Tag Archives: corruption

Chart of the Day: Here’s Who’s Defaulting on Student Debt

by MarkoBurhop Posted on February 24, 2015

Mother Jones

Alex Tabarrok passes along the chart on the right, which shows the default rate on student loans. What it shows is surprising at first glance: the highest default rates are among students with the lowest debt, not the highest.

But on second glance, this isn’t surprising at all. I’d suggest several good reasons to expect exactly this result:

The very lowest debt levels are associated with students who drop out after only a year or so. They have the worst of all worlds: only a high school diploma and a low-paying job, but student debt that’s fairly crushing for someone earning a low income.
The next tier of debt is likely associated with students at for-profit trade schools. These schools are notorious for high dropout rates and weak job prospects even for graduates.
The middle tier of debt levels is probably associated with graduates of community colleges and state universities. Graduates of these schools, in general, get lower-paying jobs than graduates of Harvard or Cal.
Conversely, high debt levels are associated with elite universities. Harvard and Cal probably have pretty high proportions of students who earn good incomes after graduation.
The highest debt levels are associated with advanced degrees. The $50,000+ debt levels probably belong mostly to doctors, lawyers, PhDs, and so forth, who command the highest pay upon graduation.

A commenter suggests yet another reason for high default levels at low levels of debt: it’s an artifact of “students” who are already deep in debt and are just looking for a way out: “The word is out if you have bad credit and are desperate for funds just go to a community college where tuition is low and borrow the maximum….Want the defaults to go down — stop lending to students that have a significant number of remedial courses their 1st and 2nd terms at a college where tuition is already low.”

If you’re likely to complete college, student loans are a good investment. But if you’re right on the cusp, you should think twice. There’s a good chance you’ll just end up dropping out and you’ll end up with a pile of student loans to pay back. If you’re in that position, think hard about attending a community college and keeping student loans to the minimum you can manage.

And try majoring in some field related to health care. Occupations in health care appear to have a pretty bright future.

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Chart of the Day: Here’s Who’s Defaulting on Student Debt

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Quote of the Day: "I am coming after you with everything I have."

by BettyWhitefoord Posted on February 24, 2015

Mother Jones

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From Bill O’Reilly, to a reporter who called to ask about a Mother Jones report that he had wildly exaggerated his coverage of the Falklands War:

During a phone conversation, he told a reporter for The New York Times that there would be repercussions if he felt any of the reporter’s coverage was inappropriate. “I am coming after you with everything I have,” Mr. O’Reilly said. “You can take it as a threat.”

Charming, as always. And once again, this is the difference between O’Reilly and Brian Williams. O’Reilly and Fox News will never admit any wrongdoing, and will fight back with everything they’ve got. There will be no six-month suspension for Bill O’Reilly.

Will it work? Probably yes. After all, O’Reilly is paid to be a windbag, so the fact that he’s exaggerated some stuff on his personal resume seems like it’s just part of the package. Still, I admit that this episode is getting a lot more attention than it was when I first commented on it. The fact that the New York Times is covering it on its front page is proof of that. So maybe it’s going to hurt O’Reilly more than I thought. Stay tuned.

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Quote of the Day: "I am coming after you with everything I have."

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The NSA Has Access to Your Cell Phone’s Encryption Key. And Everyone Else’s Too.

by TobiasKethel Posted on February 20, 2015

Mother Jones

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The surveillance state, it turns out, is even bigger and badder than we thought. Previously, the story from the NSA has been: yes, we have access to petabytes of telephone metadata (who you called, what time you called, etc.), but we don’t have routine access to your actual conversations. And this even made a kind of sense: telephone companies store bulk metadata and can make it available to the NSA. They don’t record phone conversations. Besides, on cell phones those conversations are encrypted anyway.

But guess what? That encryption depends on a key stored on the SIM card inside your cell phone. If you have access to the key, you can listen in to all the conversations you want.

You know what’s coming next, don’t you? Here is Jeremy Scahill at the Intercept:

American and British spies hacked into the internal computer network of the largest manufacturer of SIM cards in the world, stealing encryption keys used to protect the privacy of cellphone communications across the globe, according to top-secret documents provided to The Intercept by National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden. The hack was perpetrated by a joint unit consisting of operatives from the NSA and its British counterpart Government Communications Headquarters, or GCHQ.

