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Government Debt is Not the Problem
Polarization of the American public reflects the polarization of its political Parties, both of whom strive for ascendancy by demeaning, contradicting, and formulating proposals to wrong the other; each Party wrongs itself and the American public. The recent and periodic arguments concerning the proposed federal budget, an entrance for initiating threats to “close the government,” […]
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The Real Rent Scoundrels

Having spent the first 40+ years of my life paying tribute to landlords, this writer knows the crime of it all. I am not referring to the system of One landlord-One Tenant that many of the neighborhoods in baby boomer Brooklyn consisted of. That was in the 50s and 60s of my youth. It made […]
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War By Other Means: Short Selling JPMorgan
When the FDIC put Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) and Signature Bank into receivership in March, a study reported on the Social Science Research Network found that nearly 200 mid-sized U.S. banks were similarly vulnerable to bank runs. First Republic Bank went into receivership in May, but the feared contagion of runs did not otherwise occur. […]
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Foolishness, Hypocrisy, the GOP and the IRS
Take your pick from two definitions of modern-day Republicans: foolish hypocrites or hypocritical fools. When it comes to America’s $32 trillion federal deficit, each one is as fitting as the other. They’re hypocrites for saying one thing and doing another. They’re fools because the actions they take are driving the deficit ever higher. Let’s listen […]
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The Taylor Swift Exploitation Machine
She doesn’t love you, she doesn’t care for you, and she doesn’t know you. But does her team pretend to, confecting an image of faux empathy and interest, sorting out the wheat from the chaff. The predatory, fan sucking phenomenon of the Taylor Swift marketing machine is something to behold. Leaving aside the sort of […]
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The Federal Debt Trap: Issues and Possible Solutions
“Rather than collecting taxes from the wealthy,” wrote the New York Times Editorial Board in a July 7 opinion piece, “the government is paying the wealthy to borrow their money.” Titled “America Is Living on Borrowed Money,” the editorial observes that over the next decade, according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), annual federal budget […]
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The Fall of the West
In his bestselling book of 1987, The Rise and Fall of Great Powers, historian Paul Kennedy chronicles the rise of western power and its world dominance from 1500 to the present. He reports that the rise was not due to any particular event, nor even an unusual series of events. It was, in fact, neither […]

