Bill Gates calls Steven Pinker’s new book, Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress, “My new favorite book of all time.” Pinker’s work is a 453 page, incredibly well researched tour de force on every aspect of life across the globe since The Enlightenment. And almost every page explores the incomparable progress we humans have made during the last 250 years to beat back death, extend life, multiply productivity, equalize rights, increase leisure, and add to...
A nation that fractures along identity politics boundaries is almost certainly doomed. When Lenin and Trotsky started their rebellion against the provisional government of Alexander Kerensky in St. Petersburg, Russia in November, 1917, they expected to be arrested and sent into exile, as had always happened before. Instead, a few days later, much to their surprise, they were in control of the capital and, soon, the nation. What happened? The Bolsheviks were prepared to use violence to get...
Veteran readers in this space will know that one of my favorite books is Henry Hazlitt’s Economics in One Lesson. See my post from 2013 entitled What We Don’t See is Killing Us for a reminder. And I will again quote several sentences from Chapter 15 which capture Hazlitt’s special insight, and which all policy makers should memorize: “In studying the effects of any given economic proposal we must trace not merely the immediate results but the results in the long run, not merely the primary...
I was just in Seattle, and the rumor there is that amazon.com will choose Toronto, Canada for its highly-sought after second headquarters, to poke the President in the eye for his immigration and trade policies. I hope that won't happen, but if it turns out to be true, it will be the latest in the list of counterproductive results from our President’s unfortunate words, tweets and actions. A year ago, worried about the election, I wrote that we had a terrible choice. Separating the choice...
I suspect that this post will make some readers angry. That's not my intent, but it's probably inevitable, because I want to ask some politically incorrect questions which no one seems to be willing to take on. This year in the Pacific Fleet there have been three collisions and a grounding of combatant ships, a terrible record previously unmatched by the U.S. Navy. A quick search online will bring up several articles about the details of each incident. The two recent, tragic collisions at sea...
Michael Schuman’s reminder in a recent BusinessWeek article is one of the clearest high level observations I’ve read on the perverse and unpredictable nature of too much debt in the short run, never mind the long term requirement to repay it; he focuses on the mounting problem in China, though the same analysis could apply to Illinois, Puerto Rico and other heavy borrowers. It reminds me of the last days of the Soviet Union when factories built widgets that no one wanted and just stacked them...
As many of you know, I recently spent several days in London with a group of wonderful Believers who are originally from Nigeria, at an event for Joshua's Army. We were joined by a pastor from Lagos, Nigeria, and by a pastor in the Nigerian community in London, both strong men of God. Our weekend discussion was about how husbands and fathers can better model Christ with our wives and children. While there were many beautiful facets to the weekend together, the one I want to focus on for this...
Most Western countries are experiencing a revolt against the intellectual and political elites who have governed nations, the media, academia and central banks for as long as most adults can remember. While the country-specific details vary slightly, the common wisdom of these elites has produced ever increasing state intervention in our economies as well as in our personal lives, along with the near destruction of the family, a huge increase in victimization/entitlements, crony capitalism, no...
We are only about two weeks from this unfortunate election, and millions have already voted. I want to give you my current thoughts, with the caveat of retaining the right to modify my views right up to the day when I pull a lever. Let me also confirm that we are all very tired of this election and want it to be over so that we can clean up and move on. And you can check out my original suggestions from back in May, 2015 at this link. My intent here is not to start a range war with anyone,...
This year's extraordinary election is less than two months away. Like most Americans, I am not pleased with the choices we have before us. With all of the negative generalities coming from both sides, I decided to try to put on paper specifically what concerns me. I really am not looking to start an argument or to defend any candidate--please consider this to be a personal interim report, subject to change as more information becomes available in the coming weeks. Concerns I have about...
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