Generic Democratic Candidate

Five Things You Need to Read Today

1. The Gods of the Copybook Headings

In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all, By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul; But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy, And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "If you don't work you die."

Astute readers will recognize this verse from Kipling's poem, "The Gods of the Copybook Headings," in which the "copybook headings" represented basic truths that ought to be common sense, but which are often pushed aside in favor of wishful thinking and the extravagant promises of demagogues.

I thought of this poem again recently when I read a summary of a study whose results are so obvious, they sound like a dictum from the Gods of the Copybook Headings.

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