Our familiar Sunday themes:-Fr. Frank Rich has an even better than usual piece on our Poodle Press in today's New York Times.
-News Flash: private sector failed to Rebuild LA. Sorrowful views 15 years later (1, 2, 3).
-Catch up on Paul Krugman's demonstration that the U.S. income and wealth spreads have returned to the 1920s or the 1890s, depending on your measure. Contrast it with Human Helium Balloon Tom Friedman's happy Einstein parable of salvation through science education. Why does anyone take Friedman's corporate global future seriously when he is in blanket denial of the corporate global present? A central symptom of that present -- the grotesque and bizarre maldistribution of money -- is noted by Krugman: the top 25 hedge-fund managers made $14 billion in 2006, which would have covered the cost of health insurance for the U.S. 8 million children who current lack it. Remember: soaking the rich does work, financially.
-A federal Court of Appeals immunized banks that helped Enron defraud investors by hiding loses and pumping the stock.
-Public investment stops: watch infrastructure fall. Today the LA Times reported that California's genius Governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, is strangling planning for a bullet train network, which eventually would have brought this huge state with terrible traffic into the second half of the twentieth century. Today, a gasoline truck completely destroyed a connector to the Bay Bridge that links Oakland to San Francisco. Whoops. A few more people will be taking the train.
-News Flash: racism undermines support for public services! Economists have figured out the obvious, but better late than never.
No comments:
Post a Comment