Michael Lewis reviews Alice Schroeder's official biography of Warren Buffett

Great article that covers Iceland's collapse in the context of both its own recent history and the greater global collapse.

"It's always better to leave the party early"

"…an enormous amount of cash is going to end up being raised to help Haiti. This is not necessarily a good thing.

For one thing, right now there’s very little that can be done with the money. There are myriad bottlenecks and obstacles involved in getting help to the Haitians who need it, but lack of funds is not one of them. For the next few weeks, help will come largely from governments, who are also spending hundreds of millions of dollars and mobilizing thousands of soldiers to the cause. But with the UN alone seeking to raise $550 million, it’s going to be easy to say that all the money donated to date isn’t remotely enough.

The problem is that Haiti, if it wasn’t a failed state before the earthquake, is almost certainly a failed state now — and one of the lessons we’ve learned from trying to rebuild failed states elsewhere in the world is that throwing money at the issue is very likely to backfire…"

"China’s Great Firewall is crude, slapdash, and surprisingly easy to breach. Here’s why it’s so effective anyway."

How investigative journalism works in China

"Executives were reluctant to reveal the themes for Antebellum's weekly competitions, but said contests might include skeet shooting, quilting bees, formal-dress cotillions, and working at a textile factory on the west side of the island for the entire show's duration with no chance at the $1 million prize."

"David Cameron can claim to have made the most of his luck, a luck he acknowledges. However, the fact remains that he had the luck for which Britain does too little to compensate. Those who weren't so lucky know how unfair it is; they feel it instinctively. Certainly, Labour and the prime minister should stop harping on about Eton and toffs; it cheapens the whole debate. But they should talk their heads off about fairness, including private education."