I’ve never been a fan of Paris. To read about Paris is to read about its beauty, charm and sophistication, but when I first visited in 1998, it struck me as rundown, dirty, and way too touristy. Basically a city full of people with cameras (I’m aging myself there) around their necks and ice […]
Book Review: Simon Kuper’s “Impossible City: Paris In the 21st Century” Read More »
Charlie Munger famously said, “It’s remarkable how much long-term advantage people like us have gotten by trying to be consistently not stupid, instead of trying to be very intelligent.” Were he still with us, Munger might admit that when it comes to money, it takes a lot of intelligence or at least a lot of emotional
Book Review: Mark Shupe’s “The Moneyball Method” Read More »
“You know, people think that because I’m Mike Nichols, I don’t need praise. I need a lot. Nobody gets that.” The previous quote comes from Mark Harris’s excellent 2020 biography (review here) of – you guessed it – Mike Nichols. To read about the polymath was to marvel at how much he was venerated by
Book Review: Ian Leslie’s “John & Paul: A Love Story In Songs” Read More »
Cato Institute co-founder Ed Crane has always been of the view that “democracy” must be extraordinarily limited. It should be a device for removing highly objectionable people from national offices like that of the President, but not much more. As Crane explained it long ago in Forbes, Americans should go to bed early on election night.
Book Review: Shadi Hamid’s ‘The Problem of Democracy’ Read More »
The rain was heavy for parts of last weekend in the Washington, D.C. area. Seeing it coming down in sheets, it got me thinking about how people used to live. How awful it must have been in the days of primitive construction. Everything must have always been damp, moldy, buggy, and surely worse than
Book Review: Phil Gramm & Donald Boudreaux’s ‘The Triumph of Economic Freedom’ Read More »
The world becomes more amazing by the day. The surest evidence of the previous assertion is that wealth inequality continues to soar. Yes, you read that right. Inequality is a wonderful thing opposite the apologetic tone about it taken by left and right. Members of the left plainly disdain it, while members of the
Book Review: Stephen Witt’s ‘The Thinking Machine’ Read More »
In Men at Work, George Will observed that “The history of baseball is littered with stories of failures by players who thought that their natural physical endowments would be sufficient.” The previous assertion was what made Will’s book such a fascinating read. It never occurred to me that the most interesting aspects of baseball were
Book Review: Michael Arkush’s Excellent “The Golf 100” Read More »
“We wouldn’t be where we are without Mike.” The Mike referenced was the one and only Michael Milken, but what was said about Milken could have realistically been said by countless people. Such was the reach of Milken. While entrepreneurs and CEOs get rich by democratizing access to formerly out-of-reach goods and services, Milken
Book Review: Butch Meily’s “From Manilla to Wall Street” Read More »
“You better let me take this. They’d never believe it coming from you.” That’s legendary New York Times editor R.W. Apple at the end of a particularly expensive dinner with Times colleague Joseph Lelyveld. Though Lelyveld had extended the dinner invitation to Apple, and had chosen the venue, Apple’s spending resume included “the world’s
Book Review: Graydon Carter’s ‘When the Going Was Good’ Read More »
“I have such easy access to my fans and customers.” Those are the words of Kylie Jenner, from a 2018 Forbes profile. Jenner was on the path to billionaire status, but in many ways the billionaire part was the least interesting aspect of her ascent. Much more interesting was that Jenner had built her eponymous cosmetics
Book Review: Diane Coyle’s ‘The Measure of Progress’ Read More »
