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How Honest Is Your Favorite Candidate?

by BrandiePjo Posted on November 5, 2015

Mother Jones

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I was browsing through my Twitter feed a few minutes ago and a string of tweets inspired me to do a bit of original research about the honesty of our presidential candidates. I think we all have a gut feel for who’s fairly honest and who’s not, but I figured there might be a more rigorous way to measure this.

So I hopped over to PolitiFact. Not because they’re an infallible source of fact checking, but because they’re convenient and probably as good as anyone else. Then I looked up all the candidates. I gave them 5 points for each statement judged True, 4 for each statement judged Mostly True, etc., all the way to zero points for each statement judged Pants On Fire. Then I averaged the scores. Here are the results:

I have a few special awards to hand out, as well as a couple of comments:

Cheers to Bernie Sanders, the only candidate with not a single Pants On Fire rating.
Jeers to Donald Trump, who failed to earn a single True rating.
Double jeers to Ben Carson, who remarkably failed to get a single True rating or a single Mostly True rating.
The average Democratic rating is 3.34. The average Republican rating is 2.26.
Among Republicans, honesty is the exact inverse of popularity. Jeb Bush is the most honest, and he’s got the lowest poll numbers among the serious candidates. Donald Trump and Ben Carson are the least honest by quite a bit, and they’re also leading the field by quite a bit. Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio are in the middle on both honesty and popularity.

I especially draw your attention to the last bullet. It’s eerie. It’s almost as if the Republican electorate wants to be lied to, and the more you lie, the more they like you. I’ll hold off on guessing precisely what this means, but it might explain a lot about this year’s GOP primary race.

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How Honest Is Your Favorite Candidate?

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The Great Mystery of Commute Time and Income Mobility

by SantoColeman Posted on November 5, 2015

Mother Jones

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Here’s something I ran across accidentally today. In a working paper released a few months ago, Raj Chetty and Nathaniel Hendren try to estimate the effect on low-income children of moving to better neighborhoods. In particular, which traits correspond to higher incomes 20 years later?

All the usual suspects have high correlations: segregation, social capital, crime, income inequality, population density, etc. But the very highest correlation—by quite a bit—is for commuting time. Moving to a neighborhood where most people commute less than 15 minutes has a big impact:

Twenty years of exposure to a commuting zone with a 1 standard deviation higher fraction of people with commute times less than 15 minutes increases a child’s income by 7%….These correlations with commute times are unlikely the direct effect of being closer to jobs….It is likely some characteristic of places correlated with commute times that drives the underlying pattern.

In other words, this doesn’t mean that if mom or dad gets a job closer to home, junior will enjoy a higher income when he grows up. It means that if the family moves to a neighborhood that’s close to where its residents work, junior’s income will benefit.

This seems a little unlikely, though it’s not impossible to imagine that neighborhoods where parents are home more of the time have a beneficial effect on kids. Still, the authors are most likely right: commute time is probably standing in for something else. Perhaps neighborhoods that are close to lots of jobs have certain characteristics that are good for kids, and short commutes are just an accidental bonus.

Either way, this sure seems interesting enough to follow up on. Is it really commute time that matters? If not, what is it a proxy for?

NOTE: The chart shows the effect on boys whose parents have incomes in the bottom quarter. The effect is pretty much the same for girls.

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The Great Mystery of Commute Time and Income Mobility

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Trump’s Insults Are Weak, Lack Energy

by FredericStonge Posted on November 4, 2015

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Me, yesterday, on how Donald Trump is likely to attack rising star Marco Rubio: “The obvious route for Trump is to mock Rubio’s inability to balance his own checkbook, but I’m hoping for something more original.”

Trump, today: “He is a disaster with credit cards. All you have to do is look.” And: “He certainly lives above his means — there is no question about that.”

That’s really disappointing. Trump also went after Rubio on immigration and for not showing up to vote in the Senate. Bo-o-o-o-ring.

There’s just no creativity here anymore. Remember when he called Jeb Bush “low energy”? That was great. Or that he couldn’t imagine anyone voting for Carly Fiorina’s ugly mug? Good times. It makes me wonder if Trump is really giving his all for America these days. Even the cover of his new book looks phoned in. I mean, is that supposed to be Blue Steel or Le Tigre? I can’t tell.

