I would just like to say that if a quarter of a point in interest rates either way has even the slightest effect on the economy, then we’re in big trouble. L’affaire Fed is much ado about nothing. It will have nothing more than the most marginal impact on the real-world economy.

It’s remarkable that this whole thing is getting the attention it has. In the short-term, the medium-term, and the long-term, the question of whether policy rates right now are at 2 percent or 2.25 percent makes absolutely no difference.

Today is “name that plant” day. When I was up at the arboretum a couple of weeks ago, I came across a section that was filled with two different plants. They were pretty similar, but one was red and the other was green and yellow. The red one was labeled but the other one wasn’t. So what is this thing?

Here is the latest meme sweeping the Chinese-speaking world:

This is a mashup of the Chinese characters for dirt, poor, and ugly, and it’s the new rage among China’s millennials:

Pronounced “qiou,” the new character can’t be produced on a keyboard. But its image, which appeared early this month on Weibo, the Chinese equivalent of Twitter, has been viewed tens of millions of times.

….The three components mean poor, ugly and dirt…Put them together and — according to one highly shared post — you get an adjective with three possible definitions: 1. so poor you’re eating dirt ; 2. not only ugly, but also so poor you eat dirt; 3. poor, ugly and dirt-tacky. Young netizens who feel left behind in China’s new economy have claimed the character as an ironically proud expression of loser-hood.

Many Weibo users spread the same joke about qiou: It should be a synonym for wo — or “me.” Fans of the new character aren’t in dire poverty. After all, they have access to the internet and time to play on social media. But they live on the wrong side of China’s widening income gap, a place where finding a job, buying a house and getting married can feel impossible.

Surely we can Americanize this bit of ironic whining and make it into a text-emoji, like the famous shrug: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯  Let’s get on this, internet.

Chris Kleponis/CNP via ZUMA

Paul Krugman has a couple of questions for his fellow economists:

But my question is, why aren’t we seeing an open letter from right-leaning economists calling on Trump to lay off the Fed? After all, demanding an easy money policy when unemployment is 3.7% is a lot more likely to cause inflation than easing at 9.4%. But, crickets 3/

— Paul Krugman (@paulkrugman) December 26, 2018

This goes hand in hand with denouncing deficits when the economy really needed fiscal support to being just fine with them when they result from tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy, even though now would be a good time to rein in debt 4/

— Paul Krugman (@paulkrugman) December 26, 2018

As usual, Krugman doesn’t understand. Right-wing economists were calling for hard money in 2010 because the president was an obviously inexperienced Democrat likely to run the economy off the rails with his Democratic big-spending ways and tolerance for huge deficits. That was a totally reasonable position regardless of how deep our recession was.

Today, by contrast, the economy is in the hands of a Republican with 40 years of business experience who has shown himself to be a master of financial markets. And sure enough, he’s opposed to more spending except for defense and the wall and welfare for farmers affected by his trade war with China. Also, he cut taxes on corporations, which shows a real understanding of the fundamentals of the econonmy, and he tweets frequently about the dangerous deficits caused by the tax cut. This ability to keep multiple conflicting thoughts in his brain at once is the mark of a man with a Wharton degree and a sophisticated understanding of economics who can be trusted not do the right thing and should be given plenty of rope to do it.

Everything good now? Do we all understand why Obama needed to be reined in as a dangerously profligate Democrat while Trump can be given plenty of leeway because he’s a tightfisted Republican who won’t abuse his authority? Excellent.

Check it out, investors and investorettes!

Over the past 30 days, Bitcoin has outperformed the S&P 500 handily: It’s down only 4 percent compared to the S&P’s 10 percent drop. If only you’d listened to the blockchain mavens you’d be sitting pretty on your stash of real digital wallet money instead of bemoaning your losses in the fiat currency of the US government. Lesson learned?

NOTE: Past performance does not guarantee future results. Plus, bitcoin is a long con. But then again, Donald Trump is president of the US dollar. Take your pick.

