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Business Day
Philadelphia Inquirer Majority Owners Seek to Buy Out Others
The majority owners said they wanted to provide stability to the newspaper after a month of upheavals and lawsuits.
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Fashion & Style
At Todd Snyder’s New Store, the Past Gets a Workout
City Gym in NoLIta will feature casual clothing primarily, in a setting that includes elements like old football trophies and medicine balls.
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Opinion
Protecting Children From Toxic Stress
We know that trauma in the lives of children can impair mental and physical health in adulthood. We also know how to prevent it.
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U.S.
For Some, the Path to Navajo Values Weaves Through the Mormon Church
Seeking to escape the dysfunction and despair of reservation life, some Navajos are turning to the Mormons for spiritual solace and stability.
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Science
Dark Matter Experiment Has Detected Nothing, Researchers Say Proudly
Physicists based in a former mine in South Dakota said Wednesday that they had not found the particles thought to make up a quarter of the cosmos, but they took hope from how clearly they did not see anything.
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Business Day
Rise in Home Prices May Be Peaking
Other reports released on Tuesday showed that consumer confidence fell sharply this month as the federal government was partly shut down for 16 days.
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Fashion & Style
Iké Udé’: The Wildness of Clothes, but Not for Fashion
Mr. Udé’s wild choices of clothes in his images are not for fashion but a way of conveying culture, he said.
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World
Greeks Question Media, and New Voices Pipe Up
Amid the Greek financial crisis, small radio stations, magazines and websites take a bigger role in the nation’s civic discussion.
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World
Russia Denies Reports It Spied on Group of 20 Officials
Moscow rejected an Italian newspaper’s report that Russian spy agencies distributed special USB thumb drives to eavesdrop on participants at last month’s meeting in St. Petersburg.
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N.Y. / Region
For Subway Riders, Fallout From Hurricane May Last Years
The consequences of the storm, officials acknowledge, will be felt most acutely in the form of persistent service disruptions.
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Opinion
Video: Future of Farming
Mark Bittman speaks to Wes Jackson from The Land Institute, who predicted that a prairie-like system capable of providing food for humans would be viable within 100 years.
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Booming
Ducking Grief
After my daughter’s death, I try to lead a mostly normal life, but then there are the encounters that remind me of how fragile I still am.
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Sports
Newton Helps Push Carolina Over .500
Cam Newton and the Panthers moved to 4-3 and kept the host Tampa Bay Buccaneers winless with a 31-13 victory on Thursday night.
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N.Y. / Region
Confession in ‘Baby Hope’ Killing Was Taped, but the Interrogation Was Not
Conrado Juárez, accused of killing Anjélica Castillo in 1991, said that his confession in the case had been coerced, a claim that could be rebutted had the interrogation been videotaped.
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Real Estate
On the Market in New York City
A one-bedroom in Greenwich Village with a pair of fireplaces; a two-bedroom in Tudor City with a spacious kitchen; and a two-bedroom in a prewar building in Brooklyn.
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U.S.
Lobbyists Ready for a New Fight on U.S. Spending
Those representing special interest groups, including retirees and defense contractors, are gearing up to ensure that their constituents are spared cuts in new budget negotiations.Rentiers, Entitlement, and Monetary Policy
Bill Gross
is at it again, coming up with yet another reason for the Fed to
tighten despite a still-depressed economy and inflation falling well
below target. He is, of course, not alone — it has actually been amazing
how wide a variety of reasons people in or close to the financial
industry have come up for tight money in an economy that seems to need
to opposite. Many of the people making these arguments started with dire
warnings about runaway inflation; but when inflation failed to
materialize, they didn’t change their policy views, they came up with
new rationales for doing exactly the same thing.
This kind of behavior — ever-shifting rationales for an unchanging policy (see: Bush tax cuts, invasion of Iraq, etc.) — is a “tell”. It says that something else is really motivating the policy advocacy. So what is going on here? When I read Gross and others, what I think is lurking underneath is a belief that capitalists are entitled to good returns on their capital, even if it’s just parked in safe assets. It’s about defending the privileges of the rentiers, who are assumed to be central to everything; the specific stories are just attempts to rationalize the unchanging goal.
