In the same month of August, these two things happened to me: I paid $239 to a New Jersey court for the dubious pleasure of holding my cell phone in hand while driving in plain sight of a cruiser. Second, a Korean woman I don’t even remember who knew my late husband and happened to dine with a distant acquaintance, asked said acquaintance about me, and ended up writing me a check for $200. 

So it was kind of a wash, financially speaking.

China allowed its tightly controlled currency, the yuan, to plunge to a 7-to-1 valuation against the U.S. dollar Monday, its lowest level in more than a decade. The devaluation made Chinese goods cheaper around the globe at a time when the United States is trying to discourage buying from the communist country. Last week, President Donald Trump threatened 10 percent tariffs on an additional $300 billion in Chinese imports if trade talks between the nations don’t yield results soon.

The Federal Reserve announced its first interest rate cut in a decade Wednesday. The quarter-point decrease will affect the cost of many loans for homes and businesses.

Is the economy in trouble? Not yet, and Fed Chairman Jerome Powell said he wants to keep it that way. He told reporters this rate cut is about sustaining growth amid economic uncertainty caused by things like the trade war with China, low inflation, and weaker global markets. He also said the Fed is not planning a long series of rate cuts, as it did in the Great Recession of the late 2000s.

Pierre Omidyar had the Midas touch. In 1995 he founded what became eBay. I don’t doubt that Omidyar worked hard, but his $11 billion fortune may be a case (compared to the typical toiler) of easy come, easy more—and that may mean trouble for the rest of us.

The Protestant Reformation taught us that “vocation”—a calling from God—belongs to all Christians, not just clergy. Often this vocation expresses itself in our work, and in the last few years Gene Edward Veith, Tim Keller, and others have written books that help Christians develop a theology of work and vocation. At the same time, another movement has spread in America with a different perspective on work. Its followers call it FIRE.

As April 15, income tax day, approaches, Congressional Democrats are proposing significant increases in taxes to fund new programs. U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., has proposed a 70 percent federal income tax on incomes above $10 million. Other Democrats have proposed similar levies. Proposals such as providing Medicare for all and the Green New Deal would require significant new expenditures and revenue to support them.

Is it really possible to tax the rich to fund fully such new initiatives?

A ticket bought in South Carolina won the Mega Millions lottery on Tuesday with a final prize of $1.537 billion, lottery officials said. The total is lower than the original estimate of $1.6 billion and comes in just shy of the all-time record from 2016. The winning ticket is worth about $877.8 million in a lump-sum cash payment, which most winners take instead of collecting the full amount in annual payments over three decades. South Carolina is one of the eight states where winners can remain anonymous. Whoever bought the ticket hasn’t claimed the prize yet.