From 1996 - 2005, for households earning more than $130,000, the cost of health coverage increased from 2.6 percent of total income to 3.3 percent. While households earning below $27,300, already paying an incredible 14 percent of total income for health coverage, saw their costs rise to 20 percent.

Source: The McKinsey Quarterly

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A Quiet End for Boys Choir of Harlem

Obama's Bad Influence

Michael Moore: America's Teacher

Taking Taxpayers for a Ride

Top Obama Fundraisers Get Jobs

F.D.I.C. Chief Criticizes Reform Plan

Federal Researchers Find Lower Standards in Schools

The State of Financial Reform: Banks Have Too Much Leeway

Small Business Faces Sharp Rise in Costs of Health Care

Senate Global Warming Bill Is Seeking to Cushion the Impact on Industry

Big Lessons From a Little Bank You've Never Heard Of

Nationalizing The Banking System

Making The Public Into A Political Force

The Arts & Economic Recovery

The Rise of the Super-Rich

Tilting The Tax System In Favor Of The Rich

Saving The Beast

Why shouldn't I work for the N.S.A.? That's a tough one, but I'll take a shot.

Say I'm working at the N.S.A. Somebody puts a code on my desk, something nobody else can break. Maybe I take a shot at it and maybe I break it. And I'm real happy with myself, 'cause I did my job well.

But maybe that code was the location of some rebel army in North Africa or the Middle East. Once they have that location, they bomb the village where the rebels were hiding and fifteen hundred people that I never met and that I never had no problem with get killed.

Now the politicians are sayin', "Send in the marines to secure the area" 'cause they don't give a shit. It won't be their kid over there, gettin' shot. Just like it wasn't them when their number was called, 'cause they were pullin' a tour in the National Guard. It'll be some kid from Southie takin' shrapnel in the ass.

And he comes home to find that the plant he used to work at got exported to the country he just got back from. And the guy who put the shrapnel in his ass got his old job, 'cause he'll work for fifteen cents a day and no bathroom breaks. Meanwhile he realizes the only reason he was over there in the first place was so we could install a government that would sell us oil at a good price. And of course the oil companies used the skirmish over there to scare up domestic oil prices. A cute little ancillary benefit for them but it ain't helping my buddy at two-fifty a gallon.

They're takin' their sweet time bringin' the oil back, and maybe even took the liberty of hiring an alcoholic skipper who likes to drink martinis and fuckin' play slalom with the icebergs, and it ain't too long 'til he hits one, spills the oil and kills all the sea life in the North Atlantic. So now my buddy's out of work and he can't afford to drive, so he's walking to the fuckin' job interviews, which sucks 'cause the schrapnel in his ass is givin' him chronic hemorroids. And meanwhile he's starvin' 'cause every time he tries to get a bite to eat the only blue plate special they're servin' is North Atlantic scrod with Quaker State.

So what did I think? I'm holdin' out for somethin' better. I figure, fuck it, while I'm at it, why not just shoot my buddy, take his job and give it to his sworn enemy, hike up gas prices, bomb a village, club a baby seal, hit the hash pipe and join the National Guard? I could be elected president.

 Matt Damon - Goodwill Hunting