Tag Archives: people

Chart of the Day: Net New Jobs for December

by Lubao2pzs Posted on January 10, 2014

Mother Jones

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The American economy added 74,000 new jobs in December, but about 90,000 of those jobs were needed just to keep up with population growth, so net job growth clocked in at minus 16,000. There’s no way to sugar coat this: it’s pretty dismal news. Last night was obviously a bad time to predict that the economy might be getting back on track.

The headline unemployment rate dropped to 6.7 percent, but that’s mainly because a huge number of people dropped out of the labor force, causing the labor force participation rate to decline from 63.0 percent to 62.8 percent. At the same time, the number of discouraged workers dropped. This suggests that in addition to the usual exodus of workers due to retirement, a fair number of people simply gave up and quit looking for work, dropping out of the official numbers entirely.

It’s only one month, and it might not mean much. Maybe it was just bad weather. Maybe. But it’s a lousy start to the year.

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Chart of the Day: Net New Jobs for December

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Medicaid Expansion Is a Stealth Success, and That’s Just Fine

by PhoenixBrook3 Posted on January 6, 2014

Mother Jones

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Obamacare ended the year with about 2 million people who signed up through the insurance marketplaces and maybe three times that many who signed up for Medicaid. That makes the Medicaid expansion a big success, but neither party really wants to admit it:

To Drew Altman, president of the Kaiser Family Foundation, this exposes a core reality of U.S. health-care politics. “Republicans don’t like entitlement programs, and Democrats want to portray the ACA as mostly a marketplace solution based on private insurance and not another expansion of a government program,” he said, “so neither side wants to emphasize the ACA’s success enrolling people in Medicaid even though it may be the law’s biggest achievement so far in terms of expanding coverage.”

This has left both the Obama administration and Republicans in a tight spot. The White House can’t really tout the Medicaid expansion because it’ll revive fears on the right that Obamacare is really a stealthy effort to create a single-payer health-care system, and it’ll arouse criticism on the left that the administration should have expanded Medicaid to all.

As for Republicans, they can’t admit the Medicaid expansion is going well because doing so is dangerously close to advocating a single-payer health-care system. The exchanges, marred by their troubled introduction, are also a problem as they are a Republican idea, enshrined in Rep. Paul Ryan’s health-care bill.

I think I’d analyze this a bit differently. I don’t really have a sense that much of anyone associates Medicaid expansion with a push for single-payer. Rather, Democrats don’t want to talk about it because Medicaid is a program for the poor, and they don’t want middle-class voters thinking that Obamacare is just another way to funnel their tax dollars into welfare programs for other people. Likewise, Republicans oppose Medicaid expansion simply because they don’t like entitlement programs; they don’t like higher taxes; and they’ve always wanted to block-grant Medicaid and starve it to death. I don’t think it’s really any more complicated than that.

In any case, I’m fine with this. I think Medicaid expansion is great, but unlike a lot of lefties, I also think it’s a dead end. It’s not going to lead to single-payer, and it’s never going to be a template for future health care reforms. The marketplaces, despite all their problems, have far more potential to eventually lead to health care coverage for all. I think they also have more potential to produce delivery reforms down the road and to rein in cost growth. For that reason, I’m OK with the Medicaid expansion staying under the radar. That’s a fine place for it.

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Medicaid Expansion Is a Stealth Success, and That’s Just Fine

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Movies, Movies Everywhere, But Not a Drop to Watch

by BrandiNic Posted on January 3, 2014

Mother Jones

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Netflix has developed an awesomely sophisticated stockpile of data about what kind of movies people want to watch. This sounds like a huge advantage for them—and it is—but Felix Salmon argues that it’s also a sign of weakness. Netflix has to mine this information because its streaming service has such a paltry collection of titles:

If you give Netflix a list of all the movies you want to watch, the proportion available for streaming is going to be so embarrassingly low that the company decided not to even give you that option any more….So Netflix has been forced to attempt a distant second-best: scouring its own limited library for the films it thinks you’ll like, rather than simply looking for the specific movies which it knows (because you told it) that you definitely want to watch. This, from a consumer perspective, is not an improvement.

