About The Lonely Realist

The Lonely Realist is a bridge across the partisan gap, raising questions and making pointed observations about politics, economics, international relations and the markets. Its goal is to raise awareness and inspire thought on controversial issues that impact America and Americans, highlighting issues that should be, but rarely are, the focus of bipartisan discussion.

 

In seeking to promote dialogue, The Lonely Realist is not an advocate of conclusions or remedies. To the extent perceived biases leak into these pages, as they sometimes do, please ignore them. They are inadvertent missteps.  What is needed is a recognition and acknowledgement of problems, and the goal of The Lonely Realist is to highlight those problems that others often overlook. Many commentators pursue programs to promote their solutions. Too often, they frame problems for the purpose of setting forth their own agendas. Not here.

 

As a big-firm lawyer, the author of The Lonely Realist for many years focused on navigating a labyrinth of securities, commodities, tax and corporate laws so that businesses could operate without inadvertently stepping on legal land mines. The key was to understand problems and define goals. That also is the goal of The Lonely Realist. It is only after doing so that a way can be found for threading a tortuous path through the mine-fields. Applicable laws, rules and regulations all-too-often work at cross-purposes. As a practicing lawyer, that was frustrating. No one, Congress or otherwise, has comprehensively focused on creating a workable, easily navigable business, economic, legal and governmental structure. Instead, Congress and the President continuously add to a patchwork of overlapping laws, regulations and orders without coordinating what previously had been wrought.  With the very best of intentions, America’s legal, political, regulatory and governing systems have become unnecessarily complex… and there is no incentive, and no consensus, in industry or government to reconcile the potentially negative consequences to consumers and businesses… and to Americans. Importantly, there is no consideration of the effect this is having on America’s democracy. The really bad guys are not being prevented from doing really bad things. Laws have become so complex (layer upon layer being added as new problems are discovered) that regulators have so much regulating to do that they have insufficient resources to find and prosecute the truly bad guys. Among other things, The Lonely Realist seeks to highlight these and other issues that are sapping the essence of America’s economy and of American democracy.