US Markets - Five Points

1. US markets are slightly higher on no real news, but a seemingly favorable trade backdrop.

2. I outlined the Monty Hall problem to my son, but I never really understood it. Then, he described it back to me, and now I do. To explain it to him, I grabbed three random items from his room and made him choose one. Then, I separated the other two and asked him to pick again (either the same item or both of the other items). Even though there are only two choices, the odds are not 50/50. He explained it back to me by asking me to imagine there were 100 doors, and a prize was behind one of them. However, after you chose a door, 98 of the others disappeared; you would change your pick because the odds live in the remaining door.

3. After a shouting match with a homeless tweaker, I have reevaluated my everyday carry. I normally keep a 4-inch knife with a pocket clip. I like the clip because you never leave home without it, but it turns out that’s not exactly street legal in Central Park. So, I’m going back to a G10 that a friend gifted me. I still carry pepper spray attached to my keys and a Glock in the car. After the next election, New Yorkers should be prepared for LA and Chicago levels of disorder.

4. When does Trump take over the NY National Guard? A few months before the Midterms.

5. Frederick Backman (A Man Called Ove, Bear Town) has a new book, and he writes wonderfully as always:

Louisa is a teenager, the best kind of human. The evidence for this is very simple: little children think teenagers are the best humans, and teenagers think teenagers are the best humans, the only people who don't think that teenagers are the best humans are adults. Which is obviously because adults are the worst kind of humans.

It's one of the last days before Easter. Very soon Louisa is going to be thrown out of an art auction for vandalizing a valuable painting. Old ladies will shriek and the police will come and it really wasn't planned.

Not to brag, but Louisa did have a perfect plan, it wasn't the plan's fault that she didn't stick to it. Because sometimes Louisa is a genius, but sometimes she isn't a genius, and the problem is that the genius and the non-genius share a brain. But the plan? Perfect.

The auction is one where extremely rich people go to buy ridiculously expensive art, so teenagers aren't welcome there, especially not teenagers with backpacks full of cans of spray paint. Rich adults have seen far too much news about "activists" who break in and vandalize famous paintings, so for that reason the entrance is protected by security guards weighing three hundred pounds with zero ounces of humor.

They're the sort of guards who have so much muscle that they have muscles that don't even have Latin names, because back when people spoke Latin, idiots as big as this didn't even exist yet. But that shouldn't have been a problem, because the plan was for Louisa to get in without the guards even noticing she was there. The only problem with the plan was that Louisa was the person who was going to carry it out. But it started well, it has to be said, because the building where the auction is being held is an old church. We know that because all the rich people at the auction keep saying to each other. "Did you know this is an old church?" Because rich people love reminding each other about how incredibly rich they are, so rich that they can buy things from God.