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The trouble with bailouts
Megan McArdle — ... Where will the money come from to do this?  And if not, how do we justify just bailing out GM.  There is a rationale for bailing out the financial industry, and no one else:  financial collapses have brought on collapses in the real economy (ok, arguably, RBC people), while it's hard to think of a large, diversified economy that has been driven into depression by a single industrial failure, no matter how big the company. Then there's our nation's most vital business of all: More importantly, what about the journalism industry? ...

Land of the Free … For Sale?
Opinionator — ... emptying of people. Some 322 of the 443 Plains counties have lost population since 1930 and a majority have lost population since 1990. Now is the time for the Federal government to sell high-priced land in the West, use some of the proceeds to deal with current problems and use some of the proceeds to buy low-priced land in the Plains creating the world’s largest nature park, The Buffalo Commons. What would the government do with rest of the revenue? the Atlantic’s Ross Douthat has an idea the Opinionator could get behind .

Save The Hacks!
The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan — Tongue in cheek, Ross and Megan propose a journalism bailout.

Outsourcing journalism
The Moderate Voice — ... He fired his seven Pasadena staffers — including five reporters — who were making $600 to $800 a week, and now he and his wife direct six employees all over India on how to write news and features, using telephones, e-mail, press releases, Web harvesting and live video streaming from a cellphone at City Hall. “I pay per piece, just the way it was in the garment business,” he says. “A thousand words pays $7.50 That journalism bailout is looking like a better idea all the time. Cross-posted at Ablogistan. ...