Why should we care about economic inequality?

Derek Thompson asks. I have the same question.

Important sentences

"..a VAT is neither blessed nor evil. It is a tool. We can use it to advance a larger government, a more efficient tax system or some combination of the two."

—Greg Mankiw in the Times.

"...America's not very good at dealing with slow-moving crises, even with slow-moving solutions. We're much better at waiting until a crisis happens, acting quickly, and then putting together commissions to find out why nobody saw it coming."

—Derek Thompson, Atlantic Business.

"How American Health Care Killed My Father"

Via the Dish, a brilliant essay in September's Atlantic. If you read one thing on health-care this month, read this.

"Watered down Christianity"

An Orthodox sighs:

..As we were driving through one suburb, I pointed to a particular megachurch, and told a story about how a young Evangelical friend decided he'd had enough of that place, and megachurch Christianity, on the day he was watching the Jumbotron-esque screen behind the stage/altar, and they were broadcasting "Live" (according to the crawl on the screen) from a chapel elsewhere in the building, a baptism. The whole idea of church as multimedia event turned his stomach.

My friends in the car both came to Orthodoxy out of Evangelicalism. They got to talking about the praise-and-worship music they left behind. I, who have no experience of Evangelicalism, mentioned something a young Evangelical in Colorado wisecracked to me: that she is pretty fed up with "all this 'I want to make out with my boyfriend Jesus' music." Her point was that too much of the Evangelical worship experience was about building an intensely emotional bond with Jesus Christ. It seemed disordered to her. A former Evangelical who was part of that conversation told me that if I listen closely to the lyrics of many of those praise-and-worship songs, I'll hear a constant refrain of Self. E.g., "Here I stand at the Cross, Lord..." "Jesus, you do so much for me..." "I, I, I, me, me, me."

Though I took the reverse route and bailed from evangelicalism to atheism, this critique certainly fits my experience. Evangelicals are obsessed with their "personal relationship". It's exactly like having an imaginary boyfriend disorder, except with otherwise sane people taking it seriously and making fools of themselves at group worship events.

(via Conor)

Oy vey

Mankiw riddles:

What market has 80,000 potential consumers each demanding one unit, 300,000,000 potential producers each capable of supplying one unit, and a shortage nonetheless? Click here for the answer.