Everything I ever needed to know about capitalism and democracy, I learned from pirates

Great (but too short) interview with the author of a new paper on pirates, where he shares some parallels between 17th century pirate organization and modern democracy-capitalism. Says a bit about the current financial crisis too.

Dangerous inequality in U.S. Cities

A new United Nations Report "State of the World's Cities 2008/2009" finds economic inequality in American cities to to be above an internationally recognized "alert level" used to warn governments of possible negative social, political, and economic consequences. Race was seen as a central factor in the economic divide.

Unfortunately the report itself is not up for free download, but media stories on it give the general idea.

This comes on the heels of the last State of the World's Cities report from 2006-2007 which found evidence that slum dwellers in urban areas are worse off than poor rural populations.