Occupy Wall Street might seem like a movement that would resonate with black Americans. After all, unemployment among African Americans is at 15 percent, vs. almost 8 percent for whites. And between 2005 and 2009, black households lost just over half of their median net worth compared with white families, who lost 16 percent, according to the Pew Research Center.

However, these numbers have not translated into action. A few prominent African Americans, such as Cornel West, Russell Simmons, Kanye West and Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), have made appearances at Occupy protests. “Occupy the Hood,” a recent offshoot, has tried to get more people of color involved. But the main movement remains overwhelmingly white: A Fast Company survey last month found that African Americans, who are 12.6 percent of the U.S. population, make up only 1.6 percent of Occupy Wall Street.

A new, hyphenated word is about to enter your political vocabulary. Say it with me: Over-criminalization.

For conservatives in particular, the word will introduce a concept both fresh and counter-intuitive — that the desire to mete out disproportionate punishment to some criminals, while highly satisfying and politically popular, is ultimately ineffective.

And not at all fiscally conservative.

...the Great Recession has caused us to put a price tag on even our most favorite reflexes. At the cost of more than $1 billion per year, one of every 70 adults in Georgia is now under some sort of state supervision — a higher rate than all but three other states. The federal average is one in 100.

“Yet despite this growth,” the report said, “Georgia taxpayers haven’t received a better public safety return on their corrections dollars. The recidivism rate has remained unchanged at nearly 30 percent throughout the past decade. "

Well reasoned and well written, a Libertarian perspective on OWS.

Australia's Perth Mint announced it has created a 1.1-ton gold bullion coin worth $58.88 million.

Ed Harbuz, chief executive officer of the mint, said artists and technical workers spent months designing the coin, which is 99.99 percent pure gold and measures about 31 1/2 inches wide and is more than 4 1/2 inches deep.

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The coin was created as part of the Australian Kangaroo Gold Bullion Coin Program, which has been making 2.2-pound coins using the same design for more than 20 years.

As anti-capitalist protesters take to the streets, mathematics has teased apart the global economic network to show who's really pulling the strings

The "raw" average wage, computed as net compensation divided by the number of wage earners, is $6,009,831,055,912.11 divided by 150,398,796, or $39,959.30. Based on data in the table below, about 66.2 percent of wage earners had net compensation less than or equal to the $39,959.30 raw average wage. By definition, 50 percent of wage earners had net compensation less than or equal to the median wage, which is estimated to be $26,363.55 for 2010.

Notice 81 'wage' earners received over $50 million in net compensation for 2010.

A group of faith leaders has begun working across denominational lines to promote the values and principles underpinning America's founding.

More than 200 pastors and community leaders gathered in Washington for the Inaugural National Faith Leaders Summit.

Not a fan of podcasts but had to listen to one from NPR Planet Money after it was promoted by the NY Fed's blog, Liberty Street Economics.  

This is the remarkable first picture taken by the new $1.3billion radio telescope sitting high in the Chilean Andes.

It shows two galaxies colliding in a view no other telescope on Earth or in space could capture.

The shot is a teasing glimpse of the capabilities of the Atacama Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array telescope - this picture has been taken using only a quarter of the antennae it will have when it comes into full operation in 2013.

The “Big Four” accountancy firms, whose complacency and dereliction of duty were major contributors to the banking crisis that tipped the UK into recession, could be getting their comeuppance at the hands of the European Union.

The headline is misleading.  Maybe there was too much dazzle but what went wrong is still a puzzlement.   Still too many unanswered questions like who drove the price of silicon so far up and then so far down?  speculators?  company insiders?  And did DOE secure any rights to the technology in exchange for the loan guarantee?  If so, will it open source them?  If it truly is the better mousetrap as claimed,  I really hope we, through DOE, own a piece of it.

Reporting from Los Angeles and Washington— It was the better mousetrap.

From Silicon Valley to the White House, Solyndra's unique solar panels left everyone gasping for a piece of the action.

Analysts gushed over the cylindrical design, so much more exciting than the dull, flat panels coming out of China. Company executives promised huge revenue, supporting thousands of permanent jobs, while a stream of state and federal politicians toured the Fremont plant, basking in what felt like the glow of the future.

Investors, convinced that Solyndra was the big one, the harbinger of a solar boom, poured more than $1 billion into the company, with the U.S. government guaranteeing 50% more in loans.

Then suddenly, the bottom dropped out last month. In a matter of days, Solyndra ceased operations, plunged into bankruptcy, was raided by the FBI and found itself thrust into a national political firestorm.

Nearly all the attention in the Solyndra case has revolved around the Obama administration's $528-million bad bet, with partisan congressional finger-pointing growing increasingly nasty. But in many ways, Solyndra's tale is one of irrational exuberance, a collective belief unswayed by blown sales projections, yanked IPOs, shuttered factories and fired executives.

One afternoon last fall at Fort Benning, Ga., two model-size planes took off, climbed to 800 and 1,000 feet, and began criss-crossing the military base in search of an orange, green and blue tarp.

The automated, unpiloted planes worked on their own, with no human guidance, no hand on any control.

After 20 minutes, one of the aircraft, carrying a computer that processed images from an onboard camera, zeroed in on the tarp and contacted the second plane, which flew nearby and used its own sensors to examine the colorful object. Then one of the aircraft signaled to an unmanned car on the ground so it could take a final, close-up look.

Target confirmed.

This successful exercise in autonomous robotics could presage the future of the American way of war: a day when drones hunt, identify and kill the enemy based on calculations made by software, not decisions made by humans. Imagine aerial “Terminators,” minus beefcake and time travel.

In case you missed the announcement:

We’re excited to announce our next White House Tweetup: a Tweetup Briefing! The day after President Obama’s speech to a Joint Session of Congress, some lucky tweeple will have the chance to come to the White House and ask Press Secretary Jay Carney their questions, as well as questions from their followers.

An interactive data base from Bloomberg,  Enjoy.  Their blurb:

As if investors don’t have enough to worry about these days, a new study says that selling by baby boomers in coming years could be a persistent wet blanket on the stock market.