One general lesson that I draw from facts such as this one [the fact he’s referring to is that during the pandemic, the FDA actually used the Covid-19 emergency as a pretext to slow the approval of SARS-CoV-2 tests, rather than what many of us would have liked, which is the opposite] is about the unfortunate but largely unalterable reality of government.

"I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue!" So declared GOP presidential nominee Barry Goldwater to the delight of party loyalists at the July 1964 Republican National Convention on the way to a landslide loss to President Lyndon B. Johnson in the general election four months later.

An unusual question was raised in the public central banking debates by an unusual person. Urjit Patel, former governor of the Reserve Bank of India raised the important issue of climate change, saying that central banks have to take into account climate change when they make monetary policy.

America’s recent loss in Afghanistan is drawing understandable comparisons to Vietnam—two conflicts where the U.S. leadership supposedly never grasped the power of morale, the role of culture, or the reality on the ground. While these comparisons are inescapable, the United States has not always been so unsuccessful. There are valuable lessons in the U.S. approach to determining how the enemy thinks—from a war the United States won.