Is Michael Boskin an important person to listen to? I don’t know, but I appreciate a variety of people posting about what they think were the important events of 2023. Michael Boskin is “Professor of Economics at Stanford University and Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution. He was Chairman of George H.W. Bush’s Council of Economic Advisers from 1989 to 1993”. Anyway, he mentions…

the US economy’s “soft landing,” the war of attrition in Ukraine, Hamas’s terrorist attack and its fallout, explosive advances in AI, and the loss of two great American public servants.

Project Syndicate

The two public servants were Henry Kissinger…

Kissinger’s “balance-of-power” realpolitik certainly had its detractors, especially owing to civilian causalities in Cambodia, Vietnam, and East Timor. But history will mark him (along with Shultz) among America’s greatest diplomats – together with Dean Acheson, George Kennan, and George Marshall, who helped President Harry Truman establish the post-World War II economic and security commons.

Okay – I might note that the civilian casualties were numbered in the MILLIONS. And Truman presided over those fire and nuclear bombings of major European and Japanese cities.

and Sandra Day O’Connor…

O’Connor, the first female justice, was pragmatic, conservative, humble, charming, and tough, but never mean. Had she been a liberal Democrat, more statues and public infrastructure would bear her name. As the swing vote on the Court for decades, she often rejected absolutist positions on hot-button issues such as abortion and affirmative action and fashioned compromises that a large majority of Americans could accept.

I’ll admit to being fairly ignorant of Sandra Day O’Connor’s career. One thing I think we can certainly say is that the reputation and legitimacy of the court has declined since her day. I would take “pragmatic, conservative, humble, charming, and tough” over “corrupt as the day is long” like some of the yahoos we have on there now, and for the foreseeable future.