Give them bread and circuses and they will never revolt – Juvenal, Roman poet The decline of Rome was the natural and inevitable effect of immoderate greatness. Prosperity ripened the principle of decay; the cause of the destruction multiplied with…
I was born on April 4, 1977 at Stanford Hospital in Palo Alto, CA. My parents – Robert and Diane – were the first generation children of Jewish mother immigrants from Europe. My grandmother on my father’s side, Ethel, came…
In a previous blog, I defined the culture of nihilism as follows: We live in what I have come to term “the culture of nihilism”. It is a culture characterized by self absorption, selfishness, lack of concern for others, incivility,…
On any given day, Elon Musk might be the hero or the villain. Call it the duality of Musk – part of the reason he confounds both supporters and critics alike with achievements that amaze and comments that appall. –…
We live in what I have come to term “the culture of nihilism”. It is a culture characterized by self absorption, selfishness, lack of concern for others, incivility, rudeness and nastiness. Nietzsche prophesied it almost 150 years ago and his…
This evening I was straddling two lanes at a red light as I had pulled out from a gas station at an intersection without enough space to get cleanly into the left lane. Apparently the driver behind me was incensed…
Man does not live by bread alone – Matthew 4:4 The Bible says that man does live by bread alone. The cultural commentator Michael Novak once amended this as follows: Man does live by bread alone – but he needs…
On the front page of Wednesday’s WSJ, Heather Gillers wrote a terrific article on the decline of America’s great cities (“Wall Street Sours On America’s Downtowns” [SUBSCRIPTION REQUIRED]). As you can see in the charts above from the article, they…
Beyond macroeconomic challenges, we continue to contend with significant headwinds caused by inventory shrink, building on a worsening trend that emerged last year. While shrink can be driven by multiple factors, theft and organized retail crime are increasingly urgent issues…
Although the firearms market remains elevated and healthy with new entrants, it has cooled significantly from the height of the pandemic surge and seems to now be following pre-pandemic historical demand patterns – Mark Smith, Smith & Wesson (SWBI) CEO…