Love The New York Times

I never had much appreciation for The New York Times in the past because I didn't subscribe to their online or printed material. Now that they are providing all their content online for free, I can't say enough about how much I love and respect their work. Their articles are well-written; their content is presented in a clean format without too many ads; their servers work smoothly. The New York Times embodies journalism and presentation at its finest.

I particularly enjoy their op-ed material from full-time columnists like Paul Krugman and Tom Friedman, as well as regulars like economst/journalists like Steve/Stephen Levitt/Dubner, and Austan Goolsbee. My discovery and appreciation for The New York Times is still in its infancy, but it will definitely grow as I stuff myself with all their free and rich content.

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Correlation Between Taxes and Social/Economic Programs

I have always wondered if the taxes people pay correlate with the availability of social and economic programs and safety nets, not to mention the military programs that protect them. This idea comes in light of the notion that Europeans are highly taxed compared to their American counterparts, but they seem to have access to free (or almost free) education and health care while the US provides neither. The Europeans live and work at a more leisurely pace than Americans and they have the comfort of knowing that their government has put safety nets in case a disaster. The Europeans do a lot to ensure that all their citizens have comparable opportunities, and thus you are less likely to see a huge gap between the poor and the rich. Perhaps the lack of incentive to excel has stifled entrepreneurship and innovation in Europe to some extent. In fact, Europe has historically high unemployment rates than the US and the size of government there is significantly larger than that of the US....

Plea to Barack on Foreign Aid

Barack Obama has been my candidate of choice from the beginning. I have outlined a few of the reasons I support him . One I didn't mention is the issue of foreign aid. As I discussed earlier, US government's foreign aid as a % of its GDP is one of the lowest for any developed nation. Economic Aid to Developing Countries - The Stats To make it worse, much of the aid is given to two sources: Military and economic aid to Israel and Egypt to keep some peace in the Middle East Colombia, Peru and Bolivia to fight drug The tiny bit that is left goes to countries where the US has foreign policy interests. The aid is used for political leverage. Here is where Barack Obama comes into the picture. He has said that diplomacy and restoration of American image in the world would be the pillars of his foreign policy. One way to improve America's image in the world is to provide more foreign aid, particularly one that is not directly used for political leveraging. Obama promised ...

Victim of Asylum Roulette

Not too many stories resonate with me as much as the plight of legitimate asylum seekers whose desperate plea to find refuge in the US is ultimately decided by the questionable preference, judgment and mood of a single asylum officer (with some oversight from a regional asylum director) on one fateful day. That decision, according to numerous credible and through studies, depends largely on the location of the regional asylum center, the legal representation of the the applicant, the gender of the asylum officer just as much as the merit of the asylum case, while in fact the legitimacy of the asylum case should be the only relevant factor. This phenomenon has become so real that researchers at the Georgetown University law school have dubbed it the Refugee Roulette . Why am I so sensitive about this subject? My most devastating tragedy of late has been the denial of my legitimate and honest application for political asylum at the Chicago Asylum Office. When I applied believing the ...

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