Times.konradturski.com – Political and Economic Commentary by a Postgrad in London

Just kidding! But one thing he will do, as astute followers of the  Senate Banking Committee saw yesterday, some twenty minutes before the end of Chris Dodd’s Special Hearing to Save Your Bank, is chuckle at his own use of obscure economic lingo!
Pre-empting an answer of his own making, regarding the need for veto-based central bank oversight of the financial system, Federal Reserve Chairman and “Your Best Friend’s Dad” Ben Bernanke began, “Well, being risk averse” before actually delving into the finer intricacies of Federal Reserve monitoring of over-the-counter derivatives and other nonsense. Ha ha ha!

With his Independence Day speech on patriotism, Barack Obama may  have unintentionally marked a second unlikely milestone: the Left’s decisive abandonment of the 1960’s. Though Democrats conceded(perhaps wisely) to the virtue of “Supporting Our Troops” in the immediate aftermath of the Afghanistan War, Obama’s well-intentioned pleasantries on the virtues of honouring veterans and moving beyond the fiery clashes of Vietnam era mark a new, institutionalized development away from an era that, in many ways, marked the pinnacle of Leftist strength and a certain something more.

There is a certain logic to this shift. Perhaps because it also begot a period of weakness – crowned by the apologist presidency of Jimmy Carter, and replaced by the ideologic vigor of the Reagan era – many in the Left have followed Obama and other party leaders without regret. We have proven increasingly willing to abandon  uncompromising anti-war and anti-government stances in favor of a quiet acknowledgement that excesses were made.

This is a mistake.

(more…)

In 2007, I graduated from Amherst College. I thought I had a pretty good idea of where the world was headed,  and like many who graduated in my field (economics, mathematics, and history) I was faced with various entry-level slots at economics and finance-related firms and policymaking institutions.

What would the future have held for me if I had chosen these professions? Let’s take a look, shall we.

(more…)

Sounds like another “low GDP per capita day” for Poland!

For no reason at all, let me start with an excerpt from one of my favourite books, The Street of Crocodiles by Bruno Schulz:

Before the horse’s breast the rampart of white snowy foam grew higher an higher, and it could hardly wade through the pure fresh mass. At last we stopped. I got out of the cab. The horse was panting, hanging its head. I hugged its head to my breast and saw that were tears in its large eyes. I noticed a round black wound on its belly. “Why did not you tell me?” I whispered, crying. “My dearest, I did it for you,” the horse said and became very small, like a wooden toy.

This is one page among hundreds, among the countless remarkable works of prose the world has produced; add to them the sum total of the world’s scientific discoveries, plays, poetry, religions, trips to the moon, ideas, histories, cultures, and so much that I have omitted, and you have sum of what we’ve created since day zero. Subtract, for the purposes of honesty, all that we’ve done wrong, and there is so much – world wars and genocides; horrific regimes and terrible crimes – and you have what this world has to offer. In the nineteenth century it was called progress; in the twentieth, history. Today, it is an inconvenient baggage of humanism in an age of relativism.

About a week ago, I read the MSNBC story about the ‘threatened’ tribes of Brazil – one of the remaining forty or so uncontacted groups of people in the world, who remain unaware of everything that I have listed above.

Were we take all that I have listed, and calculate, critically and empirically, objectively, that we have come out negative, that at the end of the day, our world is wicked, then perhaps it would give me a pause before writing this article. I would be inclined to revisit the numbers; perhaps someone hadn’t carried a zero.

No one has done this.

(more…)

I downloaded Violet Hill today and it is like a good book. I would recommend you consider doing the same.

…In contrast to R.E.M.’s new album, which is utter rubbish.