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Here Are Our Top 20 Imports From Mexico

by IleneHinds Posted on January 27, 2017

Mother Jones

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How much would a 20 percent tariff on Mexican imports cost us? I think it’s pointless to delve very deeply into this until President Trump and congressional Republicans produce a serious plan of some kind. Relying on random tweets and leaks from GOP gatherings will just drive us all crazy, as we try to analyze every dumb idea that gets run up the flagpole. Hell, even Paul Krugman says he’s a little confused about some of this stuff, and his Nobel Prize was for international trade.

However, there is one bit of raw data that you might as well get familiar with, since it’s not going to change. Here are our top 20 imports from Mexico:

I’ve highlighted a few of the categories that get the most attention: cars, televisions, crude oil, and produce. Generally speaking, if we tax these things at X percent, their price in the US is going to increase X percent. It won’t be quite that much, since trade will adjust based on the taxes, and in the long run the dollar will rise. Probably. And this all assumes there’s no retaliation from Mexico, which there probably would be.

Still, in the short and medium term, a 20 percent tax will increase the price of Mexican goods by 20 percent. That means a Ford Focus will cost 20 percent more, flat-screen televisions will cost 20 percent more, and avocados will cost 20 percent more. The problem, of course, is that Ford can’t increase the price of a Focus by 20 percent. Nobody would buy them. So they’ll just have to keep prices low and take it in the shorts.

Bottom line: in some cases, prices will go up, which will be bad for US consumers. In other cases, importers who are stuck with Mexican factories will have to accept lower profits, which is bad for US companies. In yet other cases, imports will just cease and plants will be shut down, which will be bad for Mexico.

So who will this be good for? That’s a very good question. In the case of cars and TVs, probably Japan and South Korea. In the case of produce, maybe Chile. In the case of crude oil, maybe Iran.

Of course, if we decide to put a tax on all imports from everywhere—not just Mexico—then consumer prices of just about everything will go up with no release valve. This would violate every trade treaty we’re part of, which means that the entire world would probably retaliate. In the end, prices would go up and American factories would either keep production unchanged or even cut back some. This would be pretty disastrous for the working class folks who voted for Trump.

But that’s what everyone is talking about.

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Here Are Our Top 20 Imports From Mexico

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Am I Still Bitter Over Republican Perfidy in 2009? Oh Yes.

by Autumn04Gmhnkp Posted on December 16, 2016

Mother Jones

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The Economic Report of the President is out, and we should probably take a look at it, if only for old time’s sake. The rumor mill says that the next chairman of the CEA will be supply-side TV blatherer Larry Kudlow, and God knows what we can expect from him. Probably a ten-minute YouTube video. Or maybe a tweetstorm. Who knows?

Anyway, this year’s report is stocked full of the usual number of interesting charts, but I’m going to highlight their version of my favorite chart. This one shows state and local spending following the Great Recession:

Normally, spending increases after a recession, and this is one of the things that powers the recovery. This time that didn’t happen. Thankfully, we at least had a bit of help at the federal level:

Needless to say, Republicans feverishly opposed all attempts at economic stimulus because they didn’t want the economy to get too much better. That might have helped Obama’s reelection chances, you see.

Oh well. Bygones. I’m sure Trump will fix everything.

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Am I Still Bitter Over Republican Perfidy in 2009? Oh Yes.

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Would You Eat an M&M That Fell on the Floor?

by EverettCourtney Posted on October 11, 2016

Mother Jones

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News you can use from Aaron Carroll:

Perhaps no one in the United States has spent more time investigating the occurrence of bacteria on public surfaces than Charles Gerba.

According to Carroll, Gerba’s research tells us that it’s just fine to eat food that you’ve dropped on the floor. This sounds suspiciously like motivated reasoning to support the stereotypical male point of view, and I’m a little curious to learn what Mrs. Carroll thinks of this. I suppose we’ll never know. In any case, the argument here is that your average floor is no more germy than any other surface in your house, and less than many. Kitchen floors, for example, have about half the bacteria of kitchen counters.

That’s all fair enough, but what about ordinary old dirt and dust? My kitchen counters have almost none of that. My kitchen floor has lots, thanks to the fact that I walk on it, the cats walk on it, the dust accumulates until I vacuum it, and so forth. It may be that dirt and dust aren’t likely to make you sick, but it’s still a little disgusting to have it all over your food. Or am I being a little too fastidious here?

Of course, it also depends on the food item. If a peanut M&M fell on the floor, I’d have no qualms about rubbing it clean with my shirt and then eating it. But a leftover piece of chicken? Probably not.

I wonder what Donald Trump would think of all this? He’s a famous germaphobe, but he also apparently thinks that fast food is safer than other foods because it’s highly processed and standardized. So what would he think about an M&M that fell on the floor?