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Trump’s Insults Are Weak, Lack Energy

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A Defense of Becky Quick

by lepsacazare Posted on October 31, 2015

Mother Jones

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CNBC’s Becky Quick has come in for some criticism for being unprepared during Wednesday’s debate. To refresh your memory, here’s what happened during an exchange with Donald Trump:

QUICK: You had talked a little bit about Marco Rubio. I think you called him “Mark Zuckerberg’s personal senator” because he was in favor of the H1B.

TRUMP: I never said that. I never said that.

….QUICK: My apologies. I’m sorry.

In fact, Trump had said that in his own immigration plan. Why didn’t Quick know this?

I think we all know what happened here. Someone on Quick’s staff prepared some notes that included the quote, but didn’t specify where it came from. So when Trump denied saying it, Quick was stuck.

Now, sure, the staffwork here was bad, and Quick should have been better prepared. But that’s not the real problem here. The real problem is that Quick was unprepared for bald-faced lying. She expected Trump to spin or tap dance or try to explain away what he said. She didn’t expect him to just flatly deny ever saying it. That’s the only circumstance that would require her to know exactly where the quote came from.

This was a real epidemic on Wednesday night. Candidates have apparently figured out that they don’t need to tap dance. They can just baldly lie. Trump did it. Rubio did it. Carson did it. Fiorina did it. They know that time is short and they probably won’t get called on it. The worst that will happen is that fact checkers will correct them in the morning, but only a tiny fraction of the viewing audience will ever see it. So what’s the downside of lying?

Future moderators are going to have to be aware of this sea change. Modern candidates understand that they don’t need to bother with spin and exaggeration any more. They can just lie, and etiquette limits how much debate moderators can push back. I don’t think debate etiquette is going to change, so this probably means that moderators are going to have to learn to ask questions a little differently. We live in a new era.

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A Defense of Becky Quick

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Let Us Now Shed a Tear For Marco Rubio’s Brutal Treatment at the Hands of the Republican Establishment

by Lawrenc8856 Posted on October 29, 2015

Mother Jones

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I got a fundraising email from Marco Rubio this morning:

Last night, in the latest Republican presidential debate, one of the moderators actually asked me if I should “slow down.” That’s exactly what the establishment has been telling me for years. That I should “wait my turn.”

….P.S. I couldn’t believe it when one of the moderators misled about my tax plan — despite having to correct a story earlier this month where he made the exact same claim!

Poor Marco. Speaker of the Florida House at age 35. US Senator at age 39. Lionized presidential candidate at age 44. He’s really had a rough time with the GOP establishment.

Oh, and John Harwood was precisely correct in his debate question about Rubio’s tax plan. He didn’t mislead anyone. It’s true that a couple of weeks ago Harwood corrected a tweet about Rubio’s tax plan, but he didn’t repeat that mistake last night. His characterization of the Tax Foundation’s analysis of Rubio’s plan was 100 percent accurate. It’s Rubio who seemed either confused or deliberately deceptive about the whole thing.

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Let Us Now Shed a Tear For Marco Rubio’s Brutal Treatment at the Hands of the Republican Establishment

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It’s Time to Change Up the Debate Rules

by CarenRubensohn Posted on October 29, 2015

Mother Jones

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Question for those of you who watched last night’s debate: what did you think of the questions the moderators asked?

It was an odd display. The wording of the questions often veered close to outright rudeness. For example:

Is this a comic book version of a presidential campaign?
You’re skipping more votes than any senator to run for president. Why not slow down, get a few more things done first or least finish what you start?
In terms of all of that, it raises the question whether you have the maturity and wisdom to lead this $17 trillion economy.

At the same time, if you take a look an inch below the surface, most of the questions the CNBC crew asked were actually very substantive. The candidates generally didn’t feel like engaging with anything other than their plans to cut taxes and slash regulations, but that’s not the fault of the moderators. That’s because it’s a Republican debate, and these are pretty much the only economic issues Republican candidates like to talk about.

This year’s debates have all followed a similar pattern, with the moderators asking each candidate at least one “tough” question near the beginning of the show. Fox did it too, and Anderson Cooper did it to the Democrats, so it’s not a liberal media conspiracy. Mostly it seems to be some kind of alpha chimp display to demonstrate that the moderators are real live journalists, not just pretty faces letting the candidates make stump speeches.

I didn’t really mind this the first time or two, but I’m starting to find it annoying. Fine: you folks are real journalists. Now let’s move on and ask questions that are really tough. Dig a little more deeply into policy and then follow up. Maybe switch up the rules and get rid of the “anyone who’s named gets 30 second to respond” nitwittery. Give the moderators a couple of minutes for each question, and make it a real back-and-forth. Less mud wrestling and more policy depth.

