Weekly wrap: Good news in the jobs report? + #longreads
Heidi Moore from the Guardian and the Wall Street Journal’s Sudeep Reddy recap the week in news. The economy added 203,000 jobs this month with the unemployment rate down to 7 percent, its lowest point in 5 years.
Heidi and Sudeep share their suggested #longreads for the weekend:
Heidi’s picks:
There are places in this world that only reporting, and not commentary, can take you. A lot of commentators, from banks CEOs to TV pundits, have a lot of feelings about the Fed’s easing programs. But Carrick Mollenkamp, a reporter for Reuters, gets to the real-world truth of what that means, like workers struggling financially while their companies’ financial backers make substantial profits. This is a must-read story of the real-world consequences of Wall Street and finance.
Nelson Mandela died this week, and as when any great man passes, there have been tributes both beautiful and mawkish. This great piece by Peter Beinart reminds us of the history that can get swept under the rug: that Mandela, now universally seen as a hero, was once labeled a terrorist and lawbreaker by the U.S. government. Nothing looks more misguided in hindsight. The one big lesson of his life might be that there’s a right side to history, and it’s no easy matter to identify it early and stick to the principles that make resistance to a popular idea necessary. That’s helpful to remember in this age when everyone from intelligence agencies to financial firms work hard to make their agendas the lasting ones.
Thomas Frank has a wonderful, devastating think piece in Harper’s about the real-life consequences of the minimum wage. “Let me tell you about this one stretch of Hillsborough Road in Durham, North Carolina,” he starts, and if you’re hooked there, you’ll find every other sentence just as compelling. The best part is the tone — conversational, compelling, but never tendentious or lecturing. Sit with it this weekend.
Sudeep’s picks:
The inventor of karaoke is a global superstar zillionaire, right? No, Daisuke Inoue never patented the device. His story will make you cry, or maybe sing.
Still in the realm of songs, the famous “Free Nelson Mandela” was written by someone who at first had never heard of Nelson Mandela, author Dorian Lynskey found.
We’ve heard about Edward Snowden for months. How he engaged with Glenn Greenwald, as told in one sitting by Janet Reitman in Rolling Stone, will show you how he influenced the course of spying and the intelligence beat.
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