See books written by Paul Pakusch at https://www.amazon.com/author/paulpakusch



Thursday, October 27, 2022

The Facts About the Economy and Gas Prices

In today's world, misinformation spreads like wildfire via social media.  Getting "information" from a Facebook post is the worst disservice you can do to yourself. People just keep reposting opinions as "facts" without any sort of attribution. 

The best thing you can do for yourself is educate yourself on the topics. Go back to what you learned in Economics 101, or if you never took it, do some real reading from an educational source that is neither "red" or "blue." Once you understand the basics of how economics works, it will be painfully obvious which politicians are not giving you the full truth and you won't have to rely on Fox, CNN, or Facebook posts to tell you what to think. The news media caters to the audience it is trying to appeal to. 

Let's get down to understanding economics and what to believe about gas prices and the current economy. I am linking a couple websites that have a reputation for being non-biased. 


And here's one on the current U.S. economy: https://www.reuters.com/.../us-economic-growth-rebounds.../ 

Take what you can from those two sources and figure out what politicians are telling the truth or not.

Wednesday, October 19, 2022

Going Forward in a World with Covid

Since I've been directly affected by Covid, testing positive and having my travel plans significantly altered, I've been thinking about where we as a society have been since all of this started and how it has evolved over the past 2.5 years. Stacey and I are aware of about 15 people who tested positive and were denied boarding on this cruise. A common reaction I keep hearing is, "It's not going away and we need to learn to live with it." I agree. I'm a firm believer in the vaccine; I was horrified when we first heard of Covid, something for which there was no "cure" at the time. I excitedly jumped at the opportunity to be a part of the Pfizer vaccine study when I first heard of it, and I'm still participating. I have been communicating with them this week about my condition. FYI, Stacey is still negative; she had 2 booster shots, I only had one, which is what the study wants me to have. They did make a note that she has not tested positive so far, even though we've been together constantly through this trip. We are now on day 9 of our trip.

Going forward, now that the majority of the population has been vaccinated, had Covid, or both, I believe we need to watch out for ourselves. I believed in quarantines and shutting down before the vaccines were available, but I don't believe it's necessary anymore. Just like any other illness, I believe it's now up to the individual to take care of themselves. I believe a vaccine is the better choice, but if you don't believe in vaccines, that's your business (I'm not going to argue with you). If you're contagious, you should isolate, mask up, or use sanitizer. Likewise if you're vulnerable and want to protect yourself. I now long for the day when we can once again make our own responsible decisions about where we can go.