| 1 | "Go out and jump in the mud puddle," he would tell the girls. | |
| 2 | Within weeks, though, vainglory turns into a costly and bloody quagmire. | |
| 3 | Yet, as we speak, California, like the US as a whole, is mired in debt and political gridlock. | |
| 4 | Instead, for a crucial decade, while China grew, the US found itself bogged down in conflicts in the Muslim world. | |
| 5 | Inflation puts China in much more of a policy bind if the West gets mired in another deep slump. |