Jacoby has written an excellent column here: original, insightful, with genuinely applicable ideas.  We even get an investment tip: put your dollars in investment banker Eric Singer’s Congressional Effect Fund, which invests in the S&P 500 when Congress is out of session and withdraws the money when it is not.  On another note, here’s one thing I always have to keep in mind with punditry like this: I have literally no idea whether Jacoby’s evidence is reliable or not.   He cites a paper by the economists Michael Ferguson and H. Douglas Witte, but do I know anything about their economic formulas or who they are?  In any case, this is a well-worth-it read.