….The company targeted by the intelligence agencies, Gemalto, is a multinational firm incorporated in the Netherlands that makes the chips used in mobile phones and next-generation credit cards. Among its clients are AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon, Sprint and some 450 wireless network providers around the world.

….According to one secret GCHQ slide, the British intelligence agency penetrated Gemalto’s internal networks, planting malware on several computers, giving GCHQ secret access….Most significantly, GCHQ also penetrated “authentication servers,” allowing it to decrypt data and voice communications between a targeted individual’s phone and his or her telecom provider’s network. A note accompanying the slide asserted that the spy agency was “very happy with the data so far and was working through the vast quantity of product.”

The folks at Gemalto say they had no idea any of this had happened. Apparently it was a very stealthy hack indeed. As you might expect, there is much, much more at the link.

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The NSA Has Access to Your Cell Phone’s Encryption Key. And Everyone Else’s Too.

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How Big a Deal Would It Be If Red States Lost Their Obamacare Subsidies?

by DevonMarden Posted on February 19, 2015

Mother Jones

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What happens if the Supreme Court somehow persuades itself that Obamacare subsidies shouldn’t be available to people in states that rely on the federal exchange? Answer: in the red states that have refused to operate their own exchanges, lots of people would lose their subsidies—and most likely lose their health insurance too, since they could no longer afford it.

We already know that most red-state governors don’t care about that. After all, if they did care they’d accept Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion, which would provide health care to millions of their residents. So Greg Sargent takes a different tack today. What would it mean to state economies if their subsidies go away? Sargent’s rough calculations are on the right. Florida, for example, would lose about $5 billion per year, which would be a hit to its economy. Would that be likely to convince its governor to start up a state exchange so that subsidies would keep flowing?

Sadly no. Florida has a state GDP of about $750 billion. The loss of $5 billion would represent about half a percent of the state’s economy. That’s not nothing, but it’s close. And it’s certainly not enough to make up for the opprobrium of being thought soft on Obamacare.

So….nice try. But I think we’re pretty much where we’ve always been: it’s going to be yelling and screaming from constituents and lobbyists that eventually gets red-state governors (and legislatures) to accept any part of Obamacare that they have a choice about. It’s anyone’s guess when that yelling will finally get loud enough.

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How Big a Deal Would It Be If Red States Lost Their Obamacare Subsidies?

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Scott Walker’s Tax Cuts Are Coming Back to Haunt Him

by Candelaria72B Posted on February 19, 2015

Mother Jones

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Via Ed Kilgore, this might prove to be Scott Walker’s biggest Achilles’ heel:

Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, facing a $283 million deficit that needs to be closed by the end of June, will skip more than $100 million in debt payments to balance the books thrown into disarray by his tax cuts.

….“They need some cash,” said Todd Berry, president of the Wisconsin Taxpayers Alliance, a nonpartisan research group that examines taxes and government spending. “This is kicking the can down the road.”

For the time being, this is probably not a big deal. Walker says he’s just “restructuring” the state’s debt, and that will probably wash for now. But there’s no question that Walker’s tax cut zealotry puts him in a dilemma. If the economy continues to slog along, Wisconsin’s finances will deteriorate and Walker’s presidential chances will suffer. If the economy picks up, Wisconsin will benefit but so will Hillary Clinton. The path to presidential success often turns out to depend on the economy, and for Walker it might end up being a narrow path indeed.

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Scott Walker’s Tax Cuts Are Coming Back to Haunt Him

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Giuliani’s Anti-Obama Rant Is a Big Opportunity for Jeb Bush

by MammieBvyicahzo Posted on February 19, 2015

Mother Jones

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Here is Rudy Giuliani telling us how he really feels about President Obama during a private group dinner last night featuring Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker:

I do not believe that the president loves America. He doesn’t love you. And he doesn’t love me. He wasn’t brought up the way you were brought up and I was brought up through love of this country.

Classy, as always. But I bring it up to make a particular point. It’s unlikely, I think, that Walker will repudiate Giuliani’s comments. But Jeb Bush could—and if he’s smart, he will.

