Economics and politics

April 2, 2009

Moral philosophy and cynicism – are you a cynic?

Simon Critchely, author of “The Book of Dead Philosophers”, wrote in the NY Times on 4/2/2009 that “perhaps this recession will make cynics of us all.”   He explains this logic by stating that “cynicism is a moral protest against hypocrisy and cant in politics and excess and thoughtless self-indulgence in the conduct of life.” The […]

Economics and politics
April 1, 2009

Affluenza – do you have it?

Maureen Dowd in the NY Times today said that we are currently struggling to get over our “affluenza.  That condition, the bane of the middle class, is defined in a book of the same name as ‘a painful, contagious, socially transmitted condition of overload, debt, anxiety and waste resulting from the dogged pursuit of more.’” […]

Economics and politics
March 12, 2009

Stop it, right now!

I recently returned from facilitating a Remodelers Advantage peer group review – a good meeting with good people.  There was lots of conversation about what to do next and how to accomplish all that needed doing gracefully and with forethought.  Compassion, gracefully and focused were words used many times over those 3 days.  Many good […]

Economics and politics, Management Theory
February 7, 2009

Train Wreck or a Plane Crash?

As an economics major I’ve watched the economy ‘unravel’, to use Paul Krugman’s term, with a sense of increasing fascination combined with dread.  I’ve often called it a ‘slow train wreck’.  As a consultant to the remodeling industry I’ve noticed  a certain tension in the air since spring 2008 as even the most successful and […]

Economics and politics
January 25, 2009

This recession & JMK (John Maynard Keynes)

According to N. Gregory Mankiw, professor of Economics at Harvard, in a NY Times article in the Business Section on Sunday, November 30th, “If you were going to turn to only one economist to understand the problems facing the economy, there is little doubt that the economist would be John Maynard Keynes.” And “According to […]

Economics and politics
January 11, 2009

“Put not your trust in princes!”

Every Sunday morning I sit down with the NY Times and quickly move to the Business Section to read the latest from Ben Stein – we may not agree on many things, but his analysis of the current economy is usually spot to me! In the January 11, 2009 column entitled “Ordinary People vs. Extraordinary […]

Economics and politics
January 6, 2009

Who is Ferdinand Pecora?

If  you’re half as interested as I am in how we got into our current economic mess you’ll want to read the New York Times Op-Ed piece of today’s date entitled “Where is our Ferdinand Pecora?”. “Under Pecora’s expert and often withering questioning, the Senate committee unearthed a secret financial history of the 1920s, demystifying […]

Economics and politics
January 5, 2009

Is the term “Rational Man” an oxymoron?

Adam Gopnik, in the January 5th issue of  The New Yorker compares our current economic crisis with “the moment when a small child hits his forehead on a doorknob … and then the long seconds of red-faced anticipation, breath drawn, while everyone waits for the explosion of tears. ‘…we have all bumped our foreheads, hard, […]

Economics and politics
January 4, 2009

The End of the Financial World as We Know It!

Michael Lewis and David Einhorn begin this piece “AMERICANS enter the New Year in a strange new role: financial lunatics.”  The article questions how a crisis of this magnitude could happen here – to the nation where “half the planet’s college graduates seemed to want nothing more out of life than a job on Wall […]

Economics and politics
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