Thursday: 5/30/13

The Economy

The Overview

The shrinking of the safety net and how we can fix it.  "While the safety net performed well during the worst phase of the downturn, other trends have been troubling. Families lost trillions of dollars in home equity, the largest source of wealth for working- and middle-class households. Long-term structural inequality persists, so the modest economic growth that has returned since 2010 is eluding most families. Budget battles are threatening both the basic anti-poverty outlays and the investments in children and families that could help push back on inequality and its impact on opportunity."  Jared Bernstein at the American Prospect.

The economy is back, sort of, but the wealth sure isn't.  "American households have rebuilt less than half of the wealth lost during the recession, leaving them without the spending power to fuel a robust economic recovery, according to a new analysis from the Federal Reserve.  From the peak of the boom to the bottom of the bust, households watched a total of $16 trillion in wealth disappear ... Since then, Americans have only been able to recapture 45 percent of that amount ... Most of the improvement was due to gains in the stock market, which primarily benefit wealthy families. That means the recovery for other households has been even weaker."  Ylan Mui in the Washington Post.

Changing gender dynamics in the economy.  "Four in 10 American households with children under age 18 now include a mother who is either the sole or primary earner for her family ... This share, the highest on record, has quadrupled since 1960. ... Most of the mothers who are chief breadwinners for their families — nearly two-thirds — are single parents. ... Women ... have benefited from a smaller share of the job gains during the recovery; the public sector, which employs a large number of women, is still laying off workers."  Catherine Rampell in the New York Times.

Tax Policy

The tax code is, in many ways, a subsidy for the rich.  "The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has released a new report making clear what many have long suspected: The U.S. tax code is rigged in ways that end up rewarding the rich at the expense of the middle class. These 'tax expenditures' -- deductions for charitable giving and mortgage interest, as well as the lower tax rates assessed on investment income -- disproportionately go to those at the top of the income distribution ... More than half of all tax subsidies go to the top fifth of earners. About 30 percent of tax subsidies are claimed by just 5 percent of the population."  Matthew Klein at Bloomberg.

Only one third of charitable contributions are for the poor.  Sounds like the tax code is subsidizing the wrong behavior.  "The report found that only about a third of donations in 2005 were targeted at helping the poor ... Particularly startling is that even when you lump in international aid to the poor ... with all miscellaneous donations to help the poor, it’s still less than 5 percent of all donations.  Now, maybe helping the poor isn’t the only, or even the main purpose of the charitable deduction. ... But regardless of its other merits, the deduction’s distributive argument seems pretty clearly regressive."  Dylan Matthews at Wonkblog.

Who gets the largest tax breaks - in six charts.  Dylan Matthews at Wonkblog.

Miscellaneous

Tesla is preparing to massively expand the supercharger network.  "The more people who own a Tesla, the broader the network of superchargers Tesla can support. And the more superchargers there are, the more valuable a Tesla car can become. And the company's leadership seems to be very much aware of this dynamic. ... They're going to put that money to use on a dramatic expansion of their supercharger network. ... The luxury car business is a perfectly legitimate business that lots of firms play in. And what Telsa has here is a road map for becoming a full-fledged player in that space."  Matthew Yglesias at Slate.

Politics

Elections

Hillary is in a great position.  But that doesn't make 2016 an automatic landslide.  "None of this means that Clinton isn’t a strong candidate. Her strength among traditionally Democratic white Southerners and Appalachians could be decisive in Florida and Pennsylvania ... Clinton’s ability to all but guarantee a consolidated, unified Democratic base will make her very difficult for Republicans to defeat in a competitive presidential election. ... But her current standing is too reliant on an unsustainable peak in popularity and Southern conservative supporters who aren’t likely to stick around ... once Republicans get around to attacking her."  Nate Cohn in the New Republic.

The improving economy could help the Democrats maintain control of the Senate in 2014.  "A variety of indicators, from rising home prices to buoyed consumer confidence to falling gas prices, suggest that the economy is improving at a stronger clip than previously anticipated.  If the recovery is strong next year, it could help Dems hold the Senate. That’s because, with Democrats fighting on defense across the board, Dem control of the Senate hinges on whether a half dozen incumbents can hang on. And an improving economy can help incumbents."  Greg Sargent at the Plum Line.

