I asked Jack,
"Do you really think people reading this story will give a damn about what the economy was like in the 1980's? If you study the art of writing, it is said that you need to draw your audience into the story. People might find this to be old news. Does it really have anything to do with the kid and the calculator?"

He replied,
"I have wasted enough of my precious time giving a damn what other people think.
I know where this is headed. I may not have done a great job seeing where I was going till the fires of hell were buring the soles of my feet, but this is where it all started."

"What started?"

The gates of Hades opened up and unleashed the demons of ignorance."

"I see."

He continued,
"As far as the economy of the 1980's goes, doesn't it look just a bit too familiar?

"Now that you mention it."

"What is Jerome Powell, Chair of the Federal Reserve of the United Sates doing about it? I'll tell you. He isn't doing anything original. He is letting Paul Volcker call the shots from the grave. Volcker got his precious interest rates down. His economic policies were a slash and burn operation that turned the American Dream to a pile of ashes.

Powell is telling people,
"There will be some pain involved, but in the long run, it will be good for the consumer."

"What does he know of economic pain? He is sitting on $55 million. Volcker's policies sent the economy into a nose dive and Powell is telling the American people not to worry?

Powell goes on,
"All of our data tells us the prospects of a recession are slim to none. The plane is coming in for a soft landing."

Jack leaned out of his arm chair and turned his crooked neck sideways,
"Any historian with a single functioning brain cell would question this assumption.
What does that tell you? The calculator that the Federal Reserves is using is telling us
what to think. Big data, machine learning, and cutting edge algorithms are in control.
History be damned."