Monday, March 25, 2013

Daily Kos: Diane Ravitch calls it "the most brilliant post of the day"

Daily Kos: Diane Ravitch calls it "the most brilliant post of the day":


Diane Ravitch calls it "the most brilliant post of the day"

As she puts it in this brief post at her blog:
In a blinding flash of insight, he sees the pattern on the rug of the corporate reform movement.
She is referring to A Confederacy of Reformers by the brilliant Louisiana blogger Crazy Catfish.   Trust me, he really nails the corporate "reform" movement in education in this post.Here is the conclusion:
What I am seeing is a purposeful plot to destroy public schools, and to profit from the destruction. These folks say they are data conscious and want to rely on “data driven decisions” but if that were true the data already readily available shows that everything they are doing is having the opposite effect of what they are purporting to provide. There is too much coordination for this to be accidental, and they are too successful for me to believe they are simply not competent enough to understand the data that disproves everything they claim. These groups have gone out of their way 


KRUGMAN SUGGESTS CYPRUS COULD BE THE START OF SOMETHING POSITIVE

which is the restriction of the free flow of capital across borders. In Hot Money Blues, his New York Timescolumn this morning, he says
one thing seems certain: for the time being, and probably for years to come, the island nation will have to maintain fairly draconian controls on the movement of capital in and out of the country.
 He further suggests that if shaped properly such a move might well have the support of the IMF.  It would not only mark the end of an era for Cyprus, which had heavily marketed itself as a place people could move their money with no questions asked (as a way to avoid taxes),
But it may also mark at least the beginning of the end for something much bigger: the era when unrestricted movement of capital was taken as a desirable norm around the world.
Krugman implies this will be somewhat positive.  I ponder whether it may indicate something that implies even more economic hardship for the vast majority.Krugman provides context by reminding us that in the first few decades after the 2nd World War cross-border restrictions on the flow of capital was considered good policy, nearly universal in poorer countries, and even