If you think the gas tank is always full when you pick up a rental car which it is supposed to be, you can be in for a rude shock especially if you're taking a scenic backroad to where you're going. Assuming you have a newer car, it will tell you the tank is approaching empty and you might just start panicking, and your travel mate might become particularly grumpy. As it turns out, at least some rental companies (whhich seem to have no one to answer a phone call) have a form on their website to report the problem, so the problem is not something that might occur as rarely as one might think. Whether or not submitting the form will get a refund for the gas bought is not clear, but it is a paper record you'll have to do a dispute on your credit card (the one you used for your car, not the one you used to buy the gas).

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Liaison is thrilling and spell-binding even if it takes time to figure out what the heck is going on. Actually, given how good each scene is, you almost don't care what the heck is going on.

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As this WaPo article explains, Americans infected with the coronavirus’s omicron variant are less likely to develop symptoms typical of long covid than those who had covid-19 earlier in the pandemic, according to the largest-ever study of who is most vulnerable to being sickened — or debilitated — by the virus’s lingering effects.

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[Prefatory Note: This post questions the ability of the Fed, the bankers, and the regulators to understand what they are doing. As a caveat, lest there be any mistake, it is conceded they are far smarter and know much more than I do. So, this post should be understood as a question and not as an answer]

Banks take in deposits and lend them to make money. The spread between what they pay for the deposits and what they charge for the loans is one component of their profit and financial/capitalization status. Another component of their profit and financial status is the investments they make on the revenues and deposits they receive. Supposedly not wanting to take undue risk, the regional banks invested a substantial portion of their revenues in treasury bills. Well that's not quite right: They certainly were not taking any default risk but they were taking on interest rate risk, i.e., if interest rates went up on their holdings, the market value of their holdings would decline (even to the point of cratering). In retrospect, these bankers either did not know or did not care about the interest rate risk their holdings were subject to. In either event, these bankers had no business running the banks.

The Fed has a dual mandate of maximum employment and price stability. When inflation becomes a problem, price stability becomes the Fed's primary focus. The major tool they have is to raise interest rates, which  has the effect of raising the cost of borrowing and thereby reduces borrowing and depresses demand, which tends to cause a recession that cools inflation. In retrospect, the Fed either did not understand the regional banking system's reliance on treasuries for their capitalization and hence did not understand what raising interest rates would do or they did not care. In either event, once it became clear to the Fed and everyone else that the banks would be taking over the Fed's burden of tightening credit which would reduce borrowing and depress demand, the Fed appears on the verge of changing the "higher interest rates for longer" course it announced just a week before the regional banks began collapsing.

The regulators' job is to see bank problems before they become crises. Again, in retrospect, they either did not understand the interest rate risk regional banks were taking on their capitalization or they did not care. In either event, one has to wonder what the regulators think their job was or whether they even showed up for their job.

Finally, what is so amazing about what's happening is that interest rate risk is not some esoteric, arcane, black swanish thing. It's something everyone who holds a bond or a bond fund or a cd or any fixed income asset knows about. As Holmes would say, it's elementary. What also is elementary is how little it takes to have a run on a bank (or all banks). What would you do with your money in a bank if you thought it did not have the capital to give it back to you if you waited to ask for it? When the Fed and Treasury lifted the FDIC limits for SVB depositors, and are now considering upping the FDIC limit across the board, you can be certain they understood exactly what a run on a bank is.

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Southwest Airlines (SWA) has a new option to secure a better boarding position. It used to be that one could buy an A1-A15 slot subject to availability at the airport. Now, you can buy an A1-A15 slot online subject to availability when you check in up to 24 hours before your departure. So, if you are fairly sure that there will be an A1-A15 slot available, you can skip the Early Bird option. And if you have a so-called friend who represented that not doing the Early Bird would be a mistake, but failed to disclose the online A1-15 upgrade option, you can demand they reimburse you the Early Bird fee you paid. They will scream like a pig and come up with lame excuses (e.g., you need to do Early Bird to qualify for such an upgrade but that's not true). But even if you can't get your money back, you can sleep better knowing they know what they did and will have to live with it, and God will know what they did.

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The trucks that pickup recyclables from blue barrels consume enormous amounts of fuel. Assuming there are 3 blue barrels on one block and 2 blue barrels on another, the truck picking up 3 blue barrels will consume inordinately more fuel than a truck picking up 2 blue barrels because picking up the third blue barrel has fuel consumption during the idling time and even more so to go from a stop to acceleration. So, if you're doing the blue barrel because you care about the environment, PLEASE, do not put out your blue barrel until it is full or nearly full, and skip putting it out when it's not full or nearly full.

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This Perry Mason is not the Perry Mason you grew up with. Although the main characters (Perry Mason, Della Street, Paul Drake, and Hamilton Berger) have the same names, they are different characters. Della Street is much more prominent and Perry Mason is much more reticent. The cast (headed by Matthew Rhys and Shea Whigham) turn in wonderful performances. I confess not seeing Season 1 but have gotten hooked on Season 2, although you have to wait a week for each new episode so you have to find something else in the meantime. Liaison seems a great hope on the something else front My only gripe with Perry Mason is the action is a bit slow and tedious at times, but that's in large part to their hewing to the genre they are recreating.

