The Awesome Science of Chinonomics

If you ask me to name the one thing that makes the United States the most powerful and influential country in human history...  I don't answer its military. Even though the U.S. defense budget is staggering. I don't answer its rule of law. Even though the U.S. ranks very high in the world .  I don't answer its living standards. Even though the U.S. ranks in the top 5  in economic freedom. I don't answer its cultural inclination to dominate and conquer faraway lands , nor the facility (and most importantly, the willingness ) of its citizens to move within its borders in search for a better future. Laudable as that may be.   Even if the % of movers has decreased since the 90's, close to 17MM people moved within the US in 2017 alone.  That's almost  the equivalent of the Netherlands, or Ecuador, or Senegal moving houses in 12 months  🤯 .  I would not even answer its marvelous capacity  to take in immigrants from all other the world for mor...

Today I saw a man wearing a Lionel Messi jersey. It was weird. It was not the ubiquitous blaugrana   jersey that you see everywhere. No. It was the new Paris St. Germain one. It felt foreign . It got me thinking. How dares the emblem of Culés betray his tribe? And how cheap of that guy to jump ship from Barça to PSG just because of a player? The strangeness of seeing the PSG emblem in the same piece of clothing with the letters Messi   in the back hit me. We are nothing but pawns. Cheap imitators who crave for models to follow. Without them, we are lost. This whole post-modernist idea that says " you're unique ", " you're an individual " ,  " you're cool in your own way " is complete bullsh*t.  The man wearing that jersey wants to be like Messi. Why else would he be willing to shell out $200  to signal to the world that he's committed to emulate him? What part of Messi he wants to be, I don't know. The fame? The money? The ability to dr...