Aram Zucker-Scharff

“Ever wonder why the economic experts never seem to change, keep coming back, despite racking up such shattering failures as the housing bubble and the financial crisis and the bank bailouts? Ever wonder why a guy like Larry Summers gets to be chief economist at the World Bank, then gets to deregulate Wall Street, then gets to bail Wall Street out, then almost gets to become chairman of the Fed, and then gets to make sage pronouncements on the subject of—yes— inequality? It’s for the same bad reasons: Because D.C. worships expertise and because Summers, along with a handful of other geniuses, are leading figures in a professional discipline dominated by what a well-informed observer once called a “politburo for correct economic thinking.””

– All these effing geniuses: Ezra Klein, expert-driven journalism, and the phony Washington consensus.

John Oliver discusses student debt, which is awful, as well as for-profit colleges, who are awfully good at inflicting debt upon us.

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You cannot get a job in broadcasting unless you are prepared to work as an intern. In most cases, you cannot work as an intern unless you have family money to feed and house you.

But then who am I to criticise Stephenson when journalism is as much of a rich kids’ game? Lindsey Macmillan of the Institute of Education found that journalists used to come from families 6% better off than average, whereas now they come from homes that are 42% richer. Indeed, British journalists, the supposed tribunes of the people, now hail from wealthier backgrounds than, er, bankers, an awkward fact that ought to cause embarrassment all round. I look at my younger self today and wonder if he could become a journalist on a serious newspaper.

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– The privileged few are tightening their grip on the arts.

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“The report claims that low- to middle-income workers have been hit hard in the capital because rents are around 50% higher than in the rest of the UK. […] Rent now accounts for about 41% of their incomes.

It warns that ‘endies’ who do not own a home have almost no chance of buying one. ‘There are now only three boroughs – Tower Hamlets, Newham and Barking and Dagenham – where home ownership is potentially affordable for two people earning that borough’s median wage,’ the report says.”

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– ‘Endies’: Employed with No Disposable Income are struggling in London.  Centre for London report says a million workers can hardly make ends meet and feel politically disenchanted.