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When Warren Buffett challenged Mitch McConnell to help him pay down the deficit, McConnell paid him no never-mind—but a teenage girl in Northbrook, IL heard and responded, sending $300 to the Feds and asking Buffett to do the same. This is an adorable story, and the video makes it more adorable still. But let’s not [...]
Archive for the ‘Income distribution’ Category
February 3rd, 2012
January 30th, 2012
The CEO of RBS turns down his £1m bonus.
January 24th, 2012
Category: Campaign 2012, Income distribution
Mitt is claiming that he got nothing from his dad except a home loan in grad school. That’s not true. In an infamous 1994 interview, Ann Romney lamented that nobody understood that as “struggling students” she and Mitt could only bind flesh to spirit by selling stock.
January 19th, 2012
Category: Campaign 2012, Conservatism, Income distribution, Mitt Romney, Republican Party, Watching Conservatives
If you think we should discuss economic inequality in anywhere but quiet rooms, then go to China — I already sent your job there. Okay, cheap shot. But equating any discussion of inequality with Communism as Romney did is no more than crude red-baiting. Nevertheless, I can’t agree with those who think that the exchange means that “the pressure [...]
January 2nd, 2012
Yet another commentator faults the 99 percenters for failing to see that Wall Street types contribute to “the public purse.” But they don’t. It’s their taxes that do.
November 26th, 2011
Category: Education policy, Income distribution, Leadership, Management, Occupy Wall Street, Politics and Leadership, University of California
On Monday, the Berkeley faculty will have a special meeting to consider several resolutions condemning the police behavior at the Nov. 9 Occupy Cal demonstration, and another resolution that says in part: Therefore be it Resolved that the Berkeley Division of the Academic Senate has lost confidence in the ability of Chancellor Birgeneau, EVC Breslauer [...]
November 21st, 2011
Category: Income distribution
In the past week, a professional organization and a club to which I belong have both announced that they will no longer offer discounted rates to members who are senior citizens. Good on them. Many senior discounts have their origin in an era when low incomes were concentrated among the elderly. In Western Europe and [...]
November 8th, 2011
Category: 501(c)(3), charity, Income distribution, Moral philosophy, NonProfits, Philanthropy, Rhetoric and Framing, Uncategorized
. . . wrote Andy Rooney in this long-ago essay. This makes as much sense as anything else Andy Rooney ever said, which is to say, not much. What does it mean to “deserve” charity, beyond needing it? As George Bernard Shaw’s Alfred Doolittle memorably explained in Pygmalion, If theres anything going, and I put [...]