk was a selfish monster who never really loved anyone.  Others thought he was madly in love, but it always came out sideways.  Pretty much everyone loved Tim.  Although several people got the memo that Hawk's actions in the 50's had a certain cruel logic to them.  Given that government and society were breathing down the necks of men who loved men.
I found the 60's and 70's episodes particularly frustrating.  The world was literally on fire.  And Nyswaner situated Tim and the supporting characters right in the middle of these freedom movements.  But most of the plot was about how Hawk and his family were trapped, and lost, in a cage of Hawk's own creation.  I kept wanting those episodes to be about Tim, and how he was changing.  That actually could make a good sequel.  But I understand why the focus was on how Hawk was stuck.  In some alternative Gay universe, this movie will win a porn award for the most horrific three way ever. 🤢
Given that none of this was in the book, it was necessary to take the movie where it wanted to go.  Which was a path to repentance and redemption for Hawk.  That was very moving, even if Hawk was not easy to love.
The film went to very emotionally searing places that the book didn't.  I think it will stand as a masterpiece and memorial to all the lives and loves that were lost due to homophobia and hate.  Including internalized homophobia, and self-hatred.  So the ending fit quite well. Hate you, Roy.  Love you, Tim. 
And I'm delighted that Matt Bomer gets to live the life the character he played never did.  That - and all the lives and love and commitment that went into making it even possible - redeems everything.

We've come a long way from Philadelphia.
This interview with writer/creator Ron Nyswamer, which doesn't contain any spoilers,  was helpful to me in terms of understanding why the characters may have been developed the way they are.  This part in particular jumped off the page: 
I find Bomer's character to be morally ambiguous, at best.  But I think that may be the point.
Nyswamer was nominated for an Oscar way back in 1994 for writing Philadelphia.  That was clearly an effort to bring The Gays into the mainstream and create sympathy.  How could anyone not open their heart to Tom Hanks, with AIDS?  And it worked.  But my point is that it was also kind of one-dimensional.  We were moving victims.  Not the guys with the adorable boyfriends in romcoms.
What I am loving about LGBTQ cinema now is that we can be multi-dimensional, and all kinds of things.  Heroes, and assholes, and morally ambiguous people just trying to get by.  I loved Red White and Royal Blue because it was a sweet, if shallow, fairy tale about what the future for young Gay and Bi men can now be.  Fellow Travelers is anything but.  More like the opposite.  I think part of the statement Nyswamer was trying to make, which is okay to say now, is "Here's the shit we had to put up with.  Here's how it kind of warped people.  And yet, we were not beaten down.  We survived."
If that is part of his message, I find it noble in a very realistic way.  It's an emotionally piercing exploration of what McCarthyite homophobia and hypocrisy, and AIDS, did to our past.  And, proudly, we survived.  I'm looking forward to seeing where this goes.  Even if it is not as easy on the heart as Bomer and Bailey are on the eyes.  😉
 
 

Finally finished the last episode last night.  If the measure of great film is it makes you think and feel a lot, including lots of conflicted feelings, this was an LGBTQ masterpiece.  But also a very hard watch.  Even though both male leads are adorable eye candy.  Do they have an award for eye candy that is nevertheless painful to watch?  🤔  Matt and Johnny  deserve awards for that alone.  As well as for their subtle performances.
I ended up reading Reddit discussions of each of the last three episodes, since I was curious what others thought.  Some thought Hawk was a selfish monster who never really loved anyone.  Others thought he was madly in love, but it always came out sideways.  Pretty much everyone loved Tim.  Although several people got the memo that Hawk's actions in the 50's had a certain cruel logic to them.  Given that government and society were breathing down the necks of men who loved men.
I found the 60's and 70's episodes particularly frustrating.  The world was literally on fire.  And Nyswaner situated Tim and the supporting characters right in the middle of these freedom movements.  But most of the plot was about how Hawk and his family were trapped, and lost, in a cage of Hawk's own creation.  I kept wanting those episodes to be about Tim, and how he was changing.  That actually could make a good sequel.  But I understand why the focus was on how Hawk was stuck.  In some alternative Gay universe, this movie will win a porn award for the most horrific three way ever. 🤢
Given that none of this was in the book, it was necessary to take the movie where it wanted to go.  Which was a path to repentance and redemption for Hawk.  That was very moving, even if Hawk was not easy to love.
The film went to very emotionally searing places that the book didn't.  I think it will stand as a masterpiece and memorial to all the lives and loves that were lost due to homophobia and hate.  Including internalized homophobia, and self-hatred.  So the ending fit quite well. Hate you, Roy.  Love you, Tim. 
And I'm delighted that Matt Bomer gets to live the life the character he played never did.  That - and all the lives and love and commitment that went into making it even possible - redeems everything.

