CategoryEconomics

September 2016 / The old joke circulating that economists were created to make weathermen look good is making the rounds these days as everyone scrambles to make sense out of today’s headlines. When economies are properly functioning, funds flow in an orderly fashion to return categories, which reflect varying degrees of risk along the investment spectrum. But after the Brexit vote...

August 2016 / In my previous article I pointed out that the task of partitioning the Ottoman Empire during the First World War was delegated to two mid-level bureaucrats, Mark Sykes and Francois Georges-Picot. The resulting Sykes-Picot Agreement, rushed through without much serious reflection, set in motion wars, coups, and ultimately released the twin terrors of radicalism and terrorism. As more...

May 2016 / In a little noticed New York Times article, Saudi Foreign Minister Adel Al-Jubeir was reported as telling President Barack Obama that Saudi Arabia will sell hundreds of billions of dollars of US assets if Congress approves legislation that puts the Saudi government squarely in the crosshairs of lawsuits which hold the Saudi government responsible for the 9/11 attacks. This means that...

April 2016 / Anatole France in his novel PENGUIN ISLAND made the point that people have an almost uncontrollable instinct to get behind anyone who is perceived as more powerful, more robust at life than they think themselves to be. They do this, they tell themselves, for self-survival, but all too often they become victims of the leaders they surrender themselves to. Richard Nixon understood this...