That one may be helpful if you read the NYT article on President Obama’s request of $3.7 billion from Congress.
That one may be helpful if you read the NYT article on President Obama’s request of $3.7 billion from Congress.
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Regular readers of Beat the Press know that I go into the stratosphere when I see a news story or column that uses numbers in the millions, billions, or trillions and doesn’t provide any context, like relating it to the total budget if it’s a tax or spending item. The reason for my ire is simple: everyone knows that almost no one is going to be able to assign any significance to these Really Big Numbers. Therefore such pieces are providing no information to readers.
On the other hand it is very simple to provide context to readers. Dana Milbank showed how today when he wrote about the $4.2 million dollars that President Obama announced he would spend on a new Excellent Educators for All Initiative, which is supposed to address inequities in the quality of teachers across schools. Milbank pointed out that the commitment amounted to about 0.0001 percent of federal spending. In other words, this is gesture done for show.
By writing that President Obama plans to spend 0.0001 percent of the budget on his Excellent Educators for All Initiative, Milbank is telling readers that this is not a serious plan for addressing educational disparities, it is a public relations gesture. People who just saw the $4.2 million number may be under the mistaken impression that this program could actually make a difference in the quality of education for poor children.
Of course if reporters routinely expressed numbers in context there would be less incentive for politicians to push forward with silly public relations gestures, because everyone would know they are silly gestures. That would be a direct positive effect of this sort of effort at providing readers with real information instead of treating budget reporting as a fraternity ritual in which reporters write down numbers which they know to be meaningless to almost everyone who sees them.
Regular readers of Beat the Press know that I go into the stratosphere when I see a news story or column that uses numbers in the millions, billions, or trillions and doesn’t provide any context, like relating it to the total budget if it’s a tax or spending item. The reason for my ire is simple: everyone knows that almost no one is going to be able to assign any significance to these Really Big Numbers. Therefore such pieces are providing no information to readers.
On the other hand it is very simple to provide context to readers. Dana Milbank showed how today when he wrote about the $4.2 million dollars that President Obama announced he would spend on a new Excellent Educators for All Initiative, which is supposed to address inequities in the quality of teachers across schools. Milbank pointed out that the commitment amounted to about 0.0001 percent of federal spending. In other words, this is gesture done for show.
By writing that President Obama plans to spend 0.0001 percent of the budget on his Excellent Educators for All Initiative, Milbank is telling readers that this is not a serious plan for addressing educational disparities, it is a public relations gesture. People who just saw the $4.2 million number may be under the mistaken impression that this program could actually make a difference in the quality of education for poor children.
Of course if reporters routinely expressed numbers in context there would be less incentive for politicians to push forward with silly public relations gestures, because everyone would know they are silly gestures. That would be a direct positive effect of this sort of effort at providing readers with real information instead of treating budget reporting as a fraternity ritual in which reporters write down numbers which they know to be meaningless to almost everyone who sees them.
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A Washington Post article on the June employment report yesterday noted the jump in involuntary part-time employment:
“In June, their ranks [the number of people who are working part-time but want full-time jobs] swelled by 275,000 to 7.5 million. In 2007, 4.4 million people fell into this category.”
It is important to note the longer term trend here since the month to month movements are highly erratic. The number of people working part-time involuntarily is down by 640,000 from its year ago level and by more than 1.6 million from its peak in 2010.
There are more people voluntarily working part-time, but this is a positive. (These are workers who answer a survey by saying they have chosen to work part-time, less than 35 hours a week.) The number of people voluntarily working part-time typically rises in an upturn, presumably because workers feel they have more choice about jobs and many people would rather work fewer hours to take care of children or other family members or possibly because their own health makes full-time employment difficult. The Affordable Care Act has likely increased the number of people who are working part-time voluntarily since many workers will no longer feel the need to work at a job that provides health care insurance since they can buy it through the exchanges.
A Washington Post article on the June employment report yesterday noted the jump in involuntary part-time employment:
“In June, their ranks [the number of people who are working part-time but want full-time jobs] swelled by 275,000 to 7.5 million. In 2007, 4.4 million people fell into this category.”
It is important to note the longer term trend here since the month to month movements are highly erratic. The number of people working part-time involuntarily is down by 640,000 from its year ago level and by more than 1.6 million from its peak in 2010.
There are more people voluntarily working part-time, but this is a positive. (These are workers who answer a survey by saying they have chosen to work part-time, less than 35 hours a week.) The number of people voluntarily working part-time typically rises in an upturn, presumably because workers feel they have more choice about jobs and many people would rather work fewer hours to take care of children or other family members or possibly because their own health makes full-time employment difficult. The Affordable Care Act has likely increased the number of people who are working part-time voluntarily since many workers will no longer feel the need to work at a job that provides health care insurance since they can buy it through the exchanges.
