Archive for March, 2009
Moonstruck Morality Versus the Cosmos
January 25 of this year marked the 50th anniversary of the surprise announcement of Pope John XXIII that he intended to convoke a general council. From 1959 to 1962, the soon-to-be-jettisoned constitutions and decrees that would have been discussed were composed by preparatory committees of eminent Roman theologians. Among these is one document that is remarkable for its keen prescience and consequent pastoral anxiety. It never even made it to the floor of the council.
Can Uncle Sam Ever Let Go?
NATO has been irrelevant for two decades, since its raison d’etre—to keep the Red Army from driving to the Rhine—disappeared. Yet Obama is headed to Brussels to celebrate France’s return and the 60th birthday of the alliance. But why is NATO still soldiering on?
Is the Bailout Plan Breeding a Greater Crisis?
The unaddressed question remains: Is the U.S. dollar’s status as world reserve currency threatened by the massive debt monetization and multiyear, multitrillion dollar issuance of new Treasuries?
Obama’s Fall Guy
Since America is in its worst economic mess in 70 years and since President Obama’s designated Mr. Fixit is Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, you’d think the Obama presidency is in desperate shape. The reason? Mr. Fixit is surely the most derided man running the U.S. Treasury since Andrew Mellon cut spending and raised taxes amid the onset of the Great Depression in 1932. Even the bounce on Wall Street after the launch of Geithner’s most recent effort to bail out the banks didn’t stem the chorus of abuse.
The Way We Are, No. 2
Economic stimulus: On the face of it, the proposition that we can borrow and spend ourselves into prosperity is lunacy. Actually, it is worse than lunacy. It is a means of enjoying luxury by shifting the costs to posterity. But, then, Americans no longer are conscious of any posterity, any more than they recognise any ancestors.
Epictetus against Consumerists and Other Cowards
This very limited discussion of Epictetus is intended as a contribution to the wider discussion of capitalism and Christianity. I do not intend to explore the intricacies of Stoic thought, either its merits or errors, but to show quite simply that, quite apart from Christianity, there is an ancient and distinguished tradition of moral philosophy that provides a severe critic of the consumerist ethos.
Defining Terms
Libertarians and capitalists write as if there were some natural or divine force known as “the market.” There is no such thing. There is no MARKET, only markets, and a market is a place where people exchange goods and services, sometimes but not always for money.
Launching Lifeboats Before the Ship Sinks
The Federal Reserve says that its purchase of $1 trillion in existing bonds is part of its plan to revive the economy. Another way to view the Fed’s announcement is to see it as a pre-emptive rescue. Is the Fed rescuing banks from their bond portfolios prior to the destruction of bond prices by inflation?
What Is History? Part 26
“A Morsel of Genuine History, a Thing so Rare as to be Always Valuable.” —Jefferson
Filmlog: Decision at Sundown
Bud Boetticher once said he did not make B movies but C movies whose very lack of publicity (they were rarely shown in Hollywood) permitted him to take chances. In the additional material now de riguer on DVD’s, Taylor Hackford applies this statement to the slightly risqué themes that Bo slips into his Westerns: In Decision at Sundown, the wicked Tate Kimbrough (played by John Carroll) is keeping company with his mistress on his wedding day.
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