I haven't been to the mainstream movies in eight years. I saw "Minions", because I had a complimentary pass. There was one other person in the theater, and he thought it was acceptable to whack off to this film. I don't have a punchline for the horror of this happening, but it did give me flashbacks to the Pussycat Theatres from the 1980s, where his action wasn't uncommon, but seeing minions of a different kind was. 

I also hated the film.  Thought it was predictable and shallow.
Love the cast but that's about it.

Or maybe the dialogue went over Emerald Fennell's head.  
I often like to read Metacritic reviews after I watch a movie that was interesting or, in this case, just weird.  This is one that reviewers either love or hate.  I hated it.  So I read more reviews than usual wondering why some people might love it.  This was the best description of the message, if you can call it that:
Actually, Jacob Elordi is all it really needs.
In terms of why some people might actually like it, I thought the BBC nailed it:
Speaking of fantasies, and penetration, I figured out about 30 minutes into the film that the only reason to keep watching it was Jacob Elordi.  I wouldn't mind a sequel, or just a porn movie, featuring Elordi dancing around naked.  Or just being penetrating, in a particular way that the film was not.
What do you say, Jacob?

If I had to name one thing that would drive a recession in the next year, it would be commercial lending.  There was some recent report that up to 500 banks, mostly regional, are at risk.  Because they have a lot of loans on their books to office buildings and retail that were negatively impacted by COVID. 
So far, that's a theory.  As you said, I don't think any of these geniuses know what is going to cause a recession.   They'll figure it out with 20/20 hindsight. 
The poster child for that is subprime.  I thought it was obvious that there was a massive housing bubble that was going to burst.  In part because they were really toxic loans, designed to blow up.  But Alan Greenspan, for one, didn't see it coming.   Something similar is not at all apparent to me on commercial loans.  Yes, they are under stress.  Yes, lots of those loans have to be refinanced in 2024 or 2025 at higher rates.  But will it cause some big explosion like subprime?  That's very murky.  We'll know it when it happens.  if it happens. 
Meanwhile, Glenn Neely's prediction six months ago that we'll be at S & P 5500 by Summer 2024 or so is looking more likely.  We're now half way there.
I don't buy all the pessimism about consumer debt and consumer financial stability.  Yes, inflation sucks.  Yes, I want my fucking Big Mac for 25 cents, like in the good old days.  But, that said, 2 in 3 Americans own homes with low fixed rates.  Middle America's average net worth went way up.  Consumer debt balances were at all time lows during COVID, and have now simply returned to the low side of normal.  Consumers are the ones who will drive prosperity, not a recession.  Even if what a Big Mac costs does suck.
I brought up the federal deficit because a lot of smart people - Druckenmiller, Dalio - argue that could cause a huge financial crisis.  But they are not saying that is imminent, or anytime soon.  We have time to get our shit together before anything like that hits, at least in their minds.

Thanks for confirming my point.  The sky is falling!  The sky is falling!  The sky is falling!
I read @EZEtoGRU's point about staying on the topic of recession.  So I will only focus on how the two things are related.
I'm actually a bit surprised how pissed so many people are about inflation.  I don't feel the sting.  But I'm a Gay man with a decent income and high net worth.  Which I think is the point.  Everyone in my family and friends who is like me feels about the same.  
The people I know who bitch about inflation are people with lower incomes struggling to get by.  My tenants are among them.  They are working class families with kids, mostly, who are mostly one paycheck away from doom.  The main way I have contributed to their fate is keeping all their rents way below market rate.  It helps me, because they are stable tenants who don't move.  But they don't have much net worth.  And I'm pretty sure inflation in a family with kids hurts a lot more.
I think what the polls say loud and clear is that young people are the most pissed.  Because they are the least likely to own homes or stocks.  Because they are young.  And they are the most likely to be paying rents that have gone up a lot.  So it probably feels like no gain, all pain.  That is factually incorrect.  Because as I noted above their net worth doubled.  Prices did not double.  But if what that means is you have some stocks that you don't touch, and meanwhile your rent goes up a lot, you might be pissed.  Even if your income is going up as well.  At some point, if you have to spend less, that could cause a recession.
Now that student loans kicked back in, the best estimates seem to be it could shave a fraction of 1 % off GDP growth.  So that won't kick an economy growing in the most recent quarter at 5 % into recession.  But 40 % of borrowers missed their first payment.  So it has to be causing some pain.
Meanwhile, the two thirds of America that own homes, who tend to be older, are making out like bandits.  I'll personalize it.  My monthly housing cost is about $2000 a month, which includes a mortgage with taxes and insurance.  How much has it gone up since 2019?  Pretty much zero.  And it is far and away my biggest monthly expense.  Now my pool servicing has gone up.  I'll guess maybe $25 a month.  Life sure sucks, doesn't it?  Meanwhile, my home equity is just not keeping pace.  It only went up about $200,000 since 2019.  Life sure sucks. doesn't it?  Somehow, I can manage to pay the $25 more a month to service my pool.  And the extra $30 or whatever it is that groceries may cost when I go to the store.  If we have a recession, please don't blame it on me.
I think the broader economic principle is that when people have higher net worth, they tend to spend more and save less.  As I noted above, that is exactly what happened in the 1990's.  And, by the way, we used some of that growth to pay down government debt.  There's a thought! 
You can say that it is good or bad.  But it is real.  And it drives economic growth, not a recession.

