Quickthink

Today there is a big game in the NBA - the Heat and the Celtics. Well, of course, I would think so as a Sixers fan. If the Heat beat the Celtics, the Sixers reclaim first place by half a game.

But while having a bite to eat and getting ready for the Heat and Celtics I watched the Thunder play the Bulls. Now that was impressive. The Bulls have a very good team. Even with their stars hurt, they are very tough. And the Thunder — led by Durant and Westbrook took them apart. That was impressive.  Durant is very impressive. MVP?

BTW - I watched the first half of the Celtics game.  The Heat played dreadful defense but I have to admit the Celtics were good. They moved the ball well and shot very well from the perimeter. They are a better team than I thought they were.

Saveur has a really nice feature. Around once a week, it highlights new food blogs. This week it highlighted lunch studio. I may not follow this blog every day, but I love the idea of the blog.

Two nice architects blog about what they have for lunch and then an afternoon snack each day.  What’s the big deal? Well, first, this type of writing is relaxing. No heavy handed pitches for political or business purposes. Just fun. Second, it is about routines. The more we write and read about routines, the more we think about raising standards for our own routines.  This is one thing blogging is supposed to do.

Tom Friedman writes today about a new book that explains why nations fail. The bottom line is that — surprise, surprise — institutions matter. Nations that build public institutions that work tend to thrive. Those that do not, tend not to. And what do we mean by “work”? The book argues that public institutions work better when they are “inclusive”. They fail when they are “exclusive”. Inclusive means opening up and empowering people. Exclusive means shutting people out and taking the money.

Hooray!  We have new words for something we knew a long, long time ago. The problem is that while we always knew this, US foreign policy makers have had bigger fish to fry. Like propping up allies and punishing enemies. US “nation building” policy got into trouble when — for political reasons — the US government had to sell its intervention in Iraq and Afghanistan as nation building exercises. Well, those were high risk missions, yes?

And how has the nation building worked out? “Poorly” would be a polite way to describe the results. And now that we know better, will we perform better? Of course not. The priorities have not changed.

Last year, the world was treated with a theater of the absurd in Washington as the Republican Party made a political issue out of raising the US debt ceiling. It was a political fight manufactured out of nothing, as the debt ceiling itself is an artificial and meaningless standard. And it threatened the credibility of the nation, leading to a credit downgrade. But the republicans saw an opportunity for political gain and they went for it. The nation suffered … but who cares?

Rational thinkers might conclude that those who were behind this shameful episode will face a day of reckoning. But will they? Check out Joe Weisenthal’s piece for BI where he writes that the US would be better off electing Mitt Romney in order to avoid seeing a repeat performance. He writes

… in the end, there’s a good argument to be made that a Romney election would be much better for the economy, in that in all likelihood, a unified GOP Washington would forget about spending cuts and austerity, and quickly focusing on making sure nothing bad happens to the economy, defusing the fiscal bomb by punting.

In other words, voters should cave in to those who showed that they have no respect for governance.  Unbelievable!