"Events, dear boy, events."

BLLFOV

Wed, 11/05/2008 - 10:30pm — lambert

Krugman has the chart, and the right question:

We shouldn’t ignore the importance of chance events, or at least the chance timing of events. Without 9/11, what would have become of George W. Bush? My guess is that he would have lost Congress in 2002 and the White House in 2004. And what would have happened if Lehman had waited until November to blow up?

Obama still would have won; it was already the economy, stupid. But, yes, "time and chance happeneth to them all." (Ecclesiastes 9:11*)

Check out Krugman; he's got several non-triumphalist posts that are worth reading.

NOTE * And if that's not a proof of numerology...

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I just tagged this post "BLLFOV"

By vastleft on Sat, 11/22/2008 - 7:33am

A measure of our collectively reduced IQ is the kneejerk belief that everything a winner did was good and brilliant necessary, and everything a loser did was bad or a mistake.

I've seen this in companies that had windfall success, where the douchebaggiest managers are suddenly geniuses who can write their ticket. In sports, even the lousiest player is hotly sought after because he has "championship experience."

It wasn't irony that died, it was nuance

Some things the winner did were good, some were brilliant, and some were necessary. Some weren't. Is that too divisive to mention?

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23:30:36 hipparchia and to you too!
11:47:14 lambert Happy Thanksgiving in chat, too!
18:12:59 lambert Simple answers to simple questions: Yes.
18:00:47 BDBlue That's true on healthcare, but I was talking about the Fed bill. When the WH surrogates try to water it down, will the blogs fall in line?
16:32:33 lambert They'll pass something, anything. They need to declare victory.
15:40:03 BDBlue Re VL's post on the A-list, it will be interesting to watch the discussion of the bill on the blogs as the WH inevitably tries to kill it via various surrogates. Will we see the veal pen in action? And I agree this bill is potentially huge.
13:36:52 lambert Agree on Ron Paul and the Fed.
13:23:52 brucedixon interesting.... Glen tells me that neither the fake "jobs summit" nor the familiar wailing of conyers about his being disappointed with the prez are the big story. the most important thing happening in DC right now is the Ron Paul bill which wd require the Fed to be audited.
13:57:03 brucedixon I think my colleague Glen Ford is writing on it this week in BAR so I will just co-sign whatever he says.
22:03:36 Valley Girl I'd sure like Bruce Dixon's take on the Conyers comments. Just emailed him.
21:03:43 lambert Thanks, Jeff.
18:16:03 Jeff W lambert, I wrote to NOW about that Elizabeth Warren video not playing and got a response of sorts back, which I sent to you as a private PM. Just FYI.
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00:47:48 hipparchia that's ok, jason stands ready to help smear the actuary quoted in that wapo article [url]
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