New York produced two big winners, Clinton and Trump. They may be the overall winners as a result. While they both appear unstoppable there is still more to come as the primary season winds down. And the betting money is still on a contested Republican convention so the best may be yet to come.
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Tag Archives: News
Spatters of Dragon Blood
The “Panama Papers” were a delight for conspiracy theorists, who have long contended that the global monetary system is fundamentally corrupt and that world leaders are skimming huge amounts of money off the top of it. They are, of course, correct.
But lost in the salacious details of the story has been the real business of Mossack Fonseca, which is moving money out of China. We’ve covered this story before when the official estimates were that half a trillion left China last year alone. That number, it turns out, was off by at least as much again – and possibly much more.
At least a trillion dollars left China last year through a wide variety of creative means. Mossack Fonseca’s offices in Hong Kong handle a third of their total business, moving money around the globe through over 60k shell companies at an incredible pace. How much? That’s the multi-trillion dollar question.
A Durable City
The noise of construction and the vision of cranes on the horizon has become a feature of urban life in Minneapolis and St Paul lately, at least in some neighborhoods. The construction industry is booming, and the structures of choice are large apartment buildings. The demand appears insatiable – and no one is building condominiums. It’s all apartments, reaching to the sky in large complexes of 100 units and more.
My own neighborhood, West Seventh, is one of the hot-spots for this development craze. But are these units a good idea? Is this what the city needs? Or are we simply building the slums of tomorrow, today?
The Case for Pragmatism
A bizzy day calls for a repeat. This one is especially timely, originally from two years ago.
You probably have a better idea about how to do something. But will it work? You’ll never know until you try. When you do give it a go, you may find that getting there requires a lot of compromises along the way before your dream is realized. Or, perhaps, you’ll simply give up – blaming your own inability to make it happen or blaming the world for being so darned unfair.
Both experiences are simply part of human nature meeting reality. We’re all idealists at heart, at least in a certain sense. Only a few people have the skills necessary to make those dreams a reality and much of the time they have to keep their eyes on the prize. A dream is one thing, but getting there requires wide-awake attention.
That is why an open, democratic political system can’t live by rigid ideology alone.
The 1%? Try the 31%
A lot has been made over the last decade of “The 1%”, the top wealth earners and owners in the nation. From Occupy Wall Street to the Sanders campaign there has been a call for a revolution of sorts to overthrown them and put the nation on the right path. The other 99%, the theory goes, cannot remain slaves forever.
As time has gone on, however, something strange happened to the calculus that went into describing the revolution. Those at the top of the wealth pyramid? They know there’s something wrong. Many are more than a little sympathetic, and most seem to be at least resigned to a more progressive system.
Meanwhile, genuine American fascism has risen in a boisterous and orange form. Who is the real enemy? Who do we need to rise up against? If you’re paying any attention it’s not necessarily the rich.
Barataria - The work of Erik Hare 