I just finished reading Arsenals of Folly[1] by Richard Rhodes. Not a bad book about the arms race, though not quite as interesting as the other Rhodes books I’ve read (The Making of the Atomic Bomb[2] and Dark Sun[3]). What struck me was how much I kept thinking of Dr. Strangelove[4] while I was reading [...]
Archive for the ‘Current Events’ Category
Arsenals of Folly vs. Dr. Strangelove
Posted in Current Events on March 25, 2010 | 2 Comments »
Samuelson, first edition
Posted in Current Events on December 17, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Oh cool, Greg Mankiw wrote about getting a copy of Samuelson’s first edition, which I mentioned previously. Mankiw had the good fortune to work with Samuelson on a regular basis and so he had Samuelson inscribe his copy. My copy isn’t inscribed by Samuelson, but it is inscribed by my Dad, which is pretty cool [...]
Paul Samuelson, 1915-2009
Posted in Current Events on December 14, 2009 | 1 Comment »
Paul Samuelson, Nobel laureate and noted professor of economics, has died. See the NYT obituary and some comments from Paul Krugman. Samuelson is famous for his economics textbook that has been used by college students for decades. The first edition was published in 1948. My father used this textbook in college, and a copy sits [...]
California Budget Crisis
Posted in Current Events on February 22, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Congratulations to Abel Maldonado for helping to break the logjam in California’s (latest) budget crisis. The budget crisis, which now seems to be an annual event, was especially bad this time, both fiscally and politically. The “gap” in the budget amounted to $41bn. The political situation is not much better. The classic argument seems to [...]
Victory and Defeat
Posted in Current Events on January 28, 2009 | 1 Comment »
It’s now been a week since Obama’s inauguration, more than enough time for the pundits to express their opinions about Obama’s inauguration speech. Commentary has been received from the usual suspects: Clive Crook (Financial Times) Peggy Noonan (Wall Street Journal) Charles Krauthammer (Washington Post) Paul Krugman (New York Times) A panel of presidential speechwriters (New [...]
