Tackling some of the big issues
Economic inequality, extremes in the local economy and the need for middleclass jobs were the issues at hand for three sharp critics at a session moderated by Times columnist Steve Lopez.
Matt Taibbi gained fame when, in covering the 2008 financial crisis for Rolling Stone, he compared executives for Goldman Sachs to “a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money.”
In writing “The Divide: American Injustice in the Age of the Wealth Gap,” Taibbi found that the government crafted settlements so banks could stay profitable and executives could keep their jobs while less wealthy citizens facing infractions can face fines, court appearances and even jail time.
In his new book, “Our Kids,” Harvard professor Robert D. Putnam documented a level of sociological segregation in America that he calls “a virtual apartheid.” He compared high schools in Fullerton and Santa Ana, a mere 10 miles apart. “On paper, they look extraordinarily similar, with the same dollars spent per kid, the same studentteacher ratio, the same number of counselors, and the same physical plant,” Putnam said.
“But the kids [in Fullerton] are rich kids, coming from well-to-do backgrounds, and when they come to school they bring their parents’ expectations, resources, a lot of extras. When the kids come to school in Santa Ana, they bring … experiences with abuse and homicidal gang violence.”
USC law professor Edward D. Kleinbard, meanwhile, described the mountains of “depressing data” he used to write “We Are Better Than That,” which seeks to reframe the conversation about taxing into one about spending, about need the need for a smarter government to restore the social safety net, and how all of this serves to end what he calls a “shameful inequality.”