Most read Realitybase posts in December

The Citigroup Plutonomy Memos With key quotations from documents that are being disappeared. This post has been the #1 response to a Google search for "plutonomy memo."

The American Dream died in February 1973 This post, which makes the top 10 almost every month, has graphs from multiple sources showing stagnation of inflation-adjusted middle class incomes since the 1970s after strong and steady post-WWII growth

Two hypotheses for why US CEO pay is so high Charts show that in the US CEO pay is about double that in other advanced countries, implying either that there is a shortage of talent in the US, or that the US CEO pay market is broken.

The history of US per-capita petroleum consumption will surprise you.  A graph and other data show US per-capita consumption of petroleum is down substantially from the 1970s, has been very stable since 1983 because of CAFE standards, and has fluctuated only slightly with retail price changes.

Comparative Advantage—The Unicorn of Free Trade A collection of sources and analyses demonstrating that the assumptions of classic Ricardian theory rarely if ever align with real-world conditions.

US police departments have been "Israelified" to fight "crimiterror." Federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies all over America are being trained by Israeli agencies not just in counterterrorism, intelligence gathering, and transportation security but also in crowd control. Bye bye community policing; hello police at war with their communities.

Is the New York Times editorial board adapting to reality, or is this cognitive dissonance? In August 2008 the NYT editorial board acknowledged that globalization is one of the reasons "Americans are working harder and not getting ahead," but it continues to urge readers to "embrace" globalization.

US job creation has been declining since April 2000 and is now in freefall. Discussion around a dramatic graph showing our employment-to-population ratio strongly increasing until 2000 followed by a devastating loss in 10 years of all the gains made in the previous 20 years.

The Dysfunction and Corruption of Our Healthcare System, Its Damage to the National Economy and other Basic Healthcare Matters (Guest Post) Describing a system that is destroying American business global competitiveness, that violates fundamental insurance risk principles, and that has inherent conflicts of interest preventing quality national health care delivery and cost efficiency, and proposing a solution.

The Recession is Coming! The Recession is Coming! December 2007 post with charts showing America's middle class had already been in recession for 7 years and asking if we really care about them.