WASHINGTON – It’s a teachable moment, but what’s the right lesson? Already, the $2 billion-plus trading debacle at JPMorgan Chase has inspired a powerful storyline. Nothing has changed since the financial crisis, it’s said. Big banks remain out of control, gambling recklessly. If Jamie Dimon’s bank, reputed to be one of the best-managed, can get into trouble, what can we expect of the others? Government regulations and regulators need to be tougher to counteract bankers’ greed and incompetence.

MARION, Iowa – Sitting in the cab of a $350,000 John Deere tractor pulling a $150,000 Deere corn planter, Greg Carson embodies modern American agriculture. It’s capital-intensive, high-tech, efficient – and now immensely profitable. Looking for a bright spot in the U.S. economy? The farm belt is it.

President Barack Obama, April 17

“Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”

WASHINGTON – The European “crisis” is back. Actually, it never went away – and won’t for many years. The problems are so deep and pervasive that there is no easy or obvious solution. Government debt and deficits in many countries are not sustainable, but the usual remedies of cutting spending and raising taxes – aka “austerity” – may make matters worse by deepening already severe recessions. Europe is caught in a trap that promises more political and social unrest.

WASHINGTON – Would Franklin Roosevelt approve of Social Security? The question seems absurd. After all, Social Security is considered the New Deal’s signature achievement. It distributes nearly $800 billion a year to 56 million retirees, survivors and disabled beneficiaries. On average, retired workers and spouses receive $1,839 a month – money vital to the well-being of millions. Roosevelt would surely be proud of this, and yet he might also have reservations. Social Security has evolved into something he never intended and actively opposed.

WASHINGTON – Call it Richard Nixon’s revenge.

WASHINGTON – It turns out that “budget sequestration,” portrayed as an evenhanded way to spur bipartisan negotiations over budget deficits, is actually a dagger aimed at defense spending. The president and other top administra-tion officials have said the automatic spending cuts required by sequestration are “bad policy.” But they still support “sequestration” as a political tool instead of proposing needed changes that might fulfill its original purpose: pushing Democrats and Republicans into realistic budget negotiations.

WASHINGTON – In 1924, the sociologist couple Robert and Helen Lynd arrived in a small Midwestern city they called Middletown (it was Muncie, Ind.) to study and survey the place. Their classic 550-page “Middletown” described a community starkly split between a “working class” (factory workers and laborers totaling 71 percent of the population) and a “business class” (owners, managers and professionals comprising 29 percent). This division, the Lynds wrote, was Middletown’s “outstanding cleavage” and influenced work, marriage, religion, leisure – almost everything.

WASHINGTON – The emergence of super PACs shows once again that “campaign finance reform” has failed abysmally. After nearly four decades, it has achieved none of its goals. It has not purged politics of big donations, nor cured public cynicism about the influence of the rich, nor made elected leaders more trusted. What it has done is compromise basic First Amendment rights, clutter politics with baffling laws and regulations, and actually deepen cynicism.

WASHINGTON – The unveiling of President Barack Obama’s federal budget for 2013 involves two big stories. The first concerns deficits and debt, which have gotten plenty of attention.

“The past is a foreign country: They do things differently there.”

WASHINGTON – Whatever else they are, the super-rich have now become political props. We can thank President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney for this. Obama thinks he can ride resentment against the rich into the White House for a second term; and Republican Romney’s fortune, estimated at $190 million or more, qualifies him as super-rich.

WASHINGTON – For Mitt Romney, it’s the best of times and the worst of times. While his New Hampshire win brings him closer to the Republican nomination, his campaign narrative against President Obama may be unraveling. The plotline is simple: With a comatose economy and stubbornly high unemployment, Romney’s private-sector experience makes him a better job creator than Obama.

WASHINGTON – Even China? Could the world’s economic juggernaut, having grown an average of 10 percent annually for three decades, face a slowdown or what for China would be a recession? Does it have a real estate “bubble” about to “pop”? What would be the global consequences? Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner visits China and Japan this week. These questions form a backdrop. With Europe’s slump and America’s sluggish economy, a sizable Chinese slowdown would be bad news.