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It’s Old People Who Have More Debt, Not the Young

by LouisGoldstein Posted on March 21, 2016

Mother Jones

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Ylan Mui points today to a February note from the New York Fed called “The Graying of American Debt.” Here’s the basic picture:

The student debt story is about what you’d expect: young consumers have more of it, but their total debt load is lower than it was in 2003 because they have lower mortgage debt. Basically, they’re trading student debt for mortgage debt.

But older age groups make up for it with higher debt than they had in 2003. This is especially true at age 65, where total debt is up by about a third over the past decade. So what does it all mean?

The close relationship between credit score and age…reflects an average credit history that is considerably stronger among older borrowers….Further, older borrowers’ income streams are comparatively stable, and they have greater experience with credit. Survey of Consumer Finances data show that net worth levels for households with heads who are age 65 and older in 2013 are quite similar to their 2004-07 levels. This holds despite the evidence, seen in the second chart in this post, that consumers are holding substantially more per capita debt at age 65 and beyond. If history is any guide, then, we expect older borrowers to make more reliable payments. Indeed, our data show no clear trend toward higher delinquency at older ages as average balances at older ages have increased.

Hence the aging of the American borrower bodes well for the stability of outstanding consumer loans. At the same time, the likely combination of muted credit access and lower demand for credit that we observe among our younger borrowers may well have consequences for growth. The graying of American debt that we observe between 2003 and 2015, then, might be interpreted as a shift toward greater balance sheet stability, and away from credit-fueled consumption growth.

More stability, less growth. Just what old people want. But is it good for the country?

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It’s Old People Who Have More Debt, Not the Young

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Friday Cat Blogging – 18 March 2016

by MaryjoWollstonec Posted on March 18, 2016

Mother Jones

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Today is wildlife watching day. Our squirrel is sitting calmly on our fence snacking on something or other, and the cats are fascinated. They are extremely dedicated to the study of small, local ecologies—with an emphasis on fauna rather than flora.

In non-feline news, I was prepared to link to some baby rhino cuteness, but instead my sister recommends this video of a dog trying to get its human to play fetch. I hate to admit it, but dogs really are smarter than cats. Until they learn to purr, though, cats will always have the edge.

Link to article:

Friday Cat Blogging – 18 March 2016

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Weekly Flint Water Report: March 4-11

by EdnaTomlinson Posted on March 14, 2016

Mother Jones

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Last week I posted a chart showing the average lead levels in Flint’s water since the beginning of the year. This is an easy chart to update, so I figure I’ll make it a weekly feature on Monday morning for a while. As usual, I’ve eliminated outlier readings above 2,000 parts per billion, since there are very few of them and they can affect the averages in misleading ways. The average for the past week was 8.08. The average since mid-January is 10.07.

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Weekly Flint Water Report: March 4-11

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Explaining Donald Trump’s Dick

by RobbinBravo Posted on March 5, 2016

Mother Jones

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Why did Donald Trump inexplicably defend the size of his penis in Thursday’s debate? Because he’s unnaturally sensitive about it? Because, as Jeet Heer suggests, it’s part of a venerable history of monarchs and presidents? Because Hillary Clinton would be the first penis-free president, so it’s a good way of contrasting himself?

Yes to all of the above, I suppose. Plus the fact that Trump is a self-centered boor. But this is all background noise. The real reason, which Trump understands instinctively, is simpler.

Trump’s supporters love him not so much for his policies but for his promise of toughness. Without that, he’s nothing. And to his supporters, toughness is deeply tied up with virility and manliness. This includes all the affairs, the succession of young wives, the supermodels, and the fact that he brags endlessly about it. Most of his supporters don’t precisely approve of all this stuff, but they nonetheless admire it when it comes from someone so successful. If that’s what it takes to save the country, then that’s what it takes.

So Trump made it clear that his manliness is quite intact, thank you very much. This is, if you’ll pardon the pun, all part of the package. It’s true that Marco Rubio fired the first shot a few days earlier, but that never came up in the debate. Trump brought it up out of the blue. He wanted to bring it up.

