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The Landscape of Wall Street’s Creative Destruction

Aug 2, 2013
It’s May 2012 and we’re in Woodlawn, a largely African American neighborhood on the South Side of Chicago. The goal of the HIT Squad, short for Housing Identification and Target, is to map blighted, bank-owned homes with overdue property taxes and neighbors angry enough about the destruction of their neighborhood to consider supporting a plan to repossess on the repossessors.

How America Became a Third World Country: 2013-2023

May 22, 2013
The streets are much darker now, since money for streetlights is rarely available to municipal governments. The national parks began closing down years ago. Reports on bridges crumbling or even collapsing are commonplace. It’s 2023 -- and this is America 10 years after the first across-the-board federal budget cuts known as sequestration went into effect.

The New Pay-As-You-Go Landscape of American ‘Democracy’

May 16, 2013
Politics, 79-year-old casino mogul Sheldon Adelson told The Wall Street Journal, is like poker: "I don't cry when I lose. There's always a new hand coming up." He said he could double his 2012 giving in future elections. "I'll spend that much and more," he said. "Let's cut any ambiguity."

How the 40-Year ‘Long Recession’ Led to the Great Recession

Apr 10, 2013
If you had to date the Great Recession, you might say it started in September 2008 when Lehman Brothers vaporized over a weekend and a massive mortgage-based Ponzi scheme began to tumble. By 2008, however, the majority of American workers had already endured a 40-year decline in wages, security and hope -- a Long Recession of their own.

Back to $chool

Oct 2, 2012
It was the greatest education system the world had ever seen, accessible and affordable, a door with a welcome mat into the ivory tower, an invitation to a better life. Then California politicians bled it dry.

The Deep, Dark Pond of Political Money

Jun 22, 2012
Spending in the 2012 presidential election is expected to top $11 billion—more than twice the 2008 total. The Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling has taken American electoral politics back six decades, to before a time when corporations, trade groups and unions were banned from spending unlimited money on political campaigns.

Getting Rolled in Wisconsin

Jun 11, 2012
The results of last Tuesday's elections are being heralded as the death of public-employee unions, if not the death of organized labor itself. They are also seen as the final chapter of the populist uprising that burst into life last year in the state capital of Madison -- a "Cheddar Revolution" buried in a mountain of ballots. But a burial ceremony may prove premature.