Hey Gabriel Gomez - why dodge the question?  "Republican US Senate candidate Gabriel E. Gomez ... again demurred when asked whether he would have supported last year’s Senate bill limiting contraceptive coverage ... Gomez went on to state his position on related issues of abortion and contraception but he again declined to say how he would have voted on the Blunt Amendment. ... The Blunt Amendment caused a stir in last year’s Massachusetts’ Senate race and exacerbated claims that Republican politicians were against women’s rights.  The measure would have let an employer opt out of paying for workers’ birth control coverage if he deemed it morally objectionable."  Stephanie Ebbert at the Boston Globe.  

Energy and the Environment

Climate refugees are an American problem, too. "The people of Newtok, on the west coast of Alaska ... are living a slow-motion disaster that will end, very possibly within the next five years, with the entire village being washed away.  The Ninglick River ... has steadily been eating away at the land, carrying off 100 feet or more some years, in a process moving at unusual speed because of climate change. Eventually all of the villagers will have to leave, becoming America's first climate change refugees. ... Exile is undeniable. A report by the US Army Corps of Engineers predicted that the highest point in the village ... could be underwater by 2017. There was no possible way to protect the village in place."  Suzanne Goldenberg at the Guardian.

FBI

Why James Comey is a great choice to head the FBI.  "To be a successful FBI director, you have to be someone the public believes is truly independent will follow the facts wherever they go, who will investigate other members of the administration ... The public should even believe that if it came to that, you would stare down the President himself ... Comey did have this quality of his leadership tested—and ... showed himself capable of looking a president of his own party in the eye and telling him that he would resign unless legal problems in a high-stakes classified program were fixed."  Benjamin Wittes at Lawfare.

Filibuster Fights

As it turns out, there's a very easy way to avoid the so-called 'nuclear option.' It's called normal governance.  "This really isn’t complicated. If Republicans don’t want Democrats to exercise the nuclear option and do away with the filibuster on executive branch and judicial nominations by a simple majority vote, as Harry Reid has been threatening to do, all they have to do is drop the endless, unprecedented obstruction of those nominations."  Greg Sargent at the Plum Line.

And it's all riding on the Republicans. "Norm Ornstein points out that the responsibility for the upcoming confrontation over Senate rules rests firmly with Republicans, who have used unprecedented levels of obstruction against Democratic nominees, and in particular with those Republicans 'who know better–like Lamar Alexander, Bob Corker, Susan Collins, Lindsey Graham, and Saxby Chambliss.' ... If those five agreed to an updated version of the Gang of 14 agreement ... then the Senate rules showdown would be over. ... Those Republicans 'who know better' could really make a difference."  Jonathan Bernstein at the Washington Post.

GOP

Looking ahead to the next Michele Bachmann.  "The Minnesota Republican’s announcement on Wednesday that she’ll be stepping down when her term wraps up in 2014 leaves a void at the top of the Tea Party Caucus she founded in 2010 — and a handful of conservatives could vie to take up her mantle. ... With revelations that the IRS improperly targeted conservative-affiliated groups seeking to register as tax-exempt nonprofits, the tea party movement both on Capitol Hill and around the country was reignited ... If that turns out to be true, there are a handful of House Republicans who could want to take Bachmann’s place at the helm of the Tea Party Caucus."  Emma Dumain at Roll Call.

Sen. Ted Cruz is a dangerous demagogue.  "Cruz clearly understands the core problem with the Republican message. He's got a good gut sense for politics and messaging. ... But ... Cruz is one of the most ideologically outrageous hyperconservatives in the entire U.S. Congress. He opposes job creation, he favors cuts to Medicare and Social Security, he opposes immigration reform, etc.  Yet ... Cruz has the space to talk a good game while doing his best to destroy the fabric of society.  That makes him very dangerous indeed."  David Dayen. 

Guns

The number of gun deaths since Newtown has surpassed the number of Americans killed in Iraq. "The number of gun deaths in the U.S. since the Newtown elementary school massacre has exceeded the total number of U.S. troops killed in the Iraq war.  According to a tally of gun deaths from Slate, the number of people killed since the Dec. 14 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary is now 4,499. The number of U.S. armed forces killed during the Iraq war was 4,409, according to the Defense Department.  The Slate data comes from crowdsourcing and warns that it is 'necessarily incomplete.'"  Matt Vasilogambros at the National Journal.