Everyone in the press mocks him for this nationally televised display of crudeness, but Trump brought it up because he wanted to assure his supporters he was a tough guy. And I’ll bet it worked.

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Explaining Donald Trump’s Dick

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California’s Bullet Train Just Gets Better and Better

by DarnellWHSL Posted on March 4, 2016

Mother Jones

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California’s bullet train gets more appealing with every new business plan:

California will need to double down on support of the bullet train by digging deeper into the state’s wallet and accepting a three-year delay in completing the project’s initial leg, a new business plan for the 220-mph system shows.

….The new plan calls for completion of the entire system by 2029, one year later than under the old business plan. Once the initial system starts showing a profit, the business plan asserts, private investors would jump in with an estimated $21 billion, based on financial calculations.

….The 99-page plan and its backup technical documents again raise questions about service and speed. A sample operating schedule does not show any nonstop trains between Los Angeles and San Francisco. The fastest travel time between the cities would be 3 hours and 14 minutes, not the 2 hours and 40 minutes many people expect.

Yes, I’m sure private investors will be panting to invest, just like they’ve invested so much in iffy high-speed rail construction elsewhere in the world. They’ll be especially eager in another few years, when this project will undoubtedly be forecast to open around 2040 or so, and estimates of LA-SF travel time will be four hours. Who could say no?

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California’s Bullet Train Just Gets Better and Better

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Tax Plan Showdown: Hillary Clinton vs. the Republicans

by jatsawdxmrzdw8 Posted on March 4, 2016

Mother Jones

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The Tax Policy Center has analyzed Hillary Clinton’s various tax proposals, which means we now have data for the top three Republican candidates and the top Democractic candidate: Donald Trump, Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, and Clinton. Click the links for details. Or just look at the charts below for the nickel summary.

You don’t need to look very hard, do you? One of these things is not like the others. The Republicans all give middle-income taxpayers a tiny benefit as a sop to distract them from the humongous payday they give to the rich. Clinton basically leaves middle-income taxpayers alone and makes the rich pay a little more.

On the cost side, all of the supposedly fiscally conservative Republicans would blow a massive hole in the deficit. Clinton would actually make the deficit smaller.

Republicans will claim that their tax plans are designed to supercharge the economy and pay for themselves blah blah blah. This is BS, and they know it. They also claim they’ll slash spending. This is mostly BS too. On the other hand, Clinton says she’ll use the money from her tax plan to fund additional programs, which is entirely believable. This makes her plan deficit neutral. Basically, we have three fantasy plans and one realistic plan. The difference in fiscal responsibility is kind of mind-boggling, isn’t it?

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Tax Plan Showdown: Hillary Clinton vs. the Republicans

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I Will Be Live-Blogging Tonight’s Republican Debate

by ElliottRundle Posted on March 3, 2016

Mother Jones

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I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but the Republican presidential candidates are holding yet another debate tonight. However, there’s a silver lining: this time around, the moderators can ignore Ben Carson without feeling guilty about it.

Anyway, it’s in Detroit, and it will be aired on Fox at 9 p.m. Eastern. Join me here for real-time comment, fact-checking, and all-around mockery.

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I Will Be Live-Blogging Tonight’s Republican Debate

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Ben Carson Drops Out of Presidential Race

by LucretiOrta Posted on March 2, 2016

Mother Jones

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In the mysteriously mumbly style we’ve come to expect from him, Ben Carson has dropped out of the presidential race without actually saying that he’s dropping out of the presidential race:

I have decided not to attend the Fox News GOP Presidential Debate tomorrow night in Detroit…I do not see a political path forward in light of last evening’s Super Tuesday primary results. However, this grassroots movement on behalf of “We the People” will continue…I will discuss more about the future of this movement during my speech on Friday at CPAC in Washington, D.C.

So that means he’s out. Right?

