The fallout from the subprime mortgage crisis keeps ambushing us. As I scan the world wide web I see another rogue wave rolling in as homeowners ask themselves why they shouldn’t be given property tax relief in light of declining market values.
Read More...Permitting the fox to police the chicken coop has not resulted in a significant increase in the production of eggs, but it has scrambled the once vaunted American Dream, fried our impulse to help each other and poached our collective brain.
We’ve tried a quarter century of free-market, trickle-down sleight of hand. It has done more [...]
If we are the world, as we say we are, how is it possible to have a foreign face in America?
Not all immigrants come by this question the hard way. If you come
from Northern Europe or Slavic Europe, you may grasp the question in your head but not your gut, because the chances are [...]
(This is the transcript of Hot Copy No. 43, one of my regular pod casts for The Student Operated Press)
There’s a crucial difference between balanced reporting and insightful reporting. You can listen to this difference by tuning into the Yes Network and listening to color commentator David Cone, the famously versatile former pitcher who once [...]
I live in a house surrounded by its weed yards. Each spring I look forward to the happy dandelions so despised by the many. I even like the myriad puff balls they turn into. Periodically the farmer who cuts our grass rakes the thatch and spreads lime, but I use no chemicals or fertilizer.
Something is [...]
Municipal web sites tend to be passive-aggressive. In the guise of presenting vital information their subliminal message seems to be, And don’t ever say we didn’t tell you anything.
Rather than contribute to government transparency they tend to forestall inquiry by purporting to tell you all you want to know about the government you happen [...]
Acting in its usual role as the national mind the press has decided that the rising fuel price is bad news, end of story. But it may be just the beginning of a much more important story.
Since the end of World War II we have built a society predicated on cheap gasoline. The suburbs sprawled [...]
(This is the transcript of Hot Copy No. 40, Del Marbrook’s regular podcasts for The Student Operated Press)
The most frustrating aspect of journalism is its daily failure to challenge society’s assumptions.
When television reporters say General Motors or Ford have decided to downsize, they say something like, “Heavily unionized General Motors announced a plan to downsize [...]
“He’s the preeminent leader in the securitization sector.”—which means he probably helped engineer the mortgage crisis.
Where but in Manhattan can you eavesdrop on such snatches of conversation? But that’s what I heard walking behind two suits this morning in midtown. The conversation was like sushi: mercury, what mercury?
Since the end of World War II it has been gospel in the United States that all development is good. It creates jobs and fuels consumption. It’s never rapine, bad for the environment or corruptive of the public weal.
Farmers sell land to developers, developers lop off the tops of mountains for resorts, concrete spreads, [...]