In those articles, they quote Jamie Dimon predicting economic "headwinds" coming 
and more recently that economic
"storms" are approaching, which sounds worse, right?
One thing for sure, we might all agree with Dimon when he warns
 “...you can’t talk about the economy without talking about stuff in the future — and this is serious stuff,”
No wonder he leads the biggest of the big banks.  
 
I recall the last recession followed a financial implosion that was caused by misbehavior of large institutions after shadow investments on Wall Street were deregulated.
 
In more recent times, bank failures were in the news.   Were those an anomaly?   Perhaps so, because GDP has been rising since those failures.  
That said, I believe a recession will come.  They always do, right?
Frankly, I don't believe the big banks or Jamie Dimon know what stuff will ultimately be the cause.  Hopefully he will just stay out of the way and not add to the "stuff" our economy encounters. 
 

The Absolute Worst Predictions of 2023
PREDICTED BY: A WHOLE LOT OF PEOPLE …
CNBC, Oct. 10, 2022: “JPMorgan’s Jamie Dimon warns U.S. likely to tip into recession in 6 to 9 months” Bloomberg, Oct. 17, 2022: “Forecast for US Recession Within Year Hits 100% in Blow to Biden” The Economist, Nov. 18, 2022: “Why a global recession is inevitable in 2023” Bloomberg, Dec. 6, 2022: “Wall Street Chorus Grows Louder Warning That 2023 Will Be Ugly” Wall Street Journal, Jan. 2, 2023: “Big Banks Predict Recession, Fed Pivot in 2023” Fox Business, Feb. 6, 2023: “Bank of America ‘still forecasting’ 2023 recession” POLITICO, April 4, 2023: “Jamie Dimon warns of new economic storms ahead” CNBC on April 12, 2023: “Fed expects banking crisis to cause a recession this year, minutes show”

Inflation drops below 3% in November. Recession likely avoided. 
 
Inflation finally dips below 3 percent as U.S. economy nears 'soft landing'
STOCKS.APPLE.COM A key annual inflation metric fell below 3 percent in November, the latest sign that the U.S. is coming...  

The Absolute Worst Predictions of 2023
PREDICTED BY: A WHOLE LOT OF PEOPLE …
CNBC, Oct. 10, 2022: “JPMorgan’s Jamie Dimon warns U.S. likely to tip into recession in 6 to 9 months” Bloomberg, Oct. 17, 2022: “Forecast for US Recession Within Year Hits 100% in Blow to Biden” The Economist, Nov. 18, 2022: “Why a global recession is inevitable in 2023” Bloomberg, Dec. 6, 2022: “Wall Street Chorus Grows Louder Warning That 2023 Will Be Ugly” Wall Street Journal, Jan. 2, 2023: “Big Banks Predict Recession, Fed Pivot in 2023” Fox Business, Feb. 6, 2023: “Bank of America ‘still forecasting’ 2023 recession” POLITICO, April 4, 2023: “Jamie Dimon warns of new economic storms ahead” CNBC on April 12, 2023: “Fed expects banking crisis to cause a recession this year, minutes show”

The Absolute Worst Predictions of 2023
PREDICTED BY: A WHOLE LOT OF PEOPLE …
CNBC, Oct. 10, 2022: “JPMorgan’s Jamie Dimon warns U.S. likely to tip into recession in 6 to 9 months” Bloomberg, Oct. 17, 2022: “Forecast for US Recession Within Year Hits 100% in Blow to Biden” The Economist, Nov. 18, 2022: “Why a global recession is inevitable in 2023” Bloomberg, Dec. 6, 2022: “Wall Street Chorus Grows Louder Warning That 2023 Will Be Ugly” Wall Street Journal, Jan. 2, 2023: “Big Banks Predict Recession, Fed Pivot in 2023” Fox Business, Feb. 6, 2023: “Bank of America ‘still forecasting’ 2023 recession” POLITICO, April 4, 2023: “Jamie Dimon warns of new economic storms ahead” CNBC on April 12, 2023: “Fed expects banking crisis to cause a recession this year, minutes show”