Health

The ACA is on track, just like it's supposed to be.  "Forget the Obamacare 'train wreck': The Obama administration thinks the Affordable Care Act is right on track. The key, they believe, is competition between insurers. More than 120 health insurance plans have applied to sell on the federally run health insurance exchange, according to a White House memo published Thursday. One-quarter of those applicants are new competitors in a state’s individual insurance market. ... Using that information, the White House estimates that '90 percent of target enrollees will have five or more different insurance company choices.'"  Sarah Kliff at Wonkblog.

Immigration

Short term gains or long term benefits?  "Schlafly ... believes that Mitt Romney lost the 2012 presidential election because 'his drop-off from white voters was tremendous' ... There’s some truth here. ... The only thing that could have saved his bid was a greater number of white voters ... But that misses the point of calls for more GOP outreach to Latinos. ... Over the next few decades, the proportion of voters who self-identify as Hispanic will grow ... The Schafly route might be a more sure way to short-term gain, but it could harm the GOP’s long-term fortunes, as Latinos turn decisively away from a party that has no interest in providing material benefits to them or other nonwhite voters."  Jamelle Bouie at the Plum Line.

Contrary to popular belief on the right, immigrants are not a drain on healthcare resources.  Quite the opposite.  "Immigrants have contributed billions of dollars more to Medicare in recent years than the program has paid out on their behalf, according to a new study, a pattern that goes against the notion that immigrants are a drain on federal health care spending. ... Immigrants generated surpluses totaling $115 billion from 2002 to 2009. In comparison, the American-born population incurred a deficit of $28 billion over the same period."  Sabrina Tavernise at the New York Times. 

The state of US immigration. (Charts)  Emily Chow and Dan Keating at the Washington Post.

SCOTUSwatch

The lessons of criminal procedure cases.  "The two decisions the justices did offer Tuesday were interesting nonetheless for what they tell us about the Court and about its approach to criminal procedure. They remind us of the occasional gulf between Justice Anthony Kennedy, the Reagan appointee and perpetual swing voter, and the rest of the Court's conservatives. They highlight the withering contrasts between the Roberts Court and the Warren Court. And they suggest that the justices are of different minds when it comes to finding a workable balance that faithfully protects the constitutional rights of defendants while still ensuring that the guilty are justly punished."  Andrew Cohen at the Atlantic.

Planned Parenthood dodges another bullet.  "The Supreme Court refused Tuesday to allow Indiana to block Medicaid funding of Planned Parenthood clinics because they perform abortions.  Without comment, the high court let stand decisions by a federal judge in Indiana and the U.S. 7th Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago that prevented the measure from taking effect. ... Judge Diane S. Sykes, writing for the 7th Circuit last year, said the state's 'defunding law excludes Planned Parenthood from Medicaid for a reason unrelated to its fitness to provide medical services, violating its patients' statutory right to obtain medical care from the qualified provider of their choice.'  David Savage in the LA Times.

Voting Rights

International

Global

The next pandemic.  "There is no cure, rapid diagnostic test, or vaccine for MERS-CoV, or for any of the class of coronaviruses, which includes SARS ... Like the SARS virus, MERS ravages the lungs of infected people, causing pneumonia and acute respiratory distress. ... Unlike SARS, it also attacks the kidneys, causing renal failure. ... It is spread by close contact, and can be airborne-transmitted between people. ... The new MERS-CoV is shrouded in mystery ... investigators are unable to determine its reservoir species ... how it is spread from that species to people, a method for rapid diagnosis, proper treatment, and best approaches to hospital infection control."  Laurie Garrett at the Council on Foreign Relations.

China might change the game on climate change agreements.  "The Chinese government made a critical move toward placing a cap on the amount of carbon dioxide it would emit. ... Depending on how tight the cap is, this could be a big deal in its own right: China is the world’s largest and fastest-growing emitter. ...  But the impact of the Chinese decision could be even broader. ... Beijing could bring a lot of clout to bear in helping push the world toward more robust action. Moreover, it would undercut the United States’ principal excuse for being a global stick-in-the-mud on climate agreements.  China may be also able to help spread the idea that global climate action isn’t just a rich man’s game."  Zack Beauchamp at Climate Progress.

