Until the city lights go dark.
“Ahistorical” – Ed Burmila (Gin and Tacos)
I don’t disagree with Ed terribly often, but this is one of those times that I do. I think Detroit is an outlier in American urban development. This is a large city whose growth was fueled primarily by a single industrial industry, that happens to be in a part of the country known for brutal winters which leads to the rapid destruction of infrastructure.
Right now there is a large gentrification movement going on in a lot of cities as the children of people that fled the cities for suburbs are now moving in reverse, fleeing back to the cities to escape the suburbs.
Detroit is the exception, not the rule.
“Candidates in Mexico signal a new tack in the Drug War” – Randal C. Archibold and Damien Cave (New York Times)
The drugs won the Drug War. US policy on narcotics won’t be changed by any popular movement in this country; the law and order crowd will make sure of that. Rather, it will be changed by other countries deciding that US narco-dollars aren’t worth the price that comes with them, and the US government finding itself without the foreign allies necessary to conduct this shadow war.
“The Macroeconomics of Chinese kleptocracy” – John Hempton (Bronte Capital)
A fascinating article that once again illustrates that the Chinese economy is a rather elaborate house of cards.
“The Religious Right turns 33: what have we learned?” – Jonathan Merritt (The Atlantic)
What have we learned? That the cynical hitching of the horses of American politics to the Religious Right directly corresponds with the rise in political discord and the decline of American prosperity. To be viable organizations going forward, the church must unshackle itself from the GOP, and the GOP must purge the fundamentalists from it’s ranks.
“Is this Maine Independent the solution to our partisan woes?” – David Rohde (The Atlantic)
No, he’s not. Here’s the deal: one of our political parties has gone completely off the reservation. This isn’t speculation or hyperbole; there are a ton of studies that demonstrate that the Democrats have gone from liberal moderate to just moderate, and the GOP went from moderate conservative to wingnut conservative.
The only way the GOP will return to sanity, and our democracy will once again function as designed, is if the American people make them pay a terrible price for their extremism.
“GOP’s Goal: Close the gap with women, hispanics, youth” – Sahil Kapur (TPM)
An admirable goal, to be sure. But is the GOP really willing to jettison the religious and conservative ideologies that aren’t going to appeal, and in fact may actively discourage, membership of these groups?
“Nation’s largest health insurer will preserve key Obamacare provisions, regardless of Supreme Court ruling” – Amanda Peterson Beadle (ThinkProgress)
This was always going to be the problem with attempting to repeal Obamacare through the courts. The longer it was in place, the more people that benefited from provisions in the law, the more angry people were going to be if it were suddenly snatched out from under them.
The other problem is that there’s still no such thing as a conservative healthcare plan. The GOP has nothing to replace Obamacare with.
“Study: Companies run by ostentatiously wealthy CEOs more likely to perpetrate fraud” – Suzy Khimm (Wonkblog)
I found this interesting, in the context of a CEOs appetite for material goods contrasted with their appetite for risk.
