Let's bring back the robber barons...I say, bring 'em back, and the sooner the better....

She was the best student her adviser had ever seen (or so he said); it seemed like a dream when she was admitted to a distinguished doctoral program; she worked so hard for so long; she won almost every prize; she published several essays; she became fully identified with the academic life; even distancing herself from her less educated family. For all of those reasons, she continues as an adjunct who qualifies for food stamps, increasingly isolating herself to avoid feelings of being judged. Her students have no idea that she is a prisoner of the graduate-school poverty trap.

Ben Bernanke has been confirmed to a second term as head of the Federal Reserve.

Although he was Time magazine's Person of the Year , Bernanke's confirmation had been in question because of criticism of his approach to bank regulation before last year's financial crisis.

The final vote was 70-30 -- a record number of votes against a Fed chairman.

Unlike previous recessions, the current downturn was not caused by Federal Reserve tightening and therefore couldn't be reversed by lowering interest rates. President Obama was correct to conclude that boosting economic activity required a fiscal stimulus.
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WASHINGTON — President Obama on Thursday will publicly propose giving bank regulators the power to limit the size of the nation’s largest banks and the scope of their risk-taking activities, an administration official said late Wednesday.

The president, for the first time, will throw his weight behind that approach and presumably ask that it be included in legislation now in Congress dealing with financial regulation.

He also would prohibit proprietary trading of financial securities by commercial banks, including mortgage-backed securities. Big losses in the trading of those securities precipitated the credit crisis in 2008 and the federal bailout.