Ernerst Hemingway on History: The Fall of Colossi

This WSJ article details the fall of GE. In itself, it might not be of much interest. But the larger lesson to be drawn about "things" collapsing, including not just businesses but other big things like democratic governments, is  captured  astutely in a passage in Ernest Hemingway’s novel The Sun Also Rises. A character named Mike is asked how he went bankrupt. “Two ways,” he answers. “Gradually, then suddenly.” Afghanistan anyone? Or as King George put it, empires fall. And to put a fine point on it, as this NYT piece does, "[t]he media’s implicit model of American politics — of two coequal parties with competing governing philosophies — is fundamentally broken. Today, the most important axis of political conflict is not between left and right, but between pro- and anti-democracy forces."

[EOP]