Scratches to Sketches
Wednesday 6 May 2015
If I were Prime Minister: I'd shrink the gap between the highest and lowest paid - Comment - Voices - The Independent
My ambition would be to shrink the differentials between the higher paid and the lower paid so that by the end of my government's first term, it would be something more like 10 to 1 across the country. I'd look into the charity status of any institution in which the pay differentials exceeded that ratio (I would keep a keen eye on loopholes -giving bonuses, special contracts etc) and end their privileges. In relation to corporations and banks, I'd invite economists who are critics of austerity to advise me on how to reform them, such as Paul Krugman, Joseph Stiglitz, and Naomi Klein.
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/if-i-were-prime-minister-id-shrink-the-gap-between-the-highest-and-lowest-paid-10228616.html
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/if-i-were-prime-minister-id-shrink-the-gap-between-the-highest-and-lowest-paid-10228616.html
The Worst Ex-Chairman Ever - NYTimes.com
When Alan Greenspan left the Fed, he had nearly divine status in the eyes of the financial press and, I'm sorry to say, quite a few economists. In retrospect, of course, his reputation has faltered badly; whether or not you blame Fed policy for the housing bubble (you shouldn't), Greenspan denied the bubble's existence and even its possibility as it was inflating, while actively blocking efforts to tighten financial regulation.
But it's his track record since leaving office that is truly remarkable. He has been an inflation and debt fear monger, helping to make his successor's already hard job a bit harder — and famously complained about ungrateful markets that keep failing to deliver the crises he predicts. After a brief moment of doubt about the wisdom of financial markets, he went right back to denouncing regulation while proclaiming that markets get it right "with notably rare exceptions".
Now I have in my inbox a notice that as the Fed holds its annual meeting in Jackson Hole, Greenspan will address a counter-conference organized by a group called the American Principles Project. The group combines social conservatism — it's anti-gay-marriage, anti-abortion rights, and pro-"religious liberty" — with goldbug economic doctrine.
"What we call learning is only a process of recollection." PLATO
Paul Krugman: Look beyond common myths surrounding poverty in America - Local Opinion - Postbulletin.com Rochester, MN News
Yet, I do worry the centrality of race and racism to this particular story may convey the false impression that debilitating poverty and alienation from society are uniquely black experiences. In fact, much, though by no means all, of the horror one sees in Baltimore and many other places is really about class, about the devastating effects of extreme and rising inequality.
"What we call learning is only a process of recollection." PLATO
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Sketches from scratches is a provocative blogspot that has grown out of the Wuh Lax experience. It is eclectic, which means that it might consider just about anything from the simple to the extremely difficult. A scratch can be something that is troubling me or a short line on paper. From a scratch comes a verbal sketch or image sketch of the issue or subject. Other sites have other stuff that should really be of interest to the broad reader. I try to develop themes, but variety often comes before depth.
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