On Traveling

Each trip (to Egypt, Greece, Indonesia, Peru, Morocco, Burma, India, Russia) was thoroughly prepared for with advance reading and orderly itineraries, and then preserved—usually by his wife—in photographs of buildings and cities: pyramids, temples, mosques, streets, columns, ruins [...]

One of my father-in-law’s busy, ephemeral projects fell out of a book about Greek history. A single sheet of paper, with notes written in his careful hand. The date was 2/1/95, and the notes were preparation for a trip to Greece: “History of Ancient Greece. Jean Hatzfeld and André Aymard, N.Y., Norton 1966.” Under this heading were lines in English:

• Greeks establish themselves during second millennium BC: Greece, Black Sea, Asia Minor, Islands, S. Italy.


• Common language and tradition but very divided. Hellas = culture, civiliz. (“Hellenes” does not come until 800 BC. “Greek” is Roman.)


• Geographic identity between Greece and Western Asia Minor: the sea is due to a subsidence which broke up a continent of recent formation and whose structure was very complicated—fjords, deep bays, mountains, capes, islands.

"Shelf Life: Packing up my father-in-law’s library." by James Wood

The one thing I really love about it, that maybe is a little bit weird, is I think that a lot of what is great about travel is focusing your attention on a place in a way that is not necessarily related, actually all the time, to being there.

Often times, when I’m traveling somewhere, part of why I learn so much about the place I’m going is that I’m thinking about it, I’m reading about it as I’m there watching it. A lot of it is the mustering of other kinds of attentional resources, watching movies, or documentaries, or consuming other kinds of culture from it before.

There is more than just the seeing. Sometimes people feel like the learning about a place is just going and seeing it. For me, I find that a lot of the benefits of travel are actually about things that I could have done even if I haven’t been there, but I would have never focused on in the same way, and with the same intensity, for the same period of time.

Ezra Klein on Media, Politics, and Models of the World

Бодлогын өгөгдөхүүн

Few places seem to matter less for the West than Mongolia. Policy makers in Ulaanbaatar have tried hard over the years to develop their “third neighbour” policy in a bid to escape the hard geographic reality of being perpetually sandwiched between two great powers, China and Russia. However, there are few buyers in the West for the role of Mongolia’s “overseas neighbour.” The Bush Administration at least kept an eye on this sparsely populated expanse of territory the size of Western Europe (Bush even turned up in Mongolia in 2005 for an unprecedented, if short, visit). Under Obama, the country has simply disappeared off Washington’s radar. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has not even looked that way on any one of her frequent Asian blitz-tours. And who cares? After all, Mongolia is basically peripheral to Western political and economic interests. Even BBC World News, in a recent online piece, confused the country with China-administered Inner Mongolia.

"Mongolia between Russia and China" by Sergey Radchenko

Let’s face it, Mongolia is the end of the earth as far as they’re concerned. Here is a country which when I went there was the largest land-locked country in the world. In the United States, it would stretch from New York to Denver, from Minneapolis to Dallas, with a population of two and a half million people. It is the least densely populated country in the world. And between Russia and China. How much more forgotten and obscure can you be in terms of the rest of the world?

“Secretary Baker played such a key role” by Ambassador Joseph Lake

Seeing Things as They Are

The death of Churchill reminds us of the limitations of our craft, and therewith of our duty. We have no higher duty, and no more pressing duty, than to remind ourselves and our students, of political greatness, human greatness, of the peaks of human excellence. For we are supposed to train ourselves and others in seeing things as they are, and this means above all in seeing their greatness and their misery, their excellence and their vileness, their nobility and their triumphs, and therefore never to mistake mediocrity, however brilliant, for true greatness.

"Churchill's Greatness" by Leo Strauss

Facts are better than dreams.

from Winston Churchill's "The Gathering Storm"

“Nice guy” and “role model” have become synonyms in sport but a role model is someone who shows you how to move through the world as it is.

"The devil and Roger Federer" by Janan Ganesh

The world is what it is; men who are nothing, who allow themselves to become nothing, have no place in it.

They barely had an idea of their original civilization. They had the Koran and its laws; they stuck to certain fashions in dress, wore a certain kind of cap, had a special cut of beard; and that was all. They had little idea of what their ancestors had done in Africa. They had only the habit of authority, without the energy or the education to back up that authority. The authority of the Arabs--which was real enough when I was a boy--was only a matter of custom. It could be blown away at any time. The world is what it is.

from V. S. Naipaul's “A Bend in the River”

A Focused Discipline

President Obama and President Clinton had some things in common, but they also had respects in which they were very different. President Clinton was unlikely to begin a meeting on schedule, but he was even less likely to end it on schedule, so you were likely to get a little more than your allotted time. President Obama, meetings could begin early and so you needed to be in your office and ready to come downstairs in case he wanted to begin a meeting early. You had better be pretty sure that you were able to say what you had to say quickly because when your time was over, your time was over, and he was going to move on.

President Clinton was less than 100 percent certain to have read your memo. But if he hadn’t read it he would read it as you summarized it for him, and he would master it very quickly. President Obama was virtually certain to have read your memo and to have read it extremely thoughtfully.

President Obama brought a focused discipline. He didn’t want to talk about things that the President didn’t need to get involved in. If his economic advisor couldn’t figure out the difference between subordinated debt and preferred stock, he certainly didn’t think it was his job to help. President Clinton was prepared to try to do his job, but was also prepared to offer you a tremendous amount of advice on how to do your job.

President Obama was focused on how, whatever particular issue was being discussed, related to the rest of the issues in his Presidency and the rest of the factors that were present in any political situation. President Clinton was focused on those things, but was likely also focused on things he had read somewhere or conversations he had had at some point in the past. I remember his once telling the Secretary of the Transportation at substantial length about new developments in environmentally friendly concrete and how that needed to be considered. President Obama’s approach was a more sharply focused approach.

Conversations with Bill Kristol: Larry Summers

"He is thoroughly predictable in having gone through every piece of paper that he gets,” said Tom Donilon, Mr. Obama’s national security adviser from 2010 to 2013. “You’ll come in in the morning, it will be there: questions, notes, decisions.”

"Obama After Dark: The Precious Hours Alone"

You have to exercise,” he said, for instance. “Or at some point you’ll just break down.” You also need to remove from your life the day-to-day problems that absorb most people for meaningful parts of their day. “You’ll see I wear only gray or blue suits,” he said. “I’m trying to pare down decisions. I don’t want to make decisions about what I’m eating or wearing. Because I have too many other decisions to make.” He mentioned research that shows the simple act of making decisions degrades one’s ability to make further decisions. It’s why shopping is so exhausting. “You need to focus your decision-making energy. You need to routinize yourself. You can’t be going through the day distracted by trivia.” The self-discipline he believes is required to do the job well comes at a high price. “You can’t wander around,” he said. “It’s much harder to be surprised. You don’t have those moments of serendipity. You don’t bump into a friend in a restaurant you haven’t seen in years. The loss of anonymity and the loss of surprise is an unnatural state. You adapt to it, but you don’t get used to it—at least I don’t.”

"Obama's Way" by Michael Lewis

Standing in his favorite classroom in the austere main building, sharp-witted students looming above him, Mr. Obama refined his public speaking style, his debating abilities, his beliefs.

“He tested his ideas in classrooms,” said Dennis Hutchinson, a colleague. Every seminar hour brought a new round of, “Is affirmative action justified? Under what circumstances?” as Mr. Hutchinson put it.

"Teaching Law, Testing Ideas, Obama Stood Slightly Apart"

Addendum: Letters to President Obama + Obama's class Current Issues in Racism and the Law ("Taking Professor Obama's Class") + "Breaking the War Mentality" by Barack Obama (1983)

The Most Complete Man

[Obama] was certainly one of the most complete man I'd ever met.

Junot Diaz

For me, particularly at that time, writing was the way I sorted through a lot of crosscurrents in my life — race, class, family. And I genuinely believe that it was part of the way in which I was able to integrate all these pieces of myself into something relatively whole.

People now remark on this notion of me being very cool, or composed. And what is true is that I generally have a pretty good sense of place and who I am, and what’s important to me. And I trace a lot of that back to that process of writing.

[I started to read Shakespeare] tragedies and dig into them. And that, I think, is foundational for me in understanding how certain patterns repeat themselves and play themselves out between human beings. It gives me a sense of perspective.

I think Toni Morrison’s writings — particularly “Song of Solomon” is a book I think of when I imagine people going through hardship. That it’s not just pain, but there’s joy and glory and mystery.

I think that there are writers who I don’t necessarily agree with in terms of their politics, but whose writings are sort of a baseline for how to think about certain things — V. S. Naipaul, for example. His “A Bend in the River,” which starts with the line, “The world is what it is; men who are nothing, who allow themselves to become nothing, have no place in it.” And I always think about that line, and I think about his novels when I’m thinking about the hardness of the world sometimes, particularly in foreign policy, and I resist and fight against sometimes that very cynical, more realistic view of the world. And yet, there are times where it feels as if that may be true.