The thing to realize here, then, is that nothing about our current situation says that rentiers are entitled to their rent. And it’s a perversion of alleged free-market thinking to suggest otherwise.
Bear in mind where we are, economically: we are still in a liquidity trap, and we are very much in a paradox of thrift world, where hoarding — not spending — is a positive social evil.
What is the role of interest in this world? Interest, classically (and I do mean classically, as in Mr. Keynes and the), is the reward for waiting: there’s supposedly a social function to interest because it rewards people for saving rather than spending. But right now we’re awash in excess savings with nowhere to go, and the marginal social value of a dollar of savings is negative. So real interest rates should be negative too, if they’re supposed to reflect social payoffs.
This really isn’t at all exotic — but obviously it’s a point wealth-owners don’t want to hear. Hence the constant agitation for monetary tightening.
And this agitation does real harm. Think about the Fed’s taper talk: ultimately, I think it’s clear that it was an attempt to throw a bone to the tight-money crowd, in a way the Fed hoped wouldn’t do real harm. But it did do harm: long-term rates popped up, and are a significant factor in slowing our economy.
So add the rentiers’ sense of entitlement to the reasons we have made such a botch of macroeconomic policy."
This kind of behavior — ever-shifting rationales for an unchanging policy (see: Bush tax cuts, invasion of Iraq, etc.) — is a “tell”. It says that something else is really motivating the policy advocacy. So what is going on here? When I read Gross and others, what I think is lurking underneath is a belief that capitalists are entitled to good returns on their capital, even if it’s just parked in safe assets. It’s about defending the privileges of the rentiers, who are assumed to be central to everything; the specific stories are just attempts to rationalize the unchanging goal.
The thing to realize here, then, is that nothing about our current situation says that rentiers are entitled to their rent. And it’s a perversion of alleged free-market thinking to suggest otherwise.
Bear in mind where we are, economically: we are still in a liquidity trap, and we are very much in a paradox of thrift world, where hoarding — not spending — is a positive social evil.
What is the role of interest in this world? Interest, classically (and I do mean classically, as in Mr. Keynes and the), is the reward for waiting: there’s supposedly a social function to interest because it rewards people for saving rather than spending. But right now we’re awash in excess savings with nowhere to go, and the marginal social value of a dollar of savings is negative. So real interest rates should be negative too, if they’re supposed to reflect social payoffs.
This really isn’t at all exotic — but obviously it’s a point wealth-owners don’t want to hear. Hence the constant agitation for monetary tightening.
And this agitation does real harm. Think about the Fed’s taper talk: ultimately, I think it’s clear that it was an attempt to throw a bone to the tight-money crowd, in a way the Fed hoped wouldn’t do real harm. But it did do harm: long-term rates popped up, and are a significant factor in slowing our economy.
So add the rentiers’ sense of entitlement to the reasons we have made such a botch of macroeconomic policy."
17
Magazine
The President Wants You to Get Rich on Obamacare
The crusade to sign up Americans is getting all the attention. But behind the scenes, investors are seeing dollar signs.
18
Opinion
A Dynasty to Duck
Dick Cheney may be waking up every morning with a smile on his face, but, to some of us, “It’s Not a Wonderful Life.”
19
World
U.S. Disrupts Afghans’ Tack on Militants
Afghanistan’s attempt to gain leverage over Pakistan by cultivating an alliance with the Pakistan Taliban was discovered by the United States, which raided a convoy carrying a senior militant in the latest flash point between the nations.
20
Education
Are You Competent? Prove It.
College leaders say that by focusing on what people know, not how or when they learn it, and by tapping new technology, they can save students time and lower costs.
1
Opinion
When Judges Don’t Know Everything
Several recent cases raise questions about how judges learn what they need to know to reach their conclusions.
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5
Business Day
In Dispute Over a Song, Marvin Gaye’s Family Files a Countersuit
The song “Blurred Lines,” which was a hit for Robin Thicke over the summer, infringes on Gaye’s copyright of “Got to Give It Up,” the lawsuit says.
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Do it right.
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Automobiles
Jeep Delays Fuel Tank Recall; G.M., Bentley, Lamborghini and Nissan Issue Recalls
Jeep owners have still not been contacted months after Chrysler said it would address a fuel tank defect for which N.H.T.S.A. directed a recall.
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Opinion
