The Universal Basic Income hit the Washington Post again this weekend, [courtesy of Mike Konczal](http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/05/11/thinking-utopian-how-about-a-universal-b…
Report Release schedule for May 14, 2013 at 10am Eastern.
The emerging consensus seems to be that young people are facing a debt crisis, student debtors in particular. Helaine Olen has a piece in the Guardian to that effect, and Annie Lowrey has one in
Celebrity statistician says data can help challenge common myths about the world, particularly on population, fertility and development. Claire Provost meets him
Two more posts on the topic that are worth reading
In a world where Kevin Garnett, Harold Ford, and Halle Berry all check “black” on the census, even the argument that racial labels refer to natural differences in physical traits doesn’t hold up.
David Dennis: The media seems to forget about New Orleans and any place that the middle class can’t easily relate to
Glenn Greenwald: Senior Obama officials tell the US Senate: the ‘war’, in limitless form, will continue for ‘at least’ another decade - or two
Higher education should be closing the gap between the rich and the poor. But college economics are driving them further apart
Outside the United States, the Pentagon controls a collection of military bases unprecedented in history. With US troops gone from Iraq and the withdrawal from Afghanistan underway, it’s easy to forget that we probably still have about 1,000 military bases in other peoples’ lands. This giant collection of bases receives remarkably little media attention, costs a fortune, and even when cost cutting is the subject du jour, it still seems to get a free ride.
With so much money pouring into the Pentagon’s base world, the question is: Who’s benefiting?
Some of the money clearly pays for things like salaries, health care, and other benefits for around one million military and Defense Department personnel and their families overseas. But after an extensive examination of government spending data and contracts, I estimate that the Pentagon has dispersed around US$385 billion to private companies for work done outside the US since late 2001, mainly in that baseworld. That’s nearly double the entire State Department budget over the same period, and because Pentagon and government accounting practices are so poor, the true total may be significantly higher.
