George Soros:

I think it has to do with the human condition. The fact that we are mortal and we would like to be immortal. The closest thing you can come to that is by creating something that lives beyond you. Wealth could be one of those things, but evidence shows that it doesn’t survive too many generations. However, if you can have an artistic or philosophical or scientific creation that withstands the test of time, then you have come as close to it as possible.

The credit crunch according to Soros

Susan Reynolds on the author of Elsewhere, USA:

Conley is riddled with nostalgia for his grandparents' lifestyle.

Reynolds asks:

When did managing "data streams" replace good, old-fashioned conversation at the dinner table?

'Elsewhere U.S.A.' by Dalton Conley

Soros on short-selling:

Lehman, AIG and other financial institutions were destroyed by bear raids in which the shorting of stocks and buying of CDS amplified and reinforced each other. Unlimited shorting was made possible by the 2007 abolition of the uptick rule (which hindered bear raids by allowing short-selling only when prices were rising). The unlimited selling of bonds was facilitated by the CDS market. Together, the two made a lethal combination.

That is what AIG, one of the most successful insurance companies in the world, failed to understand. Its business was selling insurance and, when it saw a seriously mispriced risk, it went to town insuring it, in the belief that diversifying risk reduces it. It expected to make a fortune in the long run but it was destroyed in short order.

My argument raises some interesting questions.

The game changer

Glen Newey, in the LRB:

Systematic ambiguity is the point – or the unavoidable by-blow of the fact that such agreements result from horse-trading between interest groups. The problems start when lawyers or academics try to take designedly plastic texts literally. They become particularly sharp when ‘law’ is invested with talismanic qualities which, it is thought, can immunize us from our own depravity.

From the archive:

Having been told that the world rested on a platform which rested on the back of an elephant which rested in turn on the back of a turtle, he asked, what did the turtle rest on?

Another turtle.

And that turtle?

"Ah, Sahib, after that it is turtles all the way down."

Gloves Off

The Economist:

The common denominator for al-Qaeda’s activity is not state failure, but the fact that attacks are carried out by extremists claiming to act in the name of the world’s Muslims. Their safe havens are not geographical but social.

Al Qaeda is a scene.

Fixing a broken world

David Denby on the Oscars.

... a disorderly exploitation of disorder, a kind of visual salad of glowing rotten fruit, constantly tossed ...

Curious Cases

Verlyn Klinkenborg:

I like Updike’s nonfiction best, especially the volumes of criticism that added up like sand in a river delta. Reading those books, you never know what you’re going to find. The reason is this: No matter what Updike’s books accomplished, he was, above all, a maker of sentences, one of the very best. You can read him for his books, but it’s better to read him for his sentences, any one of which — anywhere — can rise up to startle you with its wry perfection.

Appreciation: John Updike

Lorrie Moore, on Updike:

And his nonfiction! Even when his essays included a harsh criticism, he politely coiled it, tucked it inside, part snake, part rose, and the reader would feel the bite sprung silkily only at the end — in a balletic allegiance to both generosity and candor. Self-knowledge and self-forgiveness bestowed their own empiricism: he knew too what it was to create weak art.

Moore's Self-Help, by the way, is great.

The Complete Updike

New from RAND:

Whether U.S. terrorism-prevention efforts match the threat continues to be central in policy debate. Part of this debate is whether the United States needs a dedicated domestic counterterrorism intelligence agency. To inform future policy decisionmaking, this book examines, from a variety of perspectives, the policy proposal that such an agency be created. These include its possible capabilities, comparing its potential effectiveness with that of current efforts, and its acceptability to the public, as well as various balances and trade-offs involved in creating such an agency. Reflecting the limits in the data available and the significant uncertainty associated with this policy area, if there is a unifying message from the study, it is one of caution and deliberation. In an area in which direct assessment and analysis are limited, there is a need to carefully consider the implications and potential outcomes of such significant policy changes. In doing so, examination from different perspectives and through different approaches — to ideally capture a sufficient picture of the complexity to see not just the benefits we hope to gain from policy change but the layers of effects and interactions that could either help or hurt the chances of those benefits appearing — is a critical ingredient of policy deliberation and design.

Your daily Simpsons reference -- this time, from "Grampa vs. Sexual Inadequacy":

In the treehouse, the neighborhood kids try to figure out what's up with the adults.

Bart: So finally, we're all in agreement about what's going on with the adults. Milhouse?

Milhouse: [steps up to blackboard] Ahem. OK, here's what we've got: the Rand Corporation, in conjunction with the saucer people --

Bart: Thank you.

Milhouse: -- under the supervision of the reverse vampires --

Lisa: [sighs]

Milhouse: -- are forcing our parents to go to bed early in a fiendish plot to eliminate the meal of dinner. [sotto voce] We're through the looking glass, here, people...

The Challenge of Domestic Intelligence in a Free Society

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