.

Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Economics: In Ireland, a Picture of the High Cost of Austerity

Nearly two years ago, an economic collapse forced Ireland to cut public spending and raise taxes, the type of austerity measures that financial markets are now pressing on most advanced industrial nations.
Rather than being rewarded for its actions, though, Ireland is being penalized. Its downturn has certainly been sharper than if the government had spent more to keep people working. Lacking stimulus money, the Irish economy shrank 7.1 percent last year and remains in recession. Joblessness in this country of 4.5 million is above 13 percent, and the ranks of the long-term unemployed — those out of work for a year or more — have more than doubled, to 5.3 percent. Now, the Irish are being warned of more pain to come.
It now pays a hefty three percentage points more than Germany on its benchmark bonds, in part because investors fear that the austerity program, by retarding growth and so far failing to reduce borrowing, will make it harder for Dublin to pay its bills rather than easier.

For more, see In Ireland, a Picture of the High Cost of Austerity by Liz Alderman, June 28, 2010, at nytimes.com.

Economics: The Third Depression

Too bad "we" went into so much debt while times seemed good. Now when we need deficit spending to help the economy recover and reduce long term deficits, there's a lot of pressure to do the opposite.

We are now, I fear, in the early stages of a third depression. It will probably look more like the Long Depression than the much more severe Great Depression. But the cost — to the world economy and, above all, to the millions of lives blighted by the absence of jobs — will nonetheless be immense.
Why the wrong turn in policy? The hard-liners often invoke the troubles facing Greece and other nations around the edges of Europe to justify their actions. And it’s true that bond investors have turned on governments with intractable deficits. But there is no evidence that short-run fiscal austerity in the face of a depressed economy reassures investors. On the contrary: Greece has agreed to harsh austerity, only to find its risk spreads growing ever wider; Ireland has imposed savage cuts in public spending, only to be treated by the markets as a worse risk than Spain, which has been far more reluctant to take the hard-liners’ medicine.

It’s almost as if the financial markets understand what policy makers seemingly don’t: that while long-term fiscal responsibility is important, slashing spending in the midst of a depression, which deepens that depression and paves the way for deflation, is actually self-defeating.

For more, see The Third Depression by Paul Krugman, June 27, 2010, at nytimes.com.

Health: Warning: 3d Video Hazardous to Your Health

Nintendo unveils 3DS and quickly follows-up with a statement about dangers to children under 7 playing with the company’s new portable gamer. Samsung releases a line of 3D HDTVs then issues a warning about its potential health risk to certain viewers. ... The truth is that prolonged viewing of 3D video may be even more harmful than the consumer electronics industry wants you to know.

For much more, see Warning: 3d Video Hazardous to Your Health by Wayde Robson, June 25, 2010, at audioholics.com.

Society: Educated Women, Opting for Motherhood

Today, more education is associated with lower rates of motherhood — except for women who pursue the most advanced degrees. Women with professional degrees and Ph.D.’s are slightly more likely to have had children than their counterparts with just master’s or bachelor’s degrees.

And compared to their equally educated counterparts from the early 1990s, these advanced-degree women are much more likely to have borne children. More than a third of women with professional/Ph.D. degrees in 1992-94 decided to remain childless; in 2006-8, less than a quarter of such women made the same choice.

From Educated Women, Opting for Motherhood by Catherine Rampell, June 25, 2010, at nytimes.com.

Survey: Obama's Ratings Little Affected by Recent Turmoil

Since the beginning of this year, President Obama has signed a controversial health care measure, coped with a stubbornly high jobless rate, and struggled to manage the largest environmental disaster in the nation’s history. In that period, Obama’s overall job approval rating has moved from 49% to 48%.
The proportion viewing him as a strong leader has declined markedly since February 2009, from 77% to 53%.

For more, see Obama's Ratings Little Affected by Recent Turmoil by Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, June 24, 2010, at people-press.org.

Sunday, June 27, 2010

Policy: War on Drugs Worse than Drugs

Many people fear that if drugs were legal, there would be much more use and abuse. That's possible, but there is little evidence to support that assumption. In the Netherlands, marijuana has been legal for years. Yet the Dutch are actually less likely to smoke than Americans. Thirty-eight percent of American adolescents have smoked pot, while only 20 percent of Dutch teens have. One Dutch official told me that "we've succeeded in making pot boring."

By contrast, what good has the drug war done? It's been 40 years since Richard Nixon declared war on drugs. Since then, government has spent billions and officials keep announcing their "successes." They are always holding press conferences showing off big drug busts. So it's not like authorities aren't trying.

We've locked up 2.3 million people, a higher percentage than any other country. That allows China to criticize America's human-rights record because our prisons are "packed with inmates."

Yet drugs are still everywhere. The war on drugs wrecks far more lives than drugs do!

Need more proof? Fox News runs stories about Mexican cocaine cartels and marijuana gangs that smuggle drugs into Arizona. Few stop to think that legalization would end the violence. There are no Corona beer smugglers. Beer sellers don't smuggle. They simply ship their product. Drug laws cause drug crime.