Africa

Ceasefire in the Congo.  "After a six month hiatus, fighting returned to the hills above Goma, eastern Congo’s aid and trading hub, as rebels clashed with the Congolese army under the watchful eye of the UN’s blue-helmeted peacekeepers. It took the visit, on May 23rd of Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary-general, for both sides to agree to a ceasefire."  The Economist.

Nigeria uncovers a Hezbollah cell packing a heck of a lot of weaponry.  "A cache of weapons has been found in the northern Nigerian city of Kano and three Lebanese nationals have been arrested. Kano’s military spokesman Captain Ikediche Iweha said the three suspects admitted to being members of Hezbollah. He said the arms were targeted at facilities in Israel and Western interests in Nigeria. Eleven anti-tank weapons, four anti-tank mines and 21 rocket-propelled grenades were among the weapons found in an underground bunker beneath a warehouse. There were also 17 AK-47 assualt rifles with more than 11,000 bullets and some dynamite."  Euronews.

The story of Somalian airplane flights.  "Taking a domestic flight in Somalia is an experience that can best be described as travelling to the brink of death and coming back. The airplanes on the domestic routes are commonly called express flying coffins and those who survive a flight on them are fittingly referred to as coffin dodgers."  Hanza Mohamed at Voices of Africa.

Middle East

The flow of Russian arms to the Syrians continue.  "The Syrian army’s March weapons request to its Russian supplier was the stuff of everyday battles in a long and grueling conflict. ­Twenty-thousand Kalashnikov assault rifles and 20 million rounds of ammunition. Machine guns. Grenade launchers and grenades. Sniper rifles with night-vision sights. ... The flow of arms to Syria, including the advanced S-300 missile defense batteries that Moscow said this week it would supply, continues amid hopes that an international conference, jointly proposed by the United States and Russia, will lead to a negotiated political settlement of Syria’s civil war."  Karen DeYoung and Joby Warrick in the Washington Post.

Reports surrounding the Russian missile system are contradictory amid Assad's warmongering.  "President Bashar al-Assad of Syria displayed a new level of defiance on Thursday, warning Israel that he could permit attacks on the Golan Heights and suggesting that he had secured plenty of weapons from Russia — possibly including an advanced missile system ... The Israelis have said they would not abide a Syrian deployment of S-300s, suggesting they would use force to destroy them. ... Israeli officials and Western diplomats in the region said they did not believe such a system had yet arrived in Syria, with some saying any delivery could be at least a few weeks away."  Anna Barnard and Neil MacFarquhar in the New York Times.

So much for peace talks.  "Syria's main Western-backed opposition group said Thursday it will not participate in U.S.-Russian sponsored peace talks on Syria while massacres are underway in the country, dealing a blow to international efforts to end the devastating civil war.  A spokesman for the Syrian National Coalition, Khalid Saleh, also said the group will not support any international peace efforts in light of Iran's and Hezbollah's 'invasion' of Syria.  Saleh was referring to the increasingly prominent roles Iran and the Lebanese militant Hezbollah group have had in backing President Bashar Assad's forces on the ground."  Associated Press.

Be careful of jumping to conclusions on Iran's next election.  "The international press coverage of the upcoming Iranian presidential election is veering toward a worrisome pattern of unanimity. ... The conventional wisdom has declared a frontrunner in nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili. The only hitch here is that the conventional wisdom has a pretty lousy track record of predicting Iranian politics. ... it may just be a little early to start planning the Jalili victory party. At least one influential Iranian conservative has publically cast doubt on Jalili’s credentials to serve as president, suggesting that rumors of a cakewalk may in fact be exaggerated."  Suzanne Maloney at Brookings.

Saudi Arabia is cracking down ... on Guy Fawkes masks.  "Saudi Interior Minister Prince Mohammed bin Naif has ordered to confiscate and ban the importation of the V for Vendetta/Guy Fawkes masks ... The Ministry of Commerce will confiscate the mask from stores across the country and importers have been told to stop bringing the mask to the Saudi market.  The mask has come to represent a universal symbol of protest, and it has been worn by protesters in the Middle East as well as the Occupy movement."  The Riyadh Bureau.

