In the middle nineteenth century, Jay Gould's Erie Railroad fought with Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt's New York Central. In one battle, Vanderbilt lowered the rate for hauling steers from Buffalo to New York from $125 to $100 per carload. Gould counterattacked, lowering Erie's rate to $75. Vanderbilt then went to $50, then Gould to $25. Vanderbilt filled every car when he lowered his rate to a rock bottom one dollar. Unfortunately for the Commodore, the cattle he was carrying were Gould's. Gould had bought up every steer he could find in Buffalo and shipped them on Vanderbilt's railroad. Vanderbilt had made the mistake of believing that his objective was to carry the most beef on the hoof, while Gould didn't lose sight of the real objective - to make money."
Here are some thoughts and reminiscences of Jan Sokol, prominent Czech intellectual. The Czech Republic and the Future of European Politics
Eye on Politics & Law Lords: Mikhail Gorbachev on Perestroika, 20 years later
Your policies of “perestroika” and “new thinking” on global affairs were announced 20 years ago this summer. How do you evaluate their accomplishments and failures now?
Mikhail Gorbachev, the last president of the Soviet Union, now heads Green Cross International. He spoke with Carlos Gardels and Nathan Gardels July 8 at the Gorbachev Foundation headquarters in a modern bank building on the outskirts of Moscow. In the summer of 1985, he first announced his ideas of “new thinking” and “perestroika.”
• Perestroika’s greatest achievement was to awaken and liberate the mind [ On the Wal-Mart Money Trail ; Wal-Mart: is this the worst company in the world? It is the biggest private employer in America ; Wal-Mart turns in student’s anti-Bush photo ]
• · Frank Furedi on how the French riots reveal the political exhaustion of Europe French lessons for us all ; Steven Levitt on rational choice and voting: There's no good economic rationale for going to the polls. Why Vote? ; Michael D. Yates' keynote speech atHow Unions Matter in the New Economy in Toronto, 28-29 October 2005 Do Unions Still Matter?
• · · EJ Dionne on a vision check for the Democrats. Vision Check for the Democrats ; Billy Joel was on to something when he sang "Only the Good Die Young." Sweet Dreams for America's Ruling Elite and their Sycophantic Loyalists
• · · · A look at the long history of US politicians’ denial of their country’s imperial reach An empire in denial ; The U.S.-Ukraine Foundation, a private eye ... The last low-rent office building in downtown D.C. smokes out the National Organization for Women
• · · · · Wellesley's Thomas Cushman on Democracy and its enemies ; The impasse of the authoritarian command economic systems in the communist zones of the 1970s brought a great deal of rethinking about economic planning and co-ordination in non-market societies within the East Bloc and outside Democratic Economies
• · · · · · From Multinational Monitor, a series of articles on The People’s Triumphs over Corporate Power Victories! Justice! ; This morning as I was driving to work I heard HoWARd say (in reference to the Paris riots) that he saw a direct correlation between highly regulated labour markets and high unemployment. Pile-up in Western Sydney