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Most people I know think leaving Afghanistan was the right call. The debate is over HOW we left, which seemed to either be the product of a terrible plan or an inept military, neither of which is comforting. Why should we continue to give a blank check to an institution that can't manage a fairly small withdrawal?

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We have a good recent example of the type of issues you're talking about. Early in the covid crisis, Powell went out of his way to say that we are not going to react to an improving inflation forecast, we are going to wait for actual inflation. Not many months later, Powell is in front of Congress saying we are ignoring actual inflation because our forecast suggests it's temporary. Monetary policy is only as good as its targets, which as best I can tell aren't very good.

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Wow. A long list of weak, very weak, articles. Scott Sumner still thinks he has his own theory but it's Milton's theory and as bad as Milton's to guide a central bank. I have yet to read the WH book although I'm concerned about their pejorative references to markets (it may be the result of not understanding what markets are, a misunderstanding common even among economists like your mentor Tyler Cowen). My views on black America have been shaped by both Tom Sowell (plus W. E. Williams) and my personal experiences during my residence in Minnesota, Virginia, Maryland, DC, and California, and I think woke racism is just another minority movement to grab power by mobilizing idiots (in this case white, rich young people whose minds have been poisened in college --like Williams College in Mass.). Yesterday, I read Hanania's long post and I laughed at his grotesque description of politics in terms of liberals and conservaties (the section titled Historical Analogues is a joke which ends by comparing Wokenism with Christianity --to soften his idiocy he writes Civil Rights/Wokenism). Indeed, Hanania has a view of human nature that is exactly the opposite of Rober Wright's in his childish post on cooperation.

Sorry, Arnold, maybe it's time to check the mentors you have chosen. They are too weak.

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I forgot to refer to Rauch's analysis of the Afghanistan farce. His interest in serving the ruling party drives him to miss what the debate was about. As reader Mark Louis says, it was over HOW the senile President decided to leave and the many lies offered as excuses to a terrible performance. Rauch's intentional diversion to other issues is a reminder of his partisanship.

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