For those interested in "how the system works," the case of the current effort by the Obama Administration to remove the banks as middlemen in the huge market for student college loans is revealing.
The Huffington Post is doing an important investigative series on this, and the initial report on their findings is available at
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/07/how-nonprofits-won-specia_n_415028.html
It's not (yet) entirely bad news, but neither is it a done-deal good news story (yet) either.
DT
Showing posts with label Beyond Tiger. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Beyond Tiger. Show all posts
Thursday, January 7, 2010
What works and doesn't in America
Try this piece out for an interesting classification of what we do well and what's in big trouble in the US (according to the author anyway).
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-schell7-2010jan07,0,1000455,full.story
Notice that government -- federal and state/local -- is in the broken column. Hardly a surprise. But I'd also broaden that to include the American understanding of government, which is in turn a major reason why government is broken. It then becomes a self-perpetuating cycle: Americans detest an ineffective, incompetent government and will not tolerate any proposal to expand the authority of such a dysfunctional monster to address problems like financial reform, job creation, school improvement or health care reform because they "know" already government is synonymous with silly bickering by self-important pols who pretend to worry about the problems of real people while focusing the real energies on campaign cash from corporate donors who they dare not offend by reigning in their excesses.
I'm interested in what the rest of you would add to our subtract from the three columns.
DT
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-schell7-2010jan07,0,1000455,full.story
Notice that government -- federal and state/local -- is in the broken column. Hardly a surprise. But I'd also broaden that to include the American understanding of government, which is in turn a major reason why government is broken. It then becomes a self-perpetuating cycle: Americans detest an ineffective, incompetent government and will not tolerate any proposal to expand the authority of such a dysfunctional monster to address problems like financial reform, job creation, school improvement or health care reform because they "know" already government is synonymous with silly bickering by self-important pols who pretend to worry about the problems of real people while focusing the real energies on campaign cash from corporate donors who they dare not offend by reigning in their excesses.
I'm interested in what the rest of you would add to our subtract from the three columns.
DT
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
The governing crisis
Folks,
If you haven't seen today's columns by David Brooks and Bob Herbert, they each do a nice job of underscoring the not-so-good condition of our politics and neither endorses any easy answer to the mess.
How is it that young people -- your cohorts -- are viewing (or keeping themselves from viewing) this mess?
Inquiring minds want to know!
If you haven't seen today's columns by David Brooks and Bob Herbert, they each do a nice job of underscoring the not-so-good condition of our politics and neither endorses any easy answer to the mess.
How is it that young people -- your cohorts -- are viewing (or keeping themselves from viewing) this mess?
Inquiring minds want to know!
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