Friday Links: Economic Magicians and Real Ones

An economic inequality-themed morning update to dampen your naturally perked up spirits this Friday morning, lest you be in too good of a mood before the weekend has really begun (you've still got 8 more hours).  In sports, they call that regressing to the mean.  Here at Conflict Revolution, we're just mean.

Steve and I are getting ready to debate this topic in the near future.  We've just been waiting for an opening, and with the return of Occupy Wall Street, not to mention the informal kickoff of a general election campaign involving a former private equity executive that happens to be a multi-millionaire, it may be time.  So stay tuned, readers.  All eight of you are in for a real payoff in the near future.

Here's what's on our desktops, laptops, iPads, and iPhones right now:

1) Ed Conard, a former Romney partner at Bain Capital, says that inequality makes the economy more efficient and helps us all out in the long run... and points to a soda can as evidence.  Some fascinating back and forth here between the subject and author - though I must say, in addition to my general disagreements with his thinking, I too found Conard's economic philosophy to be disturbingly indicative of a worldview where none of us are worth anything unless we make boatloads of money.  Hat tip to CR reader Mario Arthur-Bentil for the link ["The Purpose of Spectacular Wealth, According to a Spectacularly Wealthy Guy," The New York Times Magazine, 5/1/12]. 

2) Former Clinton Labor Secretary Robert Reich makes a counterpoint as well as anyone, and marks the occasion of the Dow Jones returning to its 2007 high by noting that the ratio of total income going to capital (investors) rather than labor (workers) is at its highest level since the 1920s.  I'd like to see him and Ed Conard debate ["The Tinder-Box Society," Huffington Post, 5/1/12]

3) On a related note, why tax cuts won't jolt the economy ["Tax Cuts and Job Growth: They're Just Not That Into Each Other," Huffington Post, 5/2/12]

4) And on an unrelated one, even I'm not going to deny that this doesn't look good.  Magicians?  Really NOAA?  ["NOAA pulls ad seeking magician for training event," CNN.com, 5/3/12]

5) Finally, if you're a recent college grad, and you live in DC, there's a good chance you work at one - they have names like the American Society for Surgery of the Hand, and they are the country's professional associations.  Really interesting take, I think, on how a lot of these membership organizations find themselves at a crossroads between being creators and curators, and the implication that holds for the future of managing digital overload ["The Secret Power of Associations - Revealed," Forbes, 4/29/12]. 

W.H. Auden once said that "a false enchantment can last a lifetime," so if you're a returning visitor to Conflict Revolution, we've got you good!  Enjoy your Fridays, folks.  Keep your browsers dialed for this week's roundup later in the day, only at the one and the only.