al-mofhariz

Elizabeth Warren As some of you know, I am very interested in the various occupy movements that, until recently, were going on all over the country. (Occupy Boston remains in place, as does, by the way, Occupy Harvard.) I sympathize with the general feeling of frustration, and I think it's worth trying to figure out how to express some of those sentiments in a more rigorous way. Elizabeth Warren, who is currently running for Senate in Massachusetts, must be one of the smartest people in politics. I recently watched a clip of an interview she did with Charlie Rose in which she makes a very compelling argument that's worth thinking about in historical perspective. Warren basically says that although she agrees the 2008/09 bailout of several large banks, AIG, as well as GM and Chrysler were necessary, it was not executed the right way. The question she poses is this: was the bailout designed to preserve particular institutions, or to preserve the US Economy? "What we did whe...

Oakland Police Arresting a Protestor, from the NY Times website. According to the NY Times and the Oakland Tribune , about 1,000 protesters clashed with Oakland police on Tuesday night.  The catalyst appears to have been a decision to clear members of “Occupy Oakland” from Frank Ogawa Plaza, where they had been camped out for some time.  What’s remarkable about this story is the level of violence that appears to have been involved.  The NY Times piece includes a number of graphic videos and photos of injuries that protestors sustained at the hands of riot police.   This post is not about science, but there is a historical component to the story.  I was immediately struck watching these videos by how differently things played out in Oakland (and, also, Atlanta) than they have in New York, where the city has allowed members of “Occupy Wall Street” to remain in Zuccotti Park.  The New York Times makes an interesting point, which I’ll quote here:  “At a ...