Tag Archives: slideshows

Chart of the Day: Another Sign That Dodd-Frank Is Working

by AdelaidaH Posted on February 3, 2016

Mother Jones

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Via Matt O’Brien, this chart from JP Morgan shows financial sector leverage over the past few decades. As you can see, leverage skyrocketed during the Bush era, which contributed to the 2008 financial meltdown, and then plummeted shortly thereafter. Then it flattened out for a couple of years, and under normal circumstances it probably would have started to climb again when the economy began to recover. Two things stopped it: Dodd-Frank and Basel III, both of which mandated higher capital requirements and thus lower overall leverage levels. This has reduced Wall Street profits but made the banking system safer for everyone.

In other words: financial regulation FTW. Nothing is perfect, and Wall Street is doing everything it can to undermine Dodd-Frank during the rulemaking process, but if it accomplishes nothing except encouraging less leverage it will have done its most important job.

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Chart of the Day: Another Sign That Dodd-Frank Is Working

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No Debate Live-Blogging Tonight

by Ariel33876755 Posted on January 28, 2016

Mother Jones

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For those of you who have just returned from a vacation on the moon, there’s a Republican debate tonight. It’s on Fox News at 9 pm Eastern, and Donald Trump will not be participating.

Nor will I. Instead, I have important birthday celebrations to attend to. This mostly involves trying out a new Italian place nearby, which sounds a whole lot more pleasant than yet another two hours of rehearsed talking points about the appeaser-in-chief and the death of America as we know it. You’re on your own for that. I’ll try to catch up when I get home.

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No Debate Live-Blogging Tonight

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Parenting Tip of the Day: Buy a Backward-Facing Stroller For Your Baby

by LelaClvfcl Posted on January 27, 2016

Mother Jones

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I just got back from my morning walk, and as usual I saw a bunch of parents taking their babies out for a walk in their strollers. And that got me wondering: does this have any benefit for babies? What do they get out of a daily ride around the neighborhood?

When I got home I tried to find some research on this point, but I failed. I guess I don’t know where to look. But I did find some research suggesting that if you’re going to take your baby for a stroll, you should do it in a stroller where the baby faces you rather than the outside world. Why? One researcher suggested (without data, apparently) that babies just felt more comfortable when they could see mommy or daddy. But two researchers have actual data. Although they come up with raw numbers that are different enough to make you wonder just how accurate any of this is, both Suzanne Zeedyk and Ken Blaiklock performed observational research of parents pushing their kids around and found that parents talked to their babies a lot more when the babies faced them.

This makes perfect sense, of course, and both Zeedyk and Blaiklock recommend parent-facing strollers because it encourages more interaction, which is a good thing. This doesn’t answer the question of whether taking your baby for a stroll has any effect one way or the other, but at least it suggests the best kind of stroller to get. Consider this your parenting tip of the day.

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Parenting Tip of the Day: Buy a Backward-Facing Stroller For Your Baby

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Factoid of the Day: The IMF is 0 for 220 In Predicting Recessions

by DomingoHeidelber Posted on January 27, 2016

Mother Jones

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Larry Summer points us to this remarkable statistic:

Forecasts of all sorts are especially bad at predicting downturns. Over the period 1999-2014, there were 220 instances in which an economy grew in one year before shrinking in the next. In its April forecasts the IMF never once foresaw the contraction looming in the next year. Even in October of the year in question, the IMF predicted that a recession had begun only half the time.

I guess no one likes to be the skunk at the party, even the IMF. But I wonder who did better at predicting recessions? Goldman Sachs? The CIA? A hedge fund rocket scientist in Connecticut? Whoever it is, it sounds like the IMF might want to look them up.

UPDATE: It gets better! Via Twitter, Mark Gimein points me to Prakash Loungani’s article 15 years ago about recession predictions during the 1990s:

How well did private forecasters do in predicting recessions in these cases? Quite simply, the record of failure to predict recessions is virtually unblemished. Only two of the 60 recessions that occurred around the world during the 1990s were predicted a year in advance.

….If private sector growth forecasts are of little use in spotting recessions, why not use the forecasts provided free by the official sector?…There is not much to choose between private sector and official sector forecasts. Statistical “races” between the two tend to end up in a photo-finish in most cases.

