Tag Archives: romance

Silicon Valley Not Really Feeling the Bern

by FrancescaMackino Posted on April 21, 2016

Mother Jones

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Based on donor data, Brian Fung says that Bernie Sanders has a lot of fans in the dotcom biz:

This wouldn’t be worth mentioning except for the fact that Sanders appears to have a broad-based appeal among Silicon Valley workers compared with his rivals. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, Sanders’s campaign committee seems to be by far the biggest recipient of donations from employees of Alphabet (Google’s parent company), Apple, Microsoft, Amazon.com and Intel.

….This sets up a few possibilities. It’s conceivable, for instance, that Clinton’s support among tech companies is actually higher than what we can observe from her list….Another possibility is that tech-industry folks are donating to Clinton but in amounts too small to break into the lists we’re looking at….What we can say is that Sanders appears to have much more support than Clinton across a wider range of tech companies, even if the amount of that financial support is relatively small.

Nah. Google employees are split nearly evenly between Bernie and Hillary, and employees of the other four companies probably are too. We just can’t see them because their totals fall below the top 20 in Hillary’s donor list. But why guess about this? All we have to do is look at the overall industry numbers. Here they are:

Compared to overall fundraising, this represents a bigger tilt toward Hillary than average. And despite the size of this sector, it represents a dismal 0.43 percent of Hillary’s total campaign donations and 0.36 percent of Bernie’s. So we can draw the following conclusions:

Hillary has broader support in the internet sector than Bernie.
Hillary gets a bigger percentage of her donations from the internet sector.
Silicon Valley is full of cheapskates who don’t care much about politics.

So there you have it.

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Silicon Valley Not Really Feeling the Bern

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Is It Finally Time For a UBI?

by Leesa78508779713 Posted on April 20, 2016

Mother Jones

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UBI is having a moment. Not a big moment, mind you, but a moment nonetheless. Why?

UBI stands for Universal Basic Income, and it’s just what it sounds like. It guarantees everyone, rich and poor alike, a certain minimum cash income and replaces the alphabet soup of current welfare programs. No more food stamps. No more Section 8. No more unemployment compensation.

On the right, UBI got a boost a few years ago from Charles Murray, who championed the idea in his book In Our Hands: A Plan To Replace The Welfare State. On the left, the rise of Bernie Sanders has given it a bit of new momentum, even though it’s not part of Bernie’s campaign platform. It’s also gotten some attention thanks to planned experiments in Finland and the Netherlands, and a referendum for a national UBI in Switzerland this summer. On his Freakonomics podcast last week, Stephen Dubner suggests it’s “an idea whose time finally may have come.”

So what are the pros and cons? Here’s a quick, extremely non-exhaustive rundown.

THE GOOD

#1: A UBI eliminates bad work incentives.

There’s a problem inherent with all means-tested welfare benefits: they phase out as you make more money. Suppose you make $15,000 per year, and above that point you lose 50 cents of welfare benefits for every dollar you earn. This means that working more hours or taking a more challenging job doesn’t pay much. On net, a raise of $5,000 per year only gets you $2,500 of actual compensation. This reduces the incentive to work harder in order to escape poverty. But a UBI is different: Since you continue to receive a UBI no matter what your income, it has no effect on work incentives.

#2: A UBI reduces admin costs.

Means-tested programs all have to be administered, and that costs money. A UBI reclaims nearly all of that. The government just sends out a monthly check to every citizen, and that’s it. Admin costs are minuscule.

#3: A UBI allows the poor to live freer lives.

Poor people no longer have to endure a demanding gauntlet of welfare offices and complicated forms. They don’t have to prove their income is low, or that they have kids, or that they’re actively looking for work. Nor do they have to accept only the specific forms of welfare the government feels like giving them. They just get a check every month, and they can spend it as they please.

THE BAD

#1: It costs a fortune.

A reasonable UBI would probably amount to about $10,000 per year, which works out to a total cost of $3.2 trillion. Of course, we’d also eliminate lots of welfare payments, so the net cost would be less than that. But even accounting for that, it would probably require the federal income tax to be doubled or tripled. That’s a pretty tough sell.

#2: It can’t replace everything.

You can—barely—live on $10,000 per year. But that won’t pay for health care. It won’t pay for public schools for our kids. We’ll still have to keep some welfare programs around even with a UBI. On the plus side, as long as these programs are universal, they generally retain the benefits of a UBI: low admin costs and no bad work incentives.

