This is it for me, at least for this chapter. I am off to join some people who don’t much appreciate voices singing out of key, and while they might be able to get over my public disdain for coaches who punt in opposing territory, it would be rather awkward to continue to point out [...]
Archive for the ‘Middle East’ Category
The End of the Internet
Posted in Corruption, Education, Energy Policy, Health Care, Housing Crisis, Housing Policy, Industrial Policy, Inspirational, Labor Policy, Meltdown, Middle East, Miscellaneous, NAFTA, Obama, War on Terror on December 15, 2009 | 29 Comments »
The Wrong Way, Slowly
Posted in Middle East, Military, Obama, South Asia, War on Terror on December 7, 2009 | 7 Comments »
For the first seventeen years of the Peloponnesian War, Athens and Sparta fought to something of a draw. Sparta dominated the land, but could not breach Athens’ walls. Athens dominated the sea, but could not march inland with enough force to defeat Sparta.
Change for the Sake of Change
Posted in Industrial Policy, Labor Policy, Middle East, Obama, South Asia, War on Terror, Weapons of Mass Destruction on December 2, 2009 | 3 Comments »
Still trying to process all of my objections to the current Afghan strategy into something moderately coherent, so I’ll start with a very different story: Fritz Henderson was rather suddenly and unceremoniously dismissed as CEO of GM. General Motors Co. Chief Executive Officer Fritz Henderson resigned after eight months on the job as directors concluded [...]
Vegas, With Real Gambling
Posted in Architecture, Corruption, Foreigners, Housing Crisis, Meltdown, Middle East, Obama, Tim Geithner on November 30, 2009 | 1 Comment »
I am enjoying the goings-on in Dubai tremendously. It’s like the field mouse of an economics drug trial: take every extreme symptom, jam it into one place of absolutely no global consequence, and then try to figure out the cure. Suppose you had a tiny country that decided it wanted to be important. Playing on [...]
91 Years
Posted in China, Foreigners, France, Germany, Middle East, Military, Russia on November 11, 2009 | 4 Comments »
The First World War ended ninety-one years ago.
Home Court Advantage
Posted in China, Corruption, Dick Cheney, Energy Policy, Foreigners, France, Labor Policy, Meltdown, Middle East, Military, Obama, Russia on October 16, 2009 | 5 Comments »
Once upon a time, there was a hedge fund named Hermitage Capital. Its head was Bill Browder, and it had the clever idea, back during the Yeltsin Administration, of investing Western capital in Russia. It worked spectacularly well, until it didn’t: Browder is a smart guy. He made a lot of money and managed to [...]
Role of Government
Posted in Corruption, Energy Policy, Health Care, Middle East on October 7, 2009 | 11 Comments »
David Brooks’ silly season seems to have found an Indian Summer, as he goes on about his imaginary friends Mr. Bentham and Mr. Hume: If you put Mr. Bentham in charge of the government, he’d proceed with confidence. If you told him to solve a complicated issue like the global-warming problem, he’d gather the smartest [...]
Rock and a Hard Place
Posted in China, Foreigners, Middle East, Military, Russia, War on Terror, Weapons of Mass Destruction on September 29, 2009 | 4 Comments »
Even as we wobble towards a coherent Afghanistan policy, Iran continues to be a massive thorn in our side. What do we do when all of our options are terrible?
Reform Week: Foreign Policy
Posted in Dick Cheney, Foreigners, George W. Bush, Middle East, Military, Obama, South Asia, War on Terror, Weapons of Mass Destruction on September 11, 2009 | 7 Comments »
Eight years.
Searching for the Peak
Posted in Finance, Industrial Policy, Labor Policy, Middle East, Transportation Policy on August 27, 2009 | 3 Comments »
The Times Op-Ed page is not typically given to investment topics – so much easier to let Maureen Dowd mail in fluff pieces about her friends – so I was a bit surprised to see Michael Lynch’s piece on peak oil. He doesn’t pull the typical eight-hundred-words-of-hedging bit either: Like many Malthusian beliefs, peak oil [...]
