Justin Katz
Tom Sgouros decries the lack of worthy investments for people with money. The problem, he’s arguing, isn’t that the wealthy don’t have the money to invest; it’s that they have nowhere to invest it; they’re holding it or directing it to safer investments. Me, I’ll take his argument at face value, because I think he…
Concerned about your business prospects in the domestic market? Well, Providence Journal business-section columnist John Kostrzewa has a suggestion: With the local and national economies weakening, and perhaps already in recession, small and large businesses are worried about where the growth will come from in 2008. How about looking overseas, especially to China? He offers…
If you haven’t already read it, the final installment of Kenneth Payne’s review of how Rhode Island reached its current state of political mire. One key thing to remember, as wrangling over budgets and state government action continues: The General Assembly’s powers are plenary and unlimited, except as those powers are restricted by the U.S.…
Disappointingly, Julia Steiny’s column yesterday takes a two-dimensional view of poverty programs: … it’s nothing short of glorious that Rhode Island has managed, over the course of three years and with a few strategic investments, to reduce the number of families in poverty by 6 percent. That’s huge. Six percent of Rhode Island’s population of…
Commenter Pragmatist notes, in response to my post suggesting the withholding of pensions to the politically corrupt, that such a law already exists. But the Public Employee Pension Revocation and Reduction Act merely makes it possible for the state to take away a pension (or reduce it): (c) In any civil action under this chapter…
Perhaps it will serve to advance the conversation about immigration if we’re explicit about the choices that we face. To that end: Carlos Avila Sandoval, the Guatemalan consul general for New England, said his countrymen come to the United States to escape the grinding poverty and a long legacy of violence and political instability at…
And things just get worse for the town of Tiverton: Three discrimination suits against the town filed by female employees in Police Department resurrect the controversy involving former Town Administrator W. Glenn Steckman 3rd and his failed attempt to fire Police Chief Thomas Blakey. Blakey was reinstated by the Town Council nearly a year ago.…
The following passage from Jonah Goldberg’s Liberal Fascism struck me as relevant to the (thankfully abated) speculation of Barack Obama’s assassination: On November 22, 1963, John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas. As if on cue, Dallas was christened “the city of hate.” A young TV reporter named Dan Rather heard a rumor that…
Part of advice columnist Carolyn Hax’s response to a letter asking about etiquette for not telling sexual partners how many have stood where they stand (so to speak) jumped out at me (emphasis added): … since dismissing people as judgmental and insecure without giving them a chance to speak for themselves could reasonably be considered…
For some light, educational weekend entertainment, give Questionaut a try. Solve simple point-and-click puzzles in a well set world in order to spur the characters to quiz you on various topics so that you may rise to the next level. Adults should find the questions pretty easy, but be aware that the makers are European,…
