MICHAEL BARONE: America Seems to Go Crazy Every 50 Years or So. “Having witnessed and written for publication during two 50-years-apart episodes of craziness, I seek consolation from Adam Smith’s reflection, after Britain lost the 13 colonies, that ‘there is a great deal of ruin in a nation.’ But I hope America will do a better job, 50 years hence, of learning from this episode’s mistakes.”