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Would You Eat an M&M That Fell on the Floor?

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Trump on Tape: “Grab ’em by the pussy. You can do anything.”

by GlennaMcc448650 Posted on October 7, 2016

Mother Jones

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I can’t even go to lunch anymore without missing the latest loathsome excretion from Donald Trump’s mouth. Here’s the headline:

Trump recorded having extremely lewd conversation about women in 2005

This is not a big surprise. Is there anyone on the planet who didn’t already figure that Trump talked lewdly about women routinely? Probably not. In any case, here’s the extremely lewd conversation, caught on a hot mic while Trump was chatting with Billy Bush for a 2005 appearance on Access Hollywood:

Trump discusses a failed attempt to seduce a woman, whose full name is not given in the video.

“I moved on her and I failed. I’ll admit it,” Trump is heard saying. It was unclear when the events he was describing took place….“I did try and fuck her. She was married,” Trump says….“I moved on her like a bitch, but I couldn’t get there. And she was married,” Trump says.

At that point in the audio, Trump and Bush appear to notice Arianne Zucker, the actress who is waiting to escort them into the soap opera set.

“Your girl’s hot as shit, in the purple,” says Bush, who’s now a co-host of NBC’s “Today” show….“I’ve gotta use some tic tacs, just in case I start kissing her,” Trump says….“And when you’re a star they let you do it,” Trump says….“Grab them by the pussy,” Trump says. “You can do anything.”

Trump’s excuse is that he’s heard Bill Clinton say a lot worse. Or something.

The video of all this was “obtained” by the Washington Post, which raises the obvious question of just who found this and who decided to leak it. And is there more?

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Trump on Tape: “Grab ’em by the pussy. You can do anything.”

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Friday Cat Blogging – 26 August 2016

by cgzgrady03 Posted on August 26, 2016

Mother Jones

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What kind of cat is Hilbert? Here is this week’s peek into his personality.

On Tuesday Marian made a tuna sandwich for lunch. That means tuna juice too, so she squeezed out the tuna juice into two saucers and put them out. Hopper came bounding over immediately and started lapping up the juice. Hilbert was slower off the mark, but eventually he figured out what was going on and shambled over.

But when he got to the saucers, he didn’t head to the unoccupied one. He went around the long way and stuck his snout into Hopper’s saucer and pushed her away. She shrugged, and headed over to the other saucer, which she lapped up. She had been almost done with the first one anyway.

So there you have it. Hilbert is more interested in taking away Hopper’s tuna juice than in actually having any tuna juice of his own. However, he also has a brain the size of a peanut and is unable to effectively carry out his nefarious intentions. In the end, Hopper got all the tuna juice.

In other words, he is not a cat we’d want to elect as president. But as a king? Sure. So here is his majesty up on the balcony, surveying his vast domains. I’m not sure what he’s looking at. Probably a crow walking across the skylight.

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Friday Cat Blogging – 26 August 2016

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Ask an Economist: Are Living Standards Higher Than They Used to Be?

by FreddyHoliday Posted on May 13, 2016

Mother Jones

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So how are we doing these days? Let’s ask some economists. Their consensus, apparently, is that we’re way better off compared to the golden days of our youth, but not so much compared to more recent years. In fact, economists are split about evenly on whether we’re collectively better off than we were before the financial crash, which seems right to me. Roughly speaking, I’d say we’ve recovered to about 2007 levels, but haven’t yet surpassed them.

But this raises a question: Why do so many Americans think they were better off 30 or 40 or 50 years ago? There are several obvious possibilities:

Wages were rising back then. They may be higher now, but it’s steady increases that make things seem great.
Sure, we lacked cell phones and 500 channels and cancer cures back in the day, but we didn’t miss them because we never had them. The fact that we have them now doesn’t really make people think they’re better off.
On a related note, all the new stuff we have doesn’t really make us happier. If we grew up with it, it’s background noise. If we didn’t grow up with it, it’s just a complicated pain in the butt that we’re forced to keep up with even though we don’t really like it much. (Except for those 500 channels, of course. Everyone loves those.)
It’s basically cultural, not economic. A lot of people really were happier 50 years ago, but it had nothing to do with living standards. Whites didn’t have to compete with blacks or Asians. Men ruled the roost. Everyone knew their place. We didn’t worry about heroin epidemics. Etc.

It’s a funny thing about living standards. Take cars. They’re way better on practically every metric you can think of compared to, say, 1960. Cars today are faster, more reliable, more comfortable, more convenient, quieter, smoother, safer, and cheaper. And they come in way more varieties than they used to.

But do people like their cars today more than they did in the 60s? Probably not. We’ve gotten jaded. Cars were still kind of cool to the postwar generation. Today nearly everyone has a car and they’re just another possession. Our automobile living standard is far higher than it used to be, but our automobile happiness probably isn’t.

