Harris&Ewing Safest driver of Washington DC, 32 Years Without Crash 1936 It’s Jackson Hole week, and we’re going to hear a lot of fairy tales and otherwise invented-from-scratch material. Since it may not always be easy to distinguish between pure mud and actual information, let’s destroy a few fantasy piñatas right here and now. So when Yellen and Draghi speak on Friday, you’ll be able to tell a few things apart. It’ll be hard enough, the speech writers and spin
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Marjory Collins Gasoline rationing in Mechanicsville, Maryland Jul 1942 When first we practise to deceive! The upper echelons in and behind various governments have had on their radar far longer than the media that serve them, and I also realize that Washington wants a leading role in that battle, but even then I still don’t really get what is going on these days. I think perhaps that’s because I tend to give the American political machine too much credit when
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Leslie Jones The Hindenburg over Boston Common 1936 If Americans were less prone to self-deceit, they would have long since realized that the American Dream is over, for good, and that continuing to chase it is the worst of the few remaining options they get to choose between. They could then look at themselves in the mirror and see their future. As things are, however, the future is creeping up on them in small, slow and silent steps, until one
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Jack Delano Freight train leaves Santa Fe rail yard for West Coast, Argentine, KS Mar 1943 Let’s assume for the moment that the two Guardian and Telegraph journalists who reported seeing 23 Russian army vehicles cross the border into Ukraine on Thursday were duped. Because if we don’t assume that, we must conclude they are accomplices, in a strange plot. On Friday the Ukraine government, first through military spokesman Andriy Lysenko, and then through President Poroshenko, sent out a claim
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DPC The shores of Biscayne Bay, Miami, Florida 1910 That’s not a bad metaphor to work with. “Conditioned to catch the falling knife”. The expression comes from the investment world, but it describes a much larger world today pretty accurately. Investors use it to describe people who see a stock fall, rapidly, from for instance $50 to $20, call the low, and decide it’s a good buy, only to be stuck with huge losses (the knife that cuts their hand)
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Marjory Collins Italian-American banner parade, Mott Street, NY Aug 1942 The UN said earlier this week that in east Ukraine over 1000 people – a conservative estimate – were killed during the last fortnight in the battles over Donetsk and Luhansk. Today, there are again reports of more heavy shelling by the Ukraine “army”, and dozens more deaths, while the Russian aid convoy is still not – allowed – anywhere near the cities. At this rate, who’s going to be
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Warner Bros Lauren Bacall publicity still from To Have and Have Not 1944 If you put all the pieces in a jigsaw puzzle in their proper places, a picture emerges. An easy enough principle. But how do you get the pieces, and where do they go? That’s often not so easy at all. Oil prices are low, and falling, in the face of Iraq and Ukraine. But what does that mean, and how does it fit into the puzzle? In
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NPC Penn Oil Co., Massachusetts Avenue and North Capitol, Washington DC 1920 I can’t seem to get away from Ukraine and Iraq lately. Don’t know if I should apologize for that, but I certainly never had any intention of writing about politics. It’s just that it all seems to come together now, power games, waning energy resources and – the remnants of – hugely indebted societies. We’re taking our first baby steps on the downward ladder, so to speak, and
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John Vachon General store and post office in Little Creek, Delaware Jul 1938 Boy, what a day so far; hard to keep up. tell me, is it just me, or has the US really started another round of regime change in Iraq? Washington wants a new government in the capital, Baghdad, a national unity one, ostensibly to respond to the Islamist State threat. PM Maliki doesn’t want to go, but also can’t lead such a government (nobody likes him). Iraqi
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Arthur Rothstein Installation of a 30,000 kilowatt generator at Cherokee Dam Jun 1942 There are presidential elections in Turkey today, and current prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan looks set to win. Which means the US will have a definitely uncomfortable bedfellow in the Eastern Europe/Middle East region (the borders between the two are not terribly clear) in the coming years. Erdogan has recently become a very loud opponent of Israel – and all the world’s Jews – , and US
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