Susan Jacoby wrote:

Its effects are especially deleterious in a culture (unlike, say, that of Japan) with an endemic predilection for technological answers to nontechnological questions ...

Decius wrote:

Clearly, this person doesn't know the first thing about Japan.

That's a valid criticism of the parenthetical remark but I don't think it undermines the point she was making about the US.

I liked the phrase I put in bold whenever I read it back in March, and it aligned with the phrase that Himmelfarb used in her comment about Victorian society.

The larger question is, does this crisis demand anything more than our money? Is it just about getting Unstuck and going back to business as usual?

In the first year of the Bush presidency, the gloves came off, and we were all in:

People say to me, "Whatever it takes." I tell them, It's going to take everything.

Now, in its last year, we face a new misery. After we give everything (again), then what?

RE: What next for financial capitalism?