History is not immutable. But there is one pattern that comes very close to being a law of history: in the long run, the rise and fall of great nations is driven primarily by their economic strength. Rome, imperial China, Venice, France, the Netherlands, Portugal, the United Kingdom — all had their day, and their [...]
Saturday, October 4, 2008
To listen to John McCain in debate and on the stump, you would think that he was refighting his war, which ended in a hasty, unseemly retreat as the enemy circled and stormed the last outposts.
That is not, militarily, the position we find ourselves facing in Iraq. We can withdraw at the time and pace [...]
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Barometers of financial stress hit record peaks across the world. Yields on short-term US Treasuries hit their lowest level since the London Blitz, while gold had its biggest one-day gain ever in dollar terms. Lending between banks, in effect, stopped.”
Also filed in Malthus, Polis, Recall, Rod Serling, Words
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Tagged abyss, brute force, demise, endrocrine, fractal, inconvenient truth, keeping options open, millenial, mind reels, mutandi, nonstop, old order passeth, paranoia, reverse bargains, secular transition, tension
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Friday, September 12, 2008
Bush would have read Plutarch, Cicero and Machiavelli.”
Saturday, September 6, 2008
Meeting the aspirational needs of its readers for luxury was not a job that The Wall Street Journal was doing. It had too long left the field of combat to the opposition champion of liberal orthodoxy, the Sunday Edition supplements to the New York Times.
Among the suddenly affluent, a hunger to manifest success through Veblian [...]
Thursday, September 4, 2008
Political conventions have conventions. The Republican convention preserved the appearances, enjoyed some rock-em, sock-em up-with-us and down-with-the-other-guys moments and told, re-told and re-told again the story of John McCain’s genuine heroism as a prisoner of war, crushed, alone, beaten, untreated and untended, and his adherence to duty, honor country.
John McCain told his own story directly [...]
Thursday, September 4, 2008
Mea culpa
The thoughtful and articulate former Reagan speechwriter and conservative writer in the Buckley tradition, Peggie Noonan, explains remarks she made during a commercial break of an MSNBC panel discussion. She denies that when she was heard to say “it’s over,” she was referring to the chances of the McCain campaign. She amplifies her uncharacteristically [...]
Saturday, August 30, 2008
When you get too good at faking it, people freak out
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
Organizations will work tirelessly to de-personalize every communication medium they encounter.
Con men have a term, ‘taking off the touch,’ for the point in the con when they take the mark’s money.”