WaPo
is full of good stuff today!
Lets start with the front page of Business:
Household Economics writer Michelle Singletary (The Color of Money) sketches out “What Sherrod was telling us” in a column with that subtitle. The money graf:
There is a disturbing and widening gulf between the rich and the poor in America. And it would be even wider except for the fact that so many middle-income families have borrowed their way to a comfortable lifestyle. They are just a paycheck, a divorce or a heath crisis away from financial ruin.
Read it all here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/24/AR2010072400146_pf.html
Just for you, Peter.
By the way the online version of the story is titled “Race isn’t the problem – economic inequality is.”
This was the theme of Jim Bacon’s post “Webb Shatters the Mold” on Friday.
No one had commented on Observer’s note at end of the comment section on the Webb post. EMR suspects no one saw it so here is a copy:
“Peter:
“You should not be so stern with Mr. Bacon or Senator Webb.
“They are both trying to face the reality of the widening Wealth Gap and the fact that ‘affirmative action’ is being gamed by those at the top of the food chain with out respect to race.
“The question they are both trying to answer is: How can wealth be redistributed equitably?
“As Joseph Pulitzer said: “The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of the blessings.”
“And Jawaharlal Nehru noted: “The forces in a capitalist society, if left unchecked, tend to make the rich richer and the poor poorer.”
“Most of those who now have “a lot” got it by not paying their fair of the total cost and at the expense of either the less well to do or the environment.
“Give credit to Mr. Bacon for trying to find an answer.
“As Groveton says, it will be hard to do.
“Observer”
Perhaps it should have been:
“Give credit to Mr. Bacon for pointing out that Senator Webb is trying to find an answer.”
Item two from today’s WaPo:
On the same page as Singletary’s column there is one by Ezra Klein titled “Digging into finance’s pay dirt.” Klein argues that Broke, USA needs to be read along with The Big Short .
The later deals with what those at the top of the Ziggurat did to cause The Great Recession, Broke, USA documents what those in the middle and at the bottom did to provide the funds.
Same song, second verse: It is the little guy that is having to pay and, as someone said recently:
The Wealth Gap is not sustainable in a world with instantaneous communications, mass literacy and weapons of mass destruction.
EMR thought he had seen a second sentence for the Pulitzer quote cited by Observer. Sure enough it reads:
“The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of the blessings. The inherent blessing of socialism is the equal sharing of misery.”
That is a perfect segue to a third item in today’s WaPo.
Check out this book review in the Outlook (Opinion) section: The review by Andrew Higgins is titled “China, a capitalist machine with a communist engine” about The Party: The Secret World of China’s Communist Rulers. (“China’s ruling party has disentangled itself from ideological chains.”)
Sounds like Pulitzer’s worst of all possible worlds.
Is it time to focus on Regional Resiliency, Import Replacement and DeGrowth?
EMR