Cry for Argentina. What else is there to do after a rout like this? “The main Argentine stock market plunged more than 30% on Monday, marking the second-biggest one day slump anywhere since 1950,” the financial network CNBC reported this week. “Meanwhile, the peso closed 15% weaker at 53.5 per U.S. dollar. The currency had been trading at 45.25 on Friday.”
President Trump assures Americans regularly that he has a “great relationship” with an array of world figures, among them Xi Jinping of China and Kim Jong-un of North Korea. It’s comforting to hear. It would be more gratifying, though, to see these relationships bear fruit. Try as he might, the president has been stymied in his efforts to seal crucial deals with his Asian counterparts. Americans may be subject to creeping doubts, but there is no substitute for persistence.
The Democrats did moderately well in the midterm elections, but not as well as they expected, and they lost the three big races they really wanted to win, the governorships in Florida and Georgia and the U.S. Senate seat in Texas. Winning any one of them would have been impressive, particularly given the generally conservative voting record of those states. Such a result would have cheered the Democratic base, and given momentum to the party for 2020. The Democratic media would have put that winner in the winners bracket in the presidential sweepstakes.
Friends don't let friends go to the clink. The conclusion that the nation is currently running on a dual justice system — a gentler, privileged system for Hillary Clinton and her cronies, and a harsh and unforgiving system for everyone else — is coming evident to everyone.
Omniscience has always been regarded as the sole province of God, but now Google thinks it's big enough to depose Him. Aping the Almighty is the hubris that inevitably carries a price. The technology giant that bestrides the world of information is under assault on numerous fronts for getting a little too abusive of free speech. But if Google and the other giants of Silicon Valley are going to be true to their vow to "do the right thing," they will need help.
They clearly don't make 'em like George H.W. Bush any more. There's no longer much of a market for presidents dedicated to decency, dignity, and unabashed service to God and country.
Can California be saved? The Golden State, as it calls itself, grows ever more tarnished by the silly, the fatuous and the childish. And you thought gold doesn't tarnish.
Donald Trump's economic optimism bemused the economists (and irritated Democrats) when he remarked during the 2016 presidential campaign that America would soon produce too much abundance. "We'll have so much prosperity you'll say it's too much."
Who knew a freshperson congressperson could so shake the foundations of the republic, and rattle the world beyond. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who won a seat in the Bronx last month, sees her victory as "a watershed moment in world history akin to landing on the moon."
It's not a good sign when a president's approval rating slips under water before he assumes the office. But that's the lot of Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who will be sworn in Saturday as the new president of Mexico.
The United States and China could someday be the ham and eggs, the peanut butter and jelly, of international commerce. Instead of complementing each other's innovative and industrial acumen, however, the two superpowers have fallen into a trade relationship that, like oil and water, is a recipe for economic indigestion. Only if China swallows its pride and endorses the U.S. appeal for fair trade at the Group of 20 summit beginning Friday in Buenos Aires can both nations come away from the table with success.
The Earth travels its appointed course through the heavens without effort, but not much moves across its surface without oil. That fact is now painfully apparent in France, where the result of confiscatory environmental taxes has sparked a riotous citizen fury.
A funny thing about caravans. They move. In the weeks before the midterm congressional elections, the Democrats and the media chastised President Trump for the attention he paid to the caravan of thousands of migrants moving steadily from Central America, through Mexico, toward the American border.
Japan is about to take its most culture-altering step since Gen. Douglas MacArthur restructured Japanese society in the wake of World War II. With no apparent alternative to sustain the highly-skilled workforce that is the key to a successful economy, the Japanese are moving ahead with a scheme to import foreign workers, some of them to stay permanently.
It's not easy for moderns to wrap their minds around the challenges of the first settlers when they sat down to the first Thanksgiving table, folded their hands and asked the Lord's blessings. The spirit of serving divine providence, of braving frightening forces of nature, of laboring with unwavering perseverance, is actually as rare as summer snow in any generation. If the sojourners of yore had been afforded the advantages of today's artificial intelligence in crunching the possibilities of success, odds are they would have stayed home. Smart machines may be, but an algorithm can't account for the invisible spark of human ambition.
Nancy Pelosi, that avatar "of San Francisco values," received a note of support from an unlikely ally the other day. She got a fan letter from Donald Trump. Against a backdrop of the gossip, some more informed than other, that she might not get enough votes in her caucus to regain the speakership, the president tweeted: "I can get Nancy Pelosi as many votes as she wants in order for her to be Speaker of the House. She deserves this victory, she has earned it. But there are those in her party who are trying to take her away. She will win!"
When snow covers the ground even as autumn leaves flaunt their colors, it's a sign that winter is running ahead of schedule. There's no use griping about the weather. Everybody talks about the weather, Mark Twain observed, but nobody does anything about it. Humans keep a seasonal calendar and the world of nature has its own. And just when the savants of science think they've found the key to natural powers, unseen forces demonstrate that, like the lesson of "The Sorcerer's Apprentice," their wisdom is mostly from Mickey Mouse.
There's a fierce war going on out there, but it usually gets scarce attention because the weapons don't make much noise. It's a war of economics, and noise or not, it raises wide-ranging issues with America's European allies.
Reporting the news is difficult and expensive. Grandstanding is more fun and everyone has an opinion. That's why reporters were once taught, often by a stern taskmaster, to leave opining to the columnists and the editorial page, and save their opinions for after work in the bar across the street. This particular affliction — grandstanding rather than reporting, advocacy rather than observing and distilling those observations before passing them on to press and tube, is the affliction of the modern media. And why not? Talking is cheaper than reporting.
It's difficult to deny the ring of truth in certain platitudes. Heads nod in agreement with the wisdom of "change is the only constant in life," often attributed to the ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus. But 23 centuries later, French journalist and critic Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr similarly nailed it again with his observation that "the more things change, the more they stay the same." Common sense is a convenient tool for sorting out life's inconsistencies and forming a suitable resolution. Some things change, but not everything, nor should it.
The Israel-Arab peace effort is suddenly awake again. Whether this movement will redeem the Trump administration's promise "of a peace of the century" is another matter. But we'll soon see.
This sounds elemental, as it ought to be. Every legitimate voter — from new immigrant to descendant of the Mayflower voyager — is endowed with exactly the same electoral value, one vote and each voter entitled to cast it only once. Citizens one and all, they settle their differences on Election Day. Or so they think. Then cries and shrieks split the morning-after calm, pleading that the tally is unfinished, incorrect, illegitimate.
