http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/tag/graphs-2013/
From the site:
Time has its "Person of the Year." Amazon has its books of the year. Pretty Much Amazing has its mixtapes of the year. Buzzfeed has its insane-stories-from-Florida of the year. And Wonkblog, of course, has its graphs of the year. For 2013, we asked some of the year's most interesting, important and influential thinkers to name their favorite graph of the year — and why they chose it.
This year was no different. In a fitting homage to past holiday-season embarrassments like the Iran-Contra pardons or Bill Clinton's signing of the Commodity Futures Modernization Act, the Republican Party last week quietly declared war on itself, in the process essentially confessing to a generation of failed governance and dumbed-down politics.
The news came in the Wall Street Journal, where the Chamber of Commerce disclosed that it will be teaming up with Republican establishment leaders to spend $50 million in an effort to stem the tide of “fools” who have overwhelmed Republican ballots in recent seasons. Check out the language Chamber strategist Scott Reed used in announcing the new campaign:
Our No. 1 focus is to make sure, when it comes to the Senate, that we have no loser candidates… That will be our mantra: No fools on our ticket.
From the site:
Bill Moyers says the parody and satire of Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert pay Washington the disrespect it deserves, but in the end it's the city's predatory mercenaries who have the last laugh
New research suggests that more money makes people act less human. Or at least less humane.
http://www.ted.com/talks/paul_piff_does_money_make_you_mean.html
From the site:
Paul Piff is a post-doctoral researcher in the psychology department at the University of California, Berkeley. In particular, he studies how wealth (having it or not having it) can affect interpersonal relationships.
His surprising studies include running rigged games of Monopoly, tracking how those who drive expensive cars behave versus those driving less expensive vehicles and even determining that rich people are literally more likely to take candy from children than the less well-off. The results often don't paint a pretty picture about the motivating forces of wealth. He writes, "specifically, I have been finding that increased wealth and status in society lead to increased self-focus and, in turn, decreased compassion, altruism, and ethical behavior."
"When was the last time, as Piff puts it, that you prioritized your own interests above the interests of other people? Was it yesterday, when you barked at the waitress for not delivering your cappuccino with sufficient promptness? Perhaps it was last week, when, late to work, you zoomed past a mom struggling with a stroller on the subway stairs and justified your heedlessness with a ruthless but inarguable arithmetic: Today, the 9 a.m. meeting has got to come first; that lady’s stroller can’t be my problem. Piff is one of a new generation of scientists—psychologists, economists, marketing professors, and neurobiologists—who are exploiting this moment of unprecedented income inequality to explore behaviors like those. "
Lisa Miller, New York Magazine
From the site:
At the heart of the great big pile-on of ridicule for the flawed healthcare.gov rollout the past few months was a large helping of private-sector triumphalism. Just imagine, the chorus went, if tech giants like Amazon or Google had been in charge of the Web site instead of those clueless, fusty bureaucrats – first, the problems would not have happened in the first place, but even if they had, the private sector would have held those responsible for the mistakes to account.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/09/opinion/krugman-the-punishment-cure.html?_r=0
From the site:
Six years have passed since the United States economy entered the Great Recession, four and a half since it officially began to recover, but long-term unemployment remains disastrously high. And Republicans have a theory about why this is happening. Their theory is, as it happens, completely wrong. But they’re sticking to it — and as a result, 1.3 million American workers, many of them in desperate financial straits, are set to lose unemployment benefits at the end of December.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/12/09/1261454/-Five-charts-of-income-inequality
From the site:
Sometimes you need a couple charts to understand what is really going on.
http://www.alternet.org/print/economy/how-fix-economy-13-easy-charts
From the site:
As we say goodbye to 2013, the economy is still failing ordinary workers. What is being done to make it better? Not enough.
Public spending and public investment are too low, wages for increasingly productive workers are flat or falling, and the minimum wage is inadequate.
However, there is hope for 2014. The policies that created these trends can be reversed. There is a renewed push to raise the federal minimum wage, states are raising their own minimum wages, and more policymakers are coming to terms with the downside of economic inequality.
Economic Policy Institute’s top charts of 2013 explain why a full economic recovery and policies that ensure broadly shared prosperity should be policymakers’ foremost priorities in 2014.
http://fredqa.stlouisfed.org/2013/11/20/introducing-the-latest-and-greatest-fred-graphs/
From the site:
Now there’s more to love about our FRED graphing tool! Our new version includes many great new features. We’re offering the options to use this version, while keeping the previous version available. To opt-in to start using the new version, click on the link in the orange bar at the top of the FRED site. Read on to learn more.
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/115875/obamacare-redistribution-not-how-republicans-say
From the site:
Republicans and their allies are making a lot of different arguments about what Obamacare is doing to America. It’s hiking premiums! It’s making people lose their doctors! It’s destroying Medicare! But if you listen closely, you’ll discern a common theme—a message aimed squarely at the middle class: Obamacare is taking away your money or health insurance, and giving it to somebody else. "If you think about it, it's $250 billion a year in Medicaid expansion, in the subsidy structure, that's basically being paid for by people on Medicare, through Medicare cuts, and a lot of tax increases," James Capretta, a former Bush Administration official now at the Ethics & Public Policy Center, said on Fox News Sunday. "It is a massive, massive income redistribution."
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/12/09/1261454/-Five-charts-of-income-inequality
From the site:
Sometimes you need a couple charts to understand what is really going on.
