Democracy Index
Democracy is government by the people. The most common characteristics are legal equality, political freedom, and rule of law. These are...
Trying to Get a Broader Understanding
I've been trying to read more broadly to get a better understanding about current economic/political dysfunction (and many other fields)....
Winner Take All: Book Review
Winner Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World (2018), Anand Giridharadas: the elites want market solution...
Texas Book Festival 2018
We went to the Texas Book Festival in Austin over the weekend. This included Francis Fukuyama talking about Identity (see Oct. 15 blog)...
Identity: Book Review
Identity: The Demand for Dignity and the Politics of Resentment (2018), Francis Fukuyama, political scientist and (former?) neocon. An...
The Fifth Risk: Book Review
The Fifth Risk (2018), Michael Lewis, begins with "Lost in Transition," the Trump presidential transition under Chris Christie--a process...
Weaponizing Financial Reports for Manipulation
The Financial Accounting Standard Board (FASB) worked on a conceptual framework (basically, theory) for financial reporting for decades...
Super Forecasting: Book Review
Super Forecasting: The Art and Science of Prediction (2015), Philip Tetlock & Dab Gardner. This is more or less a followup on Tetlock's...
The Hedgehog and the Fox
Philosopher and political theorist Isaiah Berlin wrote a 1951 essay called The Hedgehog and Fox, based on ancient Greek poet Archilochus:...
Blinders Hypothesis
Among the hunted, horses have eyes at the sides of their heads, giving them great peripheral vision. Horses can go fast in a straight...
Primordial Soup
Naomi and I worked on a food history book for several years, with no luck getting a publisher. I finally self published on Kindle last...
Book Award for Accounting History and the Rise of Civilization
I was notified a few weeks before the American Accounting Association annual meeting in early August that I won the Barbara Merino Award...
Median Voter: Declare a Party
This sounds like a moral failing, but independents have to be more active. Voting in the general election usually means holding ones nose...
Tailspin: Book Review
Tailspin: The People and Forces Behind America's Fifty-Year Fall--and Those Fighting to Reverse it, Steven Brill (2018). I've written...
Putin's Russia: Book Review
Putin's Russia: How it Rose, How it is Maintained, and How it Might End, Leon Aron, ed, American Enterprise Institute (2015). Putin has...