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For the virgin time, Amazon, which began in the books business but has steadily diversified in recent years, has sold more of other products than Cold Digital Rivers Amazon - Not Just For The Books Anymore
As big dig holes leak taxpayer dollars by the gallon, as Halliburton overbills the Pentagon by millions, as Enron CEOs go to jail for defrauding stockholders, and as HMOs provide less and less health care for higher and higher fees, it is time to reexamine that great myth spawned by the Reagan revolution: the myth of privatization. How on earth can socialisation of loses and privatisation of profit, Greed and Altruism coexist? The Public Cost of Privatization

Invisible Hands & Political Markets: Taxing Times
If you haven't seen it, a House Appropriations Committee staffer, Richard E. Efford, has stepped forward to take responsibility for the Istook Amendment. His boss is Rep. Istook. But he says he never ran it past the congressman -- at least not until it was too late to do anything about it. Sleepless nights and the agonies of the appropriations process are to blame, we're told, not bad intentions. The Post has an interview with Efford and the details of his story.
A mid-level House aide said yesterday that he was the one who, during last month's drafting of a huge spending bill, added a provision that could give staffers on the House and Senate appropriations committees broad access to Americans' tax returns. A A good Winston Churchill saying: We contend for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle.
• Aide takes blame for tax return provision [Most people in government generally want to do the right thing, but it's very easy in bureacratic circles for people to get caught in the thick soup of their colleagues and, hampered by a lack of imagination, fail to see all the public implications of what they are proposing. Taxing times ]
• · Slashed rail needs to recruit drivers; [Sydney 1995-2007 and God willing beyond: Many trains left with briefcases, shopping bags and even bodies protruding from the doorways. At Wynyard, harassed railway police moved up and down the platforms pleading with dense crowds to keep back from the lines It is when we struggle we become one: Back to the Future of 70s ]
• · · California home buyers are catching Sydney disease as the median household income in California is $52,940 and $55,370 short of the $108,310 qualifying income needed to buy a median-priced, single-family home during the same period, the analysis by the California Association of Realtors found Absurd Six-figure salary needed to afford median-price Calif home Median price of $462,510 ; [Landlord/renter: Master/Slave ]
• · · · Blogger Boris's column in the Daily Telegraph touches on his recent sacking experience. He recommends getting humiliatingly sacked as a means of awakening a new compassion, in friend and foe alike. He refers to the tens of thousands across Britain who sadly face the loss of their jobs, through no fault of their own. There is too much political correctness and a massive transfer of wealth has taken place from the productive to the non-productive sectors of the economy. Trust me, being sacked isn't all bad ; [People might say he or she is charismatic, high profile or 'gets things done'. We have a whole series of euphemisms for the individual who may be self centred, grandiose, lacking in empathy and does not give a damn about everybody else Spotting psychopaths at work]
• · · · · "We had a source inside", former top ranking Russian spy Trust and Betrayal
• · · · · · Bill Clinton: A place in history