From John Stossel: War on Drugs Worse than Drugs by John Stossel, June 22, 2010, at unionleader.com.

Healthcare: Affordable Care Act Popular Among Everyone but Seniors

The Affordable Care Act is popular among the people it will actually affect, and unpopular among the people who are worried it will harm the much-more statist health-care system they depend on [Medicare].

From Affordable Care Act Popular Among Everyone but Seniors by Ezra Klein, June 23, 2010, at washingtonpost.com.

Privacy: Web Ads Tailored to Your Zip+4

Our ISPs may start giving our locations to advertisers ...

Your internet service provider knows where you live, and soon, it will have a way to sell your zip code to advertisers so they can target ads by neighborhood.
Juniper Networks, which sells routers to ISPs, plans to start selling them add-on technology from digital marketer Feeva that affixes a tag inside the HTTP header, consisting of each user’s “zip+4? — a nine-digit zipcode that offers more accuracy than five-digit codes — delivered in coded form that is readable by participating ad network partners (updated).
The system cuts ISPs in on the advertising game in a new way, without them having to expend much effort. They can add Feeva tags to the HTTP headers that already tell online advertisers a person’s IP address, referring URL, language and browser, and they can do it using the same aggregation routers that already authenticate whether a given subscriber is paid up and should be allowed to connect.

There are other uses ...

Assuming Juniper succeeds in selling Feeva’s software to ISPs, another potential use of its technology will be to go beyond the zip code and authenticate individual users with a higher level of certainty than a username and password could ever provide.

For instance, HBO could partner with an ISP to verify, at the network level, that a certain user subscribes to HBO, and so should be allowed to watch its programming for free on Hulu. Users might be annoyed that they can’t use a username and password to watch the channel from a computer outside their homes, but content providers will appreciate the way this system can prevent users from sharing accounts.

For more, see Coming Soon: Web Ads Tailored to Your Zip+4 by Eliot Van Buskirk, June 22, 2010, at wired.com.

Thursday, June 24, 2010

Society: The Undeserving Unemployed?

[Who's fault is it that people are unemployed? ...] A more popular view (especially among Republican members of Congress and on the opinion pages of The Wall Street Journal) lays the blame squarely on government itself. Extended unemployment benefits and other means-tested programs can undermine incentives to work.

Evidence suggests that individuals do prolong their job search when they receive unemployment benefits, partly because they are looking for the best possible job. But the magnitude of this effect is likely to be small.

A recent study by Rob Valletta and Katherine Kuang, economists at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, compared lengths of unemployment among those eligible for unemployment insurance with those who were not eligible. Their statistical analysis suggests that extended benefits accounted for only four-tenths of 1 percentage point of the nearly 6 percentage point increase in the national unemployment rate over the last few years.

Some studies, such as those showing that long-term unemployment causes emotional anguish as well as economic stress, may elicit sympathy.

On the other hand, it’s not hard to find articles emphasizing that the long-term unemployed are lucky to have so much free time, or suggesting that they’re better off than they were in previous eras because they are more likely to have a working spouse.

In other words, maybe the unemployed and those who are most worried about them should just stop whining.

The moral and emotional tenor of the debate over extending unemployment benefits is consistent with psychological research showing that we all like to believe that people generally get what they deserve. We tend to have a high opinion of individuals who receive fortuitous rewards, and a low opinion of individuals who are victims of bad luck.

Melvin Lerner, the psychologist best known for his book, “The Belief in a Just World,” considered this belief a delusional means of avoiding moral discomfort.

From The Undeserving Unemployed by Nancy Folbre, June 21, 2010, at nytimes.com.

Government: A Better Path to Campaign-Finance Reform

As the Obama campaign showed, the Internet has created a potential for massive funding of campaigns by small contributors. There aren't many Obamas, but other candidates can be motivated to seek out such contributors through legislation providing public matching funds for small contributions.

Malbin's model is the New York City system, with a 6-to-1 match for the first $175 of any contribution, making it worth $1,225 to the candidate.

With that kind of payoff, he says, candidates would have every reason to go after small contributors -- and pay less attention to the fat cats. And with a flood of such "clean" money, the dollars that corporations and unions decide to spend in the game would become relatively less important.

For more, see A Better Path to Campaign-Finance Reform by David S. Broder, June 24, 2010, at washingtonpost.com.

Government: Country vs City Needs

Urban proximity has plenty of benefits, like easing the movement of goods, people and ideas, but closeness also has its costs. If two people are close enough to talk, then they are close enough to share a virus. If people are near enough to sell you a knish, they are near enough to rob you.
I’m a big fan of the free market, and I see lots to like in liberty. But the downsides of proximity, be they cholera or crime, have never been solved with laissez-faire. Costly, often intrusive public action has often been needed to manage the negative externalities associated with urban density.

In a sense, the gulf between the political attitudes of New York City and Montana can be understood as a reflection of the fact that city dwellers need government a lot more than ranchers do.

