Deep Freeze

It looks like the NCR will be in deep freeze mode this weekend.  It was -5 degrees this morning and it will be colder than that on Saturday and Sunday.  With wind chills we will be feeling like -30.  Of course we all knew we would pay for a freakishly warm December and after all, it is February, so when the present weather passes, chances are we will be thinking about spring.  Meanwhile, the Presidential sweepstakes continue.  Hillary and Bernie traded charges last night.  Hillary is too close to Wall Street and Bernie is so unrealistic as to be in a fantasy world.  However, at his most visionary, Bernie is still firmly grounded compared to the republican contenders.  Trump, Cruz, et. al would turn us into a rogue nation on day one, repudiating treaties, deporting millions and antagonizing friends and foes alike.  In his one note disparagement of Bernie's democratic socialist dream of making us more like Denmark, David Brooks, in his column in the NYT, sings a hymn to the economy which allows one in five children to grow up in poverty while Brooks and his fellow elitists exist in guarded enclaves and congratulating themselves on their up by the bootstraps life stories.  As children of wealthy parents, they had already punched their cards to a life of ease at birth.  Maybe the rest of us would be willing to pay higher taxes to live in a social democracy with a level playing field.  Brooks worries the entrepreneurial spirit would be drained from America if  the rich have to pay higher taxes. I for one think the Steve Jobs and Elon Musks of the world would thrive in a more egalitarian America and we would celebrate their successes, even as they contributed their fair share to that society.