As soon as I go on a vacation, things go badly! Market crash in Asia, Bush 43 folds on Iran…

But first, here is a strange coincidence. I crossed paths with Ambassador John Bolton at the men’s room (!) of the United Airlines Red Carpet Lounge at Dulles on my way out of town (I know that sentence is ripe for colorful humor, but please, no dirty jokes). I thought about introducing myself, extending my hand, and saying hello, but as he was leaving a stall and I was about to enter one, I thought better of it.

The Shanghai market recovers some. Let’s review what I wrote of a China crash in April of this year:

But just as the crash of the tech bubble did not result in all of us going back to using abacus, any future Chinese economic crash will not result in a complete reversal of the economic gains that China has made in recent years. But there will be a great pain, and a lot of Western investors will lose bucketfuls of money as they did in the tech bust. Furthermore, there will be significant economic and social strains on the Chinese polity.

I am always bashed by China hypers as a “China crasher” and a “China basher.” My position is far more nuanced than that. Basically, I subscribe to the view that things are rarely as good as people say they are and also rarely as bad as people say.

As for the Bush 43, part 2 crumbling on Iran, this says all:

[Leon] Panetta said that the announcement is “an important step in trying to bring stability to Iraq” and that, combined with the recent nuclear agreement with North Korea and renewed efforts by Rice to promote Israeli-Palestinian peace, “the administration is finally recognizing that part of its arsenal is strong diplomacy.”

Remember what I wrote before I left for a break? “Legacy Mode.”