For more, see The Health of the Cities by Edward L. Glaeser, June 22, 2010, at nytimes.com.

Wednesday, June 23, 2010

Climate: Average Earth Temperatures, 1880-2009

Data from NASA ...

From Getting Warmer by David Leonhardt, June 15, 2010, at nytimes.com.

Government: In California, License Plates Might Go Electronic

It's not even April, and yet ...

The California Legislature is considering a bill that would allow the state to begin researching the use of electronic license plates for vehicles. The move is intended as a moneymaker for a state facing a $19 billion deficit.

The device would mimic a standard license plate when the vehicle is in motion but would switch to digital ads or other messages when it is stopped for more than four seconds, whether in traffic or at a red light. The license plate number would remain visible at all times in some section of the screen.

From In California, License Plates Might Go Electronic by Robin Hindery, June 20, 2010, at mercurynews.com.

Education: Children with Home Computers Likely to Have Lower Test Scores

Around the country and throughout the world, politicians and education activists have sought to eliminate the “digital divide” by guaranteeing universal access to home computers, and in some cases to high-speed Internet service.

However, according to a new study by scholars at Duke University’s Sanford School of Public Policy, these efforts would actually widen the achievement gap in math and reading scores. Students in grades five through eight, particularly those from disadvantaged families, tend to post lower scores once these technologies arrive in their home.

From Children with Home Computers Likely to Have Lower Test Scores by Bjs, June 18, 2010, at scienceblog.com.

Tuesday, June 22, 2010

Politics: Alvin Greene Wins South Carolina Primary

Maybe the problem is us ...

From June 14, 2010: Alvin Greene Wins South Carolina Primary by The Daily Show, June 14, 2010.

Economics: Democratic Capitalism vs State Capitalism

The larger conflict began with the end of the cold war. That ideological dispute settled the argument over whether capitalism was the best economic system. But it did not settle the argument over whether democratic capitalism was the best political-social-economic system. Instead, it left the world divided into two general camps.

On the one side are those who believe in democratic capitalism — ranging from the United States to Denmark to Japan. People in this camp generally believe that businesses are there to create wealth and raise living standards while governments are there to regulate when necessary and enforce a level playing field. Both government officials like President Obama and the private sector workers like the BP executives fall neatly into this camp.

On the other side are those that reject democratic capitalism, believing it leads to chaos, bubbles, exploitations and crashes. Instead, they embrace state capitalism. People in this camp run Russia, China, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Venezuela and many other countries.

We in the democratic world tend to assume state capitalism can’t prosper forever. Innovative companies can’t thrive unless there’s also a free exchange of ideas. A high-tech economy requires more creative destruction than an authoritarian government can tolerate. Cronyism will inevitably undermine efficiency.

That’s all true. But state capitalism may be the only viable system in low-trust societies, in places where decentralized power devolves into gangsterism. Moreover, democratic regimes have shown their vulnerabilities of late: a tendency to make unaffordable promises to the elderly and other politically powerful groups; a tendency toward polarization, which immobilizes governments even in the face of devastating problems.

For more, see The Larger Struggle by David Brooks, June 14, 2010, at nytimes.com.

Science: I.B.M.'s Question Answering Machine vs Jeopardy

For the last three years, I.B.M. scientists have been developing what they expect will be the world’s most advanced “question answering” machine, able to understand a question posed in everyday human elocution — “natural language,” as computer scientists call it — and respond with a precise, factual answer.
The producers of “Jeopardy!” have agreed to pit Watson against some of the game’s best former players as early as this fall.
“I want to create a medical version of this,” [John Kelly] adds. “A Watson M.D., if you will.” He imagines a hospital feeding Watson every new medical paper in existence, then having it answer questions during split-second emergency-room crises. “The problem right now is the procedures, the new procedures, the new medicines, the new capability is being generated faster than physicians can absorb on the front lines and it can be deployed.” He also envisions using Watson to produce virtual call centers, where the computer would talk directly to the customer and generally be the first line of defense, because, “as you’ve seen, this thing can answer a question faster and more accurately than most human beings.” “I want to create something that I can take into every other retail industry, in the transportation industry, you name it, the banking industry,” Kelly goes on to say. “Any place where time is critical and you need to get advanced state-of-the-art information to the front of decision-makers. Computers need to go from just being back-office calculating machines to improving the intelligence of people making decisions.” At first, a Watson system could cost several million dollars, because it needs to run on at least one $1 million I.B.M. server. But Kelly predicts that within 10 years an artificial brain like Watson could run on a much cheaper server, affordable by any small firm, and a few years after that, on a laptop.

For much more, see What Is I.B.M.'s Watson? by Clive Thompson, June 14, 2010, at nytimes.com.

