via nytimes.com | OP-ED COLUMNIST | The President Surrenders | By PAUL KRUGMAN

"A deal to raise the federal debt ceiling is in the works. If it goes through, many commentators will declare that disaster was avoided. But they will be wrong.

For the deal itself, given the available information, is a disaster, and not just for President Obama and his party. It will damage an already depressed economy; it will probably make America’s long-run deficit problem worse, not better; and most important, by demonstrating that raw extortion works and carries no political cost, it will take America a long way down the road to banana-republic status. (...)" continue...

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Betty Ford dies at 93; former first lady | The wife of President Gerald R. Ford drew on her own experience with addiction in founding famed rehabilitation clinic.
via latimes.com

BETTY FORD 1918-2011 | Betty Ford, Former First Lady, Dies at 93
via nytimes.com

Betty Ford dies at 93: Former first lady founded iconic clinic
via washingtonpost.com

Betty Ford ist tot | Die Frau ohne Tabus | Von Marc Pitzke, New York
via spiegel.de

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Hiroshima: Ground Zero 1945 | International Center of Photography | This exhibition includes approximately 60 contact prints drawn from a unique archive of more than 700 photographs in the collection of the International Center of Photography. MAY 20–AUGUST 28, 2011.

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"Just last week, for example, the McKinsey Global Institute, the research arm of the consulting firm, released a study estimating that the country needs 21 million additional jobs by 2020 to reduce the unemployment rate to 5 percent. The study (see PDF) was skeptical that this would happen. Ugh. Pessimism and slow growth become a vicious cycle.

Battered confidence most obviously reflects the ferocity and shock of the financial collapse and the ensuing recession, including the devastating housing collapse. But there’s another, less appreciated cause: disillusion with modern economics."

via Hunkered-down America · newsweek.com

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