The most interesting comment that Barack Obama made in his speech last Thursday night was this passage that came about a third of the way through:
You see, we Democrats have a very different measure of what constitutes progress in this country.

It’s an awful word, but I couldn’t resist using it. In any case, if you have any interest at all in the upcoming presidential election, you should read this article on what Obama’s economic priorities are. Obama has been characterized as both a conservative and a socialist, and the article attempts to explain [...]

I was pretty critical of McCain’s support for a “gas-tax holiday”, and I’m pretty disappointed in Clinton’s support of the idea. As I said before, the gas-tax holiday just doesn’t make any sense if you think about it. It’s an extremely small amount of money ($0.18 on the gallon translates to about $10 [...]

Unemployment is up. Inflation is rising faster than wages. The dollar is historically week. Interest rates are already low, and can’t be lowered too much further. Personal savings rates are extremely low, while consumer debt is very high–which mean that a short-term boost to consumer spending is unlikely (and unwise). [...]

An interesting off-shoot of the Spitzer case seems to be a revival in the debate about prostitution. In the New York Times Opinion Page today, for instance, you can find three different articles about prostitution: one written by the authors of two sex books on sex trafficking who argue that prostitutes are naturally victims [...]

In his New York Times editorial today, David Brooks argues that American society has become increasingly splintered along racial and ethnic lines. The bulk of his evidence comes from the world of music. He notes that the artists and audience for rock bands is increasingly white-only, and that as a result modern rock [...]

The last few days I’ve been reading Come On People, by Bill Cosby and Alvin F. Poussaint.  The book, and the extensive book tour that they’ve been doing to support it over the last week, is a call to action for black community leaders, teachers, and parents, among others.  I’m only about half-way through it, [...]

The housing market is in trouble. Foreclosures are approaching all-time highs in some cities. Vacancy rates are on the rise pretty much everywhere outside of Manhattan. Home sales are slumping, prices are falling, and interest rates are on the rise. The problem, however, is that quite a bit of American consumer spending the [...]

The current incarnation of the post-hippie counter-culture is absurd. There are more than six billion people on the planet, and almost half of them have to struggle to even feed themselves on a daily basis. Of course, there is plenty of food out there. It’s just a matter of distribution. The [...]

The price of corn, the stable of the Zimbabwe diet, rose 700% in Zimbabwe this week. Given the poverty rates in this country, this will almost certainly lead to mass starvation, most likely riots and unrest as well. As of this morning, neither the Red Cross nor Oxfam has announced any initiatives to [...]