It probably wouldn’t work. I’m not sure there’s any power on earth that can get the candidates off their rehearsed talking points. But it might be worth a try.

POSTSCRIPT: And on the candidate side, how about giving the attacks on the media a rest? I know it’s a great applause line, but honestly, who cares? It’s just pandering. Find something new to get applause for.

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It’s Time to Change Up the Debate Rules

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Stop Blaming Suburbia for Killing Off Friendships

by PhilippHampden Posted on October 28, 2015

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Dave Roberts is unhappy with the fact that we struggle to make new friends after college:

I read a study many years ago that I have thought about many times since, though hours of effort have failed to track it down. The gist was this: The key ingredient for the formation of friendships is repeated spontaneous contact. That’s why we make friends in college: because we are, by virtue of where we live and our daily activities, forced into regular contact with the same people. It is the natural soil out of which friendship grows.

….But when we marry and start a family, we are pushed, by custom, policy, and expectation, to move into our own houses. And when we have kids, we find ourselves tied to those houses. Many if not most neighborhoods these days are not safe for unsupervised kid frolicking. In lower-income areas there are no sidewalks; in higher-income areas there are wide streets abutted by large garages. In both cases, the neighborhoods are made for cars, not kids. So kids stay inside playing Xbox, and families don’t leave except to drive somewhere.

This is a common critique, but I don’t think it holds water. For starters, read The Organization Man. As William Whyte reports, spontaneous new friendships were quite common in 1950s suburbia—which was architecturally quite similar to today’s suburbia. This was certainly true of my stucco tract house neighborhood when I was growing up. Second, New Urbanists have been trying for a long time to create communities that encourage spontaneous friendships, and they routinely fail. Build houses with stoops, and everyone stays inside anyway.

Or take my current suburban neighborhood. It’s pretty typical. Everyone is friendly, and we know our near neighbors. Some close friendships have developed, but that’s about it. Across the street there’s a nearly identical neighborhood, but this one is far more close-knit, throwing Halloween parties and July 4th bashes and just generally socializing in a way that mine doesn’t. Why?

I’m not entirely convinced that the nature of friendships has actually changed all that much during the past few centuries of civilization. Some people are sociable and some aren’t. But if I’m wrong, I still don’t think it’s primarily because of changes in the built environment. Maybe it’s due to the fact that women don’t routinely stay home during the day and socialize with neighbors. Maybe it’s because of air conditioning and TV. Maybe we all figured out that picking friends by random location (i.e., living next door) didn’t make much sense once we had other options. Or maybe it’s just that smart verbal types tend to be a little introverted, and we hear from them more often than anyone else.

And stop blaming graduation from college! Half the country never went to college, but I’ll bet they have as many (or more) friends than the rest of us. How do they manage that if they skipped college and live in the same kinds of places as us overeducated types?

Anyway, consider this is a challenge. Do modern Americans really have fewer close friends than in the past? Establish that before you go any further. If it turns out to be true, why? I don’t think the evidence really supports the idea that it’s mostly due to the nature of suburban living. (Do apartment dwellers have more friends than homeowners?) This becomes a much more interesting question when we get over our obsession with the evils of suburbia.

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Stop Blaming Suburbia for Killing Off Friendships

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A Quick Guide to Interpreting Everything You Hear About Obamacare Rate Increases

by Angeles86O Posted on October 27, 2015

Mother Jones

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How much are health care premiums on the Obamacare exchanges set to rise in 2016? That depends. Here are a few possible answers:

If everyone keeps the coverage they currently have, Charles Gaba estimates that the weighted average increase—that is, weighting states with bigger populations more heavily—will be about 12-13 percent.
If everyone shops around and chooses the second-lowest price silver plan, the federal government estimates that the weighted average on federal exchanges will go up 7.5 percent.
It depends on the state. If you live in California, you can figure on about a 4 percent increase. Texas? 5.1 percent. Oklahoma? 35.7 percent.
If you live in a big city and you shop around, Kaiser estimates that the weighted average will go down 0.7 percent if you account for the average size of the federal subsidy. In some cities, the decrease is even larger.

In other words, depending on how scary you feel like being, you can accurately cite the increase as 35.7 percent, 12-13 percent, 7.5 percent, or negative 0.7 percent. For example:

Obama: “In my hometown of Chicago, rates are going down by 5 percent.”
Democratic think tank: “If you shop around for the best rate, HHS estimates an average increase of 7.5 percent on the federal exchanges.”
Republican think tank: “Liberal analyst Charles Gaba estimates an average increase of 13 percent, with 18 states seeing increases of 20 percent or more.”
Trump: “Some people tell me their rates are going up by 25, even 35 percent!”

