Why How Matters

“UBS bank’s motto is: ‘You and us.’ But the world we created was actually ‘You and nobody’ — nobody was really connected in value terms,” said Seidman. “Parts of Wall Street got disconnected from investing in human endeavor — helping business to scale and take up new ideas.” Instead, they started to just engineer money from money. “So some of the smartest C.E.O.’s did not know what some of their smartest people were doing.”

"Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, and one by one.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/15/opinion/15friedman.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin

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Morning Reading 10.13.08 : On (government-observed) Columbus Day

ESSENTIAL READING - From the cover of Newsweek - There Is A Silver Lining

All the more reason to pick up The Snowball

Playbook Monday : 22 Days

DRIVING THE DAY – John McCain will unveil a new, Salteresque stump speech today designed to get voters and reporters to give him one more look. The campaign provided this excerpt: 'Let me give you the state of the race today. We have 22 days to go. We're six points down. The national media has written us off. Senator Obama is measuring the drapes, and planning with Speaker Pelosi and Senator Reid to raise taxes, increase spending, take away your right to vote by secret ballot in labor elections, and concede defeat in Iraq. But they forgot to let you decide. My friends, we've got them just where we want them.

'What America needs in this hour is a fighter; someone who puts all his cards on the table and trusts the judgment of the American people. I come from a long line of McCains who believed that to love America is to fight for her. I have fought for you most of my life. There are other ways to love this country, but I've never been the kind to do it from the sidelines.'

Maybe 3 weeks too late...

Kristol in yesterday's NY Times with what might be the best advice for John McCain: be yourself...again.

Freidman on A Post-Binge World:

“I have no idea what the stock market is going to do next month or six months from now,” Warren Buffett told CNBC on Friday. “I do know that the American economy, over a period of time, will do very well, and people who own a piece of it will do well.”

And another recommendation for David Smick's The World is Curved.

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Morning Reading 10.07.08

Playbook Tuesday : 28 Days

The Testing Time by David Brooks

This is the test. This is the problem that will consume the next president. Meanwhile, the two candidates for that office are talking about Bill Ayers and Charles Keating.

He also has a book recommendation: The World Is Curved: Hidden Dangers to the Global Economy by David M. Smick

Swedish Spoken Here by Thomas Freidman

Making history is not simply about the will to do so. It’s also about the way — the resources you have to achieve your ends. Whatever wills the next American president comes to office with, he is going to find that his ways have been diminished and restricted — until we roll up our sleeves and work our way out of this mess.

In the category of random, useless information: The Measure of a President. The crazy thing is that on a number of these, you might actually be able to guess who they are without seeing their names - just the recognition of stature. Be sure to see Teddy's glowing eyes, Carter's smile, and then length of Dukakis' pants.

An initial review of "W."

If you haven't seen this, you should:

Politico Playback:

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Lyla, Tom and the Fascist

Friday Night Lights returns, but sadly only on DirectTV. If you haven't seen it, that means you haven't been introduced to Lyla Garrity...a crying shame for any man. Just ask about Season 1 DVDs...

A good Friedman column, less the partisan sentence containing "on Monday, when the House Republicans brought down the bipartisan rescue package." And yes, I let him know my thoughts. Should he respond, it will be posted.

What is it like to still have fans after killing 20 million people? Just ask Stalin.

The benefits of looking eerily like the former dictator, he boasts, include free meals, free car repairs — and free passage through Russian checkpoints.

“Looking like Stalin is like having a visa in Georgia...All Georgians respect Stalin, because he was a great leader who created a great empire — and of course, he was the most famous Georgian who ever lived,” Mr. Ziyadaliev said.

(all links included in sentences in order to appease YBS)