When Al Gore went before voters in November 2000, as a sitting vice president promising to continue President Bill Clinton’s economic policies, the economy was in excellent shape. The unemployment rate had fallen to only 3.9 percent, and middle-class incomes were growing at their fastest clip in a generation. Yet over the course of the 2000 campaign, the economy also slowed markedly. Monthly job growth at the start of the year was almost 300,000; by November, it was only about 100,000. If Mr. Gore had the benefit of an economy functioning at a very high level, he did not have the benefit of one growing at a rapid rate. The outcome of the 2000 election was exceedingly close — roughly as close as the modest ... Continue reading →
Financial crises are a lot like childbirth -- they both involve a lot of pain and end up costing you a lot of money. But, after a while, you forget about all the negatives and are ready to do it again. Of course, with childbirth you at least get something positive out of it. In my own case, I'd forgotten enough about the downside of having a baby to do it again two years later -- without an epidural. (My older daughter just graduated from college this week -- time flies!) This propensity to forget, so useful when it comes to having babies, is incredibly destructive when it comes to our economy. So why do we do it? In 1990, John Kenneth Galbraith tried to ... Continue reading →
Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images file photo) The ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee has called on President Barack Obama to order an investigation into the case of Clarence Aaron, a federal prison inmate whose quest for a presidential commutation was the subject of a ProPublica investigation. The investigation, co-published May 13 with the Washington Post, showed that Pardon Attorney Ronald L. Rodgers, who works for the Justice Department, withheld key information from the White House in 2008 regarding Aaron’s application. Aaron was convicted in 1993, at the age of 24, for his role in an Alabama drug conspiracy –his first criminal offense – and sentenced to three life terms without parole. Documents obtained by ProPublica show that Rodgers did ... Continue reading →
HARLAN COUNTY, Ky. -- In the middle of an April night last year, a young gay man named Kevin Pennington crawled out of the woods in the remote hills of southeastern Kentucky, looking for help. Bruises and cuts covered his face and body and he limped down the road, dragging his ankle along the asphalt, until he reached a pair of empty cabins in a clearing -- a ranger's station -- and smashed out a window in one and climbed inside. Pennington then called 911, setting in motion a series of events that will culminate next month in a historic trial: For the first time, the federal government will prosecute someone for a hate crime aimed at a gay person. In 2009, President Barack Obama ... Continue reading →
WASHINGTON -- With the passage of the Post-9/11 GI Bill, veterans became a prime target of for-profit colleges hoping to cash in on the new windfall of federal education dollars. While the schools largely succeeded, netting an outsized chunk of GI Bill tuition payments, some veterans found themselves steered into programs where instruction and support died off once their checks cleared. President Barack Obama, among others, blamed the problem on poor information. In April, Obama signed an executive order that attempts to curb misleading sales tactics used to lure veterans, and to force greater transparency on important statistics like graduation rates. But Paul Szoldra thinks that such information needs a higher profile. The retired Marine sergeant, launched a petition on change.org last week calling on ... Continue reading →
For years, online dating sites have promised that their almighty algorithms could turn strangers into soulmates. But recent research suggests that their love-engineering is about as foolproof as flirting with random people at a bar, and a new breed of dating sites are using social networks, rather than science, to help singles find romance. Online dating services such as theComplete.me and Circl.es are looping singles' friends into the matchmaking process in an effort to connect people to each other's acquaintances and keep suitors from weaving the kind of elaborate fictions that characterize many profiles on traditional dating sites. "Facebook has created a shift from online dating to social dating," said online dating expert Julie Spira. "Facebook technically could be the world's largest dating site. And ... Continue reading →