Monday, June 21, 2010

Health: Get the Shingles Shot

It was ghastly, the worst possible pain anyone could have.
Shingles and its painful complication, called postherpetic neuralgia, result from reactivation of the chicken pox virus, which remains in the body after a childhood bout and is usually dormant in the adult. Up to a third of all adults who have had chicken pox will eventually develop one or both of these conditions, becoming debilitated for anywhere from a week to several years. ... Once the rash and its painful sequel appear, treatment options are limited at best and carry their own set of complications.
... in 2006, the Food and Drug Administration approved a new vaccine against shingles. Clinical trials on the vaccine revealed that it could, with relatively few side effects, reduce the risk of developing shingles by more than half and the risk of post-herpetic neuralgia by over two-thirds. In 2008, a national panel of experts on immunizations at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention went on to recommend the vaccine to all adults age 60 and older.

For more, see Why Patients Aren't Getting the Shingles Vaccine by Pauline W. Chen, M.D., June 10, 2010, at nytimes.com.

Economics: Beige Book and Flow of Funds Overview

Seems like things aren't so bad (nor so good) ...

For much more, see Beige Book and Flow of Funds Overview by Hale "Bonddad" Stewart, June 13, 2010, at fivethirtyeight.com.

Government: Civil Asset Forfeiture

The Economist has an article on the scandal of civil asset forfeiture in the United States, where you can have your property, including cash, seized by the government on the premise that it was either involved in the commission of a crime or was obtained through the commission of a crime -- without ever bothering to even charge you with a crime, much less convict you of one.

For more, see The Economist on Asset Forfeiture by Ed Brayton, June 11, 2010, at scienceblogs.com.

Politics: On Cable TV and Talk Radio, a Push Toward Polarization

From my view on the front lines, I have seen a rapid escalation of extreme dialogue -- sadly, something sure to guarantee high ratings.
Opinions from the middle are underrepresented, even shunned, in the modern debate. Consider: In May 2008, a few weeks after Pennsylvania's presidential primary, I was scheduled to appear on CNN's "Larry King Live." During the customary pre-interview with a program producer, I gave a summation of how I saw the presidential race. The producer was satisfied. At the conclusion of our chat, I asked how I would be identified.

"As a John McCain supporter," I was told.

"But I'm not sure I will vote for McCain," I responded.

Silence.

The producer asked whether CNN could identify me as a conservative. "Well, if someone who supports harsh interrogation, thinks we should be out of Iraq but in Pakistan, doesn't care much if two guys hook up, and believes we should legalize pot and prostitution is conservative, fine," I replied.

More silence.

Why not just introduce me as a radio host, columnist and author, I asked. I was told to await a call-back to see whether I was still needed. (Ultimately, I did appear on the program, under the heading of "talk-radio host, columnist for the Philadelphia Daily News and Philadelphia Inquirer. He is a Republican.")

Another time, a Fox News producer invited me to appear on a program to discuss then-candidate Barack Obama. I was told they were "looking for someone who would say he's cocky and that his cockiness will hurt him, if not in the primary, definitely in the general election against McCain." I declined. A few hours later, the same producer made a new pitch: "What about a debate off the top of the show on whether or not Hillary is trustworthy? We have someone who says she is and we're looking for someone who says she isn't."

The message of both episodes is clear: There is no room for nuance. Either you offer a consistent (possibly artificial) ideological view or you often don't get a say.

For more, see On Cable TV and Talk Radio, a Push Toward Polarization by Michael Smerconish, June 11, 2010, at washingtonpost.com.

Economics: EU Banks Pass Moody's Debt 'Stress Test'

Many of the European Union's biggest banks passed Moody's 'stress test' designed to gauge exposure to debt in Greece, Portugal, Spain and Ireland, the rating agency said in a statement Friday.

"Based on our stress test, we believe that these banks would be able to absorb the losses that could arise from such exposures without requiring capital increases - even under worse-than-expected conditions," Jean-Francois Tremblay, a senior analyst at Moody's, wrote in the report.

For more, see EU Banks Pass Moody's Debt 'Stress Test' by CNBC.com, June 11, 2010.

Friday, June 18, 2010

Politics: Congrats to Rush Limbaugh on His Fourth Traditional Marriage

As the gay Wired writer Steve Silberman wrote yesterday: Between them, Gingrich and Limbaugh have had 7 marriages. And they want to abolish my one.

For more, see Congrats to Rush Limbaugh on His Fourth Traditional Marriage by Glenn Greenwald, June 6, 2010, at salon.com.

Government: Can a Good Christian Be a Socialist?

I think one could trust God and affirm, say, the Nicene Creed (the touchstone of Christian orthodoxy), while also believing that the state ought to own the means of production and determine all the basic terms of the market, such as price and production. There have been many such people. It’s not my place to question either their sincerity or their status in the eyes of God.

... socialism, despite its compassionate rhetoric, inevitably involves gross violations of the right to private property—otherwise known as theft. That right is presupposed in at least two of the Ten Commandments (you shall not steal and you shall not covet your neighbor’s possessions).

Socialism estranges individuals from the right to the fruits of their labor. It allows a centralization of power utterly contrary to truth that all human beings are fallen.

