Hip Hop is a diverse music form with roots in R&B, jazz and poetry. It really is one of the great artisitc exports of the USA. Sadly, very little good hip hop is heard by the overwhelming majority of people, even by those who claim to be into it. The music industry bombards the public with 'hip pop' stars and chromed out idiots with even dumber girls around them. Most people's experience of hip hop is limited. It doesn't have to be that way. Expand your horizons and defy the marketing blitz krieg. Explore. Start that exploration with some Mos Def. Lyrically, he's one of the most gifted rappers out there and his message is far more complex and interesting than bitches, bling, cars , guns and the other silly stuff that most hip hop obsesses over. Enjoy.
Joseph Stiglitz's recent article in Vanity Fair is an excellent analysis of the western world's current economic problems. Stiglitz is a professor of economics at Columbia University and a Nobel prize winner . The article asserts a central tenet of modern economic theory that strikes me as elementary . That tenet is that a strong economy is based upon the spending of a robust middle class . That, historically, is what drives consumption . In America, the owners of businesses are short sighted to simply cut taxes to their own class, because their own class benefits most from a flush middle class . What they gain in the short term, they lose in the medium to long term. In addition, they condemn their businesses and the overall economy to more frequent and unnecessary boom and bust cycles in the process. The American economy is undermining its own engine of growth, consumption , in the hapless pursuit of immediate riches for the wealthiest Americans, who need the m...
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