Transcript: President Obama on What Books Mean to Him

A dark view of humans, a certain resignation to the imperfectibility of things, is what marks literature out from the idealistic arts [...] It is there — more than anywhere else — in Naipaul, whose circuitous route to Britain via India and Trinidad does not show up in cosmopolitan pieties but almost the opposite: an unsentimental attitude to developing countries, a commitment to the culture he has fought to join.

Graham Greene detected a “splinter of ice” in the heart of a writer. There is sometimes a shard of the cold stuff in an immigrant, as well. To endure the upheaval, to brave the new, to make a success of it all requires (or inculcates) some of that sub-zero Naipaulian attitude. They cannot allow themselves to become nothing. This sentiment is not always captured by the immigrant fiction of the past decade or two, which comes in jaunty multicoloured dust jackets and seems to showcase diversity as an end itself, as if any actual migrant ever has that in mind.

For more than a century, anglophone literature has thrown up masters who look slightly askance at the modern world and its sensibilities. It is not a political conservatism, as such [...] It is something more like a sceptical habit of mind and a preference for dismal truths over well-meaning lies (which is what political correctness often amounts to).

[A] writer must believe that human nature is universal and more or less unchangeable. Most non-conservative schemes — social-democracy, the wilder edges of identity politics — are efforts to refine or deny that nature through bureaucratic tinkering.

As the arts despair of the world, it may fall to novelists to do more than vent. Theirs is the only medium with the scope to air complex ideas, which is why film adaptations feel so diminished. It also has unique conservative pedigree. Do not wait for a film, album or image to do justice to our times. A novel might.

"In praise of literary conservatives" by Janan Ganesh

When I think about how I understand my role as citizen, setting aside being president, and the most important set of understandings that I bring to that position of citizen, the most important stuff I’ve learned I think I’ve learned from novels. It has to do with empathy. It has to do with being comfortable with the notion that the world is complicated and full of grays, but there’s still truth there to be found, and that you have to strive for that and work for that. And the notion that it’s possible to connect with some[one] else even though they’re very different from you.

[...] Occasionally, you’ll be disappointed, but more often than not, your faith will be confirmed.

President Obama & Marilynne Robinson: A Conversation—II

Whatever our current travails, we now have a literate president capable of coherent discourse, but too many other politicians are devoid of syntax and appear to have read nothing. Aggressive ignorance in aspirants to high office is another dismal consequence of the waning of authentic education.

"Get Lost. In Books." by Harold Bloom (2008)

Addendum: Every book Barack Obama has recommended during his presidency

The Mistakes We Have to Make Up

Someone once said that every man is trying to either live up to his father’s expectations or make up for his father’s mistakes, and I suppose that may explain my particular malady as well as anything else.

Barack Obama, The Audacity of Hope, p.3

I was born in a house my father built.

Richard Nixon, RN: The Memoirs of Richard Nixon, p.1

Dream that is Very Real Nevertheless

A national dream need not, indeed may not be clear-cut and exact. [...] For Americans too the wide and general dream has a name. It is called "the American Way of Life." No one can define it or point to any one person or group who lives it, but it is very real nevertheless, perhaps more real than that equally remote dream the Russians call Communism. These dreams describe our vague yearnings toward what we wish were and hope we may be: wise, just, compassionate, and noble. The fact that we have this dream at all is perhaps an indication of its possibility.

from John Steinbeck's America and Americans, p.41

Tuesday Morning Blues

"Only the question of Outer Mongolia remained"

The Qing state continued to grant Chinese merchants licenses to trade throughout Mongolian territories, and this trade continued to be dominated by several large firms based in Shanxi province that manipulated exchange rates between Mongolian raw materials such as fur, hides, and wool, and Chinese finished products such as tea, house wares, and luxury goods. Their control over these rates allowed them to claim that with each transaction, the Mongolian purchasers had acquired further debt. This drove down the cost of the raw materials, while simultaneously increasing Mongolians’ debt. Debt was commonly distributed throughout the banner, causing many Mongolians to submit petitions to Qing officials pleading for the reduction of their financial burdens.

Sara L. Jackson and Devon Dear. "Resource extraction and national anxieties: China’s economic presence in Mongolia." Eurasian Geography and Economics (2016): 1-31.

What the Mongols fear most is the attempt of the Chinese to colonize their country, and they see with alarm how the tilled fields of these thrifty agriculturists are already encroaching on the steppe.

“The People of the Wilderness: The Mongols, Once the Terror of All Christendom, Now a Primitive, Harmless Nomad Race” by Adam Warwick, National Geographic Magazine, 1/1/1921, Volume 39, p. 551

Энэ бол мөн л онц сонирхолтой торгон агшин. БНМАУ-ын Ерөнхий сайд Ю.Цэдэнбал БНХАУ-ын үндэсний баярт ганцаараа хүндэт (дээд) зочноор очоод цэргийн парад хүлээн авч байгаа түүхэн зураг. Мао Зэдун, Жоу Эньлай нарын дунд ёслон зогсоо бүрх малгайтай цэл залуу Ю.Цэдэнбал. БНМАУ-ын тусгаар тогтносон улс болохыг Хятадын ДИУ 1945 онд манай бүх ард түмний санал асуулгын дараа арга буюу хүлээн зөвшөөрөөд 1946 онд дипломат харилцаа тогтоосон бол 1949 онд түүний халааг авч шинээр байгуулагдсан БНХАУ нь БНМАУ-ыг шууд хүлээн зөвшөөрч Элчин сайдын хэмжээнд дипломат харилцаа тогтоогоод удаагүй байх үеийн гэрэл зураг энэ байна.

Д.Баярхүү - "Хоёр их хөрштэй тэнцвэр тогтоосон торгон агшин"

During the same conversation Liu Shaoqi added that the Chinese people allegedly are very deeply pained by the fact of Mongolia's secession from China. He noted that when the Soviet Union was celebrating the 300-year-anniversary of reunification of Ukraine with Russia, [some people] said in China that 300 years ago Mongolia already was a part of China and asked the question whether it could be re-united with China. The Chinese, Liu Shaoqi continued, consider Mongolia, like Taiwan, a part of their territory.

"Information Memorandum, 'About the Claims of the Chinese Leaders With Regard to the Mongolian People's Republic'," January 30, 1964, History and Public Policy Program Digital Archive.

Chairman Deng: Yalta not only severed Outer Mongolia from China, but also brought the Northeastern part of China into the Soviet sphere. [Now] only the question of Outer Mongolia remained. We raised the question of Outer Mongolia, but the Soviets didn't respond [...]

Mr. President [George H. W. Bush], you are my friend. I hope you will look at the map to see what happened after the Soviet Union severed Outer Mongolia from China. What kind of strategic situation did we find ourselves in? Those over 50 in China remember that the shape of China was like a maple leaf. Now, if you look at a map, you see a huge chunk in the north cut away; the maple leaf has been nibbled away. I hope Ambassador Lord will show the President a map of China. It's very interesting.

"Memorandum of Conversation between George H. W. Bush and Chairman Deng Xiaoping in Beijing," February 26, 1989, History and Public Policy Program Digital Archive.

Хамтдаа түлээ цуглуулбал гал өндөр бадарна. Хятад улс Монгол Улсыг оролцуулаад хөрш орнууддаа хөгжлийн боломж, хөгжих орон зайг олгоно. Та бүхнийг Хятадын хөгжлийн галт тэргэнд суухыг урьж байна. Галт тэрэг хурдан ч бай, удаан ч бай бид Та бүхнийг урьж байна. “Ганцаар явбал хурдан явна. Олуулаа явбал хол явна” гэж үг байдаг.

Монгол Улсын Их Хурлын хүндэтгэлийн хуралдаан дээр БНХАУ-ын дарга Си Зиньпиний хэлсэн үг. 2014 оны 8 дугаар сарын 22-ны өдөр.

This could well be just another period of Chinese charm that will be followed by another round of coercion. That’s certainly been the pattern of Chinese behaviour before, and it is difficult to see why Beijing would change now.

"China tries chequebook diplomacy in Southeast Asia" from Financial Times, Monday, November 7, 2016

That is Teaching

My greatest debt, though I did not fully appreciate it at the time, was to Dunn, then a very young college Research Fellow, now a distinguished professor emeritus. It was John who--in the course of one extended conversation on the political thought of John Locke--broke through my well-armored adolescent Marxism and first introduced me to the challenges of intellectual history. He managed this by the simple device of listening very intently to everything I said, taking it with extraordinary seriousness on its own terms, and then picking it gently and firmly apart in a way that I could both accept and respect.

That is teaching. It is also a certain sort of liberalism: the kind that engages in good faith with dissenting (or simply mistaken) opinions across a broad political spectrum.

from Tony Judt's “The Memory Chalet”

Prayer is Not an Option

My advice, minister, is that you:

■ Disregard any debt sustainability analysis that assigns a greater than 50% probability to the occurrence of the second coming of Christ before the next bond maturity.