Apparently taxes and even governments are unChristian.

From Can a Good Christian Be a Socialist? by Jay Richards, June 11, 2010, at the American Enterprise Institute.

Economics: U.S. Firms Build up Record Cash Piles

U.S. companies are holding more cash in the bank than at any point on record, underscoring persistent worries about financial markets and about the sustainability of the economic recovery.

The Federal Reserve reported Thursday that nonfinancial companies had socked away $1.84 trillion in cash and other liquid assets as of the end of March, up 26% from a year earlier and the largest-ever increase in records going back to 1952. Cash made up about 7% of all company assets, including factories and financial investments, the highest level since 1963.

The rising corporate cash balances could represent a longer-term behavioral shift in the wake of the deepest financial crisis in decades. In the darkest days of late 2008, even large companies faced the threat that they wouldn't be able to do the everyday, short-term borrowing needed to make payrolls and purchase inventory.

"We just went through this liquidity crunch that's made them realize the value of a dollar in hand," said John Graham, an economist at the Duke Fuqua School of Business.

The Federal Reserve data showed households making some progress in paring down their debt, which fell at a 2.5% annual rate in the first quarter as credit remained tight and more homeowners defaulted on their mortgages.

Household net worth—the value of houses, stocks and other investments, minus debts—rose for a fourth straight quarter as markets continued to rebound. At $54.6 trillion, though, it was still $11.3 trillion below its 2007 peak of $65.9 trillion.

For much more, see For more, see From U.S. Firms Build up Record Cash Piles by Justin Lahart, June 10, 2010, at The Wall Street Journal.

Economics: US Liquidity Crisis Coming in 2 Years?

[CNBC's Jim] Cramer desperately wants the US government to sell $2 trillion worth of 30-year Treasurys to help this country avert a liquidity crisis. And Senator Tom Coburn, R-Okla., agrees with him.

Cramer is worried that the US could be in a tough position when all of the short-term debt it has been selling to finance its budget comes due in one, two or three years, and the country is forced to refinance at much higher rates. Instead, he wants the US to refinance now and lock in the low rates presently offered on long-term debt.

From Senator Coburn: US Liquidity Crisis Coming in 2 Years--Unless… by Tom Brennan, June 10, 2010, at cnbc.com.

Politics: Next Time We Must Do Better

Through this campaign season, many Republican primary voters have asked the question: “Is Candidate X conservative enough?” Whoever can claim to be the stronger voice of protest against Washington has tended to win, even when that protest comes from a strange or suspect quadrant, as with Rand Paul in Kentucky or Sharron Angle in Nevada.

I’ve had a different ballot question in my head. Republicans got into trouble in 2006 and 2008 because we did a disappointing job of governing the country in the 2000s. Incomes didn’t grow, job creation was weak, wars were not won, we lost control of spending, and almost every major presidential initiative launched after the first 6 months in office floundered: Social Security reform, reform of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, immigration, healthcare. You often hear it said, “We tried, but Congress wouldn’t let us.” As Yoda might answer: “There is no ‘try.’ There is only ‘do.”

I’m not arguing that the administration accomplished nothing — just that next time, we must do better. And my ballot question is to ask: Is this a Republican who can do better? Does he or she join conservative values to knowledge and ability? Do they understand government, care enough about government to make it work better?

From Tom Campbell's Unfortunate Defeat by David Frum, June 10, 2010, at frumforum.com.

Economics: Barriers to Entrepreneurs by Country

For more, see Entrepreneurs--Stuck on the Starting Blocks? by JéRome Cukier, June 10, 2010, at oecd.org.

Government: Are Government Workers Underpaid? No

For more, see Are Government Workers Underpaid? No by Andrew G. Biggs, June 9, 2010, at the American Enterprise Institute.

Monday, June 14, 2010

Economics: America's $45.8 Trillion Deficit

The much reported Federal deficit for the next few years is tiny when compared to the real deficit.

While the United States’ net position is certainly daunting at -80.5 percent of GDP, this position does not capture the nation’s full exposure. Exposures for future Medicare and Social Security expenditures are not taken into account in the nation’s net position. Over the next 75 years, U.S. social insurance accounts are projected to run large deficits; the net present value of these deficits is $45.8 trillion [Emphasis mine].

From America's Precarious Net Position by Veronique De Rugy, April 1, 2010.

The data is from The Federal Government’s Financial Health A Citizen’s Guide to the Financial Report of the United States Government by U.S. Treasury at gao.gov.

Government: Lawmakers Seek to Gut Ethics Office

The Office of Congressional Ethics, a powerful symbol of Democrats’ promise to “drain the swamp” in Washington, is in danger of having its power stripped after the midterm elections.

Members of the Congressional Black Caucus have led the charge, airing complaints about the aggressive, independent panel in a private session with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi last month, and they’ve drafted a resolution that, if approved, would severely curtail the panel’s power.