A few days ago, this video went viral:

No, not the epitome of a team player. It’s a kid dealing with a racist ref (dreds gave him no advantage) who was humilated and seemed devastated even after his win. His team shoot have sttod up for him. Utterly and totally f*cked up thing to do to a kid. https://t.co/dD8nn4YSiq

— Soledad O’Brien (@soledadobrien) December 21, 2018

I didn’t post about this at the time because it seemed like there had to be more to the story. But there was nothing in the news reports. Today, though, I figured a few days had gone by and maybe the local press had dug into things a little more deeply. After a bit of sleuthing, I think I finally know what happened. I should warn you beforehand that this doesn’t answer the question of whether the referee in this video was racist or not. But it does explain how this seemingly bizarre incident unraveled:

• Wrestling rules require that hair be cut to “normal” collar length in back and above the earlobes on the sides.
• Andrew Johnson, the teenage wrestler in the video, had hair that was “a little too long,” according to his father, so he had to wear a cap.
• The match referee, Alan Maloney, “regarded as one of the state’s top wrestling referees,” was late to the meet and didn’t see Johnson’s cap during weigh-in. When he saw it before Johnson’s match began, he ruled that it was illegal.
• Why? Because the rules have changed. “Johnson would’ve been in compliance in the past, but the rule changed within the past couple of seasons to require the cap to be attached to the headgear, according to Howie O’Neil, who’s officiated for 44 years.”
• Johnson’s coach argued intensely with Maloney for several minutes, but Maloney wouldn’t budge. Finally, Johnson decided on his own to have his dreadlocks cut.
• According to the New Jersey Courier-Post, Maloney was “acting in accordance with the rules, according to multiple South Jersey referees.” Ron Roberts, a wrestling referee of more than 20 years who also happens to be a Buena graduate, said “The interpretation of the rule was applied correctly. The kid had to have legal head cover by rule or he’s got to cut his hair.”
• Buena had competed in a tournament the week before, presumably staffed by different referees, but this was their first dual meet of the year.

So this whole thing boils down to an opinion: should Maloney have simply warned Johnson and told him to get a regulation cap before his next meet? Or was he correct to enforce the rules as they stood?

I don’t know. Either way, though, what really sent this incident into the social media stratosphere was the discovery that Alan Maloney, the referee, had once called a fellow ref the n-word after having one too many drinks at an after-meet party:

Over a disagreement about homemade wine, said Preston Hamilton, who is African American, fellow referee Alan Maloney poked his finger in his chest and hurled the epithet….Hamilton told the Courier-Post he responded by slamming Maloney, who is white, to the ground.

….Maloney says he called Hamilton and apologized to him two days later, on Easter Sunday. “I left it alone,” Hamilton recalled. “I’ve known Al since I was 4 years old. I was just trying to leave it alone.”

….Four days after Preston Hamilton’s email to Southern Chapter President Sean Felkins about what he said transpired in the condo, Maloney emailed his fellow official.

“Preston, It was good speaking to you the other day (3/27/16) in regards to the statement you said i made. As i stated to you then i do not remember that i said what i was told, but i’m happy you accepted my apologies and i am glad we can move forward, very sorry that this happen. If you need to discuss anything further call me. Look forward to seeing you around and refing with you in the near future. best wishes, alan”

….On May 4, Hamilton got notification that an NJWOA ethics committee hearing for both parties would be held May 22….According to Felkins, Maloney volunteered to participate in an alcohol awareness program and sensitivity training. Both corrective actions were accepted, as long as he paid for and finished them. On top of that, Maloney received a one-year suspension from officiating, Felkins said.

So far, that’s all I can find out. Maloney and Hamilton were apparently longtime acquaintances (friends?); Maloney was tipsy when he used the n-word; he agreed to participate in sensitivity training; and he was suspended for a year. (Hamilton was suspended too, for slamming Maloney to the floor.)

As for the cap, it’s all a matter of how strictly Maloney should have enforced the rules. I have no idea about that, but perhaps I have some readers with wrestling experience who might shed some light on this?

It’s lunchtime on Christmas Eve, but I have no Christmas-themed photos to share with you. However, I’m sure we all agree that Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity is a timeless holiday classic, and it turns out that I do have a relativity-themed picture for you. I snapped it a couple of days ago, so I got it just in the nick of time.

