Something to Know - 10 December

1.  It's a bit difficult to find something of interest right now to pass on.  However, this one stands out.   If you think payday loans are only for those who are financially stretched who should know better, how about school districts that are really financially stretched, and have a school board that is supposed to have a collection of knowledge that would avoid a payday loan situation.  This also begs the question on the moral character of institutions that create these financial schemes, and the legislatures that allow this crap to happen:

http://www.npr.org/2012/12/07/166745290/school-district-owes-1-billion-on-100-million-loan

2.  Curiously speaking, why is it that we fail to learn from our own American history?   Secessionists are unable to live with the re-election of Obama, even though that action was proven futile by the Civil War.  Creationists still go against the science in schools, even though the Scopes/Darwin trial was held long, long ago.  Steve Lopez here:

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-1209-lopez-christian-20121207,0,2852639,print.column

3.  A departure from what you normally read here, is this piece from Bill Keller, who was the NY Times chief in Johannesburg for three years.  It is a look at South Africa, and its problems and development since its new constitution after the end of apartheid:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/10/opinion/keller-inventing-democracy.html?ref=opinion&_r=0&pagewanted=print

4.  Corporate profits are at an all time high.  Technology is slowly developing that is replacing high-skilled labor with robots.   Those at the top of the wealth chain are striving to eliminate their burden of revenue to the government.   Paul Krugman takes on the subject of these topics to begin a serious discussion as to what this means for our future:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/10/opinion/krugman-robots-and-robber-barons.html?ref=opinion&pagewanted=print 

--
Juan

"You have to surrender to the fact that you are of too many in a highly competitive field where it is difficult to stand out. Over time, through your work, you will demonstrate who you are and what you bring to the field. Just stay with it and keep working."
       -- Lisa Kudrow

"Good judgment comes from experience, and often experience comes from bad judgment."
       -- Rita Mae Brown

"A child becomes an adult when he realizes that he has a right not only to be right but also to be wrong."
       -- Thomas Szasz

"I stopped believing in Santa Claus when my mother took me to see him in a department store, and he asked for my autograph."
       -- Shirley Temple