links for 2010-07-29

The bold new design has led to some unintended consequences for Apple as well as a great deal of heat. With the rising level of competition from Google(GOOG) Android-powered devices, every little hitch gets big attention.

While the antenna glitch doesn't seem to have any impact on iPhone sales, Apple has been called on by Consumer Reports to make more than a Band-Aid fix to the problem. This of course raises delicate questions about how Apple's antenna fix won't turn into a total iPhone recall.

I like the concept of “enabling opportunity for all.” But what does that mean in practice? Do we Federalize education? Under our current system, which is typically funded by local property taxes, children in poor communities are trapped in poorly funded schools. That’s doubly true if surrounding communities are also poor. And this gets compounded by the fact that poor families are more likely to be single-parent families with households headed by poorly educated, young people too tired to give their kids’ education much attention and poorly equipped to do much good, anyway. How do we break this cycle through the government?

George W. Bush and Barack Obama did a pretty good job stabilizing the economy and kickstarting recovery after the financial crisis began. That, at least, is the conclusion of a paper (pdf) written by Moody's chief economist Mark Zandi and Princeton's Alan Blinder. They estimate that without the financial interventions and the stimulus, "GDP in 2010 would be about 6½% lower, payroll employment would be less by some 8½ million jobs, and the nation would now be experiencing deflation."