Today's report in the The York Times, The American Middle Class Is No Longer the World’s Richest, only confirms what many have been feeling for an increasingly long time. While our economic growth remains competitive with other nations, “trickle-down”, if that is what we are to call laissez-faire approaches to income inequality and social and educational [...]
Thomas Piketty’s “Capital in the Twenty-First Century,” is considered by those in a position to judge the merits of a monumental economic treatise, to be the most important economic book of the year, if not the decade. Recently reviewed by Paul Krugman in the Nw York Times (http://nyti.ms/1iVxxoL) and John Cassidy in the New Yorker [...]
Days ago yet another billionaire, Home Depot co-founder Ken Langone, made personal references to the super-wealthy and the Nazis, this time suggesting that those who express concerns about income inequality could learn a thing or two from Hitler himself. This episode follows Max Perkins, California venture capitalist, likening the experience of today’s super-wealthy to that of [...]
Where income is higher, life spans are longer. As incomes have diverged between this country’s richest and poorest counties, so have the life expectancies of their residents. Annie Lowry in the New York Times has authored "Income Gap, Meet the Longevity Gap,” in which she details stark differences in lifespan in otherwise matched locales, differentiated [...]
To the Sports Editor of The New York Times: Although the N.C.A.A. punishment is significant in terms of financial repercussions for Penn State, a critical question is whether such consequences serve the most constructive purpose. It would be heartening if some of the money were earmarked for education, prevention and clinical research in sexual abuse. [...]