But there’s hot competition between the CBC and the official House ethics committee over who has less regard for the Office of Congressional Ethics, also known as the OCE. And the rest of the House doesn’t appear to be far behind in its disdain. Privately, Democratic and Republican lawmakers, and even some congressional leaders, acknowledge that there’s a strong sentiment to change rules that empower the office to publicize investigations and wreak havoc on lawmakers’ political lives.

The threat to the OCE’s independent authority was underscored Wednesday when a group of government watchdog groups released a letter to Pelosi, calling on her to keep the office intact.

“To date, the OCE has made important progress in restoring the shattered credibility of the House ethics enforcement process,” wrote six groups, including the League of Women Voters, The Campaign Legal Center and Public Citizen.

Under current rules, the OCE can initiate investigations into lawmakers and aides based on news reports or complaints — even anonymous ones — from the public. It can recommend that the House ethics committee, a bipartisan panel composed of members, undertake its own investigation into a matter. If the OCE makes such a recommendation and the ethics committee dismisses the complaint, the OCE can release its full report to the public.
Under the OCE’s rules, it may “refer information to state and federal authorities in the event that information indicates a crime has occurred or is about to occur.”

For more, see Lawmakers Seek to Gut Ethics Office by Jonathan Allen & John Bresnahan, June 10, 2010, at politico.com.

Economics: Unemployment and Despair

For more, see Unemployment and Despair by Catherine Rampell, June 9, 2010, at nytimes.com.

Science: Single Brain Cells Can Recognize Objects

Single brain cells, if confronted with a difficult task, can identify objects as dissimilar as sports cars and dogs, new research finds.
A separate study last year found that a memory can be stored in a single brain cell.

And in other previous studies, Earl K. Miller, a professor of neuroscience at MIT's Picower Institute for Learning and Memory, found that individual neurons in monkeys' brains can become tuned to the concept of "cat" and others to the concept of "dog."

This time, Miller and colleagues Jason Cromer and Jefferson Roy recorded activity in the monkeys' brains as the animals switched back and forth between distinguishing cats vs. dogs and sports cars vs. sedans. Although they found individual neurons that were more attuned to car images and others to animal images, to their surprise, there were many neurons active in both categories.

From Single Brain Cells Can Recognize Objects by Livescience Staff, June 9, 2010 at livescience.com.

Health: BPA Can Cross the Placenta from Mom to Her Fetus

The ability of BPA to reach the fetus is incredibly worrisome since the fetus is highly sensitive to hormones. Exposure to estrogen-mimicking hormones like BPA at this early stage of development could lead to troubling issues that could crop up later during puberty or adulthood.

In fact, a new study from researchers at Yale School of Medicine suggests that exposure to BPA and other endocrine-disrupting chemicals in the womb can increase breast cancer risk. But, these effects won’t appear until kids are old enough for breast cancer to surface

From canned food to plastic bottles, Bisphenol-A seems to be cropping up everywhere, and now two new studies show that BPA crosses the placenta from pregnant mother to fetus freely. Plus, the research found that chemical transformations occur in the fetus allowing inactive BPA to be converted to the active form.

For more, see New Studies Prove BPA Can Cross the Placenta from Mom to Fetus by Julie Knapp, June 8, 2010, at inhabitots.com.

Health: Distinctive Bacteria in Autistic Kids' Guts Could Enable Urine Test for Autism

Autistic children have distinctive chemicals in their urine, according to a study by British researchers who say the results could pave the way for an diagnostic test for the disorder.

The finding also lends more weight to theories that substances related to gut bacteria may contribute to autism, New Scientist reports.

For more, see Distinctive Bacteria in Autistic Kids' Guts Could Enable Urine Test for Autism by Rebecca Boyle, June 7, 2010, at popsci.com.

Sunday, June 13, 2010

Mind: Consequences of Gay Marriage

From Consequences of Gay Marriage by Aaron G at graphjam.com.

Mind: Paying a Mental Price Due to Task Switching

For better or worse, the consumption of media, as varied as e-mail and TV, has exploded. In 2008, people consumed three times as much information each day as they did in 1960. And they are constantly shifting their attention.
Until 15 years ago, scientists thought the brain stopped developing after childhood. Now they understand that its neural networks continue to develop, influenced by things like learning skills.
In a test created by Mr. Ophir and his colleagues, subjects at a computer were briefly shown an image of red rectangles. Then they saw a similar image and were asked whether any of the rectangles had moved. It was a simple task until the addition of a twist: blue rectangles were added, and the subjects were told to ignore them.

The multitaskers then did a significantly worse job than the non-multitaskers at recognizing whether red rectangles had changed position. In other words, they had trouble filtering out the blue ones — the irrelevant information.

So, too, the multitaskers took longer than non-multitaskers to switch among tasks, like differentiating vowels from consonants and then odd from even numbers. The multitaskers were shown to be less efficient at juggling problems.

Other tests at Stanford, an important center for research in this fast-growing field, showed multitaskers tended to search for new information rather than accept a reward for putting older, more valuable information to work.