#3: What about children?

This is tricky. Option A is to simply include them like everyone else. But this provides a substantial incentive to have children in order to get their UBI, and that’s not something most voters are likely to accept. Option B is to give children a smaller UBI than adults. But would that be enough to provide for them properly? Nobody wants kids to suffer because their parents are poor. How do you ensure that?

#4: What about the elderly?

Should retirees be folded into the UBI? If so, their pensions would be quite a bit lower than they are now. If not, we’d basically be guaranteeing a higher UBI for old people than for young people. Would that seem fair to most people?

#5: Money is a sadly vulnerable commodity.

It’s an unfortunate but painful truth that poor people are often vulnerable to having cash taken away from them. It can be stolen, of course, but more likely it’s simply confiscated by someone they’re living with. This is obviously a problem with earnings of all kinds, but one advantage of existing welfare programs is that it provides a minimum floor to this. A drunk and abusive husband can’t take away your Section 8 voucher or your food stamps or your Medicaid in order to blow it on beer and smokes.

This is just the briefest outline. And it may be that in the near future we no longer have much choice about this anyway. As robots take away more and more jobs, a UBI may be the only realistic answer to a nation full of robots that can replace low-skill workers at almost no cost. If we get to a point where a substantial number of people flatly don’t have the skills to perform any job for any wage, what are we going to do? The most likely answer is that we’ll end up with a UBI whether we like it or not. And that makes it worth thinking about right now.

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Is It Finally Time For a UBI?

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Harriet Tubman Will Replace Jackson on $20 Bill

by WesleyCrb9 Posted on April 20, 2016

Mother Jones

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Who says Broadway musicals are a dying art form?

Treasury Secretary Jack Lew on Wednesday will announce plans to both keep Alexander Hamilton on the front of the $10 bill and to knock Andrew Jackson off the front of the $20 in favor of Harriet Tubman, sources tell POLITICO.

….Lew’s reversal comes after he announced last summer that he was considering replacing Hamilton on the $10 bill with a woman. The plan drew swift rebukes from fans of Hamilton, who helped create the Treasury Department and the modern American financial system….Supporters of putting a woman on the $10 bill have complained that it will take too long to put a woman on the $20 bill. But people familiar with the matter said new designs for the bills should be ready by 2020. Treasury is likely to ask the Federal Reserve, which makes the final decision, to speed the process and get the bills into circulation as quickly as possible.

The movement to keep Hamilton on the $10 bill gathered strength after the Broadway musical named after the former Treasury Secretary and founding father became a runaway smash hit.

Quick! Someone create a smash hit dubstep-zydeco dance musical featuring Andrew Jackson. It’s his only hope.

I still wish Lew had chosen Frances Perkins, since I like the tradition of portraying people on currency who have served in office, but that’s just a personal thing. (Though I do admire Perkins greatly, and think she deserves more attention than she usually gets.) Still, it’s hard to argue with Tubman—or with any of dozens of other women. When you’re going from zero to one, there are a whole lot of worthy choices.

And it’s also nice to see that they can manage to put a new bill in circulation by 2020 after all. I mean, 2030? Seriously? How can it take 15 years to design a new bill and start shipping it to banks?

POSTSCRIPT: There’s a bit of irony here. The $20 bill is ubiquitous largely because that’s what ATMs have been spitting out since the late 70s. But a twenty today is worth less a ten back then. We really ought to be using $50 bills as our go-to walking-around currency these days, and that’s what ATMs should be churning out. By 2020, maybe they will be. And by 2025 cash will probably have disappeared entirely. So by the time Tubman finally makes it onto the twenty, we won’t be using them much anymore. Women just can’t catch a break.

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Harriet Tubman Will Replace Jackson on $20 Bill

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It’s Not Just Blue-Collar Workers Who Voted For Trump Last Night

by HoraceBrookman Posted on April 20, 2016

Mother Jones

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I don’t really know how much to make of this, but Donald Trump’s victory in New York last night was remarkably thorough. Take a look at the exit poll results on the right for evidence.

Yes, Trump did well in his wheelhouse of high school grads. But college grads and postgrads also voted for him by huge margins. In New York, at least, having a PhD (or an MA or a law degree or a medical degree) didn’t do much to help you see through his obvious flimflam.

