Students from U.S. families with an annual income of $80,000 or less with typical assets will attend USC tuition-free. The Trojans cancelled the scheduled Sept. 4, 2021 football game vs. UC Davis. UC Davis is the kind of FCS (i.e., minor league) program that SEC schools love to load up their non-conference schedules with. The only three FBS schools never to have played an FBS program are USC, Notre Dame and UCLA. To me, that is a point of pride. I was very disappointed when I heard they scheduled the game and I’m glad they cancelled it. Read more →
EppsNet Archive: Money
EppsNet Restaurant Reviews: Sasabune
The innovation is the warm, vinegar-flavored rice and the wide, almost circular cut of the fish. Also, unlike Oshima (in this reviewer’s opinion, the best sushi establishment in Orange County), the chef did not have such a pronounced accent that I couldn’t understand what he was saying when he presented the fish. Try to maintain your equanimity when you see the bill, which for us came to about $120 per person (no sake or other beverages), so you don’t look like a rube. Rating: Read more →
How Much Would You Pay For a Watch?
I got an oddball email today from Amazon . . . Hello Paul Epps, We found something we think you might like. And what they thought I might like was the item on the right, a Breitling Navitimer 1 Automatic 38mm Steel & Red Gold – Silver Watch, which retails for $4,284.50 (free shipping included!). I do like it — click through on it, it’s a real beauty — but “liking” a $4,000 watch and having any intention of buying one are two entirely different things. Why they thought I’d be a good target customer for this email I have no idea. I’ve never shopped for watches on Amazon, nor have I ever made an Amazon purchase at anywhere close to a $4,000 price point. It’s the weirdest thing Amazon’s done since the time I was browsing for a book on software development principles and they suggested that I might… Read more →
The Problem With Van Gogh is He Did Not Know What Sells
Here’s an article by some artistic nobody on the subject of Art That Sells: Top Themes, Subjects, and Mediums for Best-Selling Art. “As an artist,” he says, “I like to know what sells.” Right! Leave the starving artist shtick to some other starry-eyed clod. The article delivers on its promise, enumerating the most popular genres, themes, subjects, media, colors, sizes, etc. Van Gogh, to my knowledge, did not sell a single painting in his lifetime. He did not “know what sells.” It saddens me to think that if only we could reverse the hands of time and make the information in this article available to him, perhaps he could have made something of himself and still been alive today. Read more →
What Can USC Students Tell Us About Inequality?
Well, according to the New York Times, some USC students jet to Bali for spring break, while some of their classmates work overnight shifts to pay for books! Instead of inequality, think of it as diversity. So now it’s a good thing! The Times for some reason writes USC as U.S.C., even though nobody does that. I’ve noticed the Times always measures life outcomes in terms of money, like that’s the only possible criterion. What ‘s so great about jetting to Bali anyway? What are you going to do, lay on a fucking beach? There are 50 beaches within two hours of USC. It’s the same sun up in the sky. You’re the same person with the same problems in Bali as you are here. You jet to Bali, you jet home, absolute waste of time. Read more →
Arizona is the Next California?
Unfortunately, my experience in Arizona … has been that people have zero ability to correlate specific elements of public policy with particular outcomes. In particular, people who flee California because it is too expensive and dysfunctional come to Arizona and immediately begin voting for exactly the same policies that made California expensive and dysfunctional. Coyote Blog Read more →
Is Toxic Femininity Also a Thing?
Attorney Jeffrey Lichtman, quoted in the New York Post: The past year I’ve gotten three insanely high settlements for consensual sex as sexual harassment. I think I may be some kind of savant. I get a case. And then I ask a set of lawyers who only do this kind of work what is the best settlement I could hope for. And then I triple it. I made $2.9 million for a 24 year old girl who had a consensual sexual relationship with her boss. Read more →
Buy a $1.7 Million Mansion for $25
Homeowner selling $1.7M mansion for $25 and ‘compelling’ essay NY Daily News Here in Southern California, $1.7 million doesn’t buy what I’d call a “mansion,” but this is definitely a mansion, almost 4,000 sq.ft. of living space on a one-acre property. Those interested in the house, located in Alberta, Canada and boasting scenic mountain views, must pay a $25 entry fee and submit a one page essay about themselves and why they should win the contest. It can be no longer than 350 words. Read more →
Teaching Computer Science: Priorities
When schoolchildren start paying union dues, that’s when I’ll start representing the interests of schoolchildren. — Albert Shanker, President of the United Federation of Teachers (1964-1984) and President of the American Federation of Teachers (1974-1997) It’s a problem in my profession that the number of schools that want to teach computer science far exceeds the number of computer science majors who want to teach computer science. The opportunity cost is too high. Computer science majors can earn a lot more working as software engineers than working as teachers. I volunteer a couple mornings a week to help with computer science instruction at a local high school. This school has a teacher, originally hired as a math teacher, who must be well into her fourth decade of teaching. She now teaches computer science classes — poorly, but she teaches them. Because of her professional longevity, she makes a six-figure income with… Read more →
The Interests of Schoolchildren
More than 30,000 teachers in the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) went on strike this week. LAUSD serves 640,000 students and is the second biggest school district in the country. The mean annual wage for LAUSD teachers is $75,000. In the local reporting I’m seeing on the strike, teachers and union reps are unanimous in saying that they’re striking for the benefit of the schoolchildren. I’m reminded of something Albert Shanker — former president of the United Federation of Teachers (1964-1984) and the American Federation of Teachers (1974-1997) — used to say: When schoolchildren start paying union dues, that’s when I’ll start representing the interests of schoolchildren. I can’t say for certain that the LA union reps are being disingenuous but it does make sense that they’d be representing the interests of the people who are paying them. Read more →
How the Bezos Divorce Rewrites the World’s Richest People List
Current Jeff Bezos, $140 billion Bill Gates, $90 billion Warren Buffett, $84 billion Bernard Arnault, $72 billion Mark Zuckerberg, $71 billion Future Bill Gates, $90 billion Warren Buffett, $84 billion Bernard Arnault, $72 billion Mark Zuckerberg, $71 billion Jeff Bezos, $70 billion MacKenzie Bezos, $70 billion Read more →
Since this is an era when many people are concerned about ‘fairness’ and ‘social justice,’ what is your ‘fair share’ of what someone else has worked for?