Preliminary research shows some people can more easily juggle multiple information streams. These “supertaskers” represent less than 3 percent of the population, according to scientists at the University of Utah.

Other research shows computer use has neurological advantages. In imaging studies, Dr. Small observed that Internet users showed greater brain activity than nonusers, suggesting they were growing their neural circuitry.

For much more, see Hooked on Gadgets, and Paying a Mental Price by Matt Richtel, June 6, 2010, at nytimes.com.

Politics: Hatch's Partisan Military Service Bill

Democrat lies, Hatch want jail for that, Republican lies, Hatch say it's ok.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

From Hatch's Partisan Military Service Bill by Ed Brayton, June 5, 2010, at scienceblogs.com.

Economics: BP Claim: Can Handle a Blowout 20 Times the Current One

BP actually told the government last year that it was prepared to respond to a blowout flowing at 300,000 barrels per day -- as much as 25 times the rate of the current spill. That assertion came in an Initial Exploration Plan for the well that ultimately blew out, filed with the Minerals Management Service in 2009. BP says in the document that it "has the capability to respond, to the maximum extent practicable, to a worst-case discharge, or a substantial threat of such a discharge, resulting from the activities proposed in our Exploration Plan." The latest government estimate of flow rate from the current spill is 12,000 and 19,000 barrels per day -- orders of magnitude less than the worst case scenario BP said it was prepared for. The 2009 plan document puts the volume of an uncontrolled blowout at 300,000 and 162,000 barrels per day respectively, for two wells in the Mississippi Canyon block of the Gulf. (The 162,000 figure is for block 252, where the Deepwater Horizon rig was drilling when an explosion occurred April 20.)

From I Bet Bp Can Leg Press 2000 Pounds by Ed Brayton, June 4, 2010, at scienceblogs.com.

Politics: Brewer Fakes Military Achievements -- For Her Father

More fakery ...

The problem of politicians exaggerating military achievements continues -- and it's even skipping generations. Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer recently got angry at the comparisons of that states "your papers, please" policy on immigrants to Nazi Germany by invoking her father's martyrdom:
"The Nazi comments . . . they are awful," she said, her voice dropping. "Knowing that my father died fighting the Nazi regime in Germany, that I lost him when I was 11 because of that . . . and then to have them call me Hitler's daughter. It hurts. It's ugliness beyond anything I've ever experienced."
Except that he died in 1955. Of lung disease. Probably never even saw a Nazi.

From Brewer Fakes Military Achievements -- For Her Father by Ed Brayton, June 4, 2010, at scienceblogs.com.

Economics: Boehner Doesn't Want Taxpayer Dollars Used to Clean Up After BP

Minority leader Rep. John Boehner (R-Ohio) is calling a foul on reporters circulating what he told TPMDC's Brian Beutler this morning -- that "BP and the federal government should take full responsibility for what's happening" in the wake of the oil company's disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. According to Boehner spokesman Michael Steel, the GOP leader stood by what he's said since May 3 -- "Not a dime of taxpayer money should be used to clean up [BP's] mess."

For more, see Boehner: No, I Don't Want Taxpayer Dollars Used to Clean Up After BP by David Weigel, June 1, 2010, at washingtonpost.com.

Wednesday, June 9, 2010

Mind: The World's Most Satisfied Local Communities

For more, see One World, Many Places the World's Most Satisfied Local Communities by Ipsos Social Research Institute, June 1, 2010.

Also see the similar post Mind: Global Wellbeing.

Healthcare: Health Care and the Profit Motive

According to the latest Congressional Budget Office figures (excluding the illegal-immigrant population), about 87% of Americans have health insurance. Most of them — about 57% of those insured — get their coverage through an employer. Another 17% are over the age of 65 and so get their coverage through Medicare, while 15% are covered by government programs for the poor (mainly Medicaid and the State Children's Health Insurance Program). Only 10% of Americans with coverage buy their own health insurance directly, in what is commonly called the "individual market."

This last fact is the key to understanding the peculiarly distorted character of our health-care market. Ninety percent of Americans with health insurance neither choose it on their own, nor pay for it directly. Analysts use the term "third-party payment" to describe the fact that insurers reimburse hospitals and doctors, bypassing policyholders. But in practice, the 235 million Americans with employer- or government-sponsored health coverage actually have fourth-party insurance — since they don't even choose their insurers, let alone pay directly for care.

