Kissinger and Sam Nunn — Kicking it Old School

The Los Angeles Times asks this week: Was Phil Gramm right? At a gardening shop near where I live the proprietor points out that when the season opened this year she sold out of onions and potatoes in the first few days. In a time of scarcity, she said, people begin to stock up on basics. I see it all over — people up here building big gardens and turning to wood stoves. Local stores have sold out of them as well. We are sensing the end of something. It has been rising for a long while, but now it has hit a nerve. Phil Gramm’s recent comments were meant to scold and were no help to John McCain, but what he said about a “mental recession” has some relevance. “Mental,” or psychological factors are relevant influences on the culture and on the economy. They are fully predictable as a part of the business cycle because everything... [read full story]