Tag Archives: things

Why the Economic Recovery Is Slowing Down

John Kenneth Galbraith, one of the most famous practitioners of the high-minded guessing game known as economics, once noted that in the dismal science, “the majority is always wrong.” How else to explain the fact that so many economists upgraded their growth forecasts for the American economy at the end of last year, often to well above 3%, when the numbers so far this year have come in below 2%? The plunge is due to many things, from higher food and oil prices to supply-chain disruptions in the wake of the Japanese nuclear disaster to a terrible housing market.

Celebrating bin Laden’s death

There are so many things that make the killing of Osama bin Laden absolutely delicious: the hypocrisy of his being nabbed in a million-dollar, suburban compound even as he sent others to their deaths; the fear he must have felt as his bedroom door burst open and he found himself staring down the barrel of an American weapon held by an American soldier; the ignominious end his remains met — dumped overboard into the Arabian Sea like so much unwanted rubbish.

The Apple Of Your Ear

The iPhone started out the way a lot of cool things do: as something completely different. A few years ago, Steve Jobs noticed how many development dollars were being spent–particularly in the greater Seattle metropolitan area–on what are called tablet PCs: flat portable computers that work with a touch screen instead of a mouse and keyboard.