Here’s why. It would cost him some support among the tea party set, but he’s not going to get a lot of support there anyway. What’s more, he doesn’t really need it. All Jeb has to do to win is follow the Romney strategy: sweep up all the votes of the Republican moderates while everyone else fights over scraps of the tea party vote. Taking a public stand against Giuliani would cement his position as the adult in the Republican field, a position that Mitt Romney rode to the GOP nomination in 2012.

But the Romney strategy only works if Jeb is the sole adult running. Walker is trying to straddle the line between mainstream and tea party, and if he can pull it off he’ll win. Jeb’s team has to make sure he can’t do that, and the best way to accomplish this is to take a few high-profile stands—like denouncing Giuliani’s views—that Walker isn’t willing to emulate. If Jeb can force Walker to make some moves early on that paint him as a pure tea party creature, that could permanently hurt him. And with Romney out and Chris Christie looking weak, Jeb could then have the centrist Republican vote all to himself. That could put him in the White House.

But he has to go big and go fast. Denounce Giuliani in terms strong enough to get some attention, and in a way that’s likely to push Walker into making a mistake. The race is on.

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Giuliani’s Anti-Obama Rant Is a Big Opportunity for Jeb Bush

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The American Public Is Becoming Ever More Rabid for War Against ISIS

by MerissaCpo Posted on February 19, 2015

Mother Jones

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It sure isn’t hard to gin Americans into a war fever. President Obama isn’t even trying, but support for sending U.S. ground troops back into Iraq to fight ISIS continues to grow. According to a new CBS News poll, it now stands at 57 percent.

It’s not just conservatives, either. Democrats favor sending in ground troops by a margin of 50-43 percent. We’re only a few public beheadings away from two-thirds approval margins among all groups, which is something of a magic number. If we reach that point, President Obama and congressional Democrats might decide—reluctantly or otherwise—that they have to change course and send in a substantial ground force.

This would probably be a disaster. The most optimistic scenario is that Graeme Wood is right, and the ISIS folks are such nutters that they’d welcome a final, conventional showdown against the forces of the West:

The Islamic State has attached great importance to the Syrian city of Dabiq, near Aleppo….It is here, the Prophet reportedly said, that the armies of Rome will set up their camp. The armies of Islam will meet them, and Dabiq will be Rome’s Waterloo or its Antietam.

….Now that it has taken Dabiq, the Islamic State awaits the arrival of an enemy army there, whose defeat will initiate the countdown to the apocalypse….If the United States were to invade, the Islamic State’s obsession with battle at Dabiq suggests that it might send vast resources there, as if in a conventional battle. If the state musters at Dabiq in full force, only to be routed, it might never recover.

That’s a battle we could pretty easily win. But if it turns out the leadership of ISIS isn’t quite as daft and millenarian as Wood says, then the only way to defeat ISIS would be in grisly house-to-house fighting in Sunni strongholds like Mosul. We already know that U.S. troops can’t do that effectively, and neither can the predominantly Shia troops controlled by Iraq. It would be a long, grinding, disaster of a war.

But apparently the American public hasn’t quite internalized that yet. They’re becoming more and more enraged about ISIS, and they want to do something. That’s a bad combination.

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The American Public Is Becoming Ever More Rabid for War Against ISIS

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Forget Bribery and Blackmail, Job Offers Are the Real Corruption in Politics

by Roger Frost Posted on February 17, 2015

Mother Jones

This will obviously not come as a shock to anyone, but Suzanne Dovi, a public policy professor at the University of Arizona, puts together a few interesting factlets about government corruption in an op-ed today:

Political scientist Adolfo Santos has found that public officials who have plans to become lobbyists act differently while in office from their colleagues who don’t. Interestingly, they are more successful at passing the bills they introduce than officials who don’t go on to be lobbyists. Does this behavior reflect their desire to please their potential future employer or something else? We can’t tell. What we do know is that public officials who are no longer thinking about reelection are freed from the sanctioning power of constituents.

….One report found that congressional members, on average, get a 1,452% raise when they become lobbyists….Interestingly, according to one study, former staff members can generate more revenue (and earn higher salaries) than former members of Congress.