Every one of these is an accurate citation. So which one is the fairest? I’d say (a) you should count the tax credit since that affects what people actually pay, (b) some people will shop around and some won’t, and (c) you should usually cite a broad national estimate, not a state or local number.1 With all that taken into account, my prediction is that the average person using Obamacare will see an increase of about 6-7 percent.

1Obviously there are exceptions to all of these. If the Los Angeles Times wants to report on average increases in Los Angeles, then it should use the Los Angeles number. If you’re reporting on how well insurance companies are doing at estimating the premiums they need to charge, you should use raw numbers that don’t count the tax credit. Etc.

But if you do a telephone survey of Obamacare users next year and simply ask them, “How much more are you paying for health insurance than last year,” I think we’re going to end up around 6-7 percent.

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A Quick Guide to Interpreting Everything You Hear About Obamacare Rate Increases

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President Obama Stares Down the Chinese

by Stacia7380 Posted on October 27, 2015

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President Obama recently decided to send the guided-missile destroyer USS Lassen to one of those little islands China is building in the South China Sea, and which China claims as part of its territorial waters. So how did the Chinese react?

The decision…angered China, which said last month it would “never allow any country” to violate what it considers to be its territorial waters and airspace around the islands. The U.S. vessel entered Chinese waters “illegally and without the Chinese government’s permission,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang said in a statement, adding that Chinese authorities had monitored and warned it as it passed.

“The action by the U.S. warship has threatened China’s sovereignty and security interests, endangered the safety of personnel and facilities on the islands and damaged regional peace and stability,” he said, urging the United States to “correct its wrongdoing immediately” and not take further “dangerous and provocative actions.” Hours later, China’s vice foreign minister, Zhang Yesui, summoned U.S. Ambassador Max Baucus to deliver a formal protest.

Oooh. After saying they would “never allow” such a thing, the Chinese….issued a statement and then called in our ambassador to protest. Scary.

Seriously, though: can you imagine the ballistic outrage if Obama had reacted like this to a Chinese sail-by? Republicans would practically be ready to start impeachment hearings. It would be yet another sign of the weakened world standing of the United States under Democratic leadership.

But when it’s the other way around, is it a sign of plummeting Chinese leadership? Or Obama’s steely-eyed projection of American power? Judging by the non-reaction, I guess not. Go figure.

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President Obama Stares Down the Chinese

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House Hostage Takers Give Up, But Promise Plenty of Hostages in Future

by NestorMcGahan69 Posted on October 26, 2015

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The good news today is that John Boehner is apparently making good on his promise to “clean the barn” before he leaves by cutting a budget deal with the White House. From the New York Times: “The accord would avert a potentially cataclysmic default on the government’s debt and dispense with perhaps the most divisive issue in Washington just before Speaker John A. Boehner is expected to turn over his gavel to Representative Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin.”

Then there’s today’s schadenfreude-ish news: House super-conservatives are sad because they don’t think there’s anything they can do to halt this reckless attempt to keep the government running and pay our legal debts. Reuters: “Representatives Mark Meadows, Jim Jordan and Mick Mulvaney, founders of the hard-right Freedom Caucus, told Reuters in an interview that there was not enough time for House Republicans to rally around a list of demands for raising the $18.1 trillion U.S. borrowing limit.”

Then there’s today’s bad news:

Leaders of the U.S. House of Representatives’ most influential conservative group told Reuters on Monday it was too late to stop an extension of the federal debt ceiling this week, but they will not hold it against the expected next House Speaker, Paul Ryan.

….The three lawmakers said they wanted to work with Ryan on process reforms that would allow them to get a much earlier start on future fiscal deadlines to demand spending cuts and reforms to federal benefits programs such as Social Security and Medicare. This way, they would not be trying to craft a strategy at the last minute with default or government shutdowns looming in the balance.

….Mulvaney said Ryan’s first big test would be a spending bill to keep government agencies open past a current shutdown deadline of Dec. 11. This would have to produce “at least something better than we would have gotten under Mr. Boehner.”

So they’ve given up on provoking a debt limit/government shutdown crisis for now, but by God they expect Ryan to give them enough time to provoke plenty of them in the future. And that starts in six weeks, Mr. Speaker.

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House Hostage Takers Give Up, But Promise Plenty of Hostages in Future

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