Leaving race aside for the moment (did someone mention that the Voting Rights Act has something to do with empowering black voters – who just might, for some strange reason, prefer Democrats?), what the court’s conservatives seem to see in Section 5 is a threat to state sovereignty — the “sovereign dignity” of the states, […]

by Tom aka Rusty Rustbelt Health Care Thoughts: The CPR Kerfluffle According to numerous media reports: On February 26th, Lorraine Bayless, an 87 year old resident of the Glendale Gardens independent living facility, collapsed in the dining hall. Someone called 911, and eventually a person identifying herself as a “nurse” was on the call (whether […]

Since I got preempted posting the inequality video at AB, I thought I’d offer this as a follow-up. H/T to Rachel Maddow.

Scott Sumner (via Matt Yglesias) has a very impressive graph of breakeven inflation rates for yen denominated vs inflation protected securities in Japan (which seems to have something to do with Fathom Consulting just to cite).  It shows a marked increase from around 0% to around 0,8% from early February 2011 to  late April 2011. […]

Via Sandwichman at Econospeak comes this well done video on Wealth: It’s Not for Everyone, which is going to 3 million views from facebook, reddit, and elswhere:

I dearly love comment sections on certain websites. Some are entertaining, and some are guaranteed to lead to links for further thought. Others are stocked with slogans and utterances of magical thought without caveat. However, what can be missed are those posts which do not draw much comment…it needs to be mentioned that these posts […]

Dean Baker on occasion mentions the influence of Pete Peterson, and Peterson funded the Simpson Bowles efforts, and this piece by Thom Hartmann takes a current look: While a name well known to some, it is interesting I rarely hear it mentioned in less political circles. I run into the Soros name more often… But […]

David Zetland comments on future funding of ‘water’ risk management.  There are plenty of examples of misguided government interventions, as well as examples of private enterprise run amok.  Now a derivatives market? : The danger of flashing wrong signals Have you heard the stories of people who have driven through fields, into lakes or off […]

by Tom aka Rusty Rustbelt The Tragedy of DetroitOne of the great highlights of my life was my first visit to Detroit in 1962. I fell in love with the metropolis and of course the Detroit Tigers. This week the governor of Michigan will appoint an emergency financial manager for Detroit, if anyone will take […]

Not up to Angrybear standards so click the link to my hall of shame.