Fast Track to Inequality - NYTimes.com

Bob Herbert has an op-ed at the New York Times titled Fast Track to Inequality, where he reviews a new book, Winner-Take-All Politics: How Washington Made the Rich Richer — and Turned Its Back on the Middle Class, by Jacob Hacker of Yale and Paul Pierson of the University of California, Berkeley,

"“Over the last generation,” the authors write, “more and more of the rewards of growth have gone to the rich and superrich. The rest of America, from the poor through the upper middle class, has fallen further and further behind.”

See also:

Income Inequality is the Cancer of the American Economy : WSJ Errs in Trying to Exculpate Bush Tax Cuts as a Major Cause of Federal Deficits

The Causes of the Recession and Government Deficits : A Reply to a LawPundit Posting and Our Rebuttal

Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in Selected World Countries per capita in U.S. Dollars at Current Prices 2009 - Source: IMF Chart Generator as adapted by LawPundit | Denmark Leads the Normal World in Income Equality

Income Equality Best in Europe : USA Lags Behind : Robert Paterson's Weblog: EconomPic: Income - Destruction of the Middle Class

Legal and Economic Depravity Reaches a New Low in the United States: A Very Sick Legal and Economic System in America Now Hiring Lawyers for No Pay

Drug Laws: Legalizing the Recreational Use of Marijuana Rejected in California as Proposition 19 is Defeated by Votes of Moderate Voters

John Hoeffel at the Los Angeles Times reports in Youth vote falters; Prop. 19 falls short that:

"After taking a serious look at legalizing marijuana, Californians voted Tuesday to reject Proposition 19, which would have made the state the first to allow the drug to be sold for recreational use."

USA Justice Department Intelligently Shifts Stance on Gene Patents, Finding they Should Not Be Patentable

Andrew Pollack at the New York Times in Gene Patent Ruling Is Criticized by Industry refers to a major shift at the U.S. Justice Department (bravo!), now rejecting gene patents:

"[T]he Justice Department declared in a court filing late Friday that genes should not be eligible for patents because they are products of nature...."

In the article, those who support gene patents are quoted as describing their opponents in personally derogatory terms rather than sticking professionally to the legal issues, which are substantial, and which find the Justice Department in the right in shifting their legal stance on this important legal question.

Patents protect "inventions" by humans, whereas genes are inventions of the Almighty, thank you.

The idea that someone thinks they should be able to patent one of my or your genes is abhorrent and contrary to the logic of the law, which forbids the ownership of persons by others, and that, my fellow commentators, applies also to the parts out of which the human being is made.

No slaves are allowed by the U.S. Constitution.

Also no gene slaves.

Go make your money elsewhere.

Ted Sorensen Passes Away: An Important Figure of the 20th Century

Ted Sorensen, Top JFK Aide, Dies at 82 - TIME

May this great man rest in peace.

I had the pleasure to work with fellow Nebraskan, Ted Sorensen, briefly on an intellectual property project while I was an associate straight out of Stanford Law School at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, an international law firm headquartered in New York City, where Ted was a partner and I one of numerous young associates.

He led an important life, especially in the John F. Kennedy days in the White House, when a possible nuclear war was timely averted, in part, surely, through Sorensen's help.

Among other things, he wrote many speeches for JFK in collaborative projects with JFK and others and he probably would have been pleased to see the following quotation passed on, especially in today's day and age, where many Americans in their personal greed have lost sight of the moral values that made America great:

"— "If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich."

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,2028509,00.html#ixzz14AYZmqSf