Monthly Archives: October 2011

“Globalization has grown the proverbial pie, but it is a rich minority that gorges on most of it.  It may even be argued that the layman’s portion is shrinking every day.  The working class, the impoverished, the young, and now, … Continue reading →

My apologies for my absence from the blog.  I am now back from my trip to Asia — were in good Asian worker fashion, we were kept busy from 8 am to 10 pm with formal activities every day — … Continue reading →

Ken Pomeranz did a wonderful book a few years ago called “The Great Divergence.”  It was about how, contrary to conventional wisdom that saw the West (e.g. Western Europe) surging ahead of the rest of humanity beginning in the Middle … Continue reading →

Iran tried to hire a Mexican drug cartel to assassinate Adel al-Jubeir, the Saudi Ambassador to the United States and one of the closest confidantes of Saudi Arabia’s ruler, in Washington D.C.  It sounds crazy, and indeed commentators have had … Continue reading →

Todd Gitlin had a nice essay on the OWS movement in the Sunday NY Times; ditto for David Meyer in the Sunday Washington Post.  Gitlin agrees with me that many of those now being drawn to the protests are disillusioned … Continue reading →

All you really need to know about the Wall Street protests is that when I was growing up, a “millionaire” was someone with a net worth of one million dollars.  Today, a “millionaire” is someone with an annual income of … Continue reading →

Today is a sad day — our modern Edison, Steve Jobs, has passed away. Jobs did so much to change the world, with flair and originality as well as brilliant engineering.  He was a model for entrepreneurs, in that no … Continue reading →

Robert Frank, the brilliant Cornell economist who has done so much to clarify the winner-take-all nature of our economy, has a new book out, The Darwin Economy, in which he seeks to use Darwinian theory to understand why things have gone … Continue reading →