Archive
The Great Local News Heist
If you turn on your local evening news, you may not notice anything out of the ordinary. But if you change the channel, you’ll think you’ve entered a parallel universe.
GOP Debates are More Entertaining than GOP Policies
I was out of the country for a couple of weeks and came back to be greeted by yet another Republican presidential debate. I was so pleased.
Paulson’s Plaintive Plea
Who’s the most befuddled Wall Streeter of all? The richest guy on the Street.
Half-Full Champagne Flute
Prison Nation
The United States has more citizens behind bars, per capita, than any other nation. No, this quirk doesn’t reflect an especially felonious gene in our national DNA. Rather, it exposes embarrassing shortfalls in our public policy.
The Lineup: Week of Oct. 24-30, 2011
William A. Collins and Khalil Bendib offer their takes on Occupy Wall Street, while Donald Kaul and Phyllis Bennis address the big news out of Libya.
What’s Next for U.S.-Libyan Relations?
After Muammar Gaddafi’s demise, the future of Libya’s relationship with the United States remains uncertain.
Measuring Progress
Tent cities and shacks sprung up on empty lots across the country. Food lines at soup kitchens wrapped around city blocks. Unemployment soared to 25 percent. Farmers watched helplessly as crop prices plummeted, then lost their land. The evidence was clear, yet at the height of the Great Depression, Congress lacked the tools to accurately measure just how the economy as a whole was faring. With no commonly accepted national income data, they had no guideposts upon which to base sound economic policy.
Defending Bloated Military Spending
The Association of the United States Army packed hundreds of exhibitors into two halls the size of football fields at its annual convention. Companies from around the world came to the event, recently held at the Washington Convention Center, to sell the Army everything from mammoth tanks to micro-thin wires. Corporations such as Raytheon and KBR erected multi-level installations nearly big enough to generate their own zip code, complete with conference rooms and coffee bars.
Food System Pays Dearly as Wall Street Occupies Washington
Despite the Occupy Wall Street movement’s now month-long direct challenge to corporate and financial industry power, the machine keeps rolling along.