I figure there are two basic kinds of customers here. The first has specific movies she wants to watch, and tries to find them. The second just wants to watch something decent, and will browse around looking for something that fits the bill. I gave up on Netflix streaming years ago because I’m the first kind of person, and I almost always came up blank when I searched for something specific. Netflix, as Salmon says, has pretty much gone all-in on the second type:

The original Netflix prediction algorithm — the one which guessed how much you’d like a movie based on your ratings of other movies — was an amazing piece of computer technology, precisely because it managed to find things you didn’t know that you’d love. More than once I would order a movie based on a high predicted rating, and despite the fact that I would never normally think to watch it — and every time it turned out to be great. The next generation of Netflix personalization, by contrast, ratchets the sophistication down a few dozen notches: at this point, it’s just saying “well, you watched one of these Period Pieces About Royalty Based on Real Life, here’s a bunch more”.

Netflix, then, no longer wants to show me the things I want to watch, and it doesn’t even particularly want to show me the stuff I didn’t know I’d love. Instead, it just wants to feed me more and more and more of the same, drawing mainly from a library of second-tier movies and TV shows.

Yep. What I wonder is what happens when Netflix eventually drops the disc-by-mail service that gave it its start. That’s inevitable, isn’t it? And when it happens, it will mean there’s really no place left to find a large selection of older movies to watch. The old brick-and-mortar stores will be gone, driven out of business by Netflix, and thanks to licensing wars, no streaming service will be available with a broad selection. People like me will actually be worse off than we were a decade ago.

Eventually that will change. I hope. But in the meantime, it’s slim pickings.

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Movies, Movies Everywhere, But Not a Drop to Watch

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Five years after Tennessee coal-slurry disaster, EPA has produced no new rules

by Jim Bow Posted on December 26, 2013

Five years after Tennessee coal-slurry disaster, EPA has produced no new rules

By

Appalachian Voices

Five years ago, in the dead of night, a torrent of more than a million gallons of slurry broke free from its holding place at a Tennessee Valley Authority power plant in Tennessee. The toxic stew of coal fly ash, which is produced when coal is burned, polluted waterways and 300 acres of land. The disaster triggered anger from residents and promises from the EPA to introduce new rules to prevent such accidents.

The anger is still there. But the government promises appear to have been broken. The Louisville Courier-Journal brings us a depressing update on government inaction in the wake of the catastrophe:

Witnesses still recall with horror the sights, sounds and smells of the Tennessee Valley Authority’s power plant disaster here five years ago, when a mountain of toxic coal ash broke loose in the middle of a frozen night to bury hundreds of acres and devastate a community.

“It was not a spill,” said Roane County resident Steve Scarborough. “It was a geologic event. People that lived right there looked out their windows and saw a forest moving by.”

Miraculously, nobody was injured when 5.4 million cubic yards of piled, sodden ash broke loose on Dec. 22, 2008. But the slide, which destroyed three homes, damaged dozens of others, and poured into two tributaries of the Tennessee River, has required a $1 billion cleanup, with $200 million more to go. …

But, so far, the EPA has failed to enact a single regulation — even as the agency has documented an increasing number of ash sites that have polluted the environment.

In 2000, the EPA had counted 50 sites where groundwater or surface water had been contaminated by coal ash. The most current number of these so-called “damage cases” is now more than 130. …

The search for solutions is particularly crucial in Kentucky and Indiana, which are among the nation’s leaders in producing coal-burning waste such as bottom ash, fly ash and scrubber sludge.

If you’re unlucky enough to live near a fly-ash-hoarding power plant, we suggest you cross your fingers and hope for the best. Nobody wants their neighborhood coated in coal ash, let alone something called “scrubber sludge.”


Source
EPA fails to deliver coal ash rules 5 years after catastrophic spill, The Courier-Journal

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.

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Five years after Tennessee coal-slurry disaster, EPA has produced no new rules

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The Mediterranean Diet – John Chatham

by Myrna Posted on December 17, 2013

READ GREEN WITH E-BOOKS

The Mediterranean Diet
Unlocking the Secrets to Health and Weight Loss the Mediterranean Way
John Chatham

Genre: Health & Fitness

Price: $2.99

Publish Date: July 2, 2012

Publisher: Rockridge University Press

Seller: Callisto Media, Inc.


