Author Archives: CharlieE87

President Obama Urges Grammys Viewers to Stand Up Against Sexual Violence

Mother Jones

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“It’s on us—all of us—to create a culture where violence isn’t tolerated, where survivors are supported, and where all our young people – men and women – can go as far as their talents and their dreams will take them.” —President Obama.

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President Obama Urges Grammys Viewers to Stand Up Against Sexual Violence

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Is Obamacare Boosting the Economy? Color Me Skeptical.

Mother Jones

This is interesting:

Alec Phillips, economic researcher at Goldman Sachs, said in a note issued late last week to clients that subsidies from the Affordable Care Act boosted gross domestic product during the first quarter and are likely to do the same during the second quarter.

….Spending in the health-care industry was up 9.9% in the first quarter….But the health-care industry won’t be the only one to benefit, Phillips says, as subsidies will free up income for those who had no coverage before, as well as those who had insurance but were paying for it themselves.

“Overall, around 40% of the subsidies should find their way to non-health consumption this year,” he wrote.

I don’t have access to the full Goldman Sachs report, but I’m dubious about this for two reasons. First, Obamacare is roughly revenue neutral, which means federal subsidies are all paid for via tax revenue. Obamacare really shouldn’t have any first-order net stimulative effect on personal income or GDP. Second, although subsidies will reduce health insurance bills for people who were previously covered—thus freeing up income for other purposes—the individual mandate will force previously uncovered people to buy insurance they didn’t have before. This will reduce the income they have for other purposes. I don’t know how this nets out, but I’d be surprised if it was favorable to sectors other than health care.

Maybe Phillips has carefully run the numbers on all these things, and the effects are bigger than I think. There may be second-order distributional impacts, for example. For now, though, I’d be pretty cautious about assuming that Obamacare is having any substantial effect on the economy one way or the other.

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Is Obamacare Boosting the Economy? Color Me Skeptical.

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US-Russian Relations Now At Approximately 7th Grade Level

Mother Jones

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My goodness. Such language:

America’s new top diplomat for Europe seems to have been caught being decidedly undiplomatic about her EU allies in a phone call apparently intercepted and leaked by Russia.

“Fuck the EU,” Victoria Nuland apparently says in a recent phone call with the US ambassador to Kiev, Geoff Pyatt, as they discuss the next moves to try to resolve the crisis in Ukraine amid weeks of pro-democracy protests which have rocked the country.

State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said Nuland “has been in contact with her EU counterparts and of course has apologized for these reported comments”. She said that if the Russians were responsible for listening to, recording and posting a private diplomatic telephone conversation, it would be “a new low in Russian tradecraft.”

It’s possible that “Fuck the EU” might have been an appropriate sentiment under the circumstances. Who knows? I’ll try not to be judgmental here. Still, given the vast surveillance apparatus in daily use by the United States, it’s a little rich to call the Russian action “a new low” in espionage tradecraft. Unless, of course, Psaki meant that the Russians should have listened and recorded—that part was OK—but then released it a bit more discreetly. Certainly the United States would never leak something like this to YouTube. That just isn’t done. We’d leak it to someone reliable at the New York Times, for God’s sake. Show some class, people.

And while we’re on the subject of class, Vladimir, will you please let our Olympians’ yogurt shipment through? This is all getting just a little petty, isn’t it?

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US-Russian Relations Now At Approximately 7th Grade Level

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