Item 1: "How al-Arabiya Got the Obama Interview" by Scott Macleod
Wisdom:
- As Melhem remembers it, "This man says, 'My name is so-and-so, and I'm either going to make your day or ruin your day. Would you like to chat with the President about 5 p.m. today?' I joked, 'I guess I can accommodate the President.'
- "There we were, two blues fanatics, sitting there talking about Muddy Waters,"
Item 2: "School Reform that Works" by Bill Gates
Wisdom:
- 2009 Annual Letter from Bill Gates
- Every year, 1 million kids drop out of high school. Only 71 percent of kids graduate from high school within four years
- we have made over $2 billion in grants - hope was that after a few years they would operate at the same cost per student as before, but they would have become much more effective
- The difficulty of the problem does not make it any less important to solve
Item 3: "The Game Changer" by George Soros
Wisdom:
- Lehman Brothers, the US investment bank, was allowed to go into bankruptcy without proper preparation. It was a game-changing event with catastrophic consequences
- Price of credit default swaps, a form of insurance against companies defaulting on debt, went through the roof as investors took cover
- Lehman was one of the main market-makers in commercial paper and a large issuer of these short-term obligations to boot - a run on money market funds was in full swing
- Credit default swaps played a critical role in Lehman’s demise:
i. There is an asymmetry in the risk/reward ratio between being long or short in the stock market - one can be more patient being long and wrong than being short and wrong - asymmetry serves to discourage the short-selling of stocks
ii. CDS market offers a convenient way of shorting bonds - Going short on bonds by buying a CDS contract carries limited risk but unlimited profit potential; by contrast, selling credit default swaps offers limited profits but practically unlimited risks
iii. Reflexivity - mispricing of financial instruments can affect the fundamentals that market prices are supposed to reflect
- Proper role of short-selling - gives markets greater depth and continuity, making them more resilient
- Credit default swaps - prevailing view is that they ought to be traded on regulated exchanges - they are toxic and should be used only by prescription
- Strength of the dollar was due not to people choosing to hold dollars but to their inability to maintain or roll over their dollar obligations
- Strength of the dollar, like the fever associated with sickness, was a measure of the disruption of the financial system
Item 4: "Time to Put Middle Class Front and Center" by Joe Biden
Taskforce for the Middle Class
Item 5: "The Case for Drilling in ANWR" by Sarah Palin
Wisdom:
- There is potential for prices to rebound as OPEC asserts its market power and as Russia disrupts needed natural gas to Europe for the second time in three years
- ANWR represents a huge, secure domestic supply that could help satisfy U.S. demand for more than 25 years
Item 6: "Obama's Oratory: Recalling the Sway of Sukarno" by Al Makin
Wisdom:
- Sukarno - "Mentally I talked with Thomas Jefferson, with whom I feel friendly and close because he told me all about the Declaration of Independence he wrote in 1776. I discussed George Washington's problems with him. I relived Paul Revere's ride. I deliberately looked for mistakes in the life of Abraham Lincoln so I could argue the points with him"
Item 7: "The Power of a Declaration" by Amartya Sen
Wisdom:
- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights made its contribution to practical reason and global politics in four distinct ways:
i. Human rights do not depend on legislation for recognition
ii. Instruments that can be used to pursue the ethics of human rights
iii. Included political, social and economic rights in various forms
iv. Universal coverage
Item 8: "An Open Letter -- From Pakistan -- to President Obama" by Imran Khan
Wisdom:
- First and foremost policy objective should be to restore the peace - can only be achieved through a serious and sustained dialogue with the militants and mitigation of their genuine grievances under the ambit of our constitution and law
- Pushtun quagmire
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