Two Great Champions.

One, Picabo Street, looks back. The other, Lindsey Vonn, looks forward to Vancouver.

Profiles in Wall Street Leadership.


"At a dinner with top bankers at the Fed a few months later, as he (former Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson)tells it, the most powerful chief executives on Wall Street were mournful addicts begging to be forced to quit their opiates. “Isn’t there something you can do to order us not take all of these risks?” Citigroup CEO Chuck Prince asked; Blackstone’s chief, Stephen Schwarzman, said he couldn’t resist taking easy money. What does it mean that these kingpins knew what they were doing and were begging to be stopped? Mr. Paulson won’t say." -- Max Abelson, in the NYO

Gillian Tett.

The best financial columnist in what used to call the Free World is Gillian Tett. Her column on Greece and the ECB is yet another example of her remarkable talent.

Two Steps Back.

There was a time, in the 1960s, when NASA accounted for almost 5 percent of the Federal Budget. NASA has long been our noblest effort on behalf of mankind and a fantastic driver of research and development. No longer.

The End of Health Care Reform and the Future of Health Care.

Ellisblog is partial to writers who take on the Big Picture in a Big Way. Walter Mead does just that in a long blog post about why the collapse of health care reform in Washington is a good thing and what has to happen next.

Toyota Motor.

Toyota became the greatest automobile company in the world by making an unyielding commitment to quality. In the mid--to-late 1990s, that commitment began to waver. "Decontenting" became the new thing. "Decontenting" made Toyota more profitable. Until it cost the company its reputation. (via Kausfiles)

Fortress and the Olympics.

If you don't pay us $90 million, says Fortress Investments, we will shut down the upcoming Winter Olympic Games.

As blackmail threats go, this one lacks a certain ooomph. Is it really the position of Fortress that they will not allow competition in certain Olympic events to proceed if they are not paid? Do they really want to become the most hated company in the world? Perhaps they are being advised by the crack public relations team at Goldman Sachs, which is the most hated company in the world.

Toyota.

If there was one company that I always thought would get on top of every problem, no matter how small or large, it was Toyota. I don't think that anymore. The company has made a complete hash of the accelerator issue. Here's the fix.

One of the Best Blogs on the Web.

Walter Mead was probably the smartest guy I met at Yale University. He's become a blogger! I encourage readers to enjoy his daily output, which is well-written and razor sharp.

Some Good News.

New Yorkers got some good news this week. The Obama Administration's hare-brained scheme to prosecute Khalid Shaikh Mohammed in lower Manhattan has apparently been reversed.

It was a terrible decision to begin with; vainglorious and utterly unworkable. Had the trial (and others like it) gone forward, the cost to taxpayers would have been well north of $250 million. The United States does not have $250 million to waste on the prosecution of enemy combatants like Khalid Shaikh Mohammed. Willfully wasting that kind of money (and shutting down lower Manhattan in the process) isn't just irresponsible, it's crazy.

But it's hardly a one-off. Former CIA Director Mike Hayden's piece in today's Washington Post reminds us that on matters relating to terrorism, the Obama Administration seems strangely disconnected from the reality of the threat. One hopes that the KSM trial reversal is the first of many such policy reversals.

This is not a game.

PS: See also: Richard Cohen.