If economics were a science, professors would sic their grad students on a paper by Casey Mulligan explaining that the minimum wage hike in 2009 cost 800,000 jobs.

I’m not going to act like an economist and claim to be “surprised” that folks are spinning various education pieces today. No, I am not at all surprised that it is happening, but I am a little frustrated when I see something like this from today’s (Sunday May 22) NY Times where the headline uses “grassroots” and “Bill Gates” together. The idea of anything funded from the coffers of a billionaire being considered “grass roots” is beyond ludicrous.

Apparently the Beltway Village Idiots Pundits are anxious to stop writing all those bummer articles about the un and underemployed and the destruction of the global economy. I guess it’s just too Debbie Downer for them. So they’ve started the “Everything’s Getting Better” articles.

John Dewey thinks that the power of unbridled wealth is that it crushes the individual. That happened under the military power of Kings and Emperors, and it happens in democratic societies when economic wealth dominates politics and ideology.