It's being reported that Ambassador Ryan Crocker is stepping down from his post in Afghanistan, which on top of the open post in Pakistan leaves a big gap in American foreign policy in South and Central Asia, because Ambassador Crocker was as good as they come, something worth remembering as to… Read full post »

 http://simmsandassociates.com/

I worked with an old climbing partner and friend in his law office from October until last week as a paralegal/researcher type, and general gopher too, and of all the things that I saw, this would be the case you don't forget, reinforced by a headline in the paper… Read full post »

When President Obama began campaigning for office, as to national security policy, he could have hardly been more clear as to his premises, agree with them or not, or what mix of agreements and disagreements one could take from that.

The premises were totally stated upfront.

As to the premises that… Read full post »

 "War is a matter of life and death of the state; it must be pondered deeply." Sun Tzu.

It's pretty obvious that there's a lot of tension over what to do next with Iran and it's nuclear program.

It's worth prefacing the analysis that follows by stating that, first, the… Read full post »

Before one weeps too much over the sense of betrayal of some Germans to the announcement of the creation of a "Jewish Homeland" by British Foreign Minister Lord Balfour in late 1917, not a state note, although it was almost bound to become one, it is worth remembering who the most… Read full post »

 The Euro developed out of a currency peg known as the "Snake" in the 1970s, and Greek attachment to the Mark underlying what became the Euro is unlikely to just vanish.

A currency peg can be a source of economic difficulty, if it's pegged in a way that isn't attached to… Read full post »

There's not a more serious foreign policy matter before the United States than Iran right now, save for the possibility of a North Korean attack on South Korea. We could prevail in both contingenicies simultanteously, but it would push us hard to do so, which is a reason for really thinking… Read full post »

Now that the grand jury has seen evidence that Zimmerman was beaten pretty decently by Trayvon Martin, while however Zimmerman was taking Adderall and another psychiatric medicine, we can see what this was all the way around: a tragedy.

Glad we didn't execute anyone for the crime yet, if when you… Read full post »

A "Cheap Greek Vacation" is the one totally guaranteed consequence of a Greek exit from the Eurozone, now more likely it would seem like, given the ongoing and significant depositor withdrawals(more than $800 million in three days) from Greek banks by those who already haven't run to the exits (… Read full post »

For the great American foreign policy scholar Robert Tucker of the Nitze School of Advanced International Studies who I had the privelege of studying under, and whose mentor at SAIS was Robert Osgood, also of SAIS, and who wrote the classic book embedded in the title of the essay: Ideals and… Read full post »

In the literature on international relations, there is a subset that debates the issue of alliances as to being good things or bad things, especially because of WWI.

NATO meeting this week in Chicago is an alliance, which most argue we correctly value as an addition to American power, and… Read full post »

I have to confess I very seriously wondered if I would wake up this morning, and see that Israel had celebrated its Independence Day by bombing Iran.

Maybe that's sort of pushing it a little bit even from an Israeli point of view, as to gloating, but per the title, note… Read full post »

 I wrote an article in Fall 2008 entitled "The Idiocy of Wall Street Applauding its Own Demise" which predicted that taking the bailouts would be regretted for the loss of power to the government by the private sector, like with people reflexively calling for Dimon's head at J.P. Morgan and at… Read full post »

For MEB, always.

Now, I will confess that I was a little miffed when I heard Jamie Dimon take a shot at financial pundits as to getting paid too much, when he earned $24 million last year or so, and I lost another oh... $25,000 on this blog.

I also like the… Read full post »

A lot of people viscerally dislike banks, probably in part because no one likes depending on other people that much, and banks people depend on rather a lot.

When you add to that a natural social class resentment towards those who move money around, as opposed to people who do manual… Read full post »

For MEB, always.

It's certainly not the recovery many would like, as to being the "new normal," and believe me, I know that all too well.

Nonetheless, if you walk around a city like Birmingham, which I have been doing as part of the conclusion of a project called Democracy in… Read full post »

I taught economics and finance for a minute, and did a lot of research in the process, in which this is something of a re-post here, as the issues involved aren't trivial, but are important to understand.

First, as to the semi-good news from J.P. Morgan's $2 billion loss, if its a… Read full post »

I taught political science and international relations for a minute.

Massive retaliation is the strategy most associated with Eisenhower, if the intellectual classes didn't like it too much.

Ike's theory was that he didn't want to bankrupt the country spending money on every single threat that could… Read full post »

 I taught economics and finance for a minute. 

First,as to the semi-good news from the J.P. Morgan $2 billion loss, if its a $2 trillion bank, in a derivatives trade like the one in question, as to "corporate bond synthetics," generally speaking, if there is no "counter-party fail… Read full post »

Dwight Eisenhower will rank as one of the most important American Presidents and individuals because of three decisions he made, the least known of which was probably actually the most important one.

The first decision of course that Ike made was to launch D-Day om June 6, 1944.

It was… Read full post »

 I will say the when I finished the mental part of the project Democray in America in Hard Times, A Personal Journey, by visiting Don Rickerts, such a brilliant man, only to find that he had died on September 10, 2011, a deep feeling of despair overwhelmed me as to the… Read full post »

As to the main risk, when one forms a national unity government as has been done in Israel today, there may be some who take that as war being an immediate prospect, and who therefore take moves that they otherwise might not have taken, e.g. Russia, China, Iran, or even Syria.… Read full post »

Of course, all domestic coalition formation in a parliamentary system like Israel's has a high degree of domestic content.

Thus, postponing the election that Prime Minister Netanyahu called for this fall is partly a function of what his Likud bloc and center right Kadima Party think is best for their… Read full post »

In the end, some people are not quite the best vessels for certain types of projects. I still think it was a good idea, to revisit Democracy in America, in a self-financed project called Democracy in America in Hard Times, A Personal Journey.

That's life too, as to how such a thing… Read full post »