Dovi recommends that we increase the mandatory waiting period before government officials and staffers can become lobbyists. Instead of being required to wait two years after they leave their jobs, she suggests six. “A six-year wait would significantly weaken their connections and diminish their earning power as lobbyists. And that would reduce the temptation to treat public service as a trial job period, acting on behalf of a future boss rather than the constituents.”

This, of course, is why it will never happen. But it’s probably not a bad idea.

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Forget Bribery and Blackmail, Job Offers Are the Real Corruption in Politics

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A Guide to the Scandals Plaguing the World Cup

by CecilaCardell Posted on June 12, 2014

Mother Jones

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When the FIFA World Cup opens today in Sao Paulo, the eyes of the world will be glued to the action on the field—but recent developments off the pitch are threatening to steal the spotlight. From the news of strikes and protests coming out of Brazil to the shadiness surrounding the awarding of the 2022 Cup to Qatar, it’s difficult to keep all of the scandals straight. But fear not: check this cheat sheet to get a sense of the off-field stories that’ll be dominating conversations for the next month.

Brazilians are really, really mad.

Over the course of the past few years, Brazilians have grown outraged at the government’s handling of the World Cup. Even in this soccer-obsessed country, people are deeply resentful of the government’s decision to spend as much as $14 billion on the Cup while millions of its citizens lack basic services—services the government promised to improve ahead of the Cup. On top of that, at least nine workers have been killed in accidents related to rushed World Cup construction projects; activists are alleging that more than 250,000 people faced eviction threats to accommodate Cup construction and preparations; and the presence of brand-new Cup buildings has raised rent in working-class neighborhoods, pricing longtime residents out.

The streets of Brazil’s major cities have become chaotic battle zones. Tens of thousands, from the homeless to workers, have poured into the streets over the past few months to protest the government’s handling of the Cup and riot police have responded with rubber bullets and tear gas. A series of strikes by public-sector workers demanding higher wages has paralyzed Brazil’s largest cities, bringing yet more protesters and police into the streets. Subway workers are the latest to strike, inspired by previously successful efforts by bus drivers, and federal police, who threatened to strike. On Tuesday, subway employees went back to work after five days of striking, but threatened to resume the strike pending a vote. Sao Paulo, host of Thursday’s opener, is famous for its hundred–mile traffic jams, but strikes last week brought the city to a near stand–still. A scrimmage between the US and Belgium, planned for today, was called off due to the gridlock. As thousands of visitors descend on the city, another strike has the potential to disrupt official World Cup events.

And the stadiums, airports and transport systems aren’t even finished.

The unfinished stadium in Sao Paulo. Edson Lopes/Flickr

Although World Cup action starts today, and an estimated 600,000 visitors have begun to descend on Brazil, up–to–date reports indicate that the infrastructure still isn’t ready. Here’s a brief list of what remains unfinished:

The stadiums. Sao Paulo’s Arena Corinthians, which will host today’s opener between Brazil and Croatia, was supposed to be completed last year. But the roof is unfinished, and 20,000 fans will sit in seats that the Daily Mail alleged wouldn’t pass a UK safety test. In Manaus, deep in the Amazon, the stadium remains unfinished and the field is in horrible shape ahead of Saturday’s game there.
The airports. Several airports around Brazil are still not ready to handle the thousands of flights that’ll come in and out over the next weeks. In Manaus, workers, scaffolding and machinery are everywhere. In Belo Horizonte, there are muddy sidewalks, an unfinished food court and dust everywhere. Brazil’s Folha de Sao Paulo found that the airports of Brasilia and Sao Paulo were the only ones ready to handle the traffic.
The transit. In selling the Cup to the people, Brazilian officials promised 35 new rail projects—today, just five are complete. Visitors may have to resort to overcrowded roads to get to games. The rushed and haphazard construction of transit projects has also had an enormous human cost: on Monday, a worker was killed while working on Sao Paulo’s monorail. The still–unfinished prestige project was supposed to have been completed well before the Cup.

Across the board, it’s a mess of bad PR for Brazil, and Brazilians are worried that their country’s time in the world’s spotlight could become a historic embarrassment. President Dilma Rousseff’s approval ratings have slid to 34 percent, and it’s not a stretch at all to suggest that the success of this World Cup—even the on-field success of the Brazilian team—could influence her impending re-election campaign.