Eagle-eyed readers with good memories will recall that explaining relativity is one of my pastimes, but I’ve long had a pet peeve about it: namely that general relativity is routinely explained using a timeworn picture of a trampoline to describe how gravity works. I’ll spare you the long-winded reason why this annoys me (it’s here, if you’re interested), but the nutshell version is that (a) it provides a completely incorrect impression of what’s actually going on, and (b) the real explanation of what causes gravity is both easier to understand and far more interesting. However, I have come up with a timely compromise. Behold the general relativity spider web:

Check it out! It’s a trampoline-shaped spider web! The reason it’s trampoline-shaped is that the spider has erected some extra web filaments that pull the center outward, thus providing the equivalent of a non-Euclidean spacetime in which the geodesic bends toward the center.

Don’t worry about what that means. It’s bafflegab. The point is this: If you want to write about general relativity and you insist on using the trampoline metaphor, you have my permission to use this photograph anytime you like. In fact, I insist on it. I further insist that you explain the warpage of spacetime using the metaphor of a gigantic, invisible, relativistic spider. Deal?

And what the hell. Here’s another photo of the spider web. It’s taken from a slightly different angle and at a slightly different time, and for some reason this tiny change converts it from a timeless black-and-white image to a surprisingly moving color rendition that evokes the inexorable motion of the spider’s prey toward the center of the web. Fascinating, no?

I have bad news, boys and girls: the president is all alone in the White House. You know what that means, don’t you? A presidential tweetstorm!

AMERICA IS RESPECTED AGAIN!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 24, 2018

The only problem our economy has is the Fed. They don’t have a feel for the Market, they don’t understand necessary Trade Wars or Strong Dollars or even Democrat Shutdowns over Borders. The Fed is like a powerful golfer who can’t score because he has no touch – he can’t putt!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 24, 2018

The Wall is different than the 25 Billion Dollars in Border Security. The complete Wall will be built with the Shutdown money plus funds already in hand. The reporting has been inaccurate on the point. The problem is, without the Wall, much of the rest of Dollars are wasted!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 24, 2018

I am all alone (poor me) in the White House waiting for the Democrats to come back and make a deal on desperately needed Border Security. At some point the Democrats not wanting to make a deal will cost our Country more money than the Border Wall we are all talking about. Crazy!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 24, 2018

America is respected again! The Fed can’t putt! The Wall will be built with Shutdown money! Trump is all alone!

Ah well, some people just don’t handle the holiday season well. But it’s all worth it because it’s no longer illegal to say “Merry Christmas,” amirite?

Coming up next: a Very Special Episode of Lunchtime Photo. I’ll just tell everyone up front that it’s not likely to make much sense to you. But that’s OK. Just enjoy the holidays anyway. Tomorrow I shall try to have a more traditionally themed Christmas photo.

For reasons that are a mystery to everyone, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin called up the country’s six biggest banks on Sunday and asked them if their liquidity was OK. Everybody was a bit nonplussed by this, but they said sure, everything’s fine. Any particular reason you’re asking?

Today I convened individual calls with the CEOs of the nation’s six largest banks. See attached statement. pic.twitter.com/YzuSamMyeT

— Steven Mnuchin (@stevenmnuchin1) December 23, 2018

Well, no, apparently there wasn’t any particular reason Mnuchin was asking about this, but it sure got everybody curious. Is there a problem with bank liquidity? Does the Treasury know something the rest of us don’t? What’s going on?

No one knows. The best theory seems to be that President Trump is enraged that the stock market is down, so he ordered Mnuchin to call all the banks and then issue an assurance that everything was hunky dory. That should calm the markets, right? As you can see, it had precisely the opposite effect:

The S&P 500 fell about 3 percent today and has now lost nearly all of its gains since Trump was inaugurated. Nice work, Donald! You really understand financial markets better than anyone.

Of course, this cannot be allowed to be Trump’s fault, which means it must be Mnuchin’s fault. How long will it be before the axe starts to fall on his old pal?