The Mediterranean diet is a widely respected and highly acclaimed diet based on the food and lifestyles common to the people of Greece, Crete, and coastal Italy. The Mediterranean Diet from best-selling nutrition author John Chatham will introduce you to the famed diet that has garnered endorsements from the Mayo Clinic, The New England Journal of Medicine, and U.S. News &amp; World Report. With healthy Mediterranean diet recipes and easy-to-follow meal plans, you can lose weight permanently, and prevent or reverse deadly health issues from obesity, to diabetes and cardiovascular issues. The Mediterranean diet focuses on healthy ingredients and preparation, rather than reducing what you eat or counting calories. With hearty legumes, heart-healthy fats from foods like olive oil and seafood, and delicious, fresh ingredients, a Mediterranean diet will make weight loss easy and enjoyable. The Mediterranean Diet will show you how to improve your health and reverse disease with: • 60 flavorful Mediterranean diet recipes packed full of nutrients and flavorful ingredients • Step-by-step instructions for integrating Mediterranean diet foods into your everyday life • Simple guide to losing weight with the Mediterranean diet • Top tips for for cooking with healthy fats and getting the most out of your ingredients With The Mediterranean Diet, you can finally lose weight permanently while eating foods you actually enjoy.

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The Mediterranean Diet – John Chatham

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Quote of the Day: Free Health Care Kills…. Um…. Republicans?

by Joan Rivera Posted on December 17, 2013

Mother Jones

From Rick Santorum, explaining the dangers of relying on the government for health care:

Free health care is just that, free health care, until you get sick. Then, if you get sick and you don’t get health care, you die and you don’t vote. It’s actually a pretty clever system. Take care of the people who can vote and people who can’t vote, get rid of them as quickly as possible by not giving them care so they can’t vote against you. That’s how it works.

WTF? I recognize that sometimes extemporaneous witticisms go astray, and God knows that Santorum is probably more vulnerable to that than most. But even for him this is inscrutable. I wonder if he knows that every American over the age of 65 has been receiving government health care for the past half century?

Anyway, there’s video at the link if you think that Santorum’s body language and tone of voice might help you decipher what was going through his eccentric little mind when he said this.

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Quote of the Day: Free Health Care Kills…. Um…. Republicans?

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Vermont Is Kicking Everyone’s Ass at Signing Up People for Obamacare

by QuinnHeavener Posted on December 12, 2013

Mother Jones

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Which states are doing the best at signing up people for Obamacare? Business Insider has a state-by-state chart here showing the number of people who have completed the process 100 percent: they’ve actually chosen a specific plan and officially enrolled their families. But I figure a better measure of activity is the number of people who have completed an application and been confirmed eligible to purchase private insurance via the exchange. They still have the final enrollment step left, but they’ve obviously navigated everything successfully, which is a good measure of how smoothly things are rolling out.

The chart below shows the results for 49 states (there’s no data for Massachusetts). States in red are running their own websites. States in blue are using the federal website. Vermont and Kentucky are way ahead of everyone else, and demonstrate how well the Obamacare rollout is doing in places where the website is working and the state government is doing a good job of marketing and operations. Raw data comes from today’s HHS report.

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Vermont Is Kicking Everyone’s Ass at Signing Up People for Obamacare

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Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle – Tom Venuto

by Myrna Posted on December 10, 2013

READ GREEN WITH E-BOOKS

Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle

Transform Your Body Forever Using the Secrets of the Leanest People in the World

Tom Venuto

Genre: Health & Fitness

Price: $13.99

Publish Date: December 10, 2013

Publisher: Crown Publishing Group

Seller: Random House, LLC


A no-nonsense plan that has been proven and tested by more than 300,000 people in 154 countries. Whether you want to shed 10 pounds or 100, whether you want to build muscle or just look more toned, this book is the original “bible of fitness” that shows you how to get permanent results the safe, healthy, and natural way. Do you want to shed fat and sculpt a new body shape at the same time? Do you want a program without gimmicks, hype, or quick fixes? Do you want a program guaranteed to work, no matter how old you are or what kind of shape you’re in now? For twenty-five years, industry veteran and bestselling author Tom Venuto has built a reputation as one of the world’s most respected fat-loss experts. In Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle —known by fans as “the bible of fat loss”—Tom reveals the body transformation secrets of the leanest people in the world. This is not a diet and it’s not just a weight-loss program; this is a breakthrough system to change your life and get you leaner, stronger, fitter, and healthier with the latest discoveries in exercise and nutrition science. Inside, you’ll discover: – The simple but powerful LEAN formula, revealing the four crucial elements of body transformation success. – The New Body 28 (TNB-28): a four-week training plan for sculpting lean muscle, plus a quick start primer workout perfect for beginners – A lifestyle program that’s more flexible and easier than ever to follow, even if you are busy, have dietary restrictions, or have never worked out before. – The motivation strategies it takes to stick with your plan. Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle is not about getting as ripped as a fitness model or becoming a bodybuilder like Tom did (unless you want to); it’s about using their secrets to achieve your own personal goals. You are sure to call it your fitness bible for many years to come. From the Hardcover edition.