Perhaps even more remarkably, Trump’s strongest support didn’t come from blue-collar workers with modest incomes. It came from middle and upper-middle-class voters. Whatever their motivations, it didn’t have anything to do with China and Mexico taking away their jobs.

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It’s Not Just Blue-Collar Workers Who Voted For Trump Last Night

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Another Pension Fund Goes South After the Great Recession

by RoxannaGuest Posted on April 20, 2016

Mother Jones

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Here’s the latest big pension fund in trouble:

More than a quarter of a million truckers, retirees and their families could soon see their pension benefits severely cut — even though their pension fund is still years away from running out of money.

….Like many other pension plans, the Central States Pension Fund suffered heavy investment losses during the financial crisis that cut into the pool of money available to pay out benefits. While the stock market has recovered since then, the improvements were not enough to make up for the shortfall….That imbalance left the fund paying out $3.46 in pension benefits for every $1 it received from employers. The shortfall has resulted in the fund paying out $2 billion more in benefits than it receives in employer contributions each year.

One of the big criticisms of 401(k) style retirement plans is that they can lose a bundle when the stock market tanks. And sure enough, that’s exactly what happened during the Great Recession. The value of 401(k) plans fell dramatically, causing a lot of pain for people who were close to retirement.

But don’t let that make you nostalgic for the good old days of defined-benefit pensions. Sure, they promise a steady retirement income, but promises are only as good as the money to back them up. This means that pension funds which lost a lot of money during the Great Recession are in no better shape than 401(k) plans that did the same. There’s no magic here.

What’s more, 401(k) plans have rebounded since the depths of the recession: taking into account both their losses and their subsequent gains during the recovery, the average 401(k) balance has grown more than 10 percent per year between 2007 and 2013. Apparently that’s not the case for the Central States Pension Fund. Perhaps those much-maligned 401(k) plans are a better retirement vehicle than their critics give them credit for?

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Another Pension Fund Goes South After the Great Recession

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In the 21st Century, We All Want Smart, Gorgeous Mates

by GwenJosehvf Posted on April 19, 2016

Mother Jones

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Wonkblog points us today to a chart from Max Roser showing how men and women rated various aspects of potential mates in 1939 vs. 2009. (Since 1939 is the comparison year, it goes without saying that we’re talking about straight, cis, and most likely white folks here.) You can see the entire set of data at either of the links above, but I was interested mainly in the traits that have moved up or down significantly over that period. Here they are, in a handily color-coded pink and blue chart:

What can we tell from this? For starters, keep in mind that this is what people say they value, not what they actually value. “Similar political background,” for example, has allegedly moved up only one spot, from dead last to almost last, so it’s not in my chart. But there’s considerable evidence that a lot of people today would rather have their big toes cut off than associate with someone of the opposite party. So take all of this with a grain of salt.

Anyway, obviously chastity is out the door. No one cares anymore. Refinement is now decidedly old-fashioned, replaced by a desire for the more egalitarian virtue of sociability. And love has zoomed up to the top of the chart. (Allegedly, anyway.)

Beyond that, the two big movers are education and good looks. Apparently we all want mates who are both smart and gorgeous, which might go a long way toward explaining why marriage seems to be in decline. How many smart, gorgeous people are there in the world, after all? And if they have to be gregarious too—well, you’re just being mighty picky. Good luck.

Notably, the boring traits haven’t changed much: dependability and stability were near the top of the chart in 1939, and they’re still there now. I guess meat and potatoes are always in fashion. Or so we tell the pollsters, anyway.

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In the 21st Century, We All Want Smart, Gorgeous Mates

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Here’s a Sneak Preview of the Upcoming Republican Health Care Plan

by CorneliGandon Posted on April 19, 2016

Mother Jones

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Seven years after they first promised an alternative health care proposal, Republicans now say they’re close. “Give us a little time, another month or so,” Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.) told reporters this week. Steve Benen is unimpressed:

The problem probably isn’t dishonesty. In all likelihood, Republicans would love to have a health care plan of their own — no one likes to appear ridiculous while breaking promises — but haven’t because they don’t know how to craft one.

Not true! They know exactly how to craft one. In fact, I’ve seen a leak of their upcoming plan. Here it is:

Block granting of Medicaid
Tort reform
Interstate purchase of health plans
High-risk pools
Tax breaks for buying individual coverage
Health savings accounts

None of this would have much effect on the health care market, and it would probably fall about 19 million short of covering the 20 million people currently covered by Obamacare. That’s why they don’t want to unveil it. They know what they want, and they know how to craft it, but they still don’t know how to make up a plausible set of lies about how it will do anybody any good. As soon as they figure that part out, they’ll go public the next day.

