Government for the Few by the Few 4/17/08

I read a couple of bone-chilling statistics in the Times in the past two days that while scaring me more than I already am about the immediate economic state of the world, only confirm my darkest suspicions. Reading my way along with Christopher's 8th grade modern European history class this year, I was struck repeatedly by the similarities of the current state of affairs and those of Europe (and the US, and, undoubtedly, dozens of other countries I know nothing of the history of), in the period immediately before the Crash of '29 and the subsequent years of extreme Grapes of Wrath-ish hardship, poverty and suffering that preceded WW II.

• The 50 top hedge fund managers' combined compensation for '07 was 29 billion USD. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/16/business/16wall.html?hp