StumbleUpon | niftypete's URL reviews

Happy Ending - Happy Days Blog - NYTimes.com

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 01:24:45 -0800

From the page: There is, we might say, a tunnel at the end of this light. And since we are creatures of the future, the darkness of death offends us in our very being. We may come to terms with it when we grow old, but unless our lives have become a burden to us coming to terms is the best we can hope for.

The second, less obvious lesson of this moment of facing death is that in order for our lives to have a shape, in order that they not become formless, we need to die. This will strike some as counterintuitive, even a little ridiculous.

Banks Should Be Handed Over to People's Ownership: Matthew Lynn - Bloomberg.com

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 04:11:56 -0800

From the page: "Instead of selling the stakes it acquired in the financial system to other banks, or listing the shares on the stock market, it could create mutually owned societies. Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc could be a people�s bank, owned by everyone.

That would ensure more diversity, competition and stability, all goals just as worthy as getting back the money Prime Minister Gordon Brown�s government spent on bank rescues. "

Ezra Klein - An insurance industry CEO explains why American health care costs so much

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 23:11:44 -0800

From the page: The health-care reform debate has done a good job avoiding the subject of prices. The argument over the Medicare-attached public plan was, in a way that most people didn't understand, an argument about prices, but it quickly became an argument about a public option without a pricing dimension, and never really looked back. The administration has been very interested in the finding that some states are better at providing cost-effective care than other states, but not in the finding that some countries are better at purchasing care than other countries. "A health-care debate in this country that isn't aware of the price differential is not an informed debate," says Halvorson. By that measure, we have not had a very informed debate.

Lieberman (& His Wife) Shills for the Healthcare Industry - By Scott Horton - Democratic Underground

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 22:55:17 -0800

From the page: "As the New Haven Register, Lieberman�s hometown newspaper, noted in an editorial headlined �oeLieberman Crafts Drug Company Perk,” that bill is even more generous to the pharmaceutical industry than a similar proposal by the Senate Republican leadership. �oeThe government can offer incentives and guarantees for needed public health measures,” it said. �oeBut it should not write a blank check, as these bills do, to the pharmaceutical industry that has such a large cost to the public with what may be an uncertain or dubious return.” "

How Goldman secretly bet on the U.S. housing crash | McClatchy

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 01:57:51 -0800

From the page: "The Securities and Exchange Commission should be very interested in any financial company that secretly decides a financial product is a loser and then goes out and actively markets that product or very similar products to unsuspecting customers without disclosing its true opinion," said Laurence Kotlikoff, a Boston University economics professor who's proposed a massive overhaul of the nation's banks. "This is fraud and should be prosecuted."

Karin Badt: Polanski: Whats On Trial?

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 22:12:01 -0700

The Polanski case is the intersection of so many sets in multiple dimensions. So many people on each of the sides (multiple) are passionately in agreement on the effect while wildly in disagreement on the cause -- in any attempt at logic while stating their positions. Fascinating in its complexity of perspectives.

Monday Funday - THE ESSENCE OF CHUTZPAH

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 21:45:05 -0700

If I would have learned Yiddish...

MinnPost - Investigative reporter Seymour Hersh describes executive assassination ring

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 00:36:57 -0700

From the page: Seymour Hersh may have made a little more news than he intended by talking about new alleged instances of domestic spying by the CIA, and about an ongoing covert military operation that he called an "executive assassination ring."

Harvard Giving Ends When Reject Letter Arrives: Amity Shlaes - Bloomberg.com

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 00:27:31 -0700

Checkbook acting as a shoehorn for legacies. No admit No $$$. And it is tax deductible.

FDL Action & House Health Care Bill: A Death Sentence For My Fellow Breast Cancer Survivors

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 00:23:32 -0700

So Big Pharma decides who gets to live based on $$$. Sarah Palin had it backwards.