Sean Meriwether's Blog: The Green Economist, page 7

#HeKnew

NY Dispatch Day 178: Following on the heels of a damning article in The Atlantic that the president decided against visiting the Aisne-Marine American Cemetery near Paris in 2018 because it was full of “losers,” then lied about calling his wife in Washington to complain he couldn’t visit the cemetery when she was with him in Paris (the reality was he didn’t want to get his hair wet), and multiple confirmed reports of him disparaging veterans, most publicly John McCain, today we have another unsu...

It’s a Maine Thing

NY Dispatch Day 177: The last few American holidays have turned into super-spreader events, with Memorial Day and the 4th of July generating spikes of new COVID-19 cases. People forget that there is a pandemic going on, crowd together outdoors and inside, relaxing their social distancing and mask-wearing vigilance, putting themselves at risk. We were not inclined to add our names to the 27 million global cases, so my social bubble friends and I decided to play it safe over the Labor Day weekend ...

Convergence

NY Dispatch Day 175: A flash fiction interlude. A version of “Convergence” was included in The Silent Hustler.

Ryan stares through the windshield as lightning chases itself across the sky. He prepares for thunder but none comes, only the playful flashing in the sky his grandmother said was God taking a picture. The boy blows smoke against the glass and watches it snake out the passenger’s side window, catch in the wind and join the cosmos.

“Do you think she’ll know?” he asks David, the boy who l...

Pivot

NY Dispatch Day 174: A flash fiction interlude. A version of “Pivot” was included in The Silent Hustler.

A late night. Too much wine. My wife out of town. Yours as well. We reminisced about the times we had had together — just you and me — our stand against the world. Before we got older. Married. Heavier. “We sure had some fun.” Your eyes said more.

We lay on the couch, closer than we should but too comfortable to move. The heat from your body pressed against mine. You stretched and smiled. I s...

Stay Small

NY Dispatch Day 173: A flash fiction interlude. A version of “Stay Small” was originally published online on Outsider Ink.

The girl recalled her grandmother’s advice about conquering fear. If I hold my breath and count to one hundred, everything will be okay. She counted silently. one two three… but only made it to seventy-one before the air burst out of her, filling the space beneath the covers with the stench of her insides.

She made herself as flat as possible, but her bumpy form poked throug...

Welcome Back to 1945

NY Dispatch Day 172: What would happen to you if you didn’t pay your bills and just kept spending like you won the lottery? You’d be evicted, maybe jailed. Good luck with your FICO score. The US government, however, doesn’t play by the same rules. Today’s big news is that our deficit is about to eclipse the size of our economy, perhaps for the next decade. In other words, the mortgage on America is underwater for the first time since World War II.

Part of that multi-trillion dollar debt was t...

Rewiring our Economy

NY Dispatch Day 171: It is with a harsh dose of irony that we head into the Labor Day weekend with approximately 30 million Americans out of work. In normal downturns people can search for work in other industries, or go out on their own, but the lockdown caused by the pandemic has radically changed the landscape. Jobs are increasingly rare. The extra $600 in unemployment benefits ran out in July; it was to allow people to stay home and not look for work in order to help slow the rate of transmi...

The Power of Acceptance

NY Dispatch Day 170: This morning I was informed that my team is not expected to return to our midtown office until next year. This came as a surprise to no one. I had prepared myself for that news as far back as May 7th, when I predicted that we would be in this for the long haul. I presume this announcement is being repeated in offices, schools, businesses, and other venues across the country. We need to steel ourselves to our new normal. It has been proven that accepting the truth helps you t...

Going Herd

NY Dispatch Day 169: Although the Republican National Convention tried to convince the public otherwise, the COVID-19 pandemic is not over and the president did not take decisive action when there was still a possibility of controlling the spread. The president and his loyal media outlets minimized the impact, claimed it was a Democratic hoax, that it would magically disappear, and promoted untested or dangerous “cures” including hydroxychloroquine and oleander extract. They politicized wearing ...

Jacob Marley’s Chain

NY Dispatch Day 168: Many undecided voters and middle of the road Republicans may be holding their nose in November when they vote to reelect the president, but they may be privately hoping for him to have a redemptive epiphany to make their choice less… amoral. We have long been told that 45 will, at some point, rise to the occasion as the leader of the free world instead of enriching himself like a leech on the government’s money. We have been spoon-fed stories of redemption and second chances...