■ While avoiding unrealistic optimism, do not careen to the other extreme of soul-destroying despair. A request for financial assistance addressed to the executive board of the IMF should not begin with the sentence: “The last camel died at noon.” Panic is as infectious as yawning. So, however, is a sense of composure and control.

■ Once it becomes clear that the debt stock must be addressed, get on with it. Creditors may not like the prospect of having to write off a portion of their claims or defer repayment dates, but they positively loathe prolonged periods of indecision and dithering. Efficiency, discipline and fairness, even in carrying out a disagreeable task, will be remembered by markets long after the financial pain of a sovereign debt restructuring has been forgotten.

A sovereign debt crisis is just that: a crisis. It does not have to become a catastrophe.

"An open letter to the minister of finance of Ruritania" by Lee C Buchheit

Only one idea per article

I once offered an editor an 800-word article. I told him various brilliant points I wanted to make. He pretended to listen patiently, and then said: “Most readers can remember only one idea from an article.” Just make one good point, he said, and buttress it with facts and anecdotes. If an hour later the reader can remember your point, that’s a triumph. Since then I have tried to make only one point per article, though not today.

Simon Kuper - Lessons from the Field

An Existing Niche Where they Overlap

It’s not whether you get knocked down, but how — or whether — you get up. In today’s professional environment, you can’t just be smart and driven. You need to be flexible and resilient too.

So the question is: do you go ‘deep’ and master a discipline, or ‘broad’ and take on a whole slate of pursuits?

In my experience, the answer is neither. It’s not enough to have a wealth of knowledge in one area, or to be a keen generalist with limited knowledge in many — it’s critical to establish multiple areas of passion and expertise, and find — or develop! — a space that combines them.

"If I Were 22: Apples or Oranges? Choose Both for a Creative Career" by Ian Bremmer

Embracing Buddhism as a Society

Claudia Dreifus: Many Westerners have wondered why it is that nations with such large Buddhist populations have so often had such terribly violent rulers--Cambodia, Burma, Tibet?

Aung San Suu Kyi: Sometimes I wonder if the countries that embraced Buddhism did so because they needed it: because there was something violent in their societies that needed to be controlled by Buddhism.

The Passion of Suk Kyi

Today's Free Lunch

As Paul Krugman taught us all more than 20 years ago, it makes little sense to apply the concept of competitiveness to countries, which can’t go out of business, unlike companies, which can. National prosperity depends not on competitiveness but on productivity.

from "Get real about competitiveness" by Martin Sandbu

High-Cultured Barbarism

Hans Hotter’s outstanding 1942 recording of Schubert’s Winterreise seems to call for an intentionally anachronistic reading: it is easy to imagine German officers and soldiers listening to this recording in the Stalingrad trenches in the cold Winter of 42/43. Does the topic of Winterreise not evoke a unique consonance with the historical moment? Was not the whole campaign to Stalingrad a gigantic Winterreise, where each German soldier can say for himself the very first lines of the cycle:

“I came here a stranger,
As a stranger I depart"?

[...]The obvious counter-argument is that all this is merely a superficial parallel: even if there is an echo of the atmosphere and emotions, they are in each case embedded in an entirely different context: in Schubert, the narrator wanders around in Winter because the beloved has dropped him, while the German soldiers were on the way to Stalingrad because of Hitler’s military plans. However, it is precisely in this displacement that the elementary ideological operation consists: the way for a German soldier to be able to endure his situation was to avoid the reference to concrete social circumstances which would become visible through reflection (what the hell were they doing in Russia? what destruction did they bring to this country? what about killing the Jews?), and, instead, to indulge in the Romantic bemoaning of one’s miserable fate, as if the large historical catastrophe just materializes the trauma of a rejected lover.

from "Lenin As a Listener of Schubert" by Slavoj Zizek

In my diary I called this phenomenon Goethe Oak, after the ancient oak tree on the Ettersberg, near Weimar, under which Goethe had supposedly written his sublime “Wanderer’s Night Song,” but which was then enclosed on the grounds of the Buchenwald concentration camp. Goethe and Buchenwald, the highest and the lowest in human history, together in one place. A place called Weimar. A place called Germany. A place called Europe.

from Timothy Garton Ash - "The File: A Personal History"

Addendum: Bach or Mozart? - a scene from Schindler's List

On Practical Political Reality

I had the sense that [Ignatieff] could not emphasize enough to an outsider—or, in another sense, entirely explain—how practicing politics was utterly unlike philosophizing about it at the front of a classroom or, for that matter, in the back seat of a car: there are no philosopher-kings, or even philosophical prime ministers. To praise something for being “undertheorized” was to address it in all its practical political reality.

“It’s a completely different role,” he said. “The thing that politics most strongly resembles is being on soccer teams and hockey teams when I was a child. It’s not a lonely writer in his den thinking thoughts. You’re mostly listening all day long to people, trying to take the measure of their personalities—their strengths, their weaknesses. It’s much closer to being a journalist. You sit with other politicians: what does this person really want? You hear what she’s saying. But what does she really want? That’s a political moment. You’re in a town hall with two hundred and fifty people, and you’re trying to get a sense of the room, of what makes these people tick. It’s a very different skill from being a writer. Isaiah himself was fascinated by the question: what is it that a great politician knows? What is that form of knowledge? Last night, Zsuzsanna and I were watching the Detroit Red Wings goalie, and he knows something: what is it that he knows? What is it that a great politician knows? The great ones have a skill that is just jaw-dropping, and I’m trying to learn that.”

Had it been a steep learning curve? I wondered out loud.

“Vertical!” He exploded in laughter. “Face of the Eiger!” Then he said, “As an intellectual, you can speculate, you can ruminate, you can muse about things. Can’t do that in politics. They want to know what you think, what you do. A lot of the time, intellectuals are engaged in the business of showing how clever they are. The public isn’t interested in how clever you are. It wants something very different, which is, Can I trust this guy? Does this guy understand me and will this guy be with me when times are difficult? There’s a totally different relationship between the politician and his audience and the intellectual and his audience.”

"The Return of the Native" by Adam Gopnik (the first article I read by him). And of course, let's not forget the "fire and ashes" that resulted from Ignatieff's leadership.

To Write History

To write history is to make an argument by telling a story about dead people [...] Historians tend to write in both expository and narrative modes. In the writing of history, a story without an argument fades into antiquarianism; an argument without a story risks pedantry. Rarely does any historian choose one mode to the exclusion of another, but how to balance these modes is a crucial choice.

Jill Lepore - How to Write a Paper for This Class

This and That: Sovereign Defaults Edition

When a country goes bankrupt
When a country defaults
How Greece restructured its debt
How Jamaica turned its debts around

The Economist explains: What happens when a country goes bust

The Economics of Sovereign Defaults
Public finances: A world of debt
"Financial and Sovereign Debt Crises: Some Lessons Learned and Those Forgotten" by Carmen M. Reinhart and Kenneth S. Rogoff

"A New Approach To Sovereign Debt Restructuring" by Anne Krueger
"Too Little, Too Late: The Quest to Resolve Sovereign Debt Crises"
"The Costs of Sovereign Default" by Eduardo Borensztein and Ugo Panizza

Free Lunch: Flat-pack sovereign debt restructuring
"Revisiting sovereign bankruptcy" by Lee Buchheit
Sovereign debt: Curing defaults
How Hedge Funds Held Argentina for Ransom by Martin Guzman and Joseph Stiglitz
The clause that wouldn’t die

Цитаты дня

В разные времена настоящее выглядит по-разному.

Память - сеть, которую не следует чересчур напрягать, чтобы удерживать тяжелые грузы. Пусть все чугунное прорывает сеть и уходит, летит.

То, что не помнилось, переставало существовать.

Юрий Трифонов - «Дом на набережной»

Why America Should Become Great Again

SOMETIMES SMALL stories capture large truths. So it is with the fiasco that is the repair of the Anderson Memorial Bridge, connecting Boston and Harvard Square. Rehabilitation of the 232-foot bridge began in 2012, at an estimated cost of about $20 million; four years later, there is no end date in sight and the cost of the project is mushrooming, to $26.5 million at last count.

The Anderson Bridge is approximately one-sixth the length of the bridge Julius Caesar’s men built across the Rhine in 10 days in 55 BC. Caesar’s feat is admired not just for its technical mastery but also for its boldness. An allied tribe had offered boats to carry Caesar’s troops across the river, to avoid the difficult task of bridge-building. Yet Caesar rejected this offer, on the grounds that it would not be “fitting for the prestige of Rome.”

"A lesson on infrastructure from the Anderson Bridge fiasco" by Larry Summers

Peter Thiel pulled an iPhone out of his jeans pocket and held it up. “I don’t consider this to be a technological breakthrough,” he said. “Compare this with the Apollo space program.”

No Death, No Taxes: The libertarian futurism of a Silicon Valley billionaire.

