Long observation and personal experience have taught me several lessons that apparently remain opaque to many people. Accordingly, perhaps there is benefit in spelling them out to bring the essentials to the attention of folks who might be interested.

Growth: We grow in many ways: physically, mentally and emotionally, for...

Time is a construct of man to organize life on earth into a manageable process that can be utilized by virtually all of mankind, regardless of language, location or origin. And indeed, that process takes into account the daily rotation of earth and its yearly rotation of its star, the...

The drama of this century to date plays on with amazing speed and volatility. The Greek government and people, despite more than enough reasons for some of them to either be in jail or in purgatory, are now into dignity, independence and hysterical, historical self-justification. Don't get me wrong --...

As we go about our lives in this presidential election year we know, hear and read about rapidly growing income disparity, particularly in the United States and Europe. While we know that this is a problem that can lead to civil unrest and worse, and while we see various examples...

The term "family foundation" is fairly common today, but it is rarely thought about in terms of what it means in contrast to other types of foundations - personal, corporate or institutional. No doubt there are many types of family foundations. This family has struggled to find and give meaning...

The caucuses in Iowa are really amazing. They combine the best and worst of comedy, tragedy, drama, surprise, boredom, suspense and, most important of all, a tiny peek at the genius of the American political system at a microscopic level.

When we compare the political scenery from Iran, Syria, Egypt,...

In an effort to learn more about the magic of presidential power and style, I came across a book last summer which deserves real attention again, more than 50 years after it was published in 1952 by Harpers & Co. Written by Samuel I. Rosenman, who had been the chief...

The prevailing mood seems to reflect that the end of the world, as we have known it, is near. Wherever I turn, I hear people groaning:

• Europe is headed for bankruptcy;
• China has a new leader coming and is stepping on its brakes;
• the U.S. is in a...

First, S&P and Moody have made hash out of their duty to be independent and assess the worthiness of bucketsful of real estate-related securities in the first decade of this century. Now on the rebound they are trying to regain their balance and reputations by heroically assessing and talking about...

Folks, people keep telling me I have lost the narrative and am not coming across in a way that explains the economy and what my administration is trying to do about it. I thought I was laying it out in a straightforward and simple way, but perhaps it requires more...

It is certainly neither accidental nor irrelevant that economics was dubbed "the dismal science" by Thomas Carlyle in the 19th century. The term was intended then to be derogatory, as an inversion of the phrase "gay science" which meant "life enhancing knowledge." In all events, 'dismal' implies 'gloom and depression'...

What people get free in life, they tend not to value highly, conversely, when people become invested in something -- via money and/or effort -- they generally attach real importance and value to it. That principle applies pretty equally to gorgeous sunsets as well as to more personal and tangible...

To begin, I should point out that what is called "Wall Street" is not a monolith. Rather, it is like a giant global octopus with a central purpose (raising money for productive investment) and many different tentacles that have a broad reach, not all of which went awry in the...

One of President Obama's (POTUS) clear frustrations today, as Drew Westen pointed out in his August 6th prominent New York Times article, is the difficulty in telling "stories" necessary to support his current and strategic goals, as FDR used radio fireside chats. There are even better media today that can...

Believe it or not there is a town with that name deep in the lakes of Maine, off of what has been known as the Airline road since before airplanes became ubiquitous, which, despite its remoteness, is thriving in its own backwoods way. The biggest mystery about this wonderfully named...

As the nation begins to emerge from what has been called a disastrous period of reckless endangerment, we are entering a new period in which reckless disengagement, as it relates to the crumbling infrastructure of our bridges, roads, and tunnels, may emerge as an even greater threat. At the same...

In 1950 a beer cost about the same (about 25 cents in U.S. dollars at the time) in Pounds Sterling, French Francs, German Marks, Japanese Yen and many other local currencies that hinged on those bigger countries. But for Americans traveling abroad at that time, the local cost converted back...

Why, oh why, do we let ourselves get in these pickles where we begin to seriously worry that our leaders will take us over the cliff into an abyss of horror, fear and calamity?

Only a few times in our history have we as a nation acted stupidly and irrationally...

I've been wondering a lot lately about how and why our fellow Americans are incapable of collectively making sense out of the nonsense that swirls around us, particularly in the gridlocked political arena.

The other day I was stuck in traffic at a busy corner in mid-Manhattan and watched what...

For most of the last 200 years either the public sector (government in some form) or the private sector (profit or nonprofit entities) dealt independently with most of the needs of society. When there was a need for both sectors to be involved, a range of methods was employed, from...