I could probably find one in Sumerian, but I’m sure you readers of the Classics know a better example. In a fair world, BAR authors would be highly paid journalists at national news desks:

by Kesi Foster

Higher education is an American Dream, but may become a “Dream deferred” for community college students. The banks are the villains. “The following lenders have started turning away from community college students: Citibank, JPMorgan Chase, SunTrust, and PNC. In the case of Citibank, it has stopped offering loans to all community college students in the state of California,” writes the author, a community college student. When the bankers turn their backs on struggling community college students, “does that not mean we should have no problem turning our backs on the banks when they want the government to bail them out? “

And so it begins. I expect this to happen over and over again in the coming Obama administration, at both the federal level as well as the corporate. (is there a difference?) The “excuse” that “there just isn’t enough money/credit/liquidity” will be employed to slash social program after program, and the poor will bear the greatest brunt. But interest on the debt, paid to foreign governments and the superwealthy? Oh, that will be paid. And the MIC budget? Count on that to continue to grow. Social Security? Feh, there’s still plenty of fat there that can be cut, and I don’t expect Dems to stand up for it, as they are shown the real books that the Bush regime has kept from their incurious eyes these last eight years. Perhaps it will be a ’nasty surprise’ to him, or perhaps his Crack SuperSmart UChicago Economic team will be all ready, handing over a “plan” on Day 1, in which they relate that for the Good of the Nation, the poor shall be required to turn over their first born for slavery “national service” in which they are all shipped to Dubai to work on the New Pyramids.

So Big Blue and lots of other number-inclined bloggers have been telling us all about the housing market crash, or I guess I should call it “multiple markets crash” because it’s affected banks, Wall Street, insurance and credit card companies, and a whole lot more. Been to Home Depot lately? So many looking so suicidal. I came across a term I didn’t know, and so I went off and did a little casual reading about “undevelopment.” Now, before I say anything, read this:

When I was a child I went to school in Kalemie. It was a great honour for one from our village to go to the big town and I was chosen because I was the son of the chief. My family walked with me through the forest to the place not far from here where the bus passed. I will never forget that first bus journey.” He fell silent for a moment, staring into the fire.
“I was still at school when independence came in 1960, and in Kalemie I remember almost all of the white families fled across the lake because they were scared. I came home and since then I think I have been to Kalemie maybe two times.

“Our village here, the one you are sitting in, used to have cars come through it every few days. Just a few kilometres away is one of those guest houses the Belgians built. They called them gites and they were always open for travellers coming through by car. But all of that went with the fighting.

“Now when we hear the fighting coming our way, my people and I just flee into the bush. We have learned it is the safest place for us. We know how to survive there. And when we come back, our village is almost always destroyed and we have to build it again.

“Over the years, things have got worse and worse. We have lost the things we once had. Apart from what we can carry into the bush, we have nothing. I think the last time I saw a vehicle near here was 1985, but I cannot be sure. All these children you see around you are staring because I have told them about cars and motorbikes that I saw as a child, but they have never seen one before you arrived.”  Read more