Today’s broadsheet from the FM website pressroom. There are 5 sections, all with hot news.
- Links to interesting news and analysis
- News, updates to posts past on the FM website
- Quote of the Day, advice from Talleyrand
- News about themes from posts past on the FM website
- Note from the past – about the French Foreign Legion
- Plus, an Afterword
(I) Links to interesting news and analysis
(a) “A wake-up call for America“, David Weild and Edward Kim, Grant Thornton, November 2009 — Changes in the US financial system have damaged small-businesses, undermined job creation, and US competitiveness.
(b) “Beyond California: States in Peril“, Pew Center on the States, November 2009 — “California’s financial problems are in a league of their own. But the same pressures that drove the Golden State toward fiscal disaster are wreaking havoc in a number of states, with potentially damaging consequences for the entire country.”
(c) “Air John Dillinger“, Fred Reed, at his website, 6 November 2009 — America’s commercial decline made manifest, a tangible example of what’s wrong with America’s big businesses.
(d) “US Envoy Urges Caution on Forces for Afghanistan“, New York Times, 12 Novembner 2009 — “The United States ambassador to Afghanistan, who once served as the top American military commander there, has expressed in writing his reservations about deploying additional troops to the country, 3 senior American officials said Wednesday.”
(e) “I never believed the letters I read in Penthouse until it happened to me“, Claire Berlinski (author, photo here), posted at Learning to Fight, 11 November 2009 — Yes, some magazines still do rigorous fact-checking. Just not the ones you expect. It’s worth reading!
(II) Quote of the Day, advice from the past
“One Does It Like This“, a review of Napoleon’s Master: A Life of Prince Talleyrand by David Lawday, reviwed by David A. Bell, London Review of Books, 16 November 2006 — Subscription only.
… Talleyrand developed very early on a cautious and consistent vision of international relations. It was grounded in the Enlightenment conviction that the age of war had given way to the age of commerce, making military conquest fundamentally counterproductive, even when waged for a just cause. In 1799, Talleyrand would tell the French parliament that ‘any system intended to bring liberty by open force to neighbouring nations can only make liberty hated and prevent its triumph.’
(III) Updates from posts past on the FM website
(a) “There are still too many houses“, Fortune, 11 November 2009 — “House prices have pulled out of their free fall, but don’t expect them to recover until we work through a huge property glut.” After 2 years, the mainstream media at last see the root of the problem! For more about this topic see:
- Diagnosing the eagle, chapter I — the housing bust, 6 December 2007
- A vital but widely misunderstood aspect of our financial crisis, 18 September 2008 — Too many homes.
- Destroying houses in order to boost home prices, 16 December 2008
- The housing crisis allows America to look in the mirror. What do we see?, 9 March 2009
- Another step to solving the housing crisis: downsize cities by destroying neighborhoods
(b) “Tension grows between China and India as Asia slips into cold war“, The Times, 12 November 2009 — For more about this, China’s construction of a string of pearls around the world, see:
(IV) Note from the past – about the French Foreign Legion
“Short Cuts“, Daniel Soar, London Review of Books, 14 August 2008 — A brief, interesting history of the Legion.
(V) Afterword
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