Most Of Us Are Better When Things

In All The Thrashing About That Results From Our Dwindling Gold Reserves, It's About Time That This Country And Other Countries Get Some Perspective On The Situation. The Day This Country Is Out Of The Stuff, That Day Gold Becomes What It's Worth As A Metal And No Longer Will Have Much Significance As A Monetary Measurement. It Isn't The Gold We Have That Makes This Nation Rich. It's What We Make, Our Knowhow, Our Productivity. So Long As This Country Produces More And Better, The World Will Continue To Want What We Make.

Perhaps Harvard's Greatest Contribution To Our Nation Is Its Requirement That Its On-leave Professors Who Want To Keep Their Crimson Seats Must Return From Washington After 24 Months.

Speaking Of Birthdays, Our Firstborn [recently Turned 2]. As Parents Sometimes Fondly Do, We Reminisced A Bit About His Early Days On Earth-the Excitement, The Wonder, The Fears When We Brought Him Home. His Every Squeak Or Squawk We Were Sure Heralded Some Terrible Crisis; I Tested The Warmth Of Formulas From Dusk To Dawn, It Seemed. We Were So Germ-conscious My Wife Even Sterilized The Skin Of The Oranges Before Squeezing Them. How Firstborns Ever Survive Their Parents' Attentions Is Beyond Me. However, They Do, And He Did, And, In Spite Of Our Efforts, He Turned Out To Be Quite A Good Guy.

Experts Kill Me. Economic Experts, That Is. Corporations, Foundations, Publications And Governments Pay Them By The Bucketful, And They Fill Buckets With Forecasts That Change More Frequently Than White-collar, Workers Do Shirts. What Lies Ahead Is The Usual Title. What Lies Would Often Be More Appropriate. If Women's Hemlines Changed As Rapidly As An Economist's Forecasts, The Fashion People And The Textile Industry Would Be More Profitable Than Any Other. In Fact, If All The Country's Economists Were Laid End To End, They Still Wouldn't Reach A Conclusion.

It Is Never Too Late To Learn.