Loungani doesn’t provide a precise number for IMF predictions, but he implies it’s roughly the same as private-sector predictions: 2 out of 60. If that’s the case, the IMF has gotten even worse since then. A hit rate of 3.3 percent might be pretty lousy, but at least it’s better than 0 percent.

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Factoid of the Day: The IMF is 0 for 220 In Predicting Recessions

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I Review NR’s "Against Trump" Issue

by MaryjoTrout Posted on January 22, 2016

Mother Jones

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Everybody is writing today about National Review’s big “Against Trump” issue. I did that last night, so today I want to review their effort. I give it a D+.

This isn’t my usual liberal carping at NR. Normally I carp because I disagree with them, but this time we are joined in a mutual bond of disgust. Virtually every single thing that everyone said in their anti-Trump symposium was true. I applaud what they did.

But why was it so damn lazy? Every editor in the world knows that the easiest way to fill pages is to corral a bunch of writers from the ol’ office Rolodex and ask them each to write 300 words on some topic. Every editor also knows that unless there’s some serious adult supervision, these “symposiums” are usually flaccid and unpersuasive. Lots of contributors will repeat what others have said. They mostly just bang something out instead of working on tight pieces that make crisp points. Some of them just toss out a few bromides and email it off.

That’s what happened this time too, and it’s yet another example of what I was complaining about yesterday: no one seems willing to really attack Trump. Obviously I don’t expect NR to produce the written equivalent of a Willie Horton ad, but despite all my past (and future) kvetching about them, I have no doubt that NR’s stable of writers can produce very persuasive, very well-written agit-prop1 when they put their minds to it. I’ve seen it before, and it’s not always easy to respond to.

What NR should have done is simple: Figure out half a dozen of Trump’s weakest points—points that even Trump supporters might find troubling—and assign a writer to dive into each one. Give each one the time to really do some research and produce a tight, fact-checked piece that tears Trump a new asshole. Put them all together and you’d have the definitive anti-Trump manifesto. Something like this would have an impact beyond the mere fact of NR doing it.

I don’t know why this didn’t happen. Lack of time? Lack of staff enthusiasm? It’s a mystery.

1I don’t mean this in a derogatory way. (Not this time, anyway.) This is what political magazines do. It can be done well or poorly, subtly or noisily, but our mission in life is to persuade people and provoke change.

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I Review NR’s "Against Trump" Issue

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Raw Data: State Abortion Restrictions Over the Past Three Decades

by FrankMcCready Posted on January 22, 2016

Mother Jones

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Here’s what’s happened to abortion restrictions since the Republican landslide of 2010. After decades of passing a couple dozen laws each session, the number of new restrictions has skyrocketed. In the aftermath of the Democratic midterm debacle, states have averaged over a hundred per session. The moral of the story is: Midterms matter. States matter. If this doesn’t stop, the year 1950 is coming soon to a state near you.

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Raw Data: State Abortion Restrictions Over the Past Three Decades

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I Still Think Trump Will Lose

by MaureenKlug2751 Posted on January 22, 2016

Mother Jones

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Just for the record, I haven’t changed my mind: Donald Trump will not win the Republican nomination for president. At some point fairly soon, the other candidates are going to take off the gloves and really go after him. When that happens, Trump will have to fight back in a fairly ordinary way. Insults on Twitter will no longer be enough. Eventually the attacks will stick, Trump will do something dumb, and his support will drop.

That’s it. That’s all I’ve got. I don’t know who’s going to hit him hard. I don’t know which attack will stick. I don’t know what kind of mistake Trump will make. I don’t know what will finally bring Republican voters to their senses. But something will.

Unless, of course, the Republican candidates continue to inexplicably shuffle around morosely and simply accept their fate as pathetic losers. It’s hard to believe that’s what’s happened so far, and hard to believe it will continue. But I guess it’s possible. Maybe what the GOP really needs is an institutional-size Prozac. Or Viagra. Or something.

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I Still Think Trump Will Lose

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When Will It Become Illegal to Drive a Car in the United States?

by CortezTrujillo Posted on January 22, 2016

Mother Jones

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When will driverless cars become a reality? That is, real driverless cars, where you just tell it where you want to go and then sit back and enjoy the ride?