There are ways that the government is working far less well than it used to. Just outside my office is the Golden Gate Bridge. It was built under FDR’s Administration in the 1930s in about three and a half years. They’re currently building an access highway on one of the tunnels that feeds into the bridge, and it will take at least six years to complete.

"A Conversation with Peter Thiel" by Francis Fukuyama

It’s hard to remember this, but our government was once high tech, too. When I moved to Cleveland, defense research was laying the foundations for the internet. The Apollo program was just about to put a man on the moon–and it was Neil Armstrong, from right here in Ohio. The future felt limitless.

But today our government is broken. Our nuclear bases still use floppy disks. Our newest fighter jets can’t even fly in the rain. And it would be kind to say the government’s software works poorly, because much of the time it doesn’t even work at all. That is a staggering decline for the country that completed the Manhattan project. We don’t accept such incompetence in Silicon Valley, and we must not accept it from our government.

[...] When Donald Trump asks us to Make America Great Again, he’s not suggesting a return to the past. He’s running to lead us back to that bright future.

Peter Thiel’s Speech at the Republican National Convention

You know what the trouble is, Brucey? We used to make shit in this country, build shit. Now we just put our hand in the next guy's pocket.

Frank Sobotka from the Wire

In the United States, Federal Net Infrastructure investment last year, was zero. That was the lowest level since 1947 and it was zero. That cannot possibly be rational at a time of epically low interest rates.

"Reflections on the Productivity Slowdown" by Larry Summers

It's no secret that the MTA has been having some difficulty maintaining its century-old infrastructure—track fires, signal problems, and all-around calamity plague morning, evening, and off-hour commutes on a regular basis. And in a video released this week, the agency shows off just how horrifically ancient the machinery that runs one of the world's largest subway systems—most of the machines date back to the 1930s or before, and upgrades have been few and far between.

The NYC Subway System Is Controlled By These Vintage Steampunk "Interlocking" Machines

The MTA has a thankless and extremely difficult job: They have to keep the trains running. They have to do it with equipment from the 1930s, in a hostile funding environment, as administrations come and go, as public interest comes and goes, in the face of storms and accidents and pieces of aluminum foil. This they manage to do. 1.6 billion people every year take the New York subway.

Why New York Subway Lines Are Missing Countdown Clocks

Addendum:

The Straussian interpretation of the Republican Convention is the correct one, which is perhaps one reason why Peter Thiel will be speaking there. They are not saying what they are saying, in fact they are saying “the world is going to hell, and many of those amongst us have been traitorously disloyal. That is why we scream out stupidities, debase ourselves, and court attention by waving our arms in ridiculous ways. We are a small church seeking to become larger.” Is that not how many smaller churches behave? Is that not how some of the early branches of the Christian church behaved? Did they have any influence? See also the remarks of Cass Sunstein.

"Does Lucifer in fact inhabit the corpus of Hillary Clinton?" by Tyler Cowen

Contrasting Argument

In the UK, and other common law jurisdictions, the executive and legislature are closely entwined. The Prime Minister and a majority of his or her ministers are Members of Parliament and sit in the House of Commons. The executive is therefore present at the heart of Parliament.

By contrast, in the USA, the President may not be a member of the legislature (Congress), and is elected separately from congressional elections. This may result in the President being a member of a different political party from the majority of members of Congress.

The UK’s integration of executive and legislature is said to provide stability and efficiency in the operation of government. It has been described as “a system that intentionally promotes efficiency over abstract concerns about tyranny”. For example, the Prime Minister is usually both head of the executive branch and leader of the majority party in the legislature, which gives the executive branch much more freedom of action than a president usually enjoys in a presidential system of government.

Briefing on the separation of powers from the Parliament of the UK

The Wisdom of Larry Summers

Lessons from Government Service 

KRISTOL: Any special tips you would have for people? I was at a much lower level position of having been a professor and suddenly being in government and having to do things and take responsibility for things. Any advice anyone gave you that was particularly useful? Any book you read that you would tell some 35-year-old Harvard or anywhere else professor who’s now going into the next administration to think about? Or just your own advice?

SUMMERS: I’d say some lessons I learned, Bill, are people – you should maintain a very strong presumption that people are acting reasonably by their lights. And that if it seems to you that somebody’s taking a position that’s completely stupid or unreasonably, it’s probably not because you’re smart and they’re stupid and you should just explain it to them.

It’s probably because given where they sit, given where they sit as part of the government of Japan or given where they sit as part of the Department of Commerce, or given as where they sit as part of General Electric, or given where they sit as a person with responsibility for getting reelected in six months, and that you will achieve your objectives much more effectively if you try to understand why other people are taking a position different than yours. Rather than just simply tell then they should take your position and take more arguments.

That was probably the most important lesson that was uncongenial to me. That in academics what you do is your persuade people with intellectual argument, and what I realized was people probably were taking positions that corresponded to their interest and you had to figure out how to make it work given their interest. That was probably the most important initial lesson learned.

Getting Stuff Done

Graduate school has provided you world-class training in quantitative skills. You are well versed in data analysis, game theory, decision matrices, and linear regression models.

This training offers an excellent foundation.

But what is really exciting about making public policy isn’t evaluating and analyzing and predicting.

It’s getting stuff done.

And if you really want to get stuff done outside the classroom, quantitative analysis needs to be to be complemented by qualitative analysis – the political, bureaucratic, behavioral, social, cultural, and ethical skills.

from “Getting Stuff Done” by Robert B. Zoellick

Addendum: An Insider’s Advice for Obama’s New Team

À une heure du matin

At last! I am alone! Nothing can be heard but the rumbling of a few belated and weary cabs. For a few hours at least silence will be ours, if not sleep. At last! The tyranny of the human face has disappeared, and now there will be no one but myself to make me suffer.

At last! I am allowed to relax in a bath of darkness! First a double turn of the key in the lock. This turn of the key will, it seems to me, increase my solitude and strengthen the barricades that, for the moment, separate me from the world. [...]

Dissatisfied with everything, dissatisfied with myself, I long to redeem myself and to restore my pride in the silence and solitude of the night. Souls of those whom I have loved, souls of those whom I have sung, strengthen me, sustain me, keep me from the vanities of the world and its contaminating fumes; and You, dear God! grant me grace to produce a few beautiful verses to prove to myself that I am not the lowest of men, that I am not inferior to those whom I despise.

from Baudelaire's Paris Spleen (Louise Varèse's translation)

A Simple Advice to Potential Policymakers

The advice to potential policymakers is simple: Learn as much as you can, for most of it will come in useful at some stage of your career; but never forget that identifying what is happening in the economy is essential to your ability to do your job, and for that you need to keep your eyes, your ears, and your mind open, and with regard to your mouth--to use it with caution.

"Reflections on Macroeconomics Then and Now" by Stanley Fischer

An Idea Made Architecturally Visible

And there, when the cherry blossom is doing its shameless thing, and the streets of Adams Morgan are warming to the kids on the block, it’s entirely possible to see Washington as not just DC, not just ideology made visible, but as an American community; and a good one at that.

from "Washington DC" by Simon Schama

Stolid Presence and Immobile Features

Xi conveys Napoleonic self-confidence in the importance of his mission and its inevitable success. In person he is said to be affable and relaxed. But his carefully curated public persona follows Mao in displaying a stolid presence and immobile features that seem to convey either stoicism or implacability, depending on whether he is sitting through a boring speech or giving one. The propaganda agencies labor to generate a huggable image of “Daddy Xi,” and Xi appears to be genuinely popular among the public, although this is changing as the economy slows. But his anticorruption campaign affecting a great many people has ground on, leading intellectual and official elites to read his expression as inscrutable and frightening.

from "Who is Xi?" by Andrew J. Nathan

On Conviction

Ana Pauker was a minister in the infamous Stalinist administration that ruled Romania in the early fifties; she was noted for her unswerving devotion to the orthodoxies of Moscow. A favourite anecdote of the day described how she was seen in the streets of Bucharest on a warm spring day under a large umbrella: why? 'Because', she said, 'it's raining in Moscow.'

from the Chatham Lecture at Trinity College, Oxford - "Convictions, Loyalties and the Secular State" by Archbishop of Canterbury Dr. Rowan Williams

ICYMI

Kubla Khan
by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.


Хубилай Хаан
Б.Амарсанаагийн орчуулга

Хүмүүний зүйрлэлд оршил үгүй ангалыг шувтлан
Гэрэл үгүй түнэр тэнгисийг зорих
Буртаг үгүй ариун Альп мөрөн урсах
Шанду нутагт таашаалын асар цогцлуулахаар
Хубилай хаан зарлиг буулгав.

Distinction Between College and Graduate School

I don't think we should have majors. I don't understand what majors are about. Majors are very late in the [inaudible]--I think just post-WWI or during WWI is when they were introduced. I make the distinction in my own thinking between college, which is for education, and graduate school, which is for professional training.

from Mark Mancall on education

Preëmptive Comment on the Pleasures of Competition

I have played sports (tennis, cricket), I have done a lot of cycling, but in all of this my aspiration has simply been to do as well as I can. Winning or losing—who cares? How I judge whether or not I have done well is a private matter, between myself and what I suppose I would call my conscience.

