Newmark's Door

All good executives want to hear the bad news. The first man I ever worked for--Joe Novick of Broward Paper & Packaging--Bill Gates, and Vito Corleone all flew into rages if employees didn't inform them of bad news immediately. They all said the same thing: "How can I fix a problem if I don't know about it."

From John Lott.

But this is all political rhetoric; the complaints are exaggerated. In fact, George W. Bush suffered stiffer resistance and longer delays for his nominees than Obama. Bush’s nominees to the DC Circuit faced confirmations dragging on for 707 days on average, with one particular nomination (Brett ­Kavanaugh) dragging on past 1,000 days. By contrast, Patricia Millett was nominated on June 4 this year and obtained a vote by the Senate just 149 days later, on Oct. 31; Pillard, 161 days; Wilkins, 167 days; and Caitlin Halligan, 433 days. Earlier this year, the Senate confirmed Obama’s nomination of Sri Srinivasan for the DC Circuit after a 346-day wait.

See also Mike Munger, "Mourning Becomes Electra".

The U.S. is NOT a democracy, if by democracy you mean simple majority rule.  The dodge that "no, it's a republic" is true enough, but the real point is that many of our institutions are explicitly designed to prevent majorities from imposing their will.

Where a little of the college tuition money goes. 

I certainly hope not. We'll see what happens tonight.

Seems impressive.

Seems to answer the important questions, including the one about the "magic bullet".

I'm not exactly sure what this says about American consumers, but I don't think it's good.