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Ask an Economist: Are Living Standards Higher Than They Used to Be?

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Here are the Best Ways to Recycle Your Old Shoes

by GrantNiven Posted on February 14, 2016

A lot of time, energy, labor and natural resources go into making a pair of shoes. So don’t you think they should be used for as long as possible? And then repurposed into something else when their useful life as a shoe wears out?

Here are some creative ways to recycle old shoes so they keep on truckin’ rather than end up in a landfill somewhere.

Shoes That Can Still Be Worn

What should you do with shoes you just don’t like anymore, but are still perfectly good?

* Take them to the nearest thrift store. Shoes are a popular, in-demand item, whether they’re men’s dress shoes, kids’ tennis shoes or an exotic pair of heels.

* Donate them to a shelter that needs shoes for homeless or disadvantaged men, women or children, depending on the shoes you have. Contact the shelter before you drop the shoes off to make sure they’ll be used.

* Send them to a local affiliate of Dress for Success if they’re for women or Art for Humanity for men. Soles 4 Souls accepts men’s and women’s shoes of all kinds.

* Donate sports shoes toShoe4Africa.org, which helps people protect their feet from injuries and diseases like hookworm. One World Runningis another good resource.

* Donate kids’ shoes to The Shoe Bank. Though this group will take adult shoes as well, its primary focus is kids.

* Swap them with neighbors. Make sure you clean them well first; clean any shoes you receive in the swap as well. Tennis shoes, soccer cleats and other sports shoes are pretty safe to swap because people usually wear socks with those kinds of shoes.

* Pass them among siblings. This is easier to do with shoes that toddlers wear, since they usually outgrow the shoe before they wear it out physically. Also, shoe sizes for tots are pretty uniform because their feet are somewhat uniform in shape, unlike adult feet.

* Put them in the back of the closet. If you’re bored with your shoes or they’ve gone out of style,chances are they’ll be trendy againin a year or two. One or two pair of shoes don’t take up much room. Stow them on a high shelf or in the back of your closet and take them out next seasonmaybe you’ll like them better.

* Give them away on Freecycle.org or sell them on Craig’s List or Ebay.

Shoes That Can’t Be Worn Anymore

* If your shoes are so beat up no one can wear them anymore, send them to Nike’s Reuse-a-Shoe program, where they will be ground up and used to make into other products. You can find local drop off options here.

* If they still hold their shape, use them for planters, like the cute boots pictured above.

* If they’re a flat shoe, stretch a waterproof rubber bootie over them and wear them to garden or do yard work.

* Upcycle flip flops into door mats, baskets, artwork and even jewelry. You can get lots of ideas on this Pinterest page.

Related
13 Cool Things You Probably Don’t Know You Can Recycle
What Happens to Your Donated Clothing?

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are solely those of the author and may not reflect those of Care2, Inc., its employees or advertisers.

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Here are the Best Ways to Recycle Your Old Shoes

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Dreaming about Debates

by KristopherWylde Posted on August 4, 2015

Mother Jones

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Ed Kilgore tells us about his night:

Ugh, dreamed about the Voters First Presidential Forum a good part of the night. ‘Twas even more boring the third time around.

Oh lordy. I wonder if I dream about stuff like this? Probably. So even though it would frustrate Freud, I think it’s all for the best that I never remember my dreams.

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Dreaming about Debates

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Jenny McCarthy Issues Blistering Indictment of ABC’s Continued Employment of Jenny McCarthy

by BettyWhitefoord Posted on March 18, 2014

Mother Jones

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Why is a person famous for controversially telling parents not to vaccinate their kids co-hosting ABC’s flagship daytime talk show The View? I don’t know. Probably because she’s famous and controversial, and people like to talk about people who are famous and controversial, and TV executives think people like to watch shows hosted by people who are famous and controversial, but maybe not. I don’t know what’s in Barbara Walter’s heart. Maybe there’s some other reason. Who knows!

According to Jenny McCarthy, however, the answer is that she’s famous and controversial for telling people not to vaccinate their kids.

A Q score is a measure of brand familiarity. It essentially measures a celebrity’s marketability. What this tweet is saying is ‘your outrage makes me more famous and my fame keeps me employed.’ Jenny McCarthy is famous for telling parents not to vaccinate their kids. This is not only awful advice, it’s dangerous advice, too. (There’s an outbreak of measles in New York City at this very moment.)

Vaccinate your kids.

(The View did not respond to my requests for comment on Jenny McCarthy’s suggestion that she is employed because of the notoriety she has achieved by loudly telling parents not to vaccinate their kids.)

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Jenny McCarthy Issues Blistering Indictment of ABC’s Continued Employment of Jenny McCarthy

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