Dear President Obama,

I am writing to you (and to any other American who wishes to share in this) because I, like many Americans, want to help our country get back on track. Call it a cry for help or a public plea of a distressed citizen, but I digress.

My personal situation is hardly the worst it could be: I’m a graduate student living with my parents and partially self-funding my education with my own personal savings (I’m taking out loans for the rest). On the other hand, I graduated in May of 2010 and have worked a total of only five months since then at a variety of jobs, always for $12 an hour or less. Compared to other people my age, I consider myself to be incredibly lucky.

I did not know what to expect when I decided to go to New York on Saturday to check out Occupy Wall Street. In fact, I had only opted to go after seeing the now famous footage of police brutality, courtesy of inspector Anthony Bologna aka “Tony Baloney”(video). I had originally planned to go with a couple of friends, but that did not pan out. For a moment I was hesitant to go by myself because I rarely travel to New York City, let alone get involved in a protest in which people have been beaten, pepper sprayed, and arrested. But I decided to go anyway.

I avoided the enigma that is #OccupyWallStreet for nearly two weeks, despite it essentially taking place in my backyard. However, this past Friday I made my way down to Zuccotti Park around 2pm, to experience it for myself. Well, that is not completely true. I originally left work early on Friday, with a Canon 5D Mark II (with a 70-200mm 2.8 L lens) and Nikon D3s (with a 35mm f/1.4 lens) in hand (how’s that for democracy?!), at my boss’ suggestion, due to circulating rumors that Radiohead would be performing in the park around 4pm. I was to shoot the show, if it happened, for Sound and Vision Magazine. Those rumors proved false—and that is probably for the best.

Time was when your family could make something or buy the somethings your neighbors made, hang a sign on the front of your house and enough neighbors and visitors would walk by and step into your mom-and-pop store that you could make a decent living being a “merchant”.

New Jersey State AFL-CIO Touts
Labor Gains in Tuesday’s Election
TRENTON – Charles Wowkanech, president of the New Jersey State AFL-CIO representing one million union members, today pointed to Linda Greenstein’s capture of a 14th District State Senate seat held by Republicans for two decades as a referendum on Governor Christie’s policies and as evidence of organized labor’s electoral strength.
“Governor Christie himself said on Sunday that ‘the most important race in New Jersey was  Tom Goodwin in the 14th District’,” Wowkanech noted. “We agree. And yesterday, voters in the 14th District …

These past few months have been rough in New Brunswick, New Jersey and the North East in general. First, there was the snow, possibly the most profuse in more than a century. Dr. David A. Robinson of Rutgers University [1] says it all:
“Unfortunately, snow records are not lengthy or complete at most locations around the state, but I am confident in stating that most locations established new monthly snowfall records for any winter month in at least the past 130 years.” [2]
Then there was the rain. The …

Draine on Society

There are two forms of government economic policy: monetary and fiscal. Monetary policy is conducted by a central bank, or the Federal Reserve Bank in the United States, while fiscal policy is conducted by the Department of the Treasury and the Legislative Branch. This article will examine both forms and evaluate their relative effectiveness in promoting economic activity and growth in times of recession.

I just got off the phone with a career counselor from Syracuse University, my alma mater.  I am now greatly saddened.  It dawns on me how insignificant and undesirable I am as a candidate for employment.

With every daunting question she broke down my enthusiasm until after half an hour, it dissipated, leaving only a bitter taste of regret and tobacco.
I told her how many resumes I had sent out, how many emails I’d written, how many job sites I perused.  I told her my hopes of being employed at an …

As Of Yet Untitled

This week, I decided to explore a topic with which I am not very familiar, but which I hope to learn more about in the course of our discussions. My topic will be currency. The continued economic forecasting by leading libertarian thinkers including Lew Rockwell, economist Peter Schiff, and Texas Congressman Ron Paul are deeply concerned with currency, and warrant further investigation.

The Popular Capitalist View
With the recent announcement of the retirement of Justice Souter from the Supreme Court and the new and awkward position of Lieutenant Governor for the State of New Jersey, it seems a good time to consider issues of representation and balance of powers. These had taken shape in my own mind over two years ago as a proposed Amendment to the U. S. Constitution, but there are clear implications for New Jersey that will also, hopefully, materialize as a New Jersey Constitutional Amendment.