Pressure and Time
Red: [narrating] In 1966, Andy Dufresne escaped from Shawshank prison. All they found of him was a muddy set of prison clothes, a bar of…
Category: Narrative
Who’s Being Naïve, Kay?
The Mysterious Stranger is a liar, to be sure, but he's a proper villain, as the Brits would say, and he’s quite upfront about his goals and his use…
Two Discoveries
The world made two discoveries last week. Everyone is aware of the first discovery – that ISIS is not “a junior varsity team” but an…
Funny How?
Henry Hill: You’re a pistol, you’re really funny. You’re really funny. Tommy DeVito: What do you mean I’m funny? Henry Hill: It’s funny, you know.…
Breaking Bad
Jesse: And why’d you go and tell her I was selling you weed? Walt: Because somehow it seemed preferable to admitting that I cook crystal…
The New TVA
War is too important to be left to the generals. – Georges Clemenceau (1841 -1929) Competition has been shown to be useful up to a…
More Probable Than Not
The only thing that I ask from this group today and the American people is to judge me from this day forward. That’s all I…
Ghost in the Machine, Part 1
The way out is through the door. Why is it that no one will use this method? ― Confucius (551 – 479 BC) Tanzan…
Catch – 22
Four times during the first six days they were assembled and briefed and then sent back. Once, they took off and were flying in formation…
The Clash of Civilizations
Thomas Cole, “The Course of Empire: Destruction” (1836) In the emerging world of ethnic conflict and civilizational clash, Western belief in the universality of Western…
Narrative Uber Alles
Yesterday the Wall Street Journal ran a front page story titled “OPEC Sees Less Demand for Its Oil in 2015”, as well as another article…
We Now Return to Our Regularly Scheduled Programming
Hilsenrath Analysis: Friday’s Jobs Report Assures Global Central Banks Going in Two Directions ― Wall Street Journal, December 5th, 9:59a ET Earlier today I tweeted that “I…
Signs and Portents
Young nanny: Look at me, Damien! It’s all for you. [she jumps off a roof, hanging herself] – “The Omen” (1976) When one has…
The Unbearable Over-Determination of Oil
Market outcomes are always overdetermined, which is a $10 word that means if you added up all of the likely causes and their likely percentage contrib…
Wherefore Art Thou, Marcus Welby?
Seek not the favor of the multitude; it is seldom got by honest and lawful means. But seek the testimony of few; and number not…
Calvin the Super Genius
People think it must be fun to be a super genius, but they don’t realize how hard it is to put up with all the…
Hey Spike
The strong do what they can, while the weak suffer what they must. — Thucydides, “The History of the Peloponnesian War” (395 BC) Global growth…
Going Gray
Everything under the sun is in chaos. The situation is excellent. – Mao Zedong (1893 – 1976) Forget it, Jake. It’s Chinatown. – Chinatown (1974)…
Finest Worksong
Take your instinct by the reinsYou’d better best to rearrangeWhat we want and what we needHas been confused, been confused– REM, “Finest Worksong” (1987) The…
The Ministry of Markets
– Actual conversation as I left a client meeting with a Salient colleague last Friday and we checked our phones… Colleague: Wow, looks like the…