2016 has already been an outlier for unexpected events. Political turbulence and violent outbursts globally are on the rise. At home, the ambush murders of police officers in Dallas and Little Rock have shocked the nation. Politically, the ascendance of Donald Trump as the Republican nominee for President is enough to let us know that […]

The world is in a state of confusion, reflected in markets across the board, which went nowhere for all of 2015 (see Bloomberg “The Year Nothing Worked”). The new year started off with a sharp, but historically normal, selloff in stocks (Dow -13%, S&P -11%). Market fundamentals suggest more downside but the selloff precipitated a […]

The title of this quarter’s letter is taken from an article by Andrew Bacevich, professor emeritus of International Relations and History at Boston University. “Rationalizing Lunacy: The Intellectual as Servant of the State,” reprinted below with permission, addresses the impact of policy intellectuals on our foreign policy….characterizing them as “a blight on the Republic.” Mr. […]

One of the big issues for conservatives in recent years has been the size of government, at least when Democrats are in power. Grover Norquist summed it up in his stated desire to “shrink government to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub.” Conservatives are not entirely wrong in their concern with […]

Karl Marx got some things right. “History repeats itself: first as tragedy, then as farce.” The spectacle emanating from Washington in recent months is nothing if not a farce. Republican neo-Confederate nihilists pushed the limit over the debt limit in October, causing a 16 day shutdown of government services and threatening to drive the U.S. […]