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It is amazing that a lengthy piece in the NYT discussing the high cost of new vaccines and the efforts of companies to promote them never discussed the possibility of alternatives to patent monopolies as a way to finance the research. Until recent years, most vaccines actually were developed with public funding, so obviously it is possible.
If the research were paid with public funding, then vaccines would be cheap since they would all be generics. And, there would not be a problem with companies misrepresenting their safety and effectiveness. Monopoly profits give companies an incentive to lie, a fact that economists generally recognize in other circumstances.
The impact of misleading promotion campaigns is especially important in the case of vaccines. Many vaccines are required for allowing children into school. In other words, the government will arrest parents who don’t pay companies their monopoly profits on these vaccines. And in the loon tune land of modern economics, this is called a free market outcome.
It is amazing that a lengthy piece in the NYT discussing the high cost of new vaccines and the efforts of companies to promote them never discussed the possibility of alternatives to patent monopolies as a way to finance the research. Until recent years, most vaccines actually were developed with public funding, so obviously it is possible.
If the research were paid with public funding, then vaccines would be cheap since they would all be generics. And, there would not be a problem with companies misrepresenting their safety and effectiveness. Monopoly profits give companies an incentive to lie, a fact that economists generally recognize in other circumstances.
The impact of misleading promotion campaigns is especially important in the case of vaccines. Many vaccines are required for allowing children into school. In other words, the government will arrest parents who don’t pay companies their monopoly profits on these vaccines. And in the loon tune land of modern economics, this is called a free market outcome.
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It is painful to read Eduardo Porter’s column on the prospects for slowing global warming and China’s greenhouse gas emissions. It’s not that Porter got anything in particular wrong; he is presenting standard projections that are the basis for international negotiations. Rather it is the framing of the trade-offs that is painful.
Porter poses the question of the extent to which China should be willing to slow its economic growth to curb its greenhouse gas emissions, as opposed to rich countries like the United States bearing more of the burden. The reason this is painful is that most folks might recall that our major economic problem at the moment is secular stagnation.
In case people forgot, this is a problem of inadequate demand. The story is that we don’t have enough demand for goods and services to keep our workforce fully employed. As a result we have tens of millions who are unemployed, underemployed, or who have given up looking for work altogether. This is not just a U.S. problem but one that afflicts much of the world.
Okay, now bring in the problem of global warming. Isn’t it horrible that we face this immense environmental problem at the same time that our economies are suffering from this horrible problem of secular stagnation? Arghhhhhh!
The problem of global warming is one that needs lot of work. We need people to retrofit our buildings to make them more energy efficient, to put up solar panels and wind turbines to get clean energy. How about paying people to drive free buses so that commuters have more incentive to leave their cars at home? We need to build smart grids to minimize energy wastage. The list is really long.
This issue comes up very directly in terms of our economic relations with China. Our big complaint (at least publicly) is that China is deliberately keeping down the value of its currency against the dollar in order to export more to the United States. That’s a too little demand story again. But, we also want them to spend more on curbing greenhouse gas emissions. That’s a perfect way to address the too little demand story.
Instead of subsidizing its exports to the United States (the effect of China’s present trade policy), China could redirect these resources to subsidizing its installation of solar panels. Everyone stays fully employed and we get fewer greenhouse gas emissions.
These transitions are not all simple and easy, but the basic point is that two problems fit together perfectly. The enormous spending associated with World War II was the cure for our last depression. No one in their right mind would want to see another catastrophic war, but a massive deployment of resources to curb greenhouse gas emissions worldwide would serve the same purpose.
Come on folks, this really isn’t hard.
It is painful to read Eduardo Porter’s column on the prospects for slowing global warming and China’s greenhouse gas emissions. It’s not that Porter got anything in particular wrong; he is presenting standard projections that are the basis for international negotiations. Rather it is the framing of the trade-offs that is painful.
Porter poses the question of the extent to which China should be willing to slow its economic growth to curb its greenhouse gas emissions, as opposed to rich countries like the United States bearing more of the burden. The reason this is painful is that most folks might recall that our major economic problem at the moment is secular stagnation.
In case people forgot, this is a problem of inadequate demand. The story is that we don’t have enough demand for goods and services to keep our workforce fully employed. As a result we have tens of millions who are unemployed, underemployed, or who have given up looking for work altogether. This is not just a U.S. problem but one that afflicts much of the world.
Okay, now bring in the problem of global warming. Isn’t it horrible that we face this immense environmental problem at the same time that our economies are suffering from this horrible problem of secular stagnation? Arghhhhhh!
