'By trying to have it three ways ...'
Reader No. 1 sends in this smart piece by Harvard's Niall Ferguson on the right's economic and political choices moving ahead. Reader No. 1 adds: "I think this is what you have been urging on the conservative movement." Sort of. Anything above the intellecutal caliber of this is an improvement. ...

P.S. -- What a waste: A former math professor with computer-driven investment models making billions as a hedge-fund manager. Don't you think society would have been better served if his types had committed themselves to lasting projects like this? ... Those Wall Street bastards. Look what they've wrought.

Update -- Another what-a-waste MIT grad sounds off. He makes a lot of good points about the AIG retention bonuses, and he almost had my respect and even sympathy. Until I read the following:

I know that because of hard work I have benefited more than most during the economic boom and have saved enough that my family is unlikely to suffer devastating losses during the current bust. Some might argue that members of my profession have been overpaid, and I wouldn’t disagree.

I wouldn't disagree either. That's partly why Americans are so angry. The financial-types have been playing a heads-I-win-tails-you-lose game for decades -- and that's how the retention bonuses were, rightly, viewed. I don't like the 90 percent taxes. I don't like Andrew Cuomo's public posturing. I know the bonuses are a distraction. But I also know that, once again, the financial-types overpaid themselves for a job. They never expect to lose.

Update II -- I kid you not: Andrew Sullivan ties AIG outrage to racism, anti-Semitism etc. ... Can we at least mock a guy who can afford to give away more than $700,000 in after-taxes income -- income that he ultimately got as a result of taxpayers?  ¶ 6:01 AM