Inflation is back. So says the International Monetary Fund as well as the Economist magazine. In China, India, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, Russia, Argentina and Venezuela, prices have risen over the past year from eight to 29 percent. In the United States, inflation looks modest by comparison -- 3.9 percent.

One thing George W. Bush has been right about the past several months is North Korea. After six years of the silent treatment, during which North Korean leader Kim Jong Il built his nuclear arsenal from two potential weapons to eight or ten, and tested a bomb besides, the president was persuaded by his secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, to restart the six-party talks in Beijing and hold direct discussions between Washington and Pyongyang on the sidelines.

When Marie Brenner wrote a book called Great Dames about Kay Graham, Pamela Harriman and others, she wanted to publicize it in Dallas at a party featuring great dames of this city. That never happened, but right at the top of my list, as I tried to help, was Carolyn Horchow, who earlier this week reluctantly left a world she loved and that loved her.

General Motors is on its way to bankruptcy, in all likelihood, and it's been clear since last June, at least, that this would be the inexorable, inevitable conclusion of a long decline, suddenly accelerated, that didn't have to be. Certainly Rick Wagoner, a likable but luckless CEO, impressed nobody with his last months in office, pleading for more and more help from the feds without realizing that each enormous bundle of cash bought him thirty, maybe sixty days at best. A year ago, GM was worth less than the Hershey's chocolate company, and now it is capitalized at a tiny fraction of the billions it requires to fight another day, though with little chance of another quarter, much less another year.

Once upon a time, there were two giant banks in Dallas called RepublicBank, where I was and still am a customer though not a shareholder, thank heaven, and Interfirst. They were bitter rivals, but, in the end, they also became shotgun mates, married in a desperate move to stave off a final and fatal tumble down the beanstalk. Nonetheless, down they went, into the waiting arms of an unlikely Jack, also known as Hugh McColl.