Goodbye, Mr President

Jorge Sampaio, my idol as a President of the Portuguese Republic, died today. May he rest in peace.

https://www.publico.pt/jorge-sampaio

 

Carl Sagan, 1995

 

pic.twitter.com/bIkMDdYDN0

— Milo Jones (@Inveniam) September 8, 2021

Savings - by Atif Mian

 "We all know what it is at a personal level: I get 100$ check and might save 20$ out of it

But what is savings in the aggregate? Say for the world as a whole? That's where it gets tricky. e.g. people talk about a "global saving glut". But can we measure it?

Not really - at least not in a direct sense The reason is that when a person (say Adam) "saves", someone else (say Eve) uses that saving, i.e. "dissaves", by borrowing it and spending it for one purpose or another So, aggregate total saving is always exactly zero!"

There is then an accounting convention that states that "savings = investment"

Democracy's lone hero

"Any person that comes out as God's Gift to a nation is bad for Democracy. Democracy is saved together, by a group, never by a single person" - Gouveia e Melo

António Barreto

 

Goste-se ou despreze-se, a lucidez de António Barreto é inegável.

O balanço de 🇵🇹 em democracia: pic.twitter.com/8kYZMBRs3A

— Embaixador da Noção (@EmbaixadorN) August 24, 2021

Afghanistan

Most people criticizes Joe Biden. But what strategic advantages could the US get from staying in Afghanistan? Throwing huge amounts of precious resources to keep an unsustainable position (and extremely fragile Afghan governmental institutions)? Better to retreat, assume losses and refocus. That is actually true leadership. Let's not forget US' true test is not on Afghanistan, but considerably more to the East...

A tweet from Ian Bremmer on climate change

 "I think holding warming to 2 or 2.5C is unlikely, and we're likely to hit 3.5C, because I'm a political scientist, looking at responses of countries around the world.

China & India are trying to catch up to our living standards."

Ian Bremmer