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Here’s a Sneak Preview of the Upcoming Republican Health Care Plan

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Who Supported the 1994 Crime Bill?

by Zella53Ssnlil Posted on April 18, 2016

Mother Jones

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Farah Stockman reports that the generation gap between Hillary supporters and Bernie supporters extends to African-Americans too. And the 1994 crime bill is part of it:

Caryl Brock said she had been a social worker in charge of the removal of children from dangerous homes in the South Bronx and Spanish Harlem in the late 1980s and early 1990s, when crack tore a path of destruction through those neighborhoods….She said she was relieved when the crime bill passed. In addition to providing more money for prisons and the police, the law banned assault weapons and offered funding for drug courts and rehabilitation. “Because of the crime bill,” she said, “anybody that wanted rehabilitation, we could process them and get them a detox bed in a hospital.”

Ms. Brock’s comments underscore a sometimes overlooked reality in today’s re-examination of the crime bill: The legislation was broadly embraced by nonwhite voters, more enthusiastically even than by white voters. About 58 percent of nonwhites supported it in 1994, according to a Gallup poll, compared with 49 percent of white voters.

Mr. Clinton has seemed rattled at times as he tries to defend the measure to younger African-Americans in an era in which concerns about mistreatment by the police and mass incarceration have eclipsed the fear of crime in many black communities.

And among these younger voters, the Clintons lack the deep admiration that they enjoy from previous generations of African-Americans. In the Democratic primary contests so far, 92 percent of black voters 65 and older cast ballots for Mrs. Clinton, compared with 45 percent of black voters under age 25, according to exit polls conducted by Edison Research.

Obviously everyone should vote for whoever they want. But this piece highlights one thing that continues to eat at me: judging the past by the standards of the present. The 1994 crime bill was hardly supported unanimously, and there was plenty of criticism of it at the time. It’s fine to take note of that. But the plain fact is that 1994 was a different time: crime was rampant and people were scared—including black people—and most of them supported the crime bill, warts and all. Were they wrong to do so? Maybe. But you need to seriously engage with what the world was like in 1994 and what they could reasonably have known about it before you condemn them.

A world where violent crime is no longer an obsession, replaced instead by DWB and Ferguson-style police shootings, calls for different responses. No one would propose anything like the 1994 crime bill anymore. But in 1994 things looked a lot different. You need to understand that deep in your gut before you lash out at the folks who supported it.

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Who Supported the 1994 Crime Bill?

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Hillary Clinton Crushes Bernie Sanders in South Carolina

by StefanieLuce Posted on February 28, 2016

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This is nuts. Yesterday Pollster had Hillary Clinton ahead in South Carolina by about 20 points. Today they added one new poll, and they have her ahead by 50 points—which is about what she won by.

Did Bernie really lose 30 points of support in the past two weeks? That’s what the polls seem to show. But why? And how did the press not pick up on this? Most of the coverage I’ve seen has suggested that, sure, Hillary is going to win, but she’s really being pressed in the black community and Bernie could do better than expected. But according to the exit polls, she ended up winning 84 percent of the black vote. And perhaps even more worryingly for Bernie, she even crushed him among voters who agree that our economic system favors the wealthy. That’s his wheelhouse, and he won only 30 percent of their vote.

We’ll know more after Tuesday, but this doesn’t look good for Sanders. If Hillary racks up a big win on Super Tuesday, she’ll be so far ahead in the delegate count she’ll be almost mathematically unbeatable. At that point, it will be pretty hard for him to justify staying in the race.

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Hillary Clinton Crushes Bernie Sanders in South Carolina

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This Year’s Shameful Campaign Coverage In Less Than 50 Words

by NatalieCaro895 Posted on February 27, 2016

Mother Jones

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The Washington Post reports on Marco Rubio’s rollicking, Trump-bashing rally today:

While Rubio attacked Trump, national cable networks played his speech live — a favor granted constantly to Trump, rarely to anyone else. When Rubio switched tacks to deliver his positive stump speech, the networks cut away.

And there you have it. This year’s debauched and disgraceful campaign coverage in a nutshell.

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This Year’s Shameful Campaign Coverage In Less Than 50 Words

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