links for 2010-11-30

• Get It Right – Thomas Friedman
  That is why I believe most Americans don’t want a plan for deficit reduction. The Tea Party’s vision is narrow and uninspired. Americans want a plan to make America great again, and at some level they know that such a plan will require a hybrid politics — one that blends elements of both party’s instincts. And they will follow a president — they would even pay more taxes and give up more services — if they think he really has a plan to make America great again, not just bring him victory in 2012 by 50.1 percent.
  (tags: thomas_friedman usa deficit politics future budget policy)

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links for 2010-11-28

• The Great Gatsby – Studio 360
  Studio 360 explores F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby and finds out how this compact novel became the great American story of our age.  Novelist Jonathan Franzen tells Kurt Andersen why he still reads it every year or two, and writer Patricia Hampl explains why its lightness is deceptive. We’ll drive around the tony Long Island suburbs where Gatsby was set, and we’ll hear from Andrew Lauren about his film G, which sets Gatsby among the hip-hop moguls. And Azar Nafisi describes the power of teaching the book to university students in Tehran. Readings come courtesy of Scott Shepherd, an actor who sometimes performs the entire book from memory.
  (tags: great_gatsby fitzgerald literature authors writing radio book usa history)
• The Worst of the Madness by Anne Applebaum | The New York Review of Books
  Murder became ordinary during wartime, wrote Miłosz, and was even regarded as legitimate if it was carried out on behalf of the resistance. In the name of patriotism, young boys from law-abiding, middle-class families became hardened criminals, thugs for whom “the killing of a man presents no great moral problem.” Theft became ordinary too, as did falsehood and fabrication. People learned to sleep through sounds that would once have roused the whole neighborhood: the rattle of machine-gun fire, the cries of men in agony, the cursing of the policeman dragging the neighbors away.
  (tags: wwii europe war history nazi stalin hitler murder war_crimes genocide holocaust morality soviet communism ideology racism recommended)

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links for 2010-11-27

• Wall Street, investment bankers, and social good – John Cassidy
  Rather than acting in their customers’ best interests, financial institutions may peddle opaque investment products, like collateralized debt obligations. Privy to superior information, banks can charge hefty fees and drive up their own profits at the expense of clients who are induced to take on risks they don’t fully understand—a form of rent seeking. “Mispricing gives incorrect signals for resource allocation, and, at worst, causes stock market booms and busts,” Woolley wrote in a recent paper. “Rent capture causes the misallocation of labor and capital, transfers substantial wealth to bankers and financiers, and, at worst, induces systemic failure. Both impose social costs on their own, but in combination they create a perfect storm of wealth destruction.”
  (tags: society common_good greed market banking finance economics deception incentives bubble crisis risk morality recommended)

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links for 2010-11-24

• America in numbers: One nation, divisible | The Economist
  All these conflicting interests are helping to polarise further America’s politics. In the 1976 election…26% of voters lived in counties where one party won by 20 points or more. In 2008 a whopping 48% of voters did so. Strikingly, less than 400 of America’s 3,141 counties switched parties at the 2008 election. Politicians, like marketers, have become adept at identifying likely customers. “Bringing out the base” is the key to winning.
  (tags: partisanship politics future usa statistics voting demographics hispanics youth elderly economics middle_class)

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links for 2010-11-23

• Economists As Arborists «  Modeled Behavior
  In the same way we could sit by and watch markets fail and say yes one day everything will be better. In the case of a debt deflation for example, it will eventually be better if because of nothing else,  then because all of the debtors will one day die.

  This is natural and its is true that the forces of economic evolution will rebuild a market from the diseased economy that we observe. But, we care about people. We care about suffering. We don’t want them to be downtrodden until they are removed by death.

  The market itself only matters because it makes people’s lives better. The economy only matters because we care about the people who make it up.

  (tags: economics market values debt regulation)
• A special report on Japan: Into the unknown | The Economist
  Japan is ageing faster than any country in history, with vast consequences for its economy and society. So why, asks Henry Tricks, is it doing so little to adapt?
  (tags: japan aging demographics economics entitlements welfare future health)
• Human Development Reports (HDR) – United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)
  (tags: world countries human development growth economics health wealth happiness opportunity)
• Mapping the Measure of America
  (tags: usa human development wealth health map states statistics economics infographic)

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links for 2010-11-15

• Petty Tyrant | This American Life
  In Schenectady, NY, a school maintenance man named Steve Raucci works his way up the ranks for 30 years, until finally he's in charge of the maintenance department. That's when he starts messing with his employees. Teasing them at meetings. Punishing them with crummy work assignments. Or worse things, like secretly slashing their tires in the middle of the night.
  (tags: this_american_life radio school corruption crime authority manipulation revenge)

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links for 2010-11-13

• Hitler Exhibition Explores German Society That Empowered Nazis – NYTimes.com
  “This exhibition is about Hitler and the Germans — meaning the social and political and individual processes by which much of the German people became enablers, colluders, co-criminals in the Holocaust,” said Constanze Stelzenmüller, a senior trans-Atlantic fellow with the German Marshall Fund of the United States in Berlin. “That this was so is now a mainstream view, rejected only by a small minority of very elderly and deluded people, or the German extreme right-wing fringe. But it took us a while to get there.”
  (tags: hitler wwii nazi germany society ideology racism anti-semitism holocaust museum history)

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links for 2010-11-12

• Bold Advice to President Obama – On Point
  Barack Obama was a candidate with a campaign and appeal like no other. He promised – in his words and in his person – a breakthrough age for this country. 

  In the White House, President Obama has been a sober, straightforward, determined leader. He’s brought the civility and seriousness that he promised. But soaring? Not exactly. Not yet. 

  He’s had a tough road, and searing opposition. But even friends are grumbling. After the midterm “shellacking,” what now? What’s needed?

  (tags: radio on_point obama president popularity policy politics campaign promises negotiation diplomacy election)

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links for 2010-11-11

• Dirty Coal, Clean Future – James Fallows
  To environmentalists, “clean coal” is an insulting oxymoron. But for now, the only way to meet the world’s energy needs, and to arrest climate change before it produces irreversible cataclysm, is to use coal—dirty, sooty, toxic coal—in more-sustainable ways. The good news is that new technologies are making this possible. China is now the leader in this area, the Google and Intel of the energy world. If we are serious about global warming, America needs to work with China to build a greener future on a foundation of coal. Otherwise, the clean-energy revolution will leave us behind, with grave costs for the world’s climate and our economy.
  (tags: to_read coal energy climate_change china usa future pollution technology economics jobs environment)

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links for 2010-11-10

• Are Children Prey for Fast Food Companies? – The Atlantic
  There is no longer doubt that children and teens need protection. Marketing of both brands and foods is relentless and the nation is paying a terrible price. The industry has had time to prove itself trustworthy, and government can look the other way only so long. Children's health and well-being are essential to the future vitality of the country and their erosion by some food industry practices must be stopped.
  (tags: food children obesity fast_food nutrition advertising marketing health regulation)
• Europe's economies: Not out of the woods | The Economist
  The interactive graphic above illustrates some of the problems that the European economy faces.
  (tags: economist economics europe euro greece debt deficit finance growth)

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