Peter Murmann

If you have been studying the business pages of major newspapers and business magazines, you will realize that a fierce battle is being waged by believers in demand or supply side economics. Everyone after the Great Depression used to be a demand sider; then Milton Friedman and his conspirators convinced many politians that government spending [Read More]

Ellen McCarthy (Washington Post) puts her finger on just how significant the news of Al and Tipper Gore’s divorce is and spells out what this means for the instution of marriage in a modern wolrd with life expectancies reaching nine decades. Al and Tipper Gore’s separation makes us fear for our parents, ourselves Please Al and Tipper, [Read More]

Robert Hilburn pieces together for the best account to day why Michael Jackson is dead.  Michael Jackson: the wounds, the broken heart Pop music critic Robert Hilburn recalls the years when the public turned its back on the singer. ‘I’m lonely,’ a 23-year-old Jackson said. I’ll always regret that the last conversation I had with Michael Jackson [Read More]

The only columnist who I follow every week is David Brooks. Maybe you should too. The Long Voyage Home              By DAVID BROOKS (NY Times) Republicans generally like Westerns. They generally admire John Wayne-style heroes who are rugged, individualistic and brave. They like leaders—from Goldwater [Read More]

I had not followed British politics and until I read this column by David Brooks, I did not know why the Tory party won the local elections in Great Britain last week. The Conservative Revival For years, American and British politics were in sync. Reagan came in roughly the same time as Thatcher, and Clinton Today, British [Read More]

This is a great reflection by Joel Achenbach (Washington Post) on the job of the president and how it has changed over the past 200 years. It makes you wonder. No one can really prepare for this job. My preferred candidate is still Barak Obama.  But I recognize that we are all taking a [Read More]

Different languages have come up with a way to express that the smell of other people has a profound effect how attracted we are to them. English talks about the “chemistry” that two people have. In German, you literally say “I cannot smell you” (Ich kann dich nicht riechen) to express that you don’t like [Read More]

STEVEN PINKER pulls together in the New York Times magazine evidence that suggests that the human brain is pre-wired for developing a moral instinct. The article is a bit long but well worth reading. The Moral Instinct Which of the following people would you say is the most admirable: Mother Teresa, Bill Gates or Norman [Read More]

Sometimes the lecture by the recipients of the Nobel Prize for literature are superb (e.g. Guenter Grass) and sometime they are quite disappointing (e.g. Heinrich Boell). Just read the Orhan Pamuk gave in Stockholm a few months ago after receiving the 2006 prize. It is a great read. Try it… By Orhan Pamuk: Two years before [Read More]