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Great Minds, etc. I love it when someone I admire and respect agrees with me. Today, Mr. Klein , The Washington Post’s wunderkind (he’s 26!) highlighted four NY Times pieces that I just happen to think are super. He did it in his “Wonkbook” newsletter. (It’s free and good every day!) 1. Paul Krugman’s “ Eat the Future ” about how the Republican budget slashes are “unserious and inhumane” and kind of dumb in that they hardly touch the deficit while they crush actual people (Don’t forget, they slash NPR & PBS too). 2. Steven Pearlstein’s “ It's Make-or-Break Time for Manufacturing ” about how government can help (hear that, Repubs?), but it’s also up to the multi-national corporations to stop the cancerous loss of manufacturing in America. 3. Felix Salmon’s “ Wall Street’s Dead End ” about how the market is no longer doing what it’s supposed to do, let all Americans share in the success of American companies. I’v...

And Understand America a Little Better The Big Short by Michael Lewis. I'm a little late, since it's been the top biz book on the NYTimes list (still up there close). It's been praised and berated with vigor. But, MAN, it's a killer book. When you read it, not only will you understand the causes of the Great Recession better than you did before, but you will have an insight into us human folk with another layer of delusion ripped away. And it's a hoot to boot, a fun book to read. The characters are great (notwithstanding that they are real), and the narrative plays at full throttle. Imagine, a page-turner about synthetic CDOs and that ilk! It'll put a different light on Tuesday's headline from the Christian Science Monitor, " How Wall Street uses your money to lobby against you. " Enjoy.

To Heck With the Big Guys Someone close to me was one of those victims of Wells Fargo (Could have been B of A or J.P. Morgan Chase, any of the Big Guys... ) charged $35 each for several overdrafts on his debit card before he caught on what was happening. As a college student, $35 here and there amounts to a big deal. And of course I'm groused out about how the big banks are exploiting credit card holders, not lending like they should, soaking up public funds, overpaying their executives, lobbying against reasonable regulations, etc. So we decided to take our meager funds out of Wells Fargo and put them in a local credit union. And that was BEFORE Huffington Post came up with the "Move Your Money" campaign. But I really like how Huffington approaches this. Check it out here . Chances are, you will actually save money by moving it to a credit union or a locally owned bank. art credit