Paul Kasaija
1/31/2021
11:28 PM

​

Today’s finally the last day of the month, and luckily the outlook is orders of magnitude better than last year at this particular time. Of course, 1/30/2021 was a day where speculations of war with Iran, fears of the pandemic, and general malaise were the mood at-large. Now, as people have already faced the brunt of the economic loss, the social isolation, boredom, rioting,  COVID fears and death, social outrage, two impeachments, dictatorial drama, and protests for equality and against police brutality, I think that the only direction that the United States and the globe can look is up. 

​

We aren’t in perfect shape, but the ship is still afloat and we finally have the ability to help the others who are sinking.

​

Vaccination will short-circuit the 400,000 (and rising) casualty plague of COVID-19 left to run rampant in our country. Leadership anew will mend the broken image that America has given off to allies and enemies alike over the past few years. Talks have been directed to the subject of Wall Street’s corruption and politicians, and celebrities and businessmen alike have begun to talk about what they can do to mend the imbalanced legal and societal issues that some billionaires couldn’t be paid enough to fix. The issues of police brutality and injustices of equality are lined up to be addressed by the new presidential administration which has demonstrated significant willingness to bring change. Rioters have been thwarted and arrested, and dictators have been challenged and called out for accountability. Short-term unemployment and disabling rising debts (personal and corporate) have been (lightly) bandaged through personal government stimulus checks and aid to all sizes of businesses. And businesses big and small are reopening and their customers have begun filling up again, as the future prospects don’t look so dull anymore. Overall, it is a time where the tides have shifted in favor of the recovery of America, which faced historical and massive issues that threatened the future of the country. As the other developed countries look on to a faster recovery, I think that any recovery for us is a welcomed one.

 

As for me, I made some efforts to recover from my own issues: I finally got back to exercising after I got a night of better sleep and recovered from some aching muscles from the last time. It has been a very cold past few days, and while the motivation can dry up normally these days, it felt better to return to the field from the bench that I was in for a few days while recovering. Additionally, I have found a few new books to read that are even partially related to my major; one such book I found was called “Misbehaving: The Making of Behavioral Economics” by Richard Thaler. Partially related because I don’t plan to focus on behavioral economics (unless the author is very convincing), but it’s a book that has been recommended by a book-review site that I follow. It seems to be about how classical economics misses the mark in terms of how participants in an economy actually act and gives various anecdotes to explain how “misbehavior” is actually the rule rather than the exception.

​

I would suggest that anyone who wants to know more should get the book, but as of now I’m not really planning to make a commentary of it— we’ll see. Regardless the pursuit of a better routine will keep me going in February, and for the things out of my control, I’ll just have to see what the future holds in store for me and others in this coming month.