North America

South America

Say what, now?  "Police in Venezuela say they have seized nearly 2,500 rolls of toilet paper in an overnight raid of a clandestine warehouse storing scarce goods. ... The officers raiding the garage in western Caracas also seized about 400 diapers and 7,000 liters of fruit juice. ... Toilet paper is hard to find in Venezuelan grocery stores, as are staple food items such as sugar, milk and cooking oil.  The socialist government says the shortages are part of a plot by opponents to destabilize the country. Economists blame the government's price and currency controls."  Associated Press.

Economics

Not quite as comedic as an Excel error, but here's an economist's debunking of Reinhart and Rogoff.  "Here is the bottom line. Based on economic theory, it would be surprising indeed if high levels of national debt didn’t have at least some slow, corrosive negative effect on economic growth. And we still worry about the effects of debt. But the two of us could not find even a shred of evidence in the Reinhart and Rogoff data for a negative effect of government debt on growth."  Miles Kimball and Yichuan Wang at Quartz.

Science

Science is the new religion.  "When feeling stress, or faced with existential angst, there are benefits to being a believer. A comprehensive way of making sense of the world, and our place in it, can provide consolation when it’s needed most.  For many people, of course, that belief system is religious faith. But new research suggests others have found a different source of solace: science. ... Many studies have shown the psychological benefits of religious faith, while others suggest that such secular belief systems as humanism, or even faith in human progress, can play a similar role as a source of meaning and motivation."  Tom Jacobs at Pacific Standard Magazine.

When it comes to disappointment in a failed gamble, monkeys are no different.  "Like many humans, chimpanzees and bonobos react quite emotionally when they take risks that fail to pay off.  This is according to researchers from Duke University in the US, who developed decision-making games that the apes played to earn edible treats.  Some animals that lost the game - receiving a bland piece of cucumber rather than a preferred piece of banana - reacted with what looked like the ape equivalent of a tantrum."  Victoria Gill at BBC.

Another historical mystery solved.  "The 5,000-year-old iron bead might not look like much, but it hides a spectacular past: researchers have found that an ancient Egyptian trinket is made from a meteorite.  The result ... explains how ancient Egyptians obtained iron millennia before the earliest evidence of iron smelting in the region, solving an enduring mystery. ... The tube-shaped bead is one of nine found in 1911 in a cemetery at Gerzeh, around 70 kilometres south of Cairo. The cache dates from about 3,300 bc, making the beads the oldest known iron artefacts from Egypt."  Jo Marchant at Nature.

Miscellaneous

The Bomb didn't beat Japan in WWII - Stalin did.  "The impact of the Soviet declaration of war and invasion of Manchuria and Sakhalin Island was quite different, however. ... While it might be possible to fight a decisive battle against one great power invading from one direction, it would not be possible to fight off two great powers attacking from two different directions. The Soviet invasion invalidated the military's decisive battle strategy, just as it invalidated the diplomatic strategy. At a single stroke, all of Japan's options evaporated. The Soviet invasion was strategically decisive -- it foreclosed both of Japan's options -- while the bombing of Hiroshima (which foreclosed neither) was not."  Ward Wilson at Foreign Policy.

Spelling bees really only work in English.  Here are some non-English alternatives.  "Spelling bees are only really challenging in English, a language that has borrowed lots of roots and words from other languages and has all sorts of odd vowel sounds and spelling irregularities. By contrast, a Spanish or German or Russian spelling bee would be boring — as soon as you can sound out a word, you can probably spell it.  But other countries still have their own contests ... They’re just a bit different."  Brad Plumer at Wonkblog.

Patrick Stewart is awesome.  But not in the usual Patrick-Stewart-is-awesome sense.  "One Star Trek fan’s question regarding Sir Patrick Stewart’s work with Amnesty International prompted a very personal response this past Memorial Day weekend at Comicpalooza, both from the fan and from Stewart himself. Read on to see what drives the actor’s work to eliminate domestic violence and PTSD, and how his efforts have given some Star Trek fans the strength to free themselves from abusive relationships."  Chris Lough at Tor.

Japanese game shows are weird.  Really weird.  Video.