Delanceyplace

In today's excerpt - the two heartbreaks of Cynthia Ann Parker.  In 1836, when she was nine years old, Cynthia was captured in a murderous raid by Comanches on her frontier family. The tragic story, and the resulting search for her, became perhaps the most famous in its time, with many Americans ... Read More

In today's excerpt – the gold standard. In recent political debates, there have been calls for a return to the gold standard. This standard states that holders of paper money can redeem it for gold, and banks – especially the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank – are required to match a certain fixed ... Read More

In today's excerpt – the accelerating pace of change. I began my career in financial services in the late 1970s. In my first decade in that industry, there were only a handful of new products introduced, and the number of new computer products offered to support our industry by then-dominant IBM ... Read More

In today's excerpt – thanks to the work of Daniel Kahneman and others, we now increasingly view our cognitive processes as being divided into two systems. System 1 produces the fast, intuitive reactions and instantaneous decisions that govern most of our lives. System 2 is the deliberate type of ... Read More

In today's excerpt – a disruption in history. Most people assume that history is a gradual continuum from the past to the present, each century being a little better and a little more populous than the prior one, with certain notable exceptions such as the so-called "dark ages". In fact, the growth ... Read More

In today's excerpt – the alliance between the church and the Ku Klux Klan that was crucial both to enacting Prohibition and the maintaining it for thirteen years. Prohibition began in 1920 and lasted for thirteen years before it was repealed – primarily because of the tax revenues needed from ... Read More