My guess is seven or eight years. Maybe you think five. Or ten. Or fifteen.

But here’s a more interesting question: after driverless cars become widely available, how long will it be until human-driven cars are made illegal? I say ten years. It will vary state to state, of course, and there will likely be exceptions of various kinds (specific types of commercial vehicles, ATVs meant for fun, etc.). Still, without a special license they’ll become broadly illegal on streets in fairly short order. The proximate cause will be a chart something like the one on the right.

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When Will It Become Illegal to Drive a Car in the United States?

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Ted Cruz vs. Donald Trump: Who Is the Least Charitable?

by MadelinBach Posted on January 21, 2016

Mother Jones

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McKay Coppins tells us that Ted Cruz is “facing questions” about his lack of entirely Christ-like generosity:

In a series of interviews this week, political opponents and pastors alike suggested Cruz — an avowed Baptist who is aggressively courting evangelical voters — has flouted the Biblical commandment of tithing in his personal life….According to personal tax returns released during his 2012 Senate bid, Cruz contributed less than 1% of his income to charity between 2006 and 2010 — a far cry from the 10% most evangelical leaders believe the Bible demands.

Well, Ted had all those loans from Goldman Sachs to pay off, so he probably didn’t have much to spare for tithing. Anyway, those loans were used for the greatest possible gift to the Lord: Ted Cruz’s ascension to the Senate.

Of course, Cruz is Mother Theresa compared to his competition:

Tax filings of the Donald J. Trump foundation show Trump has made no charitable contributions to his own namesake nonprofit since 2008. Without an endowment, the fund has continued to give grants only as a result of contributions from others.

….Pressed by the AP on the details of his contributions, Trump campaign spokeswoman Hope Hicks provided a partial list of donations that appeared to correspond with the foundation’s gifts — indicating that Trump may be counting other people’s charitable giving as his own.

“I give to hundreds of charities and people in need of help,” Trump said in an emailed response to questions from the AP about how he tallied his own philanthropy. “It is one of the things I most like doing and one of the great reasons to have made a lot of money.” The Trump campaign did not respond to a request that it identify donations that Trump himself gave.

More here. Obviously Trump is lying about this, but that’s hardly even noteworthy anymore. As near as I can tell, he’s congenitally unable to tell the truth about anything related to his finances. I mean, this is a guy who’s using other people’s money for his supposedly self-funded campaign and who claims to this day that he did great with his Atlantic City casinos.

But he’s somehow invulnerable anyway. As best I can figure it, Trump (a) never goes to church, (b) has never read the Bible, (c) is unusually stingy, and (d) lives a personal life of serial affairs with younger women followed by serial divorces. But somehow lots of evangelicals think he’s a Godly man anyway.

Cruz, on the other hand, is the son of a guy who runs the Purifying Fire International ministry—a preacher so evangelical he seems ready to explode at times. Cruz went to a Baptist high school; he talks about religion interminably; and he attends church regularly. But somehow lots of evangelicals have abandoned him for Trump.

Strange times.

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Ted Cruz vs. Donald Trump: Who Is the Least Charitable?

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Sarah Palin Is Such a Creep

by NigelWainewright Posted on January 20, 2016

Mother Jones

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I know I said that last night’s Palin-palooza would “hold me for a year,” but I guess I was wrong. Palin’s son Track was arrested Monday on domestic violence charges, and today Palin addressed this:

My own family, my son, a combat vet having served in the Stryker brigade… my son like so many others, they come back a bit different, they come back hardened, they come back wondering if there is that respect… and that starts right at the top.

I’m not happy with liberals who use Track’s problems as a way of snickering at Sarah. Yes, when you use your kids as campaign props, you open yourself up to some of this. But parents do their best, and kids sometimes have problems. Whatever Track’s problems are, he and his family should be allowed to deal with them in their own way.

That said, if you decide to use your son’s problems as a political cudgel, you can hardly expect to others to hold back forever. Palin should be ashamed of herself.

But leave Track alone anyway. He doesn’t deserve outsize attention just because his mother is such a creep. I only hope he gets the help he pretty obviously needs.

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Sarah Palin Is Such a Creep

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