I generally steer clear of US politics, the dynamics of which I understand very little.

You've got one lecture on business ethics to give to a group of people getting their MBA in business school. What points would you make? Are there any topics you think are essential? What message would you send to our new management class?

No, not the silly and childish Ayn Rand version, but the real version implemented by following Republican ideology about regulation and supply side economics. This is an older article, but I strongly suggest that people read it in full to get an idea of what's wrong with American capitalism and general economic thinking since Reagan took office 30 years ago.

In one of the greatest takedowns I have seen former OMB director David Stockman gives a huge fisk to the last thirty years under GOP leadership. Lets take a look at the cold hard facts... The whole thing is worth a read and pretty sobering... The question is who is going to pay for the hangover? The 90 or the 10.... When we start talking austerity ... Eating the rich sounds like a good idea to start... If we are all going to pay.... they should at least pay the sixty or eighty percent of the pain..... IMHO.... They will still have it better than the twenty % of pain for an average family...

These are Gulf blue crab larvae. Cute little buggers, no? Those tiny orange blobules, however, aren't supposed to be there. Turns out, the blobules bear the chemical signatures of ingested droplets of crude oil and Corexit. It's turning up everywhere along the Gulf Coast.

So far, the BP oil spill has not been as catastrophic and disastrous as feared.  Time:

Ed Morrissey summarizes second quarter economic performance.  Bottom line:  we had 2.4% growth in real GDP.  It's nothing to write home about but at least it's positive.  In an AP economic survey, experts are anticipating that this recovery will be a slow recovery through 2011.

I'm shamelessly ripping this off from John Cole, who's getting it from Michael Snyder's report in The Business Insider. As you can see, these are facts.

Pigford v.

I'm sure you've heard of the group, formed by Obama, of alleged bi-partisan elders who will "study" the debt and then encourage the population to take its needed medicine of entitlement cuts. There won't be any defense cuts proposed, nor will the commission advocate raising taxes on the wealthiest 1% (who now own nearly 50% of the wealth). It's been obvious since this group was formed that if the WH has its way, Obama will do what Bush couldn't and make a move on SS.