For most Americans, health care looks something like this: A patient purchases health insurance, or receives it from his employer. The insurer then directs the patient to use physicians in its network, with whom it has negotiated reimbursement rates. The patient is given little or no information about the comparative cost or quality of any particular doctor. The patient then visits his doctor. After an interview and an examination, the physician orders tests, procedures, or medications on the patient's behalf. The insurance company reimburses the doctor for a large share of these costs, though it might occasionally haggle if it feels the doctor has spent too much on the patient. The patient receives a bill in the mail from the insurer for his part of the expenditure; that bill is only vaguely related to the services rendered to the patient,

Arrow argued that health care is different from traditional market commodities in several important ways, and enumerated the elements of the health-care system that, in his view, distort the normal functioning of market forces. We can organize these distortions into five categories.
  • First, people's needs and demands for medical services are unpredictable and therefore differ from other basic expenses such as food and clothing, and yet access to health care is more critical than access to many consumer goods.
  • Second, there are daunting barriers to entry in health care: Physicians must be licensed in order to practice, and in order to gain licensure they must endure years of expensive training. As a result, the sale — and therefore consumption — of medical services is constrained by the limited number of new doctors produced each year.
  • Third, health care requires meaningful trust between doctor and patient, far more than the typical market relationship. A patient cannot test-drive a surgical procedure before undergoing it; if the procedure fails, or has adverse consequences, he is stuck with the outcome. The patient must trust that the surgeon knows what he is doing. And if the surgeon does not, the consequences for the patient could include serious injury or death — outcomes for which there is no complete economic remedy (even if the prospect of lawsuits helps make doctors more cautious).
  • Fourth, there are significant asymmetries of information in health care. Medical knowledge is complicated; the physician usually knows much more than the patient about the treatment of a disease. Therefore, the buyer of medical services is at a serious disadvantage relative to the seller. It is difficult for patients to make independent, informed decisions about their care — and third-party insurers know even less than patients about the particulars of each case.
  • And fifth, there are distortions in the method of payment. Patients pay for health care after, not before, it is received, and frequently pay indirectly for their care via insurers. Because patients don't see the bill until after the non-refundable "product" has been "consumed" — and because there is virtually no transparency about costs — patients are rarely able to shop around for a medical service based on price.

For more, see Health Care and the Profit Motive by Avik Roy, Spring, 2010.

Economics: A Home of One's Own

For a very long article on the history and future of home ownership public policy, see A Home of One's Own by Vincent J. Cannato, Spring, 2010.

Looking back, it is easy to see how the policies of the Clinton and Bush administrations contributed to the inflation and the bursting of the housing bubble. But these problems were much more than 15 years in the making. Clinton and Bush were simply following out the logical trajectory of the ideology of home ownership, advancing the policies of their predecessors. Like many others before them, they assumed with little evidence that home ownership would be a panacea. They believed that government backing of the mortgage market would reduce costs and increase liquidity. And they believed that the dangers of the riskiest mortgages could be adequately spread out across the market and measured by investors. They were wrong, of course — and now all of us are paying the price.
Will Washington change its attitude ... and pull back from its infatuation with boosting home-ownership rates? The early indications are not heartening. The new $8,000 tax credit for first-time home buyers is a return to earlier efforts to try to re-inflate the housing market by (artificially) stimulating demand. Politicians still seem to think that we can recover from the recent market crash simply by pumping air into the next bubble.
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac should not simply return to their pre-crisis incarnations. The two companies were taken over by the federal government in September 2008, and the Treasury confirmed (as the mortgage market had always assumed) that it would back the mortgages they held or guaranteed — which by the end of 2008 amounted to some $1.6 trillion of high-risk debt. Clearly, Fannie and Freddie's status as privately owned, for-profit companies that nonetheless possessed implicit federal backing was fraught with disaster. Most of the financial benefits created by these government-sponsored enterprises went to the officers of the companies instead of borrowers, while all of the risks they took on were ultimately borne by taxpayers.
... the home-mortgage deduction — beloved by the public, detested by economists — should gradually be curtailed. While the deduction seems not to affect home-ownership rates a great deal, it does have the effect of increasing home prices. And through the deduction, the government not only directly subsidizes home owners at the expense of renters, but also subsidizes mostly upper-income home owners. Only half of home owners take advantage of the deduction by itemizing their tax returns, and nearly half of the benefits go to people making more than $100,000 a year. In 2006, the cost of the deduction to the Treasury — meaning the rest of the taxpaying public — was $76 billion.

Mind: Happiness May Come with Age

Something to look forward to ...

A large Gallup poll has found that by almost any measure, people get happier as they get older, and researchers are not sure why.
In measuring immediate well-being — yesterday’s emotional state — the researchers found that stress declines from age 22 onward, reaching its lowest point at 85. Worry stays fairly steady until 50, then sharply drops off. Anger decreases steadily from 18 on, and sadness rises to a peak at 50, declines to 73, then rises slightly again to 85. Enjoyment and happiness have similar curves: they both decrease gradually until we hit 50, rise steadily for the next 25 years, and then decline very slightly at the end, but they never again reach the low point of our early 50s.

Or are the differences due to the different experiences of these particular experiences? E.g., would the results be different if the polls had been done twenty years earlier?

For more, see Happiness May Come with Age, Study Says by Nicholas Bakalar, May 31, 2010.

Tuesday, June 1, 2010

Politics: The Stigmatization of Bush-Blaming

... it really is true that the economic and budgetary problems we're facing were inherited from the previous administration.

From The Stigmatization of Bush-Blaming by Jonathan Chait, May 23, 2010.