Journalism has a special, hallowed place for stories of its practitioners' persecution.

Public borrowing is costly these days, true, but interest rates on municipal bonds are still considerably lower than those borne by corporate debt.

I think the WikiLeaks releases furnish us with an opportunity to observe the upper reaches of the American status hierarchy in all its righteousness and majesty. High-achieving colleagues attempting to get jobs for their high-achieving children. Foundation executives doing fine and noble things. Prizes, of course, and high academic achievement.

During the financial crisis and bailouts of 2008, it probably occurred to very few average people that we were entering a period of hardship for billionaires.

Markets are interested in profits and profits only; service, quality, and general affluence are different functions altogether. The universal, democratic prosperity that Americans now look back to with such nostalgia was achieved only by a colossal reigning in of markets, by the gargantuan effort of mass, popular organizations like labor unions and of the people themselves, working through a series of democratically elected governments not daunted by the myths of the market.

People getting their fundamental interests wrong is what American political life is all about.

What is at stake in the debate over health care is more than the mere crafting of policy. The issue is now the identity of the Democratic Party.