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Ben Carson Drops Out of Presidential Race

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Donald Trump and the True Meaning of "I Disavow"

by KristanWedding Posted on March 2, 2016

Mother Jones

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I’ve now written my quota of one non-Trump post this morning, and surely that’s enough? So let’s move on. I’m fascinated to see that Joe Weisenthal picked up on something that I noticed too during Trump’s late-night press conference on Tuesday:

Here’s what happened. A reporter asked Trump once again to comment on the David Duke/KKK endorsement, and Trump whined that he had already written a Facebook post and a tweet and, really, just how many times was he supposed to disavow the guy? But as Weisenthal points out, Trump repeatedly said “I disavow, I disavow, I disavow,” without ever mentioning who he was disavowing. And since the reporters weren’t given mics, you really couldn’t hear what the question was about. You’d only know if you’ve been following this controversy.

I don’t think this was a mistake. Trump has done it too many times. On Facebook, on Twitter, on Good Morning America, and then again last night. His ritualistic phrase is “I disavow” without providing a clear, simple soundbite about who or what he’s disavowing. Nor does he ever say anything more in the way of condemnation. His Twitter and Facebook posts, for example, had merely this terse comment: “As I stated at the press conference on Friday regarding David Duke- I disavow.”

It’s pretty clear what’s going on here. Technically, Trump is in the clear. He has disavowed David Duke. But there is no soundbite or video snippet that shows him clearly criticizing either Duke or the KKK or white supremacist groups in general. And as Trump knows better than anyone, it’s audio and video excerpts that really matter. That’s what people see, not brief Twitter or Facebook posts.

Trump now has the best of all worlds. He can truthfully say that he’s repeatedly denounced David Duke. He can mock the media for unfairly making a big deal out of it. But for his less savory supporters, there’s no video of him clearly and unequivocally condemning the Duke or the KKK—and they understand perfectly well what this means. They’re old hands at the wink and the nod.

If it were anyone else, I’d say this was all carefully calculated. But Trump has such an instinctive grasp of TV that I wouldn’t be surprised if this just came naturally to him without any real thought. He is truly a master of the modern media era.

UPDATE: This is fascinating. One minute after publishing this, I wandered over to The Corner and read a Jonah Goldberg post making exactly the same point I did. Goldberg doesn’t think Trump’s phrasing is an accident either:

It is obvious to me that Trump didn’t want to denounce David Duke and the Klan in the Jake Tapper interview. The “bad earpiece” explanation is a transparent lie….And when Tapper mentioned the KKK, Trump still didn’t say, “Wait a second . . . ” and rip into the Klan. The question is, Why?

….Denouncing the Klan should be easy. You shouldn’t have to think about it….The one thing you shouldn’t do is sound like you’re reluctant to condemn the Klan(!) or that you’re dog-whistling that you don’t really mean it when you do. Yet when you watch the Tapper interview, it becomes clear what is really going on: He think condemning the Klan will hurt him with conservatives or southerners or both….In other words, the issue isn’t that conservative opponents of Trump think he’s a Klan supporting racist, it’s that Trump thinks many of his conservative supporters are. And that’s just one reason I don’t want this guy speaking for me.

Yep. And when was the last time Goldberg and I agreed about something? It just goes to show that Trump really does bring people together.

Originally posted here: 

Donald Trump and the True Meaning of "I Disavow"

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Things Donald Trump Will Do In His Second Year

by LoisShillito Posted on February 13, 2016

Mother Jones

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A non-exhaustive list:

Make tomatoes great again.
Rename Denali to Mt. Trump.
Forbid stupid homeowner association rules.
Fix Windows once and for all.
Eliminate ex-president Obama’s Secret Service detail.
Annex Cuba.
Build a permanent moon base as favor to Newt Gingrich. Also: lots of new zoos.
Send Atrios to a reeducation camp until his attitude improves.
Build a beautiful new Strategic Petroleum Reserve to handle all the oil he’s going to take from ISIS.
Nationalize Twitter.
Present Sarah Palin with a Kennedy Center Honor for the Performing Arts.
Invent really good artificial sugar and fat substitutes.
Declare war on Denmark, just to piss off Bernie Sanders.

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Things Donald Trump Will Do In His Second Year

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