Ellene Schultz News Today

They are called—I kid you not—“top hat” plans. And they drain everybody else’s 401(k)s.

Whatever merits one may ascribe to the recently enacted Medicarelaw, it has aggravated, not controlled, rapidly rising Medicarecosts. Its major feature is a massive entitlement expansion, but italso embodies some bad health care policy: There is no need for thefederal government to displace existing drug coverage, pre-empt newprivate-sector options, or accelerate the loss of employer-baseddrug coverage.

As the occupy movement in the US this week shifts its attention from the shiny crystallisations of high finance to the hubs of material circulation, Chris Wright reviews Paul Mattick Jr.'s book, Business as Usual, and asks: what is missed by shouting down only one aspect of capitalism?