Evidently there’s some sort of speech being given tonight around these parts.  Oh, it’s the State of the Union address, America’s annual ritual of self-torture.  You couldn’t pay me to watch this thing – okay, who am I kidding.  If some mag wants to throw a few bucks my way to liveblog the thing, I’d [...]

I have no idea if John Steele Gordon is even remotely on track, but this was guaranteed to perk my ears up: We are now in the midst of a major financial panic. This is not a unique occurrence in American history. Indeed, we’ve had one roughly every 20 years: in 1819, 1836, 1857, 1873, [...]