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Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle – Tom Venuto

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What is Deficit Mania Doing on the News Pages?

by EpifaniaBrydon Posted on December 9, 2013

Mother Jones

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Here is Lori Montgomery in the Washington Post on the congressional budget negotiations currently in progress:

The deal expected to be sealed this week on Capitol Hill would not significantly reduce the debt, now $17.3 trillion and rising….Republicans and Democrats are abandoning their debt-reduction goals, laying down arms and, for the moment, trying to avoid another economy-damaging standoff.

The campaign to control the debt is ending “with a whimper, not a bang,” said Robert Bixby, executive director of the bipartisan Concord Coalition, which advocates debt reduction. “That this can be declared a victory is an indicator of how low the process has sunk. They haven’t really done anything except avoid another crisis.”

There’s nothing wrong with talking about the federal deficit in a story about the budget. But this entire story is framed around a sense of dismay that Congress has “abandoned” its debt-reduction goals. This is done with no mention of the fact that Congress has already slashed the 10-year deficit by nearly $4 trillion over the past couple of years. No mention that we’ve been engaged in this frenzy of deficit cutting despite the fact that the economy is still fragile, which means that reducing the deficit is almost certainly a terrible idea. No mention that deficit cutting of any size in the wake of recession is unprecedented in recent history. No mention of the fact that the deficit has been falling for years and will continue to decline in 2014 and 2015.

Wait. That’s not true. There is a mention that the deficit will continue to fall over the next two years. It gets one sentence at the very tail end of the story:

Where would that leave the nation’s financial outlook? Not in a particularly good place, budget analysts say. The most recent Congressional Budget Office projections show the red ink receding over the next two years. But annual deficits would start growing again in 2016 as the baby-boom generation moves inexorably into retirement. And the debt would again soar.

This is crazy. A story that’s supposed to be evenhanded shouldn’t simply assume as its premise that any budget that fails to slash the deficit is a failure. That’s what Robert Samuelson and Jennifer Rubin are for. If it’s on the news pages, it should tell the whole story: plenty of people think that deficit cutting has already gone too far. But no reader of this piece would have any idea that this side of the story even existed.

Link: 

What is Deficit Mania Doing on the News Pages?

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Nuns’ Group Responds After Rush Limbaugh Says Pope Spouts "Pure Marxism"

by TrinidadOctoman Posted on December 4, 2013

Mother Jones

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In late November, when Pope Francis promised to remake the Catholic Church as a decentralized institution that would agitate against the economic injustices of capitalism, Rush Limbaugh was quick with an explanation: “Somebody has either written this for him or gotten to him.”

Limbaugh’s remarks—in which he also assailed the Pope’s agenda as being “pure Marxism”—have drawn the ire of many Catholics, and one group, Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good, is already calling for the radio host to apologize.

On Wednesday, Donna Quinn, who coordinates the National Coalition of American Nuns, a liberal activist group of several thousand nuns, joined the Catholics denouncing Limbaugh’s comments.

“Men and women who are educated and those who have street smarts see right thorough those kind of statements,” she says. (Quinn, who is well-known for her support of gay marriage and reproductive rights, notes that she is a big supporter of Sandra Fluke, the women’s rights activist who gained national notoriety when Limbaugh called her a “slut” and “prostitute” on his program.)

Quinn adds that although she does not count herself among those “smitten” with Pope Francis—”enough of the words,” she says, “we want to see some action”—she is troubled by Limbaugh’s callousness toward the people about whom Pope Francis was speaking. “In these dire times…those are the people that it would behoove Rush to take a look at. To see what’s best, not for his program or for his rowdy statements, but rather for the people of God.”

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Nuns’ Group Responds After Rush Limbaugh Says Pope Spouts "Pure Marxism"

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