So Now What?
Was the election outcome a reaffirmation of free market capitalism or a headlong lurch towards socialism or what Hayek termed, “The Road to Serfdom”? Wait! Is that what this election was about? Struggling with the daily COVID fear and loathing,…
Ghost Town and Peak Valley
Ghost Town? A few weeks ago I took my car to the mechanic in downtown San Francisco. It was nice day, with nothing else to do and contemplating the assorted possibilities of COVID exposure in an Uber or public transport,…
Greenback Boogie
“Money is the mother’s milk of politics” – Jesse M. Unruh, 1966 Each day I get more than 20 requests for money from both political parties. The friendly missives come via text and email. Happily, they haven’t discovered my WhatsApp…
Who Shot the Sheriff? (of Nottingham)
When I got back to the states in March, walking through an airport that seemed to have suffered a neutron bomb strike, I knew life would be different for a while. It wondered what manner of distractions would appeal to…
The Fed: Love Minus Zero/No Limit
In the dime stores and bus stations People talk of situations Read books, repeat quotations Draw conclusions on the wall Some speak of the future My love she speaks softly She knows there’s no success like failure And that failure’s…
The Incorporeal Economy
In October 2006, Netflix launched a contest. They offered a $1 million prize to any team that could improve their movie-recommendation software engine by 10%. Netflix’s global hackathon eventually engaged 30,000 engineers loosely organized and endlessly re-organized into hundreds of…
Social Capital and Social Distancing
Most of us have worked in high performance teams at some time. Those were the teams that took pride in doing what others said was impossible, where debate was open and energized and sometimes at high volume, where decisions were…
The Central Planners and the Virus
“Only a crisis – actual or perceived – produces real change. When that crisis occurs, the actions that are taken depend on the ideas that are lying around.” …
Walking With Virus
I live in the city. My neighbors are out walking. Not just a few but lots of them. Most are walking alone or at most two abreast. They walk slowly, without purpose, as if they have no place to go….
Crossing the Political-Economic Divide
How do entrepreneurs assess political risk? Other than Mark Zuckerberg, do they even think about it? Are technology companies and social networks on the side of the populists? Division is in the air. Everything I read and everything I hear…