Chart that should make parents nervous

Phil Izzo at the Wall Street Journal (here) has a chart that should make all parents nervous:

College aid just keeps on ....

I've written before about the increasing cost of college and the increasing contribution of government loans, etc.  Below is an interest graphic from the Wall Street Journal (see here).

And if you want some sense of what all that extra spending and debt means, see this piece (here).

Friedman gets it just about right

I'm not a big fan of the work of Thomas Friedman, but I think he gets it just about right when he says (here);

But we don’t tell Pakistan the truth because it has nukes. We don’t tell the Saudis the truth because we’re addicted to their oil. We don’t tell Bahrain the truth because we need its naval base. We don’t tell Egypt the truth because we’re afraid it will walk from Camp David. We don’t tell Israel the truth because it has votes. And we don’t tell Karzai the truth because Obama is afraid John McCain will call him a wimp. 

Rising cost of health insurance

Over at The Incidental Economist (see here) you can find access to one of their previous posts about the increase in the cost of health insurance (health insurance cost have risen three times faster than wages) over the last few years.  An article yesterday in the New York Times (see here) highlights the increase in health insurance premiums and deductibles.  The Incidental Economist has the following graph:

Perhaps an even more disturbing graph is the following:

OK, while I'm in the "bad news" mood, how about this graph?

So, all those "critics" of health care reform out there, what is your recommendation for this fine state of affairs?  I'm listening.

Interesting data on the sources of income

2011 - tough year!

As most of us know (at least those of us who have looked at our 401k portfolios recently), 2011 was a tough year.  How tough?  Well, The Capital Spectator (see here) has some data for us.

Interesting data on income

Political Calculations (see here) has some interesting data on income.