The San Francisco Experience

While California has 68% of its population vaccinated, Governor Newsom can hardly run victory laps around the State Capitol. Multiple health crises loom including underfunded public health, single payer insurance, Medicaid for 3 million undocumented aliens and the Covid 19 death toll of 63,490 Californians who died during the pandemic all against the backdrop of a Recall Election in the Fall that...

Professor Bhushan is a founder of Deciduous Therapeutics, a San Francisco based biotech startup. Its' mission is to positively impact the human health span by developing novel medicines to activate our immune systems to eliminate senescent cells, the dead and dying cells that once they accumulate cause inflammation and chronic disease. Cutting edge science to treat diseases of old age.

After many years searching, I have found my paternal grand father's ancestors through a patrilineal DNA test. The Y chromosome only passes to the male line and often these ancestors share the same surnames centuries later. Libby Copeland, author of The Lost Family and a guest on TSFE suggested  the patrilineal DNA test and I am glad she did !

Gabriel Garcia Marquez the great novelist famously said that every human being has three lives: the public, the private and the secret. Cate Holohan's latest domestic thriller manipulates that complex trifecta of life's intersections. A romance and planned wedding are upended in a violent home invasion, with a shocking ending I wasn't expecting. 

The Group of 7, the US, Canada, France, Japan, UK, Germany and Italy met in Cornwall, England for three days to co-ordinate economic policies post pandemic, agree a new infrastructure investment plan and discuss the rise of China as a global economic power. But the G7  members represent less than 45% of global GDP versus over 70% in the early 1990s. And China warned that gone are the days whe...

Elon Musk is worth $152 billion, but he still finds time to read in his quest for knowledge. In today's episode we will discuss some of the books that have inspired him to reach for the stars and especially to caution us about the development of Artificial Intelligence.

Baseball cards and sports cards generally are not just a youngster's pastime. Investing in culture assets like baseball cards especially is becoming an alternative asset class. A 1952 Mickey Mantle card, for instance,  sold for $2.8 million in 2019. A new sports card fund raised $20 million and is up 35% since last September. Ryan Fagan walks us through the world of baseball cards in today's...

A Good Mother is Lara Bazelon's debut legal thriller novel. A Law Professor at University of San Francisco, School of Law, Lara was formerly a Public Defender in Los Angeles and brings a practitioner's experience to this courtroom drama, featuring the savvy and street smart attorney Abby Rosenberg. A compelling thriller with unexpected plot twists and turns that kept me on edge !

US births in 2020 were actually down by 400,000 by year end 2020 due to the pandemic lockdowns. Professor Levine and his team have identified a correlation between unemployment and the US birth rate: for each 1% increase in the unemployment rate, the birth rate drops by 1%. Instead of the stay at home lockdowns producing a baby boom, they actually have caused a baby bust.

Los Angeles, the nation's second largest city has an unemployment rate of 11.7% versus 5.4% for San Francisco. Poverty and homelessness are on the rise yet politicians utter the same old bromides. Dan Walters with almost 60 years as a California political journalist,  gives us a clear eyed analysis of LA's problems and offers some recommendations.

The conflict between Israel and Hamas has entered an uneasy stand off with an Egyptian brokered cease fire. The US, EU and other countries have pledged billions in aid to re-build, but will the underlying tensions change ? Professor Ron Hassner takes a clear eyed view of Hamas and the threat it poses to Israel and the Peace Process.

Rise Gold Corp is in the process of re-opening a historic underground gold mine, the Idaho-Maryland mine, first opened in 1863. At its' peak production in the early 1940s it employed 1000 people and was the second biggest gold mine in the US. Once operational, they will employ 300 people and mine 1000 tons of rock daily and 100,000 ounces of gold annually. Today's spot price of gold was $1879.

