Thad Box: Winner-take-all is no way to run a nation

Closing and threatening to close our federal government unnecessarily disrupts our lives and our markets. The recent closure was not because of an immediate need for a wall to keep immigrants out of our country, but because somewhere in our partisan politics our leaders have forgotten the art of trading. Winner-take-all may be acceptable in gambling, but it’s not a good way to test different ideas or run a country.In the fall of 1981 I relaxed on the patio of a hotel in Bamako, Mali. I was