In his speech to the American Medical Association, President Obama stated, “Today, we are spending…almost 50 percent more per person than the next most costly nation.” The sophisticated listener understood the implications of Obama’s message: things that can’t go on won’t. Our medical costs, now nearly one-fifth of current GNP, twice that of food, can’t […]

I have an architect friend who knows a great deal about American cars. He is interested in racing and auto craft, and specifically, designing for performance. Naturally, he laments the demise of the American automotive industry. He asked me why it happened and what will follow. Here’s what I told him. Detroit’s crackup is no […]

What will our energy future look like? Of course, I have no special insights, but I see two interesting trends. Here’s the first. In large, complex economies, meaningful energy transitions occur gradually across many decades. Vaclav Smil, from the University of Manitoba, offers these compelling observations. In most of the world’s developed economies it took […]

I find the smell of roasting pork a great and powerful magnet. A neighbor and his family were recently roasting half a hog for a graduation party, and I was pulled forcefully toward it. The hog was cooking on a remarkable machine, surely the finest barbeque I’ve seen. It was made one winter by the […]