Posted inBooks

What Recovery?

Written at the height of American affluence half a century ago the singular sociological insight of Michael Harrington rsquo s The Other America still rings true ldquo The other America the America of poverty is hidden today in a way that it never was before Its millions are socially invisible

Posted inBooks

Echoes of the Past

Recently repeated cheers that only a few hundred thousand workers lost their jobs may reflect the fact that those who measure label and publicly analyze the economy are not among the 14 million unemployed Americans as of June But it is also a sigh of collective relief that so it seems the econom

Posted inBooks

#5: Help Your Competitors

After traveling through the United States in 1831-32 Alexis de Tocqueville famously marveled at the American phenomenon that gave rise to what we now know as the social or independent nonprofit sector Americans group together to hold f tes found seminaries build inns construct churches distr

Posted inBooks

Corporations Are Not Citizens

Feeling discomfort fellow citizens Do you have a mild pain in the Congress and bloating in the White House Does globalization cause belching nausea or heartburn Here 8217 s something with a very low risk of side effects 8221 So the pharmaceutical industry might try to sell Robert Reich 82

Posted inArts & Culture, Books

Cash Grant, Anyone?

Did the founding fathers have in mind today rsquo s roughly 500 billion-a-year federal social programs when they penned the constitutional pledge to promote the general Welfare What is the general welfare anyway and who should be its caretaker These are some of the questions Charles Murray raise

Posted inArts & Culture, Books

Deconstructing Reality

Thomas Carlyle might not have called the study of economic matters dismal if instead of debating the gloomy Thomas Malthus on population growth he had come across the economist Steven Levitt and his often humorous takes on whether drug-dealing really pays or the effect that the name a parent selec

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