Harold Meyerson at the Washington Post instructs us as to "Why Salaries Don't Rise." Long story short: corporations direct more of their earnings to shareholders than to investing in equipment or workers, and a lot of the biggest shareholders are barely emotionally invested in their corporations given the lightning-quick pace of stock trades these days. But that sounds like stuff a 91% tax on millionaire income could fix.
Noelle Sedor at the Los Angeles Times says a "fee and dividend" system would be better than a cap-and-trade system at reducing climate change. She says Republicans would like it, too, which is rather optimistic -- the only thing Republicans "like" is whatever their richest corporate paymasters like. And remember that once upon a time cap-and-trade was "the option Republicans would like," so I'm going to stay a regulate-and-punish man, myself.
Michael Klare at TomDispatch wonders: "Is Big Oil Finally Entering a Climate Change World?" The oil corporations have, over the last dozen or so years, embarked on a "production-maximizing" strategy, requiring them to drill for oil in more difficult places (shale, offshore, Iraq) -- but now, faced with (at the least) a slowed acceleration in demand for oil, oil corporations may have to accept that crude oil prices won't justify such drilling. I wouldn't underestimate the ability of the far-too-powerful to make us all pay buku bucks for oil again, though.
13 Democratic Senators introduce a bill that would allow folks to discharge their privately-held student loans in bankruptcy proceedings. Because, as you may remember, the 2005 bankruptcy "reform" law doesn't allow you to do that. The bad news? Private student loans account for a mere 15% of all student loans. The good news? President Obama may be able to change that on his own, without having to run to Mega-Awesome Godlike President of Gigundis America Mitch McConnell for permission.
San Diego man is about to become the first person ever prosecuted under a California law barring willful transmission of HIV. I'm the kind of person who generally thinks whatever two adults consent to do in the bedroom is none of my business, but not if you're trampling on someone else's rights, and giving people HIV without telling them certainly tramples on their rights.
Finally, a Straight Dope reader asks whether Dr. Mengele produced any "useful" medical research in the tortuous "experiments" he carried out on concentration camp victims. You'd expect something good to come even of the worst evil, but Dr. Mengele's studies were "overly concerned with efficient methods of killing people" and "tainted by racial bias and the use of atypically unhealthy subject groups." Peacetime lab work using brains of concentration camp victims did yield results in re neurological disorders, but that doesn't mean we tolerate evil, ever.
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