Europe’s Middle Class Stagnant

The Middle Class is disappearing, the NYT reports. In Europe. The European dream is under assault, as the wave of inflation sweeping the globe mixes with this continent’s long-stagnant wages. Families that once enjoyed Europe’s vaunted quality of life are pinching pennies to buy necessities, and cutting back on extras like movies and vacations abroad. Potentially more disturbing — especially to ...

Keeping Troops Out of College and On the Battlefield

Earlier this month, my collegue James expressed his bafflement that John McCain wasn't supporting Jim Webb's expanded GI Bill. At the time, McCain hadn't expressed a reason for not supporting the bill, but now he has announced why: he is concerned that expanded educational benefits would lower overall retention rates.Sen. John McCain, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, has suggested ...

G.I. Bill Needs Updating

Wes Clark and Jon Soltz take to the op-ed pages of the LAT to urge John McCain to support a massive increase in educational benefits for our veterans. The Post-9/11 Veterans Educational Assistance Act, sponsored by Sens. Jim Webb (D-Va.) and Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.), will restore the promise of a cost-free education to those who serve in the military. The ...

Middle Class Blues

Matt Yglesias points to a new Pew survey of middle class America which finds a record number feel they are economically worse off than they were five years ago. A majority of survey respondents say that in the past five years, they either haven't moved forward in life (25%) or have fallen backwards (31%). This is the most downbeat short-term ...

Recession, Depression, or Neither?

There's no doubt that the U.S. economy is in a downturn. The cost of petroleum has skyrocketed, creating all manner of ripple effects throughout the economy. The "housing bubble" has burst in several cities and the sub-prime mortgage industry has gone bust, leaving many people upside down in their houses or facing -- or experiencing -- foreclosure. Bear-Stearns sold ...

Marine One Revamp Overbudget, Behind Schedule

Enhanced presidential helicopters ordered six years ago have not yet been delivered and they will cost more than twice the winning bid, WaPo's Peter Baker reports on page 1. A year after Sept. 11, 2001, the White House set out to build a fleet of state-of-the-art Marine One helicopters for the al-Qaeda age that would be safer, more powerful and ...

It’s the Economy, Stupid

If you look at the following headlines from just the last 24 hours: “Most Economists in Survey Say Recession is Already Here”, Wall Street Journal “Southland Home Prices Tumble Fast”, Los Angeles Times “Betting the Bank”, Paul Krugman op-ed in NYT “Investors Flock to a Classic Refuge, Propelling Its Price Past $1000”, New York Times it's hard to conclude that things aren't going somewhat wobbly ...

New Face Of Hunger

Ban Ki-moon, the UN Secretary General, warns that the rapidly escalating price of food is increasing world hunger. The prices of basic staples -- wheat, corn, rice -- are at record highs, up 50 percent or more in the past six months. Global food stocks are at historic lows. The causes range from rising demand in major economies such as India ...

$11,000 Coffee Maker

Paul Adams asks, "Could a Coffee Maker Be Worth $11,000?" The short answer is No, at least at the household level, barring the return of Carteresque inflation. But the machine in question, the Clover 1s, isn't aimed at consumers but rather coffee shops. And it sounds pretty spiffy: It brews coffee like a French press, but it's more ...

A Picture of Hell (Zimbabwe)

Via the LAT: Grim tales from ZimbabweLife here is full of Catch-22 dilemmas that would strain credulity if they were fiction: It costs more to go to work than you can possibly earn, for example. There is no economy to speak of, either, just the black market, where even the government gets its dollars. And hospitals, like the one ...