Free Republic

The second comes from The Atlantic’s Emma Green. Detailing the findings of a survey conducted by her magazine and the Public Religion Research Institute, she notes that 61 percent of white working-class men view college as a “risky gamble.” Green’s report contained this explanation: “The enduring narrative of the American dream is that if you study and get a college education and work hard, you can get ahead,” said Robert P. Jones, the CEO of PRRI. “The survey shows that many white working-class Amer­icans, especially men, no longer see that path available to them. . . . It is this sense of economic fatalism,...

SEIU Healthcare 775NW is hiring a Lead internal organizer to lead a team of eight organizers who are focused on leadership development, the “Leaders In Action” field team, working with public and private sector home care workers. This team develops leaders and builds networks to take action in a variety of campaigns.

People do stupid things all the time and they do them in all geographic regions, but as any regular viewer of Comedy Central’s "Tosh 2.0" can tell you, there does seem to be an uncanny correlation between certain regions of the country and the kind of risk-taking behavior that could get you seriously hurt or even killed. That’s the premise of a new study out today in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science. The three authors, all from the University of Oklahoma, found that states with a “culture of honor” –- in the South, and the West, mainly --...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Robert Rubin, the former financial superstar once lionized for his global crisis-fighting prowess, was scolded Thursday over the mortgage-securities disaster at Citigroup Inc. when he was a top executive there. His claim he didn't know of the risks piling up drew a sharp retort. "You can't have it both ways: You either were pulling the levers or asleep at the switch," the head of the panel investigating the roots of the financial crisis told Rubin at a hearing. Rubin expressed regret. Yet he insisted he didn't know until late in the game, when the subprime mortgage crisis...

Pursuit of an Edge, in Steroids or Stocks By ROBERT H. FRANK ASSET bubbles like the one that caused the current economic crisis have long plagued financial markets. But like hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico, these disasters have been occurring with increasing frequency. If we want to prevent them, we must first understand their cause. It isn’t simply “Wall Street greed,” which Senator John McCain has blamed for the crisis. Coming from Mr. McCain, a longtime champion of financial industry deregulation, it was a puzzling attribution, squarely at odds with the cherished belief of free-market enthusiasts everywhere that unbridled...

snip..."One day's discussion revolved around the quality and durability of our security analysis. Could the lack of new names over the last year mean either that our appraisals were too conservative or that we had too few people looking? To help answer the question we identified the best businesses we would love to own around the globe from a qualitative perspective, divided those among the research team, and did fresh appraisals. Our list came to around 200 names, and interestingly, we found that they were trading on average at approximately 100% of value. This exercise led to several conclusions. First,...

Crawford, Texas - President Bush plunged down hills and plowed through the brush on his high-end, high-performance mountain bike today - and wound up flat on his back. A bit shaken up, Bush dusted himself off, got back on his bike and kept rolling, a small cut on his knee and dirt on his back the only signs he had wrecked. With an Associated Press reporter along for the ride, Bush tore around his 1,600-acre Texas ranch today. A one-time jogger, Bush has been riding the knobby-tired bikes only since February, but he rides with abandon. He went biking today...