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The Long View

The Long View 2008-09-27: Mortgages and the Curse of the Fendahl

The episode that John J. Reilly references here is called “The Image of the Fendahl”, which is even embedded in the now dead link he had included. I think I can see why he called it “The Curse of the Fendahl” instead, as the titular alien species parasitized the people

The Long View 2008-09-20: Parastatals

This is another spectacular essay from John J. Reilly. Here, he uses the term of art “parastatal enterprise” to describe the parts of the economy that are widely seen, by opponents and proponents alike, as market enterprises, but which are in fact extensions of the state and its policies. There

The Long View 2008-09-07: Some Notes on the American Political Major-Party Conventions of 2008

John J. Reilly gives us some solid grounding here in the foundations of cyclical theories of history, and also provides his assessment of why neither American party has been able to create a durable governing order akin to the New Deal. This essay is highly recommended. Some Notes on the

The Long View 2008-09-01: Louisiana With Snow

John J. Reilly here paints an extremely [some might say overly] sympathetic portrait of Sarah Palin. Since the McCain-Palin ticket lost, such portrayals are likely to lose out compared to parodies like the 2012 movie, Iron Sky. [Amazon link] This is a good example of how you might do the

The Long View 2008-08-24: A Week before Labor Day

I find this satirical blog post by John J. Reilly pretty apt for the mood of our times. If you want a little context of what he was getting at, try this longer story “After the Eighth Day” for how the universal apocalyptic module in the human mind can transform

The Long View 2008-08-17: Some Foolish Little Thing in the Caucasus

As John J. Reilly notes here, and in his review of Niall Ferguson’s The Pity of War, while it is important to have a sense of history, you can also be misled if you think that the past will simply be repeated. For example, with China and the United

The Long View 2008-08-02: What is Happening in China; what is happening in America

The end of this blog post by John J. Reilly is an extended reflection on where he thought American politics was going. I’d say he guessed right. There are, I know, benighted Libertarians who say that any redistribution of income is illegitimate. For my part, I preach in season