In recent times, the general public has gained a heightened awareness of quite a few new topics that no one would have ever anticipated. Certainly, politics have taken a prominent place in many people’s lives in recent years, regardless of your party affiliation. There can be no doubt that far more people understand the nuts and bolts of impeachment proceedings now than they have in at least two decades. Simply remembering or discovering that impeachment in and of itself isn’t automatic removal from office probably came as a revelation to many. In medicine, there are certainly far more armchair doctors out there now than ever before. Don’t ask us what RNA is, but we’ve certainly had more casual conversations about it than is reasonable for anyone without a PhD. And the fact that many non-investors can almost competently explain what shorting a stock means thanks to Gamestop of all companies, it’s safe to say we live in extraordinary times. And now due to a combination of a little bit of all of the above along with astronomical demand of at-home distractions such as video gaming (think Sony’s new Playstation 5, the Nintendo Switch, and Nvidia’s RTX 3080 GPU), the concept of shortages, the supply chain, and the complexity that goes into delivering a final product to a mass audience has itself become the stuff of casual small talk.

Read full post here →