Assange Arrested, Austerity, Textbooks rated, etc.

(1) Julian Assange Arrested in London: The head of WikiLeaks turned himself in to Scotland Yard, was arrested, and was refused bail. He now faces possible extradition to Sweden, which he will resist. Here's the story from the Guardian.  Here's something interesting on the charges against him in Sweden, from an Australian lawyer who had represented Assange: The Swedes Are Making It up As They Go Along. And here's an interesting blog post analyzing Assange/WikiLeaks' guiding philosophy, something that seems to have gotten little attention from the lapdog press:  "To Destroy This Invisible Government."

(2) James Crotty on Austerity on the Real News Network: What Does Wall St Want Out of Austerity and What Benefits Does it Gain From a Small Government? This is close to the topic of an upcoming Ask Dr. Dollar column;  Crotty is great--this is well worth watching (watch out for his mention of economists "drinking their own methodological Cool-Aid".

(3) D&S Author Rob Larson on the Radio: Economist Rob Larson, author of the cover story in our current issue, was on KALW-San Francisco's call-in program Your Call yesterday.  Listen here.  The topic:  Why Aren't the Banks Lending?  The other guest was Liz Ryan Murray, senior policy analyst at National People's Action.  It is a great discussion!

(4) Rating Economics Textbooks on Climate Change: From the Sightline Institute, a "report card" grading major economics textbooks on how well they cover the economic implications (and causes) of climate change.  Get the pdf here.

(5) Temps at Amazon: An article on Amazon.com's reliance on temps, from USAToday. Hat-tip to Dan DiMaggio, who wrote this piece on temps for us, which he is adapting for the print edition.

(6) What Good Is Wall Street? John Cassidy asks this question in the latest (well, last week's) issue of the New Yorker.   A nice rejoinder to those who think that the markets do a good job at allocating capital (e.g. James Poterba).

That's it for now...

--Chris Sturr