I don’t like forms of sport that model themselves too closely on warfare, in which all that matters is winning and winning becomes a matter of life and death—sports that lack grace, as war lacks grace. At the back of my mind is some ideal—and perhaps concocted—vision of Japan, in which one refrains from inflicting defeat on an opponent because there is something shameful in defeat and therefore something shameful in imposing defeat.

All the best,

John

The Better Player by Paul Auster and J. M. Coetzee

Klavierkonzert No.5

Glenn Gould's brilliant rendition of Beethoven's Klavierkonzert No.5 (my personal favorite is the second movement; watch from 19:20)

On this day 26 years ago

Найруулагч Ж.Солонгын "Найм хагас" баримтат кино. Өдгөөгөөс яг 26 жилийн өмнөх тэр өдөр яалт ч үгүй Монгол түмний заяа түшиж саруул ухаанаар асуудлаа шийдэцгээсэн юм аа.

Delivering Steadily on Our Promise for a Long Time

We must remember that our international reputation is of a country with great promise, which has under-delivered in the past. This is why we are still the poorest country on a per capita basis among the BRICS. We need to change perceptions by delivering steadily on our promise for a long time – by implementing, implementing, and implementing. We cannot get carried away by our current superiority in growth, for as soon as we believe in our own superiority and start distributing future wealth as if we already have it, we stop doing all that is required to continue growing. This movie has played too many times in India’s past for us to not know how it ends.

"Words Matter but so Does Intent" address by Dr. Raghuram Rajan, Governor of Reserve Bank of India on April 20, 2016 at the 12th NIBM Convocation, Pune

Something to be Said for Proximity

Historians have been overconfident about the wisdom to be gained by distance, believing it somehow confers objectivity, one of those unattainable values in which they have placed so much faith. Perhaps there is something to be said for proximity. Lord Acton, who delivered the first, famous lectures on the French Revolution at Cambridge in the 1870s, was still able to hear firsthand, from a member of the Orleans dynasty, the man's recollection of "Dumouriez gibbering on the streets of London when hearing the news of Waterloo."

Suspicion that blind partisanship fatally damaged the great Romantic narratives of the first half of the nineteenth century dominated scholarly reaction during the second half. As historians institutionalized themselves into an academic profession, they came to believe conscientious research in the archives could confer dispassion: the prerequisite for winkling out the mysterious truths of cause and effect. The desired effect was to be scientific rather than poetic, impersonal rather than impassioned. And while, for some time, historical narratives remained preoccupied by the life cycle of the European nation-states—wars, treaties and dethronements—the magnetic pull of social science was such that "structures," both social and political, seemed to become the principal objects of inquiry.

[...] the Revolution seem any longer to conform to a grand historical design, preordained by inexorable forces of social change. Instead it seems a thing of contingencies and unforeseen consequences (not least the summoning of the Estates-General itself). An abundance of fine provincial studies has shown that instead of a single Revolution imposed by Paris on the rest of a homogeneous France, it was as often determined by local passions and interests. Along with the revival of place as a conditioner have come people. For as the imperatives of "structure" have weakened, those of individual agency, and especially of revolutionary utterance, have become correspondingly more important

from Simon Schama's Citizens

Cf. this statement + an attempt to counter this "overconfidence" about the wisdom to be gained by distance

Даaнкэ шөн! Зээр гут!

С.Баярын редакторлосон "Ууган" номонд Б.Бадрууган агсан "Улаанбаатарын үдэш" дууг Германд дуулсан хувилбарыг хамгийн сайн нь гэж дурдсан байсантай яах аргагүй санал нийлнэ. Хэдэн онд дуулсан, тэрхүү орчуулга хийж чадалгүй будилсан нөхөр хэн байсан гээд ухвал зөндөө сонирхолтой зүйл гарч ирэх нь дамжиггүй.

On Structural Reforms

I think one has to be very clear that structural reforms are not a miracle cure. They are hard to get through; the effects are very often uncertain. But given the future that I have described, it is very important to try. Some structural reforms can clearly make a difference, maybe not to the growth rate permanently but at least to the level of output, which means that for some time there will be higher growth. I think given the short-term political costs associated with structural reforms, which is the main reason why you do not see them happening very quickly, I think the challenge is to choose them very carefully rather than have a long list and deliver on none of them.

Olivier Blanchard in April 2015

This is ultimately the problem raised by the idea of structural reform. Because it is a novel idea, and also a novel political practice, we should not be too surprised that our political institutions still seem unprepared to explore all the possibilities it offers. For the present, it is still unclear in what direction we should be moving, even if the need to follow the idea of fundamental economic reform with new mechanisms and structures of political decision-making is now being felt more than ever.

Bruno Macaes - "What are structural reforms?"

Walking Fast and Thinking Slow

It is normally easy and actually quite pleasant to walk and think at the same time, but at the extremes these activities appear to compete for the limited resources of System 2. You can confirm this claim by a simple experiment. While walking comfortably with a friend, ask him to compute 23 x 78 in his head, and to do so immediately. He will almost certainly stop in his tracks. My experience is that I can think while strolling but cannot engage in mental work that imposes a heavy load on short-term memory. If I must construct an intricate argument under time pressure, I would rather be still, and I would prefer sitting to standing

Accelerating beyond my strolling speed completely changes the experience of walking, because the transition to a faster walk brings about a sharp deterioration in my ability to think coherently. As I speed up, my attention is drawn with increasing frequency to the experience of walking and to the deliberate maintenance of the faster pace. My ability to bring a train of thought to a conclusion is impaired accordingly. At the highest speed I can sustain on the hills, about 14 minutes for a mile, I do not try to even think of anything else. In addition to the physical effort of moving my body rapidly along the path, a mental effort of self-control is needed to resist the urge to slow down. Self-control and deliberate thought apparently draw on the same limited budget of effort.

Daniel Kahnemann - "Thinking, Fast and Slow"

Wednesday Night Music: Julien Baker

Addendum: Krugman's Friday Night Music

Сэхээтэн хэмээх нэгэн зvйлийн хөхтөн амьтан

Хоёроос гурван гадаад хэл мэддэг, гурваас дөрвөн сургууль төгсөж дамжаа дүүргэснээрээ сэхээтэн болдоггүй бололтой. Уул нь их сургуулийн боловсрол сэхээтэнг тодорхойлох зайлшгүй нөхцөл мөн боловч хангалттай биш юм. [...] Хүн бүгдийг мэдэх албагүй ч улам бүр нарийн төвөгтэй болж буй ертөнц, нийгэм, улс төрийн амьдралын юмс үзэгдлийн мөн чанарыг таних, эдгээрийн уялдаа холбоог хөгжил хөдөлгөөнд нь олж харах үүрэг сэхээтнүүдэд ногдож байна. Нийгмийн хувьсал хөгжлийг бүхэлд нь хуучин дасал болоогүй өөр өнцгөөс харах, учир начрыг нь бусдад тайлбарлаж таниулах, оюуны эрх чөлөөгөө ашиглаж чадахгүй, бас хүсэхгүй байгаа “сэхээтнүүд” дэндүү олон болжээ. Сэхээтнүүд улс нийгмийн оюун санааны хөтөч, хүн чанарын бэлгэдэл байх үндсэн үүргээ гүйцэтгэж чадахгүй болохоор нийгэм хөгжлийн чиг баримжаагаа алдаж, тэр хэмжээгээр нийгмийн үнэт зүйл хомсдож, нийгмийн эрүүл хөрс болсон ёс суртахууны шалгуурууд үгүйсгэгдэх хандлагатай болдог юм байна.

Р.Амаржаргал - "Сэхээтэн"

+ Д.С. Лихачев, «Письма о добром и прекрасном»

Delayed Gratification as a Modus Operandi

I eat only once a day. It is always dinner and it is always whatever I fancy. Until then, I consume nothing but water, Diet Coke or tea. As a weight-management strategy, it is some use, maybe. “Intermittent fasting” has its advocates but others insist the total number of calories you consume matters more than their distribution across the day.

Either way, losing weight is not the end I have in mind. The gains are all mental. I feel meerkat-alert throughout the day. Mid-afternoon pangs of hunger are no trouble to get through, and preferable to the languor I used to feel after lunch. On a full stomach, crafting a sentence or even testing an argument in my mind is like trying to do abdominal crunches five seconds after waking up. A kind of haze stops you.

"Eat, drink and be merry but only after work" - Am I the only Janan Ganesh fan out there?

You have to marvel at how Lt. Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, a former Special Operations commander and the newly appointed leader of American forces in Afghanistan, does it. Mastermind the hunt for Al Qaeda in Iraq and plot stealth raids on Taliban strongholds in the Hindu Kush while getting just a few hours of sleep a night, exercising enough to exhaust a gym rat and eating one meal a day to avoid sluggishness. One meal.

"No Food for Thought: The Way of the Warrior" + Tim Ferris Interview with McChrystal

Orwell's Ideal Bar

In the Moon Under Water it is always quiet enough to talk. The house possesses neither a radio nor a piano [...]

Upstairs, six days a week, you can get a good, solid lunch—for example, a cut off the joint, two vegetables and boiled jam roll—for about three shillings [...]

Many as are the virtues of the Moon Under Water, I think that the garden is its best feature, because it allows whole families to go there instead of Mum having to stay at home and mind the baby while Dad goes out alone.

from The Moon Under Water by George Orwell

“When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?”

Economics is a science of thinking in terms of models joined to the art of choosing models which are relevant to the contemporary world. It is compelled to be this, because, unlike the typical natural science, the material to which it is applied is, in too many respects, not homogeneous through time…Good economists are scarce because the gift for using "vigilant observation" to choose good models, although it does not require a highly specialised intellectual technique, appears to be a very rare one

from J. M. Keynes' letter to Harrod, 4 July 1938

More Commendments

Szilárd Leó's Ten Commandments

Advice to people at the beginning of their careers: do not imagine that you have to know everything before you can do anything. My own best work was done when I was most ignorant. Grab every opportunity to take responsibility and do things for which you are unqualified.

Freeman Dyson on being 60 years in the same job

Арслантайхан уу эрээн авдраа хө

Арслантайхан уу эрээн авдраа болбол доо
Алхан чиг алтан чиг хээгээр хашсан чиг юмаа хө
Ай шинэхэн чиг ханилсан чи бидэн хоёроо
Дөлтэйхэн халуухан голомтныхоо хоймортоо
Дөрвөн их хүчтэнээ байлгаюу гэсэн юмаа хө

Сосорбарам - Арслантай авдар

Зургийг Ц.Ядамжавын "Монгол ардын хээ угалзын эх дүрсүүд" цомгоос авав

Failure to anticipate effectively

from Thomas Schelling's foreword to "Pearl Harbor: Warning and Decision" by Roberta Wohlstetter

"digging beneath the surface differences"

“There is no doubt that what I retained in my politics is a sense that the only way I could have a sturdy sense of identity of who I was depended on digging beneath the surface differences of people,” Obama said during an interview. “The only way my life makes sense is if, regardless of culture, race, religion, tribe, there is this commonality, these essential human truths and passions and hopes and moral precepts that are universal. And that we can reach out beyond our differences. If that is not the case, then it is pretty hard for me to make sense of my life. So that is at the core of who I am.”

from "Barack Obama: The Story" by David Maraniss

Тvvхийн Шижим

"U.S. Recognition Urged For Outer Mongolia" by Justice Douglas (written on September 29, 1961 - a month later on October 27, 1961 Mongolia became a member of UN)

+ "Монголчуудын сэтгэлгээ нээлттэй хэвээр ажээ"

+ "Mongolia and the United Nations - 6 decades and counting"

Addendum:

“I have to say at the risk of blasphemy that I found the Supreme Court an unimpressive institution,” [Richard Posner] wrote. “I was stunned to discover that Supreme Court Justices didn’t write all their own judicial opinions ([Justice William O.] Douglas did—and his were the weakest, though not because he was dumb—rather because he was bored)

"Rhetoric and Law: The double life of Richard Posner, America’s most contentious legal reformer"

О добром русском мире

Я люблю русский мир, только я, правда, до сих пор не могу понять, что они имеют в виду. Если иметь в виду русский мир, который за пределами русского мира, да, или вообще все вместе. Я люблю русский мир, скажем так, добрый русский мир, гуманитарный русский мир, мир, перед которым до сих пор поклоняется весь мир, перед той литературой, перед тем балетом, перед той музыкой великой, да, я вот этот мир люблю. Но я не люблю мир Берии, Сталина, Путина, Шойгу, это не мой мир.

Светлана Алексиевич

For life is short

According to Herodotus, Xerxes wept at the sight of his army, which was too extensive for him to scan, at the thought that a hundred years hence not one of all these would be alive. Who would not weep at the thought in looking over a big catalogue that of all these books not one will be in existence in ten years’ time?

It is the same in literature as in life. Wherever one goes one immediately comes upon the incorrigible mob of humanity. It exists everywhere in legions; crowding, soiling everything, like flies in summer. Hence the numberless bad books, those rank weeds of literature which extract nourishment from the corn and choke it.

They monopolise the time, money, and attention which really belong to good books and their noble aims; they are written merely with a view to making money or procuring places. They are not only useless, but they do positive harm. Nine-tenths of the whole of our present literature aims solely at taking a few shillings out of the public’s pocket, and to accomplish this, author, publisher, and reviewer have joined forces.

There is a more cunning and worse trick, albeit a profitable one. Littérateurs, hack-writers, and productive authors have succeeded, contrary to good taste and the true culture of the age, in bringing the world elegante into leading-strings, so that they have been taught to read a tempo and all the same thing — namely, the newest books order that they may have material for conversation in their social circles. Bad novels and similar productions from the pen of writers who were once famous, such as Spindler, Bulwer, Eugène Sue, and so on, serve this purpose. But what can be more miserable than the fate of a reading public of this kind, that feels always impelled to read the latest writings of extremely commonplace authors who write for money only, and therefore exist in numbers? And for the sake of this they merely know by name the works of the rare and superior writers, of all ages and countries.

Literary newspapers, since they print the daily smatterings of commonplace people, are especially a cunning means for robbing from the aesthetic public the time which should be devoted to the genuine productions of art for the furtherance of culture.

Hence, in regard to our subject, the art of not reading is highly important. This consists in not taking a book into one’s hand merely because it is interesting the great public at the time — such as political or religious pamphlets, novels, poetry, and the like, which make a noise and reach perhaps several editions in their first and last years of existence. Remember rather that the man who writes for fools always finds a large public: and only read for a limited and definite time exclusively the works of great minds, those who surpass other men of all times and countries, and whom the voice of fame points to as such. These alone really educate and instruct.

One can never read too little of bad, or too much of good books: bad books are intellectual poison; they destroy the mind.

In order to read what is good one must make it a condition never to read what is bad; for life is short, and both time and strength limited.

Arthur Schopenhauer - "On Reading and Books"

Bookmarks

Буцаж оюутан болоод зав зай бага болсон тул өөрийн сонсч уншдаг зүйлсээ цөөлөх шаардлага гарав. Тэгээд ойрын үед чөлөө олдвол доорх хэдэн линк дотор л эргэлдэхээр шийдвэй:

Conversations with Tyler

Conversations with Bill Kristol- яг нарийндаа бол Америкт хамгийн философилог, асуудлын угыг олж харж чаддаг хүмүүс нь консерватив интеллигенция нь байдаг

Conversations with History

Tanner Lectures

The Reith Lectures

Desert Island Disks

Open Yale Course + ялангуяа Robert Schiller-ийн 2008 онд заасан Financial Markets хичээл нь

Ben Casnocha's bookmarks on Delicious + "10,000 Hours with Reid Hoffman: What I Learned" is a must read

Dank sei Dir

Denn das Schöne ist nichts als des Schrecklichen Anfang, den wir noch grade ertragen, und wir bewundern es so, weil es gelassen verschmäht, uns zu zerstören

Rilke - "Die erste Elegie



And let's also not forget Aafje Heynis' hauntingly beautiful version

«Мы вас любим. А вы зачем разжигаете?»

Жена Ганболда на идеальном русском вспоминает, как её учили варить борщ в московском общежитии, и переходит от прошлого к настоящему: «Вы, русские, не понимаете, как мы вас любим. Да вы вообще ничего не понимаете. Я смотрю ваше телевидение и схожу с ума: что вы с Украиной сделали? Зачем разжигаете?»

Дети барона Унгерна: Как Монголия проиграла битву с ресурсным проклятием

"It's that kind of tune..."

Why New York is World City?

If [New York] is a world city, it is not thanks to the Ukrainian restaurants on 2nd Avenue, nor even the Ukrainians who have colonized Brighton Beach: they can be found in many other places from Cleveland to Chicago. It is that cultivated Ukrainians in Kiev read New York’s best-known periodical the [New York Review of Books].

Tony Judt - from his essay "New York, New York" in Memory Chalet

Good Rules of Thumb

If we can often do much less than we pretend, we can do much more than we fear.

Rory Stewart

A good rule of thumb for many things in life holds that things take longer to happen than you think they will, and then happen faster than you thought they could.

