Opinion: In today’s pages: Bank bailouts, Manny and French sleeping habits
This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.
No one was surprised when it turned out the majority of 19 banks undergoing ‘stress tests’ needed more money. While the editorial board is sorry about their stress, it also says we need a few more rules here before the federal government shells about billions more in rescue funding.
Companies whose solvency is implicitly guaranteed by the government don’t have to pay as much for the money they borrow to fund their operations, giving them a competitive advantage, and they’re more cavalier about risk. So they have a strong incentive to become so complex and interconnected that the government will be compelled to bail them out if they stumble again.
Our relief that the flu unfairly named for pigs looks much less deadly than first suspected should not stop the government from instituing some common-sense policy changes that will help slow the spread of such disease in the future. the board says, such as requiring employers to provide paid sick time to every employee so that people in contagious phases of illness will stay home. And the board takes a moment to envy the French who not only eat more brie, drink more wine, stay slimmer and work less, but also get more shut-eye. At least, that’s what we think they meant when they said they sleep more.
On the other side of the fold, a pediatrician and a professor of education urge voters not to approve Proposition 1D, which would cut funds for pediatric medical care and preschool for the youngest Californians. Former Times columnist Mike Downey mourns the loss of L.A.’s collective baseball happiness this season after Manny Ramirez was suspended for 50 games, discipline for taking a banned female fertility drug.
He apologized to everybody in Southern California except the octomom, the topless Miss USA contestant, Steve Lopez and the dude with the cello.
And Kapil Komireddi, an Indian writer whgo specializes in South Asian affairs calls on the U.S. government to safeguard Pakistant’s nuclear weapons arsenal as well as offer the country humanitarian aid.