The problem of global warming is one that needs lot of work. We need people to retrofit our buildings to make them more energy efficient, to put up solar panels and wind turbines to get clean energy. How about paying people to drive free buses so that commuters have more incentive to leave their cars at home? We need to build smart grids to minimize energy wastage. The list is really long.
This issue comes up very directly in terms of our economic relations with China. Our big complaint (at least publicly) is that China is deliberately keeping down the value of its currency against the dollar in order to export more to the United States. That’s a too little demand story again. But, we also want them to spend more on curbing greenhouse gas emissions. That’s a perfect way to address the too little demand story.
Instead of subsidizing its exports to the United States (the effect of China’s present trade policy), China could redirect these resources to subsidizing its installation of solar panels. Everyone stays fully employed and we get fewer greenhouse gas emissions.
These transitions are not all simple and easy, but the basic point is that two problems fit together perfectly. The enormous spending associated with World War II was the cure for our last depression. No one in their right mind would want to see another catastrophic war, but a massive deployment of resources to curb greenhouse gas emissions worldwide would serve the same purpose.
Come on folks, this really isn’t hard.
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It seems that Matthew D’Ancona is upset that people are criticizing former Prime Minister Tony Blair, who is apparently making vast sums in a second career in the financial industry and on the speaking circuit. There are several points worth noting.
First, as is the case with Bill Clinton, his generational counterpart in the United States, the public certainly has good cause to be upset that Blair set the economy on a path of bubble driven growth, even if the bubble blew on the watch of his successor. The public also has the right to be furious that Blair, like President Bush in the United States, misled his country into war in Iraq.
Both of these factors should be enough to tarnish Blair’s public standing well past his lifetime, but the immediate topic is the fortune that he is amassing in his career as a former Prime Minister. There are two issues here. First, it is difficult to avoid the perception that Blair, like Clinton and now former Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, are cashing in on the connections that they have made in their political careers. It seems more plausible that Blair and Geithner are attractive as employees in the financial industry because of who they know, as opposed to their business acumen. Also, the lavish speaking fees these people earn can be at least as much to curry favor as opposed to an immense desire to hear their wisdom.
But let’s give Blair and Co. the benefit of the doubt and assume that there are no quid pro quos for the hundreds of millions being thrown their way. There is still a separate issue. Suppose that Tony Blair had spent his political career sounding more like Elizabeth Warren than Bill Clinton. Would the big bucks still be flowing in his direction?
My guess is that the answer is no. Blair, like Clinton and Geithner, is eligible to get incredibly wealthy in his second career because he has pursued policies that were hugely favorable to the financial industry. This is a serious problem.
If we give our political leaders credit for a tiny bit of foresight, they would recognize that they stand to become enormously wealthy if they pursue policies favorable to the financial sector and other big business interests. On the other hand, if they pursue more balanced policies they will just enjoy the retirement of a very well paid professional. D’Ancona wants us to believe that this fact could not possibly affect the policies they pursue while in office, and he is angry at those who might think otherwise.
It seems that Matthew D’Ancona is upset that people are criticizing former Prime Minister Tony Blair, who is apparently making vast sums in a second career in the financial industry and on the speaking circuit. There are several points worth noting.
First, as is the case with Bill Clinton, his generational counterpart in the United States, the public certainly has good cause to be upset that Blair set the economy on a path of bubble driven growth, even if the bubble blew on the watch of his successor. The public also has the right to be furious that Blair, like President Bush in the United States, misled his country into war in Iraq.
Both of these factors should be enough to tarnish Blair’s public standing well past his lifetime, but the immediate topic is the fortune that he is amassing in his career as a former Prime Minister. There are two issues here. First, it is difficult to avoid the perception that Blair, like Clinton and now former Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, are cashing in on the connections that they have made in their political careers. It seems more plausible that Blair and Geithner are attractive as employees in the financial industry because of who they know, as opposed to their business acumen. Also, the lavish speaking fees these people earn can be at least as much to curry favor as opposed to an immense desire to hear their wisdom.
But let’s give Blair and Co. the benefit of the doubt and assume that there are no quid pro quos for the hundreds of millions being thrown their way. There is still a separate issue. Suppose that Tony Blair had spent his political career sounding more like Elizabeth Warren than Bill Clinton. Would the big bucks still be flowing in his direction?
My guess is that the answer is no. Blair, like Clinton and Geithner, is eligible to get incredibly wealthy in his second career because he has pursued policies that were hugely favorable to the financial industry. This is a serious problem.
If we give our political leaders credit for a tiny bit of foresight, they would recognize that they stand to become enormously wealthy if they pursue policies favorable to the financial sector and other big business interests. On the other hand, if they pursue more balanced policies they will just enjoy the retirement of a very well paid professional. D’Ancona wants us to believe that this fact could not possibly affect the policies they pursue while in office, and he is angry at those who might think otherwise.
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