Pres­i­dent Barack Oba­ma won the indus­tri­al Mid­west in 2008 with a mes­sage of hope and change, but he faces a much dif­fer­ent polit­i­cal and eco­nom­ic re-elec­tion land­scape. And with key con­gres­sion­al races loom­ing in 2012, the belea­guered Rust Belt will be on the front lines of the bat­tle over com­pet­ing def­i­n­i­tions of Amer­i­can cap­i­tal­ism and plans to restore the dwin­dling mid­dle class.

The biggest blue gill I ever caught was by acci­dent, while I was being chas­tised by a secu­ri­ty guard at Ham­burg­er Uni­ver­si­ty, McDonald’s leafy man­age­r­i­al train­ing cen­ter that’s part of the corporation’s 80-acre head­quar­ters in sub­ur­ban Chicago.

If you’re masochis­tic – or have a lot of Adder­all – econ­o­mist John May­nard Keynes’ 75-year-old opus, The Gen­er­al The­o­ry of Employ­ment, Inter­est, and Mon­ey, is full of gems that shine light on the mod­ern pick­le over reg­u­la­to­ry reform and ide­o­log­i­cal direction.