Ever since I started covering politics, the Democratic ruling class has been driven by one fantasy: that voters will get so furious at people with M.B.A.’s that they will hand power to people with Ph.D.’s. The Republican ruling class has been driven by the fantasy that voters will get so furious at people with Ph.D.’s that they will hand power to people with M.B.A.’s. Members of the ruling class love populism because they think it will help their section of the elite gain power.
—
David Brooks - The Populist Addiction - NYTimes.com
It’s been a while since I’ve quoted the prescient David Brooks. I think he’s more the PhD type with a not-so-secret crush on MBA’s.
The best way to counter the Tea Party movement, which is all about stopping things, is with an Innovation Movement, which is all about starting things.
— Op-Ed Columnist - More (Steve) Jobs, Jobs, Jobs, Jobs - NYTimes.com (via fred-wilson)
How to disrupt Wall Street by @cdixon - chris dixon's blog →
There would be so much more disruption here if the financial bailout didn’t unfold the way it did… In any case, yes, for far too long financial innovation has meant creating additional layers of obfuscation (e.g. ever more complex securities and ways to lever up) to make it more difficult for normal folk to realize just how they’re getting taken; we need the good kind of financial innovation.
In the past decade, media businesses, from music to newspapers, have suffered from the impact of unbundling. Civil wars in the cable business make it likely that it’ll be next
— Why cable companies bundle their channels : The New Yorker
Those are 56 words spent allowing Jesse M. Brill to restate the author’s point. Yet I, for one, have never heard of Jesse M. Brill before. He may be a fine fellow. But I have no particular reason to trust him, and he has no particular reason to need my trust. The New York Times, on the other hand, does need my trust, or it is out of business. So it has a strong incentive to earn my trust every day (which it does, with rare and historic exceptions). But instead of asking me to trust it and its reporter about the thesis of this piece, The New York Times asks me to trust this person I have never heard of, Jesse M. Brill.
—
Cut This Story! - The Atlantic (January/February 2010)
Michael Kinsley decries traditional news media and restates his advocacy for embracing opinion journalism head on (as many bloggers do). This article was a nice restatement, but his real tour de force came in his 2006, “The Twilight of Objectivity: How opinion journalism could change the face of news.” Definitely worth a read.
the important thing looking forward is to stop listening to financiers about financial reform
