Guest Post by Dave Collum
Annually, friend-of-the-site David Collum writes a detailed “Year in Review” synopsis full of keen perspective and plenty of wit. He strikes again in his usually poignant and delightfully acerbic way. As with past years, he selected Peak Prosperity as the site where it is published in full. It is longer than our usual posts, but worth the time to read in full. While each part stands on its own, and doesn’t need to be read in order. To download Part 1 as a pdf, click here: 2022 Year in Review: All Roads Lead to Ukraine. To read Part 2, click here.
David B. Collum
Betty R. Miller Professor of Chemistry and Chemical Biology – Cornell University
Email: [email protected] – Twitter: @DavidBCollum
Introduction
This Year in Review is brought to you by Pfizer, FTX, and Raytheon.
Every year, I write an annual survey of what happened in the world. After posting at Peak Prosperity, it gets a bump from the putative commies at Zerohedge1,2,3,4 who I read religiously. (I have topped over 60 cameo appearances at Zerohedge, consistent with getting booted off Twitter four times.) Why do I write it? My best answer is that you do not understand something until you have written your ideas down coherently. I am also trying to figure out who keeps yelling “Beetlejuice!”
Write as often as possible, not with the idea at once of getting into print, but as if you were learning an instrument.
~ J. B. Priestley, English novelist
I break every rule of blog marketing. Nobody writes one gigantic blog a year, but it makes the rounds. It is onerous and exhausting, especially since I must necessarily procrastinate up to the deadline.
2022: The Year I spent reading Dave Collum’s 2021 Year In Review.
~ Commenter
Most years, I write what I can and then wrap it. In 2021, however, I had a primal drive to cover the usual stuff plus two topics that do not lend themselves to abbreviation: the Covid pandemic and rising global authoritarianism. Many are now realizing that the former is a manifestation of the latter. While I may not have been correct I had to get it right…if that makes any sense. Like so many young athletes in 2021, I left it all on the field. I uploaded it too demoralized and depressed to even send it to friends, confidants, and family.
The peeing was special.
~ David Einhorn
Diehards found it anyway and reached out with comments. Two I call good friends had diametric views that I will take the liberty of paraphrasing. Sitting on one shoulder was Tony Deden, founder of Edelweiss Holdings based in Switzerland and a saint, who sensed my pain and urged me to stop writing. He went beyond the pale by inviting me to detox in his chalet in the Swiss Alps or on his 25-acre strawberry farm on Crete. I had to pass because traveling is hard on the family. On the other shoulder was David Einhorn, a friend of a dozen years who has helped me in ways few will ever know. He told me I must keep writing it. I think 2021 could have been the apex and a perfect time to stop. I sided with David this year but may soon follow Tony’s advice.
Continue reading “2022 Year in Review: All Roads Lead to Ukraine”