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As this website explains, Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport passengers flying out of Terminal 3 and Terminal 4 may reserve a time at the TSA Security Checkpoint screening area through a new program called PHX RESERVE. Participation in the PHX RESERVE program is optional and free for all travelers using Sky Harbor terminals. The service provides the same high standard of security as all TSA lanes, although those who participate in other trusted traveler programs, such as TSA PreCheck®, will not be able to use their benefits in the dedicated lane.

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One of the best car safety devices is the technology that alerts if there are vehicles in another lane that otherwise are in the blind spot of your side mirror. Putting aside that the feature is better done in some cars than others, the really good news is that the end is in sight for side mirrors entirely. Instead of mirrors, there will be wide-angle cameras where the side mirrors were that will show on a screen in the car if there are any vehicles in either adjacent lane. 

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Covid has killed more Americans than soldiers killed in all of its wars combined. We are struck by these facts set out in this WSJ article (entitled "What Worked Against Covid"): (i) indoor closures prevented at least 50% of infections and deaths in 2020; (iii) high levels of masking have been linked to reductions of virus spread up to 80%; and (iii) the first year of vaccination alone is credited with averting an estimated 14 million Covid deaths. The irony is how we continue to spend more and more on defense as we avoid making serious efforts to protect ourselves from the next pandemic. And unlike Covid, indoor closures are not going to happen again, vaccinations will not be mandatory anywhere and the vaccination rates will continue to drop, and masking (much less mandatory masking) will be relegated to a footnote in history.

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Wirecutter's favorite dish soap, which has long been ours, is Seventh Generation. Here's the surprising news: Dish soap is the best and easiest stuff to clean jewelry and stainless steel.

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I haven't tried Charlie Mae's Southern BBQ yet, but I hope to soon. It appears to be pick-up or delivery only but I could be wrong. It's on Indian School Road just West of 24th Street on the South Side (2319). The menu is intriguing and the pictures of the food are ambrosian. Best of all, it's a lot closer for most folks than Lolo's, which you can't get into during regular meal-time hours.

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You’ve probably seen ads for gigabit internet service promising blazing-fast speeds that will eliminate lag when you’re playing games online and let you upload files in seconds. Upgrading to gigabit sounds tempting: After all, faster speeds are always better, right? As this article explains, not necessarily. In fact, some entry-level and most mid-tier internet plans are fine for most people—even if you work from home and collaborate on Zoom all day, or if you relax at night by streaming 4K movies while your kids stream music and videos. Every internet service provider wants you to sign up for its faster gigabit service, but upgrading to that tier can cost as much as 78% to 80% over the lowest (or “slowest”) tier, and not do you any good.

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The Philadelphia Eagles not only are the best and most fun team to watch, and the most innovative [see, e.g., what they did to the quarterback sneak], they are the most innovative when it comes to thinking up new ideas for NFL procedures. Among others, they want to put 0 back on a player's jersey, they suggest allowing teams that have scored to have a 4th down and 20 option instead of trying an onside kick, and the want to add tenths to the scoreboard clock. If you think that last suggestion is trivial, either stop watching football and watch curling or better yet basketball instead. If a team has 5.1 seconds left that can be a huge difference than having 5.9 seconds left. Fly Eagles Fly!

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It's not as good looking as we would have liked, but answering our call just days ago that EVs needed to come in under $30,000 to really take the market, VW says it will have one out in 2025. According to VW, the ID2 hatchback should cost less than €25,000 ($26,500), drive 450 kilometers (280 miles) on one charge, and be as roomy as a compact when it hits the market. To increase affordability and appeal, VW switched its EV platform to front-wheel drive; planted a 226-horsepower electric motor inside; and endowed it with a 490-liter (over 17 cubic feet) trunk that can swallow more than the much larger Tesla Model 3 even when its front trunk is included.

While airlines let you book flights months in advance, they actually do not set their true schedules until your departure date gets closer. And quite frequently, the flight you booked will be changed in terms of departure times and even dates, and non-stop flights no longer are non-stop flights. This WSJ article has a good overview of the issue and your rights and strategies when you are adversely affected by a schedule change.

PS: The terms "non-stop" and "direct" do NOT mean the same thing. Non-stop flights are ones where you take off in one plane and land in the same plane and your destination is the first stop that plane makes. "Direct" means that you do not change planes but the plane you take off in will land at least once in some location that is not your destination before the plane actually lands at your destination.

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To explain the seriousness of the threat posed by the collapse of SVB, all one needs to do is look at the response of the Fed and the Treasury: They did over the weekend what took months in 2008: They said they would back (insure) all bank deposits. The abyss they were looking into was the fear that depositors might think (reasonably) that the banks holding their money were not sufficiently capitalized because the assets they were holding (treasuries) (as SVB held) had collapsed as a result of rising interest rates. And if any appreciable withdrawals started, combined with the "power" of social media, there would be a run that could collapse the whole banking system. No one knows what's going to happen. But one thing is for sure: No one you can rely on anyone who says this possible crisis is now over.

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I was happy when Season 2 was over and would have been glad to leave the series in the rear-view mirror. But alas, there is a Season 3 that started this week. Given the seeming trough the streaming world is in, I watched the first episode, and unless something comes along (which I pray would happen), I'll watch more. That said, it's not very good.

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Tyson® Seasoned and Marinated Boneless Beef Brisket is way easy to prepare and no mess ... it cooks in the bag in 1.5 hours, and is not expensive. But is it good enough to take to Rocky Point and serve at the Seder meal without any of your guests knowing what you've done? No! It's quite bland, and nothing that one would hope for and expect from a brisket.