Larry Summers

Quotes of the Weekend

Нэг сонин тохиодол одоо ч сэтгэлээс гардаггүй юм. Улс төрийн товчоонд н.Моломжамц гээд өвгөн настай хүн байх. Аливаад их голч байр суурьтай ханддаг байлаа. Зөвлөлтөд 1948 онд сургууль төгссөн сэхээтэн хүн. Залуучууд бид яахав дээ түүнийг нөгөө л марксистүүдийн нэг гэж боддог байж. Заримдаа хүмүүс “Төв хорооны Санхүүгийн хэлтсийн н.Санжаацамц, Улс төрийн товчооны н.Моломжамц хоёр Их тэнгэрийн аманд хурал хураад байх юм” гэхэд бид тоглоом байлгүй гээд шоолдог байлаа. Би 1988 онд Удирдлагын институтын захирал байхдаа Төв номын санд Нагаржунайн 73 бадагтыг үзэх санаатай хоёр гурав хоног суусан юм. Тэгсэн Моломжамц гуай дууддаг юм байна. “Би хоёр гурав хоног чамайг эрээд олсонгүй чи хаачив” гэхэд нь “Ном үзэх санаатай Төв номын санд суулаа...” гээд учраа хэлсэн. Тэгтэл урдаас “Нагаржунайн 150 бадагт гэж байдаг юм шүү дээ ” гээд цээжээр дүнгэнэтэл унших нь тэр [...] Моломжамц гуайн уншиж судалж цээжилсэн нь бол Нагаржунайн филосифийн их хөлгөн судар. Миний үзэж байсан 73 бадагт бол бага хөлгөн нь юм.

Д.Бямбасүрэн баавайн 2014 оны ярилцлагаас

That there is such a thing as raw, unalloyed, agendaless kindness.

David Foster Wallace

Хууль тогтоогчийн зорилго энэ буюу

Each son or daughter of a given country has a mission, a personal and social responsibility. Your own responsibility as members of [legislative body] is to enable this country, by your legislative activity, to grow as a nation. You are the face of its people, their representatives. You are called to defend and preserve the dignity of your fellow citizens in the tireless and demanding pursuit of the common good, for this is the chief aim of all politics. A political society endures when it seeks, as a vocation, to satisfy common needs by stimulating the growth of all its members, especially those in situations of greater vulnerability or risk. Legislative activity is always based on care for the people. To this you have been invited, called and convened by those who elected you.

Transcript: Pope Francis’s speech to Congress

Cчастье в сирени живет...

Сирень

По утру, на заре,
По росистой траве
Я пойду свежим утром дышать;
И в душистую тень,
Где теснится сирень,
Я пойду свое счастье искать…
В жизни счастье одно
Мне найти суждено,
И то счастье в сирени живет;
На зеленых ветвях,
На душистых кистях
Мое бедное счастье цветет.

1878

An Old Communist's Digression on Mongolia

So, in Moscow, in 1942, I was in prison with a commissioner from the Ministry of Health in Mongolia. He described Mongolia to me. Today Le Monde or even the American papers still express surprise and joy that Mongolia is on Russia's side, that it hasn't let itself be talked around by the Chinese, that it was admitted to the UN in return for Mauritania. That was some deal. Independent Mongolia and independent Mauritania. The next day Mauritania voted against the West and America, and Mongolia became a go-between for the Afro-Asian camp. What kind of place is Mongolia? (I'll make it fast because we might not come back to this later, and it's interesting.)

He was a commissioner in the Ministry of Health. What does that mean? It turns out that collective farms were not introduced in Mongolia, they didn't touch the majority of the monasteries, and they left the old Mongolian customs alone, they were so old. There were ministries, and the ministers were Mongolians. And in every ministry there was a security commissioner with his own secret office. The Mongolian minister had a limousine, a villa, servants, and girls, and, besides that, as a doctor, my friend the commissioner would supply him with hashish or opium--I don't remember which. He could do anything if it was connected with health. He'd been in power, my cell mate, but there was also the NKVD where all the strings came together, in a little building, not interfering, the NKVD outpost for Russians sent from Moscow. They had orgies there every night in the NKVD building, he and those NKVD people. Well, but then he tripped himself up. At that time no one was permitted to travel to Mongolia, but a group of French communists or progressives arrived there. They took a picture of a cemetery where dogs were ripping apart the corpses that hadn't been buried deeply enough out of sheer slovenliness. The ground was stony. The delegation of progressives returned to Moscow with that photograph, and there was a scandal. He probably had other things on his conscience as well. For example, he was also accused of stealing a beautiful and very ancient ivory sculpture from a monastery. He described that sculpture to me: it was of a monastery with a great many monks. He said, "All right, but we all did that, all of us: I went to that monastery with my friends from the NKVD." Of course he said that he had sent the sculpture to his wife in Moscow, and his wife was supposed to donate it to a museum but hadn't gotten around to it yet. They all stole. And that was a People's Democracy. Without collective farms, where the customs and the religion had been preserved.

And so I thought Poland would be a sort of Western European Mongolia.

from "My Century" by Aleksander Wat, p. 114-115

The most resilient skill in the modern world

The most resilient skill in the modern world is argument. We are all sophists now, or should be [...] What unites the elite professions in any international city is their command of sophistry. Barristers and management consultants, political advisers and advertising executives, public-relations strategists and even certain types of investment banker: all trade on the same skill. It is the ability to frame any given problem on your own terms so that your conclusion is irresistible to the client (or jury, or investor, or politician, or reader). To be clear, this is not the same thing as being right. What matters is being persuasive [...] Learn to code, runs the received career advice of today. It is shrewder to learn how to argue.

"We are all sophists now — or should be" by Janan Ganesh

How Cities Vanish

Another man, dressed in a white t-shirt and shorts, waving a fan to cool himself, added heatedly, “Look over there. Those tall buildings? That’s what the city wants to build here.”

I looked into everyone’s eyes. “But there’s nothing beautiful or great about those boxes,” I said. “Moreover, those types of buildings have nothing whatsoever to do with Chinese traditions. Or Peking traditions.”

One of the residents was a tall goofy-looking guy who wore horn-rimed glasses, a button-down shirt, shorts, black socks and black plastic “penny leather” shoes. He patted me on the shoulder and gave me a lop-sided grin. “Exactly right! To make money, the government wants us to give up our homes so they can make Western type skyscrapers. Peking will have nothing distinctively Chinese about it anymore.”

The residents could not even look forward to preserving their community. Each family was assigned to different apartment blocks far away in north Peking. Instead of spending summer evenings gossiping with old friends on the street corners, they will be locked away in tiny cubicles of Western invention, not knowing their neighbors and having to ride elevators simply to go out to fetch a bottle of beer or yogurt.

from Michael A. Aldrich The Search for a Vanishing Beijing: A Guide to China's Capital Through the Ages p.166

May their Eternal Blue Sky give them strength!

Still relevant after 25 years...

It is but natural that now, after so many years of silence and taboos on the one hand, and of loud distortion of the truth on the other, it is not easy to keep up with the growing freedom: to find the right ways of how to treat the heavy burden of the past and solve the problems of a ruined economy. It is easier to refuse the near past and turn to the earlier traditions, the glory of the ancestors, than to answer the questions of today's distress.

Yesterday's men of power claimed anything old was wrong, now there is another danger to believe anything old is right. And yesterday's uneven friend ships and lame internationalism fed an ill and clandestine nationalism or even chauvinism. This is now a sad commonplace in most societies that have just taken off the totalitarian uniform, and not only in them. Nevertheless it is sure that a healthy national identity, based on realities and accompanied with mutual international understanding, is badly needed for the Mongols to emerge from the present crisis.

May their Eternal Blue Sky give them strength and time for doing so!

from "Baabar's 'Don't Forget!': Analysis of a Mongolian Social Democrat's Treatise, 1990" by György Kara. Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae. Vol. 46, No. 2/3 (1992/93), pp. 283-287

Накабали буюу Заан тэтгэгч оршвой

Цавчаал боомтын (Juyong Pass) хаалган дээрх бичиг дотор ийм дөрвөн мөрт байдаг аж. Кирилл дээрх эхийг нь Ц.Дамдинсүрэн гуай Монголын уран зохиолын тойм бүтээлдээ оруулсан байдаг гэнэ.

Jalqamji c'aqa.an ja.anu juljiqanu [.. ?. ?.. ]ju:
jaya.an t'ut'um alt'an jawan k'olgeni olu ad:
c'aqun hecusdur Nakabali neret'u bolu.ad k'iirt'ebeyi:
c'aqlasi iugee amuqula3i t'ere k'iirt'ejuue:

Харин үүнийг Нууц товчоо орчуулагч алдарт Кливез ингэж Англи хэл дээр буулгажээ (түүний "The Boy and His Elephant" нийтлэлээс нь авав):

[In] succession, [(?)the master] of the white elephant calf, having been [(?)born]
And [in] every reincarnation having acquired a gold elephant mount,
Having become one named Nakabali (Nagapala), has attained unto the end of the time.
Immeasurable happiness has that one attained.

Addendum: Элдэв үлгэрийн далай хэмээгдэх судар оршив: Заан тэтгэгчийн дөчин гуравдугаар зүйлээс:

Ер аль бээр хүн тус тусдаа гурван эрдэнэсийн буяны тариалан газарт буяны өчүүхэн хөрөнгө цацваас цаггүй үрийг олох болъюу.

