There's a thin line between being a whiner and having high expectations. So at risk of sounding like a whiner, here's quick examination of what was otherwise an enlightening article in the New Yorker on student loans. In the following paragraph, the author is attempting to explain the causes of waste and graft in the student loan industry, which is basically a privatization scheme, with government providing money and loan guarantees, and private lenders doing the business.

This week's EPI Snapshot brings into focus who really benefited from the 2001-2005 economic recovery. Since the beginning of the recovery in 2001, the income share of the top 1% grew 3.6 percentage points to 21.8% in 2005, greater than the 16.1% income share of the entire bottom half of all U.S. households. Correspondingly, the income shares of the bottom half and the upper-middle class dropped, respectively, by 1.4 and 2.3 percentage points. As a result, the top 1% of households gained $268 billion of total income and the bottom 90% lost $272 billion since 2001.

Jeffrey Birnbaum and Lori Montgomery's front-page story in today's Washington Post, Wall Street's Lucrative Tax Break Is Under Fire is dense and lengthy (1500 words) reading. But if you're trying to get a grip on the carried interest tax loophole issue -- particularly its legal/regulatory historical underpinnings -- it's the best place to start. The crux of the article puts the case for closing the loophole in straightforward terms:

The Krugman op-ed in today's New York Times that Matt cites below rightly challenges Sen. Schumer for a transparent and actually meaningless position (the bill to close the carried interest tax loophole already does what Schumer demands). Krugman also hits the nail on the head, addressing the weird argument that industry defenders of the carried interest loophole make that if you take a risk by betting with someone else's money, a lot of your bettor's fee is a capital gain: