Tag Archives: jonesreader

Do Governors Make the Best Presidents?

by Adriene56E Posted on November 22, 2013

Mother Jones

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Apparently the latest hot topic of conversation among our nation’s governors is the indisputable merit of electing a governor as our next president. I don’t have a lot to say about this. Instead, I offer only the brief table of postwar presidents below. If anyone can find any reason to prefer one column over the other, I’m all ears.

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Do Governors Make the Best Presidents?

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Here’s How Walmart Could Pay Workers a Decent Wage Without Raising Prices

by SuzanneBl Posted on November 20, 2013

Mother Jones

Walmart has gotten a lot of bad press this week over news of an Ohio store holding a food drive for its own workers, who were unable to buy Thanksgiving groceries on the retail giant’s paltry wages. The store managers deserve credit for their thoughtfulness, but wouldn’t it be better if Walmart simply paid its workers enough to feed themselves? A new report from Demos, a liberal think tank, suggests that doing so wouldn’t be as hard as you might think.

According to the report, “A Higher Wage Is Possible,” Walmart spends $7.6 billion a year buying back stock. Those purchases drive up the company’s share price, further enriching the Walton family, which controls more than half of Walmart stock (and for that matter, more wealth than 42 percent of Americans combined.) If Walmart instead spent that money on wages, it could give each of its 1.3 million US employees a $5.83 per hour raise—enough to ensure that all of them are paid a wage equivalent to $25,000 a year for full-time work.

Walmart and its defenders like to argue that raising wages would require it to raise prices, which would in turn hurt its low-income shoppers. But Demos disagrees: “Curtailing share buybacks would not harm the company’s retail competitiveness or raise prices for consumers,” the report says. “In fact…higher pay could be expected to improve employee productivity and morale while reducing Walmart’s expenses related to employee turnover.”

A spokesperson for Walmart did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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Here’s How Walmart Could Pay Workers a Decent Wage Without Raising Prices

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So Far, Obamacare Has Taken Only a Modest Hit in Polls

by Dorcas8538 Posted on November 20, 2013

Mother Jones

Yesterday I misread a poll question about Obamacare, initially thinking it was about whether people wanted to make changes to the law. Today, though, CBS has a poll question that really does ask this. Here it is:

This isn’t very different from Kaiser tracking polls in the past. In the most recent one, among people who expressed an opinion, 56 percent wanted the law kept as is or enhanced, while 44 percent wanted it repealed.

So far, Obamacare hasn’t really taken that big a hit in public opinion, and as the website problems continue to get fixed I expect that public opinion will improve. It’s still early days.

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So Far, Obamacare Has Taken Only a Modest Hit in Polls

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Here’s an Interesting Wrinkle in the Rate Shock Debate

by Kailey A. Aitkin Posted on November 16, 2013

Mother Jones

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Here’s an email from a reader in California with an interesting wrinkle on the rate shock debate:

I’m self employed, with individual health insurance coverage, and my family is one of those whose current health insurance policy is being canceled and whose premium will rise once we purchase insurance on the CA exchange. But it’s not as simple as that. We signed up for our current policy in November 2011 (therefore no grandfathering) and the premium was substantially lower than the policy we had prior to that. In hindsight, I’m guessing that the premium for that newly introduced plan was so low because the insurance company knew it would have to be canceled in 2014. So, they weren’t going to incur a lot of losses or have to make provisions for a long claims tail.

The premium for our new insurance, purchased from the exchange, is going to be about what our original (pre-2011) policy premiums would have been now, allowing for the usual annual premium increases. So, yes, we’re having to move from cheaper to more expensive insurance. On the other hand, it’s very likely that the cheaper policy would never have been available in the first place without the ACA’s 2014 deadline for such plans. Of course, the insurance company didn’t clarify back in 2011 that this policy had a limited lifespan and would have to be replaced in 2014 with a new one.

I wonder if this is at all common?

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Here’s an Interesting Wrinkle in the Rate Shock Debate

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Friday Cat Blogging – 15 November 2013

by SherlynHa Posted on November 15, 2013

Mother Jones

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In a bit of bad planning, it turns out that most of the final quilts in our 2013 quiltblogging extravaganza are Irish chain quilts. This one is a single chain made out of fabrics purchased in Sedona, which is why it’s cleverly named Sedona Chain. It’s a crib size quilt that’s machine pieced and hand quilted. I mistakenly thought it was lap sized, which is why I asked Marian to model it on her lap. But this nonetheless turned out to be a popular decision, and as soon as I put her down, Domino promptly curled up and took a nap.

In other cat news, meet Inspector Picklejuice, the newest member of the MoJo cat family. Inspector P belongs to Ivylise Simones, our new creative director. Welcome aboard to both.

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Friday Cat Blogging – 15 November 2013

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We’re Still at War: Photo of the Day for November 15, 2013

by SandraJohansen Posted on November 15, 2013

Mother Jones

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Members of the Utah Army National Guard 2-211 Aviation Battalion assist members of the 19th Special Forces Group with freefall and static line parachute jumps near Camp Williams, Utah, Oct. 30, 2013. The 2-211 assisted the 19th SFG with maintaining airborne qualification as well as jump master qualifications. U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt.Tim Chacon.

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We’re Still at War: Photo of the Day for November 15, 2013

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There Will Be No Congressional Fix For Canceled Health Care Policies

by Gwenn Record Posted on November 15, 2013

Mother Jones

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This is just a quick note to anyone who’s worried and/or hopeful that Congress will pass some kind of legislative fix for people whose health insurance has been canceled due to Obamacare. It won’t happen. Republicans are interested only in Obamacare’s failure and will refuse to support any Democratic bill that genuinely addresses the problem. Conversely, Democrats are interested only in improving Obamacare and relieving the political pressure they’re feeling. They will refuse to support any Republican bill that contains an obvious poison pill. Unless I’m missing something, the intersection of these two positions is the null set. Thus, there is no bill that can pass Congress.

This is not a joke. No one should waste any time reporting or commenting on the various bills that are likely to pop up over the next few weeks. It’s all just posturing. Obama’s regulatory fix is the only one we’re going to get.

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There Will Be No Congressional Fix For Canceled Health Care Policies

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Artificial ESP Comes to Twitter

by JulianaPizzey Posted on November 15, 2013

Mother Jones

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Robert Waldmann is feeling creeped out:

An obvious twitter ‘bot followed me with tweets consisting only of advertising for, among other things, wasabi flavored ice cream. Now, I think you will agree that wasabi flavored ice cream is rather a niche product. You may not know that it exists (in Rome to which all roads lead). I hope with some (but rapidly declining) confidence that you don’t know that I really like wasabi flavored ice cream. HOW does a twitter ‘bot know I like wasabi flavored ice cream ??? I feel we have skipped artificial intelligence and gotten straight to artificial ESP.

How indeed? I’ll bet the answer is pretty interesting. I’m assuming, of course, that Waldmann hasn’t simply blanked out and forgotten that he wrote a tweet a couple of weeks ago about wasabi ice cream.

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Artificial ESP Comes to Twitter

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We’re Still at War: Photo of the Day for November 14, 2013

by Polly Browder Posted on November 14, 2013

Mother Jones

An AV-8B Harrier assigned to Marine Medium Tiltrotor Squadron 266(Reinforced), 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit, takes off from the flight deck of the USS Kearsarge, at sea, Nov. 1, 2013. The 26th MEU finished their eight month deployment to the U.S. 5th and 6th Fleet areas of responsibility aboard the Kearsarge Amphibious Ready Group serving as a sea-based, expeditionary crisis response force capable of conducting amphibious operations across the full range of military operations. U.S. Marine Corps photo by Sgt. Christopher Q. Stone/Released.

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We’re Still at War: Photo of the Day for November 14, 2013

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Am I Really Ambi-Cognitive?

by bestpage Posted on November 13, 2013

Mother Jones

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Megan McArdle just made me waste 30 seconds on a test that’s designed to show whether I’m left or right brained. The answer, supposedly, is that I use both sides equally, which strikes me as fairly unlikely. I’m also suspicious of the test. One question asks, “Put your hand on your head. Which hand did you use?” Well, I used my left hand, but that’s because my right hand was on the mouse. So does that count?

But forget the kvetching. Here’s one question that perplexed me: “Look at an object and close one eye. Which eye is still open?” I did that, and my right eye was open. But just as I clicked that answer, I realized something was wrong. I’m left eyed. When I look through a camera viewfinder, for example, I always use my left eye. Using my right eye would feel as awkward as using my left hand to write.

But, in fact, if I just close an eye to look at something in the distance, I do indeed close my left eye and use my right eye. I just tried this a few times, and it turns out there are two reasons for this. First, I have better control over my left eye muscles, so closing my left eye is a little easier than closing my right eye. Second, my right eye seems more comfortable to use, even though I’m wearing glasses that correct both eyes to 20/20.

And yet, I still use my left eye for a camera viewfinder (or a microscope or a telescope or anything similar), and I always have. That’s kind of weird. I wonder what accounts for it?

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Am I Really Ambi-Cognitive?

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