When Nixon went to China he changed the global strategic map with one stroke, and of course the Chinese knew what he was doing. Could the US change the strategic map of the Middle East by bringing together Iran and Turkey? It's a thought.

One of the most fascinating historical questions is why the mid-19th century modernisation of Japan succeeded and why it failed in China. Given the commitment made so far to a similar project in Afghanistan perhaps we ought to ask the same question there. A fascinating deconstruction of President Obama's speech on Iraq, speaking 'merican.

The baby boomers may be piling into the wrong asset at the wrong time -- again. Gillian Tett on the challenges of exiting fiscal stimulus and Martin Wolf on the debate about cutting state spending during a downturn. And why science does not need god to explain the origins of the universe and other related thoughts.

Turkish journalist Mustafa Akyol picks up the theme of an American-led ménage à trois with Iran and Turkey. For the record the historical parallel with China is misleading because it was in the strategic interest of both Washington and Beijing to counter balance the Soviet Union. There is no similar singular foe cementing an American-Iranian-Turkish alliance. Still interesting.

Insanity, it is often said, is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/66535/mustafa-akyol/an-unlikely-trio?page=show

 

Afghanistan from 1880-1978 and its failure to sustain modernisation.

It is becoming a modern state. Its road communications have been transformed. There is a well-trained army. There are excellent schools. The metric system was recently adopted. In the centre of Asia what is almost a new country is in process of birth — or at least the old country is being metamorphosed.” -- January 1928; S. Huddleston, “Europe and Afghanistan,” in The New Statesman   http://www.theglobalist.com/StoryId.aspx?StoryId=8672

The button President Obama was trying to push. We really care about the lousy job market, really.

Good evening. Tonight, I'd like to talk to you about the end of our combat mission in Iraq, the ongoing security challenges we face, and the need to rebuild our nation here at home. http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/08/our-troops-are-the-steel-in-our-ship-of-state/62335/

The coming bond debacle.

The Baby Boom started in 1946, and continued through 1964.  Boomers saw their first instance of a financial bubble in the 1970s when gold was finally released from its permanent fix to the dollar, and was allowed to float.  It went from $42 to $900 in a decade, then collapsed throughout the 1980s.  http://www.mcoscillator.com/learning_center/weekly_chart/60-year_cycle_in_interest_rates/

 

Gillian Tett on the dangers of exiting. It could get you killed.

Who would want to be in the shoes of Ben Bernanke, Federal Reserve chairman, or for that matter, in those of Jean-Claude Trichet, president of the European Central Bank? http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/686b6978-b6ad-11df-b3dd-00144feabdc0.html?ftcamp=rss&ftcamp=crm/email/201093/nbe/Comment/product

Related.

THE Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City’s annual conference in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, is the big event of the year for central bankers. But defining monetary policy is far harder than it used to be.  http://www.economist.com/node/16943569

 

Martin Wolf comes down decidedly on the 'careful for what you wish for' side of the cutting fiscal deficits to stimulate the economy debate.

Ed Balls is not going to become leader of the Labour Party. But, as an economist, he deserves our attention.   http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/119c59ac-b6c3-11df-b3dd-00144feabdc0.html?ftcamp=rss&ftcamp=crm/email/201093/nbe/Comment/product

The academic argument against cutting. PFD below.

The debate is being driven by the Cameron-Clegg-Coalition's fiscal agenda, cut at all costs.

ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE’S chronicles of the Anglo-Saxon world did not stop with America. On a tour of Britain, he was taken with its liberal vigour, decentralised government and “spirit of association”. It came as a relief from the stultifying uniformity that he knew at home in France. http://www.economist.com/node/16791650?story_id=16791650

A reminder that economies are mostly domestic. eds' note: trade however is what makes us rich.

If there is one fact we have learnt to accept, whether they’re happy about it or not, it is that we live in a borderless global economy. To dispute this is to risk being considered, not simply wrong, but ignorant. Yet this widely held belief does not survive serious examination when we get down to the hard numbers. http://comment.rsablogs.org.uk/2010/08/23/globaloney-myth-borderless-economy/

Stephen Hawking and the origins of the universe. eds' note -- another book I look forward to buying, reading, and not understanding

The Big Bang was the result of inevitable laws of physics and did not need God to spark the creation of the Universe, Stephen Hawking has concluded. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/7976594/Stephen-Hawking-God-was-not-needed-to-create-the-Universe.html

 

Related.

In "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy," Douglas Adams famously had his characters ask a computer to provide the ultimate answer to "Life, the Universe, and Everything."   http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/03/AR2010090302118.html

That damn egg.

God did not create the universe, Stephen Hawking revealed yesterday. In the flurry of publicity preceding his new book, The Grand Design, to be published next week, he does some serious dissing of the Almighty, declaring him/her/it irrelevant. The point is, he says, that our universe followed inevitably from the laws of nature. But, we might ask, where did they come from?  http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/religion/7979211/Has-Stephen-Hawking-ended-the-God-debate.html

Related.

Christopher Hitchens on anti-semitism.

Honored recently with an invitation from the family of Daniel Pearl to give the annual memorial lecture that bears his name, I tried to speak about the protean character of the world’s most ancient and tenacious prejudice.  http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/09/chosen/8173/