Wonk reads:
1)
Does the Euro Have a Future?
George Soros / New York Review of Books / Oct 2011
In 2008 the US financial authorities that were needed to respond to the crisis were in place; at present in the eurozone one of these authorities, the common treasury, has yet to be brought into existence. This requires a political process involving a number of sovereign states. That is what has made the problem so severe. The political will to create a common European treasury was absent in the first place; and since the time when the euro was created the political cohesion of the European Union has greatly deteriorated. As a result there is no clearly visible solution to the euro crisis. In its absence the authorities have been trying to buy time.
2)
Can Retraining Give the Unemployed a Second Chance?
Drake Bennett / Bloomberg Businessweek / Sep 2011
In 2001 the automotive trim division where Bricknell was working was sold from one manufacturing conglomerate, Textron, to another, Collins & Aikman. He and his co-workers lost their overtime pay, then their sick days, and much of their vacation time. In 2003 he was laid off...Now Bricknell drives a school bus. When school’s out he works odd jobs; last summer he built and delivered Port-a-Potties for $10 an hour. This summer, though, he didn’t work. He’s been busy moving into a new place—he and his wife divorced in July—and dealing with depression. But in the last couple of months, for the first time in nearly a decade, Bricknell has been getting calls about jobs. A headhunter said there were openings at GM and other places—so many that they were having a hard time filling them. The trouble is that while Bricknell was driving a bus, car design migrated onto more sophisticated platforms. New employers had openings for people like Andrew Bricknell, but they weren’t retraining them.
Heather Kovich / Guernica / Sept 2011
I did hundreds of disability exams over the next year, and while I did meet two people who were obviously faking, for the most part the stories I heard were heartbreaking: car accidents, massive strokes, lost jobs, dead spouses. Many people who apply for disability have lived through a tragedy. But the stories also told of the inefficiencies of the disability system. That first day in Spokane I met a man who had worked in manual labor his whole life, but for years had been getting crushing chest pain after walking a few blocks. His blood pressure was dangerously high. His condition was obviously treatable, but he did not have insurance so he had not been to a doctor in years. He knew that if he qualified for permanent disability he would eventually get Medicare or Medicaid and get proper treatment. He had no idea he could go to a community health center, a federally financed clinic where he could pay on a sliding-scale basis. With the right treatment and a less strenuous job, he would probably have not needed disability.
4)
Jon Stewart and the Burden of History
Tom Junod / Esquire / Sept 2011
Stewart isn’t just being a bully here. He is being disingenuous, and he knows it. Worse, he’s tapping into the collective fantasy without knowing it. He’s the gunslinger saying he’s going back to the farm while at the same time putting notches in his belt. More precisely, he’s the presumptive Edward R. Murrow saying that he’ll go back to comedy once he cleans up journalism. But he can’t go back. He can’t go back to the pleasures of fart jokes and funny faces — the pleasures of comedy — because he’s experienced the higher pleasure of preaching to weirdly defenseless stiffs like Jim Cramer. He’s saying once again that he’s outgrown comedy and is no longer a comedian. But he’s not saying what he actually is, because then he’d be judged. And Jon Stewart, to a degree unique in the culture, exists outside the realm of judgment.
Simon Winchester / Vanity Fair / Oct 2011
The world’s great powers have long declared themselves through their rail lines—think the 20th Century Limited, the Flying Scotsman, or the Orient Express—and on June 30 the Chinese made their bid for supremacy, with the first official run of a $32 billion high-speed line between Shanghai and Beijing. Faster (820 miles in 288 minutes) and sleeker than any other, the needle-nosed CRH380A symbolizes China’s accelerating pace, even as it faces questions about safety, and taps into an ancient rivalry with Japan. Simon Winchester was on board.
Comments