- An OECD report out this morning shows that the United States isn't the only country experiencing a widened rich-poor gap--on average, inequality is increasing across the developed world. The bad news (wait, that wasn't the bad news?) is that the United States is fourth in overall inequality--behind Mexico, Turkey, and Portugal--and it has the third-worst poverty rates.
- Paul Wolfowitz, step aside and let Dominique Strauss-Kahn show you how international-finance scandals are done: Immediately after apologizing for having an affair with a subordinate, Strauss-Kahn, head of the IMF, is being investigated for pushing a family friend into a coveted internship at the Fund, even as jobs in her department were being slashed.
- Don't miss this goodie in the Wall Street Journal from Paul Rubin, Emory econ prof and unpaid adviser to McCain. Apparently, the biggest risk we face today is that a President Obama "will likely radically increase government interference in the economy" to an extent unseen since FDR. Set aside the fact that a sitting president from his own party has just done exactly that. Set aside the fact that McCain supported him in doing so. What's amazing about Rubin's essay--which is, in a direct way, an expression of the McCain team's thinking--is that he believes Americans are still more afraid of federal acronyms than the problems those agencies handle. Call me na