— Thomas Sowell
Student Loan Debt Sets Record
U.S. Student Loan Debt Sets Record, Doubling Since Recession — Bloomberg What happened to parents saving up to pay for college? Is that not a thing anymore? I don’t find it morally defensible to encourage a kid to incorporate academics into his or her life from an early age, to emphasize the importance of education, then when the kid is admitted to college to say “Congratulations, here’s your student loan application. Have fun paying that off till you’re 60.” Read more →
Teaching Computer Science: Inequality = Bad?
I’m volunteering a couple mornings a week in a high school computer science class . . . “Why don’t schools and classes have sponsors?” I ask one of the teachers. “When my kid was in school, they were always complaining about not having enough money. So why couldn’t you, for example, come in and say, ‘Hey kids, before you come to 1st period, make sure you have a good breakfast at McDonald’s. I’m lovin’ it!’? “And McDonald’s pays you 100 grand or whatever to say that.” “My concern,” he says, “is that would lead to more inequality in education.” I’m not sure he really thought that through. It seems more like a mechanical response to an abstract notion, i.e., “Inequality is bad.” As a parent, I always supported inequality in education. I wanted my kid to get the best possible education, better than most other kids. As a classroom volunteer,… Read more →
$15 Trillion for “Free” Healthcare
$300K = free healthcare for 60 people?! $50K per person?! Multiply by 300 million Americans . . . check me on the math but isn’t that $15 trillion? For “free” healthcare?!?!?! Here’s what it looks like if you write it out: $15,000,000,000,000. Is this guy insane?!?!?! Read more →
Amazon Has Good News and Bad News for You on the Minimum Wage
Good News: We are raising the minimum wage for all U.S. employees to $15 an hour. Bad News: We’re replacing all of you with robots. Read more →
See You in Hell
[See You in Hell is a feature by our guest blogger, Satan — PE] The pope said yesterday that Satan — that’s me — “has been let loose and he’s got it in for the bishops.” My reaction is that I am proud to be thrown under the bus alongside rape victims, abused unwed mothers and financial whistleblowers for the greater “good” of the church. By the way, have you noticed that “prophet” and “profit” are homonyms? See you in Hell! Read more →
A Close Encounter with Burt Reynolds’ Legacy
I’m having dinner at a Japanese restaurant . . . in the booth behind me are a couple straight out of Sons of Anarchy. The man is about 45, large, with a shaved head, tattoos and a motorcycle jacket. Same description for the woman, except for the shaved head. Her jacket is emblazoned with PROPERTY OF TROG (or FROG or ????, couldn’t make it out clearly), which I assume is the name of either a motorcycle gang or the gentleman sitting across from her. Midway through the meal, Trog wonders aloud if Smokey and the Bandit is available on Netflix. To his chagrin, the movie doesn’t seem to register with his girlfriend, so to jog her memory, he pulls up the “Eastbound and Down” song on his phone and plays it loudly enough to be heard by everyone in the vicinity. He then launches into an analysis of the film… Read more →
Thomas Jefferson on John McCain
My fellow Americans – Like President Trump, I was not invited to any of the John McCain memorial services, so I offer my final thoughts here. McCain’s service to his country while being held as a POW in Vietnam was admirable beyond measure. Because his father was commander of all U.S. forces in the Vietnam theater, the Vietnamese offered to release McCain, not as a gesture of mercy, but as a propaganda coup, and to show other POWs that members of the elite were willing to be treated preferentially. McCain stated that he would only accept the offer if every man captured before him was released as well. This enraged the Vietnamese, and McCain’s subsequent five years as a POW went very badly for him, as he doubtlessly knew they would. Liberals have been very kind to McCain this week because 1) he’s dead, and 2) he was an enemy… Read more →
Life Gets Better After 50?
About 15 years ago, economists made an unexpected finding: the U-shaped happiness curve. Other things being equal – that is, once conditions such as income, employment, health and marriage are factored out of the equation – life satisfaction declines from our early 20s until we hit our 50s. Then it turns around and rises, right through late adulthood. — The Guardian So once you factor out all the things that make life miserable, it turns out older people can be just as happy as anyone else! Read more →