Operating Rules

Эрх чөлөөт, ардчилсан нийгэмд хүний хийж болох хамгийн хэцүү зуйл бол leadership (манлайлал гэхээр Монгол хэлээр жаахан cliche буугаад байх юм). Хүссэн үедээ хаалга саваад гараад алга болох эрх чөлөөтэй хүмүүсийг тодорхой нэг зорилгын төлөө хөдөлмөрлүүлж, нэг баг болгож (өөрсдийнхөөрөө бүрэн дүүрэн байж чадахгүй, сөрөг байр сууринд тодорхой хэмжээгээр буулт хийнэ гэсэн уг) удирдана гэдэг тийм ч амар зүйл биш. Ялангуяа цалин багатай, ажил ихтэй төрийн албанд (авлига гэдэг зуйл огт байхгүй гэж тооцвол) ард иргэдийн амар амгалан байдал, хөгжил дэвшлийн төлөө хоёргүй сэтгэлээр зутгэх гол хучин зуйл нь шийдвэр гаргалтийн шат бүр дэх leadership.

Leadership-ийг харин хүн хоёр янзын аргаар олж авдаг байх. Нэг нь өөрөө удирдах ажил хийж алдаж онон байж сурах. Цол дагаж бяр нэмнэ гэдэг шиг. Ингэж сурах нь хэдийгээр хамгийн шилдэг арга боловч цаг хугацаа их авдгийн дээр алдаа гаргасан тохиолдолд төлөөсийг нь ганц тэр хүнээс гадна байгууллага, хамт олон нь үүрдэг тул хамгийн хүсүүштэй нь бас биш юм. (Чухал шийдвэр гаргах албан тушаалд туршлагатай, өмнө амжилттай байсан хүн тавихыг олон нийт шаарддаг шалтгаан нь энэ буюу). Leadership-ийг сурах нөгөө нэг арга нь сайн leader-үүдээс суралцах. Залуу хүмүүст ажилд ороод юу хийх нь чухал бус харин хэний доор ажиллах нь чухал гэдгийн учир энэ. Гэхдээ бас leader-ээс (номоор нь аль эсвэл биеэр) суралцсанаа амьдрал дээр туршиж, өөриймшүүлж авахгүй бол хэдий мундаг хүний доор ажиллаж байсан боловч олигтой юм суралгүй өөрийгөө ч, нөгөө хүнээ ч хөөддөг нөхөдтэй адил нэгэн болж хувирах эрсдэлтэй.

Хэрвээ удирдах албан тушаалд шууд очих аль эсвэл сайн удирдагчийн доор ажиллах боломжгүй бол сайн leader-үүдийн бичсэн зөвлөгөөнүүдийг олж үзэж тэндээс ихийг суралцах боломж бас бий. Ялангуяа гадны төрийн албанд олон жил зүтгэсэн хүмүүсийн зөвлөгөөнүүд ямар ч context-д хөрвөх чадвартай мөртөө өдөр тутмын нүсэр их ажлыг цэгцтэйгээр харах, эрхлэх, зохицуулахад маш их хэрэг болдог. Манайд иймэрхүү зөвлөгөөнүүд тэр бүр байдаггүй нь удирдах албан тушаалын хүмүүс доороо ажиллаж байгаа хүмүүстээ leadership-ийг тэр бүр зааж сургаж чаддаггүй, бур цаашлаад өөрсдөө удаан хугацаагаар ажиллаж statesman болж чаддаггүйтэй холбоотой байх. Юутай ч мартахаасаа өмнө бусад хүмүүст сонирхолтой байх болов уу гээд нийгмийн бодлогын тал дээр өөрийн үргэлж санаж явахыг хичээдэг зөвлөгөөнүүдийг доор орууллаа:

Tim Geithner's "special code for how to think about economic policy"

"Focus on what’s right, not just what is possible or easy.

"Never forget what a privilege it is to serve your country.

"Know that the world, not just America, depends on the quality of the judgments we make in this building.

"Make sure you steep yourself in what you do not know and what you cannot understand about the world.

"Don’t overdo it with excessive deference to the Secretary of the Treasury, or to the President. Tell them what you think.

"Understand we do serious work, but don’t take yourself too seriously.

"Cast your net broadly for advice, subject your initial judgments to relentless debate, but don’t let yourself be paralyzed by the difficulty of the choices, the fog, the shades of grey.

"Remember we have to be for stuff—I’m descending into self-caricature. Remember we have to be for stuff, not just against stuff—the brakes on initiative, but also the accelerator.

"No peacocks, jerks or whiners.

Rumsfeld's Rules - болвол номыг нь заавал олж уншаарай

In one conversation, seemingly out of nowhere, Moynihan said, “Don, only buy black socks.” I gave him a quizzical look. “You can wear them with anything,” he said. I took this to mean that in a busy world, it is best to make things easier by simplifying certain habits and decisions. Then again, he may have just been giving me wardrobe advice.

Obama’s Way by Michael Lewis

This time he covered a lot more ground and was willing to talk about the mundane details of presidential existence. “You have to exercise,” he said, for instance. “Or at some point you’ll just break down.” You also need to remove from your life the day-to-day problems that absorb most people for meaningful parts of their day. “You’ll see I wear only gray or blue suits,” he said. “I’m trying to pare down decisions. I don’t want to make decisions about what I’m eating or wearing. Because I have too many other decisions to make.” He mentioned research that shows the simple act of making decisions degrades one’s ability to make further decisions. It’s why shopping is so exhausting. “You need to focus your decision-making energy. You need to routinize yourself. You can’t be going through the day distracted by trivia.” The self-discipline he believes is required to do the job well comes at a high price.

Jake Sullivan's commencement address to students at the Humphrey School of Public Affairs on May 20, 2013

Public policy is a study in imperfection. It involves imperfect people, with imperfect information, facing deeply imperfect choices—so it’s not surprising that they’re getting imperfect results.

Policymakers are people. There will be meetings where one participant has a grudge against another. Where someone is fighting the urge to doze off because their kid kept them up all night.

Leadership: Essential Writings by Our Greatest Thinkers, editor Elizabeth D. Samet

The Best Sentences I Read Today

The following are some observations based on my 5+ years experience in corporate America.

1. Corporations exist to make money. Bottom line. Therefore, never take it personally. It’s all about business, really.
2. Think.
3. Know your stuff. Stay up-to-date, stay relevant. No one will listen to you if you don’t know what you are talking about. Know you numbers. Inside and out, and be ready to interpret them within and outside contexts.
4. Innovate, be creative. Everywhere and always.
5. Be precise, matter-of-fact kind of precise. Keep your communication short and neutral. No one has time to read emails longer than 5 sentences. No one has time to deal with your attitude.
6. Change is the only constant. Priorities, goals, tasks, people, science, research, structures, teams, knowledge, processes, rules – all change all the time. Find your balance and move forward.
7. Keep your boss informed at all times.
8. Be fair and nice to people next/above/under you. It matters in both short and long runs.
9. Listen to gossips. Listen to what people say.
10. Be neutral. Provide your expert opinion but don’t join ‘camps’. The truth/solution is usually somewhere in the middle.
11. Consensus is nice but sometimes you just have to make decisions without. Period.
12. Be ready to work long hours. And I mean – looong, like 60+ hours/week. It will be worse if you are not productive. But then you won't last long anyway.
13. If possible, avoid human resources. They exist to support the structure, not you.
14. Don’t fight. Especially with your boss. Too bad if your boss is stupid. Or psychopath (most of them are). Determine your tolerance threshold and leave when it’s crossed.

random pages - From Academia to Corporate

Philosophical Republic

Among followers of Strauss, one issue is the importance of politics in the relationship of politics and philosophy. Politics thinks it is the most important human activity because it decides who rules in the world. Every human activity, including the most private matters such as the philosopher’s reflection, takes place under the rule of some authority that protects or permits it. It is philosophy’s business to question this authority and its self-proclaimed importance, and to bring its assertions to the bar of reason and its assurances to the test of eternity. The issue then is whether philosophy’s claim to importance is sovereign over politics so as to eclipse politics, or does philosophy have something to learn from politics in a way that rescues the importance of politics?

Walter Berns and Harry Jaffa both took the latter view, and they studied American politics as a serious subject and America as a kind of philosophical republic.

"Scholars of American Politics: The contributions of Walter Berns and Harry Jaffa" by Harvey Mansfield

Conversations with Bill Kristol: "Harvey Mansfield on Party Government and Modern Political Philosophy"

Зах зээлийн замд vдсэн тvvх оршвой

Хөдөлмөр сонин, 1991 оны нэгдүгээр сарын 3, №1 (10536)

Вот дело в чем

У Цеденбала я довольно часто бывал, когда был послом в Монголии. Особенно Полина Семеновна. Они только по‑русски, по‑монгольски не говорят, вот дело в чем. Жена у него рязанская. Бесцеремонная баба такая. Только по‑русски – некрасиво, потому что монголам не нравится.

В. М. Молотов о Монгольских лидерах (из Ф. И. Чуев - "Сто сорок бесед с Молотовым")

Nostalgie

Аж богдын харуул нь ээ хө
Амгалан болоод тайван даа