Bribery, corruption, and worker abuse have reached a boiling point in Qatar, the 2022 World Cup host.

Migrant workers on a construction site in Doha, Qatar. Amnesty International/Zuma

The world was shocked when Qatar won the bid to host the 2022 World Cup in 2010. Of course, there’s the weather: the Persian Gulf state suffers temperatures well north of 100 degrees—sometimes over 120—in the World Cup months of June and July. And there’s the fact that the tiny, oil-rich nation has little soccer history or presence on the sport’s international stage; it’s never sent a team to the Cup to compete.

Turns out, there may have been more suspicious factors behind FIFA’s bizarre decision. The British press have alleged that Qatari billionaire Mohamed bin Hammam paid off FIFA officials in order to secure their votes to bring the Cup to his country. Emails obtained by the Sunday Times suggest that Qatar and 2018 World Cup host Russia cooperated to help each other win bids, and that bin Hammam used his connections in business and government to bribe officials from Thailand to Germany. If the allegations are true, FIFA Vice President Jim Boyce said he’d push to strip Qatar of the Cup and re-award it to another country.

Another worry, especially for fans, is the cultural conservatism of Qatar. Gay fans have expressed concern about visiting the country, where homosexuality is illegal, and foreigners have been whipped and deported for violation. In 2010, FIFA President Sepp Blatter made headlines by suggesting that gays “should refrain from sexual activity” if they visit Qatar. He quickly apologized.

What could push all this to critical mass is ongoing outrage over Qatar’s mistreatment of the construction workers tasked with building Cup infrastructure. The long hours of hard labor in unbearably hot conditions have proven lethal: it’s estimated that 1,200 workers have died in Qatar since the country was awarded the Cup. They are almost exclusively migrant workers from South and Southeast Asia and can only leave Qatar with the written permission of their employers—a system some watchers have compared to slavery.

Five of the World Cup’s six top corporate sponsors (including Coca-Cola and adidas) have voiced concern over corruption and worker abuse allegations, and publicly back formal investigations. Blatter, in a rare off-message moment, admitted that giving Qatar the bid was a “mistake.” Qatari officials have denied wrongdoing on corruption charges and promised to reform labor laws—but clearly, they have a lot more to worry about than air-conditioning their stadiums.

There was match fixing at the 2010 World Cup events in South Africa.

While World Cups present and future are beset with trouble, the 2010 Cup in South Africa was widely considered a success and a model for future hosts to follow. That legacy may soon be tarnished, if only slightly: reports have surfaced that pre-cup exhibition matches in South Africa were fixed. A New York Times investigation alleges that powerful gambling interests paid off referees to manipulate the outcomes of certain games. At least five games, and possibly as many as 15, were targeted. While the referees giving out questionable handball calls and yellow cards are clearly to blame, FIFA concluded that some South African soccer officials probably helped to some extent.

If true, this scandal would cast doubt on South Africa’s World Cup legacy. But there are implications for this year’s event, too. It proves that match-fixing—a persistent evil in soccer—is alive and well, and not even the World Cup is immune. Billions are wagered on the Cup worldwide—over $1.6 billion will be wagered in Great Britain alone—and there are powerful interests seeking to manipulate outcomes. FIFA dragged its feet for years on the South Africa investigations, calling into question its ability to prevent match-fixing in Brazil, which officials publicly say is a risk.

A uniting thread in all of these scandals.

FIFA looks really, really bad. There’s evidence to argue that the overlords of international soccer are corrupt and incompetent; at best, they’re merely incompetent. Between insisting that Brazil and Qatar will be successes as planned and accusing World Cup critics of racism, FIFA looks plain ugly. Not convinced? Watch John Oliver’s brilliant explanation:

So, while the implications of these controversies are big for Qatar and Brazil, they’re big for FIFA, too. Some are arguing to get rid of it altogether. How the upcoming months unfold could determine President Blatter’s viability going forward. A group of prominent European soccer executives have called on the longtime president to step down. For the health and well-being of soccer and the countries that love it, that might not be a horrible thing.

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A Guide to the Scandals Plaguing the World Cup

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