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- The rapid turnaround in conservative economic circles from "Ireland is a free-market miracle!" to "Ireland is proof that Obama's policies are an economic disaster!" is yet another piece of evidence that free-market ideology is total nonsense. I've made this point before, but pure free markets are a fantasy, state-run economies are a disaster, and thus it's obvious to create a hybrid system where government regulates certain markets. Does this make me a "democratic socialist?" Beats me. I'm not interested in a grand theory of economics; I just want something that works, and our economy is not working right now.
- Please read John Cassidy on the social value of Wall Street investment banking. Predictably, his conclusion is that they do little but provide great, concentrated and private wealth at great, pervasive and public risk but it's a reminder, vis-a-vis the above point, that what counts as an indispensable sector of the economy needs to be measured by whether it provides a public good. Generating a class of wealthy people who predominately trade and make money off one another and put the larger economy at risk in the process is absolutely not in the public interest.
- I think the takeaway point from Kevin Drum's "TSA anti-rant" is that we have a clumsy process that is dedicated to making sure explosives don't get onto airplanes. And he's right that what we have left in the way of civil liberties will go down the drain the moment there's another successful terrorist attack. But all of this got started not because terrorists smuggled explosives onto planes but because the planes themselves were the explosives. I suppose having sealed cockpits and pilots packing heat kinda-sorta takes that off the table, but I hope people are at peace with the fact that if a terrorist is willing and able to cause terror, he will.
- Remainders: Dan Froomkin reviews Decision Points; as usual, Ta-Nehisi Coates is correct on how we racially censor our language; and when Ann Coulter and Jonah Goldberg provide the bulk of your "best" quotes about liberals, well, I'll leave that for you to ponder.
--Mori Dinauer
