2 Jun, 2022
The slogan "media = virus" is written on a bridge that my son and I passed, last Saturday. He pointed it out to me. I replied that there is a lot of truth in it. The slogan dates back to the early corona days. Its meaning was different then: the relentless pushing of micro data (eg, infections) while ignoring the macro view. Essentially, nothing has changed...
10 May, 2022
All over the world, former politicians are being handed jobs by current politicians at semi-public organizations. In my view, this explains why the European Central Bank is not following the Fed on interest levels. As a consequence, the euro is near historic lows compared to the US$. Now, we are even importing inflation. Amsterdam Airport is an important airline hub...
26 Apr, 2022
American ideological wars have confused non-Western countries, like China and Russia. America (and Europe) look weak and vulnerable in their perspective. This may explain Putin's "historical blunder" by invading Ukraine. As Aristotle already stated: "A common danger unites even the bitterest enemies". I am confused by the apparent transformation of successful...
25 Apr, 2022
Recently, the Dutch FT published a story about a well-known start-up company facing production problems: from cool to faltering. This story can be summarized by: quantity up, quality down. To a large extent, it resembles capillary action: if you push the liquid in one tube down, the other one goes up, despite gravity. In 1855, Robert Browning wrote his poem Andrea...
22 Apr, 2022
In past centuries, Russia was invaded several times by (a.o.): Turkey (1570-1572), Poland (1609-1618), Sweden (1708-1709), France (1812), Japan (1918-1922), and Germany (1941). The roles were reversed after WW2. To date, Russia invaded Georgia (2008), Crimea and Donbas (both 2014) and Ukraine (2022). The above paragraph is an (international)...
7 Feb, 2022
Recently, I noticed a quote by Carl Jung, a Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst: "I shall not commit the fashionable stupidity of regarding everything I cannot explain as a fraud." The reference to fashionable stupidity is part of his 1920 address to the Society for Psychical Research in England. Clearly, stupidity is not a contemporary issue as it...
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