5 rural Oregon counties voted by wide margins on Tuesday to begin the process to join Idaho. That brings the tally to 7 for the leavers, with more than 10 more counties slated to vote on the issue. Is the driver to leave Oregon the usual rural versus urban hostility or is there something more at play ?

Media literacy is so important today since millions of Americans get their news from Social Media which unlike legacy press and TV is neither edited nor curated. Separating fact from fiction, conspiracy theory, falsehood and agitprop can be a full time job. The BBC Trending program tracks social media and shines the light of researched fact on fake news and disinformation.

An undiagnosed neurodegenerative brain disease has occurred in a cluster in New Brunswick on Canada's East Coast. 48 people in the City of Moncton and the Acadian Peninsula have been affected. The cause is unknown and no cure is in sight. Dr. Cashman a neurologist and renowned expert in prion related brain diseases discusses what we know at this point.

 San Francisco has reached the 50% mark in terms of full Covid vaccinations, with 71% of the remaining unvaccinated population saying they plan to get the shots. And more good news on the jobs front - the City by the Bay is down to a 5.4% unemployment rate, better than the national rate, 6.1%, California's rate, 8.25% and Los Angeles' rate,  9%. But what will the workplace look like when...

There is a history of Russian leaders sizing up new American Presidents, starting with Krushchev and JFK, Gorbachev and Reagan and now Putin and Biden. But are they off on the wrong foot ? Biden sees Putin as a killer. Can they put their differences behind them over Ukraine a sticky issue for both ? Strategic nuclear treaties between the two countries expire in 5 years. Professor Tsygankov a gradu...

Food Safety and Security soared in importance in the wake of Covid 19 meat packing plant infection rates and collapse of the supply chain. Ranch to table meat supply is a shorter, safer, cleaner way to source better quality meat. Owner and Entrepreneur Adam Parks of Victorian Farmstead Meat Company discusses how his business has exploded in the past year.

Dangerous Conjectures tells a tale of the way we were, in the three months leading up to the 2020 Covid lockdowns. Set in Berkeley, California, the novel relates the story of a young professional couple caught up in a "through the looking glass" world of Qanon, misinformation, opioid addiction and marital deception as the Covid 19 pandemic was poised to unleash its lethal fury on America. The hobg...

Napa and Sonoma Counties are America's premier wine producing regions. 85% of American wine is produced in California with Napa and Sonoma accounting for more than half of that total. Bill recounts the early signs of economic recovery in the wine region North of San Francisco and projects a strong Summer and Fall tourist season. Good news for the whole  wine industry ecosystem !

Over 30 million Americans have taken  DNA Tests at home, largely for recreational genealogy and family history purposes. This vast array of DNA databases has linked millions of distant cousins and newly discovered relations. In a melting pot culture like the United States where we all hail from somewhere else originally, this DNA based family history culture is raising new cultural opportunit...

Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) the second largest school system in the United States and the largest in California, published a report last week outlining the dire impact of the Covid lockdowns on our state's 6 million public school students. With schools just reopening in the last 10 days, High School drop out and failure rates are projected to double and even worse, over the next 3...

Poverty in the United States is more widespread than in the other developed OECD countries due to our skimpy social safety net. For instance, 60% of Americans will experience poverty sometime in their life  between 18 and 75 years of age. 60 % !  On the other hand we reduced senior poverty from 35% in 1959 to 8% today so we have had targeted successes. Professor Rank breaks down the myth...

A young family weighs a difficult decision to leave San Francisco and move to North Carolina. Mixed emotions confront Allison and Neal as they decide to leave their adopted home in San Francisco for North Carolina. A wistful conversation covering complex choices many Californians are facing .

Coinbase went public today, making it easier for individual investors to transact in Cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, Ethereum, Tether and Litecoin. Will Coinbase make Crypto more accessible like Apple and Microsoft made clunky home computers easy to use in the 1980s ? And why do you need a cryptocurrency account anyway ? Privacy, secrecy, one global currency ? Will internet based currencies supplan...