Sept. 25, 1513 -- Balboa discovers the Pacific Ocean

For most of us, that's about it for our knowledge of Vasco N��ez De Balboa. We know more about Rocky Balboa than this guy! Too bad for us. --

His actions and deeds are remembered by history. Several parks and avenues throughout Panama bear the name "Vasco N��ez de Balboa," and a number of monuments honor his discovery of the South Sea. The Panamanian currency is called the Balboa, and his likeness appears on the obverse of some coins. His name is also attached to Panama City's main port, Balboa (the Pacific entrance to the Panama Canal) and the Balboa District within Panam� Province, to which the Pearl Islands that he discovered belong. In San Francisco, California, Balboa's name appears among a row of avenues which are named after Spanish conquistadors. There is also a large park adjacent to downtown San Diego, California named after Balboa, in which there are many world-class museums.

The highest order granted by the Panamanian government to distinguished and outstanding figures, foreign and domestic, is the Orden Vasco N��ez de Balboa, in various degrees, as established by Law 27 from 28 January 1933.

The lunar crater Balboa was named after him.

Read about his exciting life -- (Really! It should be a movie!) Just click on the headline of this article.

He's Hot, He's Sexy and He's Dead!

No, not Jim Morrison, although that's who is cited in that Rolling Stone quote. We're talking about John Maynard Keynes, the 20th century ethical economist who was displaced as a guru by Wall Street greed, Reaganomics and Milton Friedman.



Well, now. Come the 2009 recession, and all the free-market, Chicago schoolers are suddenly on life support. Friedman is now literally and philosphically dead, and Reaganomics is being blamed for every bank failure since LBJ. Just how permanent that may be will be left to Barack Obama, Paul Krugman and luck.
It has often been said that the Wharton School's MBA Economics final exam is the same every year, that only the answers change, to which we can now append another 20th century adage, the one with the circled paragraph and hand-penned note in the margins of a hundred romance novels -- "How True!"



(Click on the headline to read Salon.com's wonderful take on this state of our economic affairs.)