One thing recent history has taught us is that we will never respond to old or new challenges with the quickness and the passion we need, if we simply leave that response to spontaneous market impulses.
In an appearance at Nasdaq offices in Midtown Manhattan, Mr. Obama, a Democratic presidential candidate, praised America's free-market impulse but lamented what he characterized as its recent toll on the middle class.
But the manufacturer, Israeli Military Industries, insisted, and you can't fault its marketing impulse: in Hebrew, Gal's first name, Uziel, means "God is my might".
After the missiles were shown destroying Syrian military helicopters, the matter took an unusual turn when a state-controlled newspaper in China, apparently acting on a marketing impulse, lauded the missile's performance.
Often the things I liked best felt like pure emanations of geek culture, relatively untainted by corporate marketing impulses.
In the other corner are landlord advocates, who say that the regulations stifle any free-market impulses to build and rehabilitate housing.
For the studio, whose involvement has all but insulated it from many of the financial problems that have recently hit their competitors – such as the declining DVD market – the impulse to milk the final instalment for all it's worth (already the end book was split into two films) is understandable.
But in this always-conservative segment of the market, the conservative impulse is easy to forgive.
But the console's holiday impulse market in the U.S. has been eliminated because of a production problem with one of the product's parts–most likely a graphics component that Sony itself makes.
In short, "Spy" is the triumph of intelligence over impulse, marketing over mischief, good feelings over great comedy.
But they all serve to illustrate the dangers of too simplistic a faith in the lure of the market when nationalistic impulses flare up.