From the site:
Let me also add that it's completely ridiculous to think of criticism of PHIL as criticism of All Christians. He was not elected Mega-Pope-In-Charge, he's just one guy with a big mouth. His views do not reflect the views of every Anglican, every Episcopalian, every Catholic, every Baptist, every Methodist, every Lutheran, every Presbyterian or every Mormon. They just don't. So criticizing Phil's mis-use of Christian doctrine, is not a bashing Religion. It's bashing Phil's comments, which deserve it. And besides when did "all the black people Liked living under Jim Crow" until those pesky misguided "Entitlements and Welfare" become a "Christian Thang" anyway? (Jesus told the Rich to give everything to the POOR!) That's Ayn Rand Talk and she was an Athiest.
From the site:
Les Leopold, How to Make a Million Dollars an Hour: Why Hedge Funds Get Away with Siphoning Off America's Wealth, joins Thom Hartmann. Hint - It has to do with Cheating.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2013/12/04/remarks-president-economic-mobility
From the President’s Speech:
I believe this is the defining challenge of our time: Making sure our economy works for every working American. It’s why I ran for President. It was at the center of last year’s campaign. It drives everything I do in this office. And I know I’ve raised this issue before, and some will ask why I raise the issue again right now. I do it because the outcomes of the debates we’re having right now -- whether it’s health care, or the budget, or reforming our housing and financial systems -- all these things will have real, practical implications for every American. And I am convinced that the decisions we make on these issues over the next few years will determine whether or not our children will grow up in an America where opportunity is real.
http://inequality.org/year-persistence-edged-plutocracy/
From the site:
Exactly a hundred years ago, decades of progressive struggle finally paid off and outfitted America with a tool for braking the unlimited accumulation of grand private fortune.
http://www.epi.org/blog/growing-growing/
From the site:
The September release of the Census Bureau’s income and poverty numbers (and I link to them here only to remind us all that the federal shutdown has made the unavailable) add one more data point to a lost decade punctuated by the recessions of 2001 and 2007, and also to a longer trajectory—stretching back to the 1970s—of starkly unequal income growth.
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/09/26-11
From the site:
Freshman Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas), who somehow got through Princeton and Harvard Law School, is the best news the defaulting Democratic Party has had in years.
http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2013/09/cheat-sheet-on-inequality/
From the site:
Talk about inequality has been in the news recently, but you won’t believe what’s really happening in America today:
Inequality in America today is twice as bad as in ancient Rome, worse than it was in in Tsarist Russia, Gilded Age America, modern Egypt, Tunisia or Yemen, many banana republics in Latin America, and worse than experienced by slaves in 1774 colonial America
It’s the highest level of inequality ever recorded in the U.S.
It’s worse in America than in any other developed nation
Staggering inequality in America has become permanent
There are 2 economies: one for the rich, and the other for everyone else
The economy has only recovered for the 1% … the rest of the country is more or less stuck in a depression
The super-rich are raking in more than ever
On the other end, more and more people are sliding into poverty
1 out of every 5 households in the United States is on food stamps
The middle class has more or less been destroyed
A who’s who of prominent economists and investors say that inequality causes crashes and hurts the economy
Extreme inequality helped cause the Great Depression, the current financial crisis … and the fall of the Roman Empire
Inequality isn’t happening for mysterious or uncontrollable reasons. Bad government policy is responsible for runaway inequality
Bush was horrible, but income inequality has increased even more under Obama than under Bush
Americans consistently underestimate the amount of inequality in our country. They will be shocked – and may be furious – when they learn the truth
It’s a myth that conservatives accept runaway inequality. Conservatives are as concerned as liberals regarding the stunning collapse of upward mobility
http://www.sanders.senate.gov/budget/
The above link details Bernie Sanders’ budget proposal. Don’t forget to sign the petition.
From the site:
Let's Pass a Fair Budget
At a time when the middle class is disappearing, poverty is increasing and the gap between the rich and everyone else is growing wider, we demand that the federal budget not be balanced on the backs of the most vulnerable people in our country.
We demand a budget that puts millions of Americans back to work in decent paying jobs and ensures profitable corporations and the wealthiest Americans pay their fair share. We demand a budget that does not cut Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid benefits.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/nation/census-high-income/
From the site:
This map shows how high-income households are concentrated in counties across the nation. These households, with incomes of $191,469 and up, make up the nation's top 5 percent. Of the 15 counties with top percentages of high-income households, seven are in the Washington metropolitan area. See related story.
http://jaredbernsteinblog.com/whats-wrong-with-america/
From the site:
It’s particularly hard for foreigners with whom I’ve interacted in recent months to grasp the idea that Obamacare is somehow implicated in this latest round of dysfunction. They view our health reform much as I do, as I wrote a few weeks ago: a technical solution to a hybrid public/private good problem, about as interesting and subversive as a utility company. How could this set of arcane changes to our health care delivery system possibly lead politicians to willingly default on our debt?
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/10/13/inequality-is-a-choice/
From the site:
Starting in the 18th century, the industrial revolution produced giant wealth for Europe and North America. Of course, inequality within these countries was appalling — think of the textile mills of Liverpool and Manchester, England, in the 1820s, and the tenements of the Lower East Side of Manhattan and the South Side of Chicago in the 1890s — but the gap between the rich and the rest, as a global phenomenon, widened even more, right up through about World War II. To this day, inequality between countries is far greater than inequality within countries.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsihkFWDt3Y#t=33
A thought-provoking TED talk – worth a look!
From the site:
http://www.ted.com At TEDxCambridge, Michael Norton shares fascinating research on how money can, indeed buy happiness -- when you don't spend it on yourself. Listen for surprising data on the many ways pro-social spending can benefit you, your work, and (of course) other people.
