I recently received a letter from one of my credit card companies announcing an increase in my standard interest rate to 29.9%.  Venture capitalists and private equity partners pay a 15% long term capital gains tax on their earned income, far less than the effective rates of most middle income earners.  Wall Street bankers make stupendous incomes in transaction fees on financial engineering with either no value, or at least as much potential for negative effect as positive.  Sometimes I wonder, "where's the outrage?"
 
I deeply admire Barack Obama's thoughtfulness, and his willingness to engage us on complicated issues with subtle thinking rather than mindless bumper sticker slogans.  But I must say, sometimes I wonder if there isn't a place for populist outrage. Behavior and inequities like these are truly outrageous; if our leadership fails to provide an outlet for that outrage, the powerless rage that people feel about an unfair system may be channeled towards darker angers, or left to fester, subject to the manipulation of xenophobic, racist, or nationalistic tyrants.
 
Well I got that off of my chest.  What does it have to do with McCormack Graduate School?  We are about policy studies, teaching how to analyze problems, design and evaluate solutions, and remedy inequities that we see in our economic, social and political system.  Among other things, we watch and discuss and think about the policy world around us.

 

Now to more mundane matters:

Steve Crosby, Dean