Yearly Archives: 2016

Archive of posts published in the specified Year

Failure to Persuade

Nov. 23, 2016

From The New York Times, The End of Identity Liberalism by Mark Lilla But the fixation on diversity in our schools and in the press has produced a generation of liberals and progressives narcissistically unaware of conditions outside their self-defined

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Thoughts on the Transition

Nov. 21, 2016

I did not think Trump would win the primaries or the election and I was wildly wrong. I guess there is a chance that I am wrong about some of my fears about his policies as president. So, for the

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The New Republicans

Nov. 21, 2016

From Henry Olsen at National Review, Can the Republican Party Keep Trump Democrats? They are best viewed through the lens of active citizenship. They take national identity seriously and imbue Americanism with an implicit bargain that flies in the face of

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The Electoral College Reader

Nov. 21, 2016

From Jeff Jacoby, In Defense of the Electoral College: It’s easy to score rhetorical points by claiming smugly that “the people chose Hillary Clinton,” but the American method of choosing a president has been in place for two centuries. The

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The Greenspan Put

Nov. 20, 2016

The Man Who Knew by Sebastian Mallaby is an excellent biography of Alan Greenspan, but it may have greater value in understanding the power and limitations of the Federal Reserve itself. Greenspan has been accused of being an ideologue by

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Death by Diktat

Nov. 20, 2016

from the editors at The Wall Street Journal, Trump and the Democrats: excerpts Blaming “white-lash” is silly—of the roughly 700 U.S. counties that Mr. Obama won twice, about one-third broke this time for Mr. Trump—but these cultural rationalizations are lamentable

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We Need Better Elites

Nov. 19, 2016

From Fay Vincent Jr. in The Wall Street Journal, Elite Is Not a Four-Letter Word: While the fine old word “elite” has become a pejorative, its official definition has not changed. The New Oxford American Dictionary defines elite as “a

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Racist Backlash

Nov. 18, 2016

From Jonah Goldberg at National Review, Liberals should think twice before blaming the 2016 election on racism. Activists today are clear-cutting vast swathes of civil society to make room for reason-free zones where feelings outrank facts — they call them

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A Thousand Little Messes

Nov. 18, 2016

Some advice for the new president from economist John Cochrane in the Wall Street Journal, Don’t Believe the Economic Pessimists: Health. Replace ObamaCare with a simple health-insurance voucher. Deregulate insurance and entry into health care dramatically. Finance. Replace strangling regulation of financial companies

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Hillary, Pelosi, and Warren

Nov. 17, 2016

from Kimberly Strassel at The WSJ, The Democrats Double Down What Democrats should realize, because everyone else does, is that voters rejected both their policies (which have undermined middle- and low-income families) and their governance (which has fueled rage at

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Reading 2016 11 17

Nov. 17, 2016

The return of Glass Steagall What if the Experts are Wrong about What They are Supposed to be Experts About? ‘Tolerant’ educators exile Trump voters from campus” Reflections on The Trumpocalypse For the past several decades, you’ve portrayed every Republican, no matter

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The Enlightenment Made Flesh

Nov. 17, 2016

“Unfortunately for Britain- and fortunately for America the generation that emerged to lead the colonies into independence was one of the most remarkable group of men in history-sensible, broad-minded, courageous, usually well educated, gifted in a variety of ways, and

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The Rejection Election

Nov. 16, 2016

from Kimberly Strassel in The WSJ, Trump’s Secret Weapon:Obama All along this election has been portrayed as a referendum on Mr. Trump. Tuesday’s results are far better viewed as a thundering repudiation, at every level, of Mr. Obama’s governing and

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A Brief History of the Great Depression

Nov. 15, 2016

From George Melloan at the Wall Street Journal, Whoever Wins, Capitalism Will Survive: The seeds of the Depression were planted with the Federal Farm Loan Act of 1916, in a two-year interval in which President Woodrow Wilson had a compliant Democratic Congress.

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Greenspan

Nov. 15, 2016

I am reading an excellent biography of Alan Greenspan by Sebastian Mallaby titled The Man Who Knew. I recommend it as much for its illumination of the economy, the Fed’s role, and political decisions as for its portrayal of Mr.

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Shifting Coalitions

Nov. 15, 2016

The two-party system oversimplifies the political landscape. What we really have are two coalitions of interests and governing philosophies. The Democrats include Progressives, socialists, Capitalists (Wall Street), social justice warriors, unionists, and populists. It is the home of the environmentalists,

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The Contempt Factor

Nov. 14, 2016

Perhaps you have experienced the conversation when you are constantly interrupted and talked over. When this happens our first response is to raise our voice over the interrupter, but try the opposite. Stop mid-sentence, even mid word and see if

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A Better Way to Tax the Rich

Nov. 14, 2016

Some advice for the new president from economist John Cochrane in the Wall Street Journal, Don’t Believe the Economic Pessimists: The ideal tax system raises revenue for the government while distorting economic decisions as little as possible. A pure tax

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Thoughts on the Electoral College

Nov. 13, 2016

The Electoral College was carefully designed to fulfill a similar purpose of the constitution, to apply a break on majoritarian tyranny. The framers understood that democracy and demagogue had the same root. To the greatly disappointed Democrats who lament the

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Competition Trumps Meritocracy

Nov. 13, 2016

From The Washington Post Ana Swanson writes Why The Industrial Revolutions didn’t happen in China The article is mostly an interview with Joel Mokyr about his new book , A Culture of Growth: The Origins of the Modern Economy. It

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