Reconciliation
— America is No. 1 in organ donations.
— How Obama fares among Catholic voters.
— A handy guide to Fedspeak.
— Does unemployment drive rebellion? Maybe not.
— The best of Anthony Shadid’s reporting.
The stimulus bill, three years later
We’d be remiss in not mentioning that today is the three-year anniversary of the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. So what do we know about the stimulus, three years later?
Well, we know that the economy is still lousy, with millions of Americans out of work. But it’s hard to know what the counterfactual is. The University of Chicago’s Booth business school recently surveyed the nation’s top economists, and the vast majority agreed that the economy would be in worse shape today without the stimulus. How much worse? One possible clue comes in this graph from today’s Economic Report of the President, showing that the recent U.S. recession was far less severe than the average downturn associated with past financial crises:
(Council of Economic Advisers)
No, there probably won’t be an ‘October surprise’ over the debt ceiling
At least that’s what JP Morgan’s top economist concludes. Michael Feroli pushes back against recent speculation that the 2012 campaign could be mired in another debt-ceiling fight:
Our best estimate (reasoning laid out below) is that the debt ceiling will be hit in December — after the election but before the end of the year. ... However, recall that Treasury can and has used various accounting gimmicks to extend the “drop dead” date on the debt ceiling ... we believe the “drop dead” date on the debt ceiling is probably in February, shortly after Inauguration Day early next year ...
A bipartisan push to bring back bank bailouts
Remember the Lincoln amendment? Passed as part of Dodd-Frank, it prohibits firms that trade in certain kinds of derivatives from receiving government assistance, with the intent of making big bank bailouts less likely.
First proposed by then-Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.), the amendment led to a huge fight during the 2010 debate over Wall Street reform. Now House Republicans are moving forward with a bill to repeal it. And some Democrats — including Rep. Barney Frank, the legislation’s namesake — are joining them.
Has the United States beaten peak oil? Not so fast.
In the past five years, warnings about peak oil have gained a lot of traction. U.S. oil production, after all, has fallen sharply since 1970. Global oil output has plateaued of late, even as China and India are demanding ever more crude. And that’s all caused prices to soar.
Yet the recent shale-oil boom in North Dakota has some analysts brushing off this gloomy perspective. A new research note (pdf) from Citigroup argues that the recent surge in North American production has “buried” the peak-oil hypothesis. New drilling technology has allowed companies to extract oil from once-inaccessible shale rock, which has, in turn, allowed the U.S. to slash its oil imports dramatically. What’s more, there are tantalizing shale deposits all around the world — in Argentina, Australia, and even France. So does that mean that, as the Citigroup analysts say, the peak-oil hypothesis is “dead”? Well, not so fast.
Have we fallen victim to ‘entitlement hysteria’?
Jeffrey Sachs, citing J.D. Keinke’s Wall Street Journal op-ed today, makes the case:
I’m not ready to panic about the health care costs as of 2085. Mechanical extrapolations that assume that health care costs will rise much faster than GNP between 2011 and 2085 are utterly unconvincing. Why should healthcare costs continue to rise so far and fast when healthcare costs are already vastly over-priced now compared with what other countries pay for the same services? Why should we assume failure decade after decade to use the new information technologies to lower the costs of health-care delivery and administration?
Lunch break: The future of car doors
Remember when everyone thought 21st-century car doors would all be gull-wings like the DeLorean in “Back to the Future”? (Okay, maybe that was just me.) Well, not anymore. LaughingSquid points to a new design for a retractable, “disappearing” car door by John Townsend of Jatech:
No idea whether this will ever catch on, though it’d presumably lead to a steep drop in vehicle dents.
‘The longest stretch of high unemployment in this country since the Great Depression’
So says the CBO:
The rate of unemployment in the United States has exceeded 8 percent since February 2009, making the past three years the longest stretch of high unemployment in this country since the Great Depression. CBO projects that the unemployment rate will remain above 8 percent until 2014. The share of unemployed people who have been looking for work for more than six months — referred to as the long-term unemployed — topped 40 percent in December 2009 and has remained above that level ever since.
I’ll take the under on that projection, by the way. I think unemployment will fall below 8 percent in 2013, and perhaps even in 2012. As for the “why” of our persistently high unemployment, “slack demand for goods and services (that is, slack aggregate demand) is the primary reason for the persistently high levels of unemployment and long-term unemployment observed today, in CBO’s judgment.”
More here.
Parrot injuries and other tales from the annals of medical billing
Right now, there’s a big fight going on in the health-care industry. It isn’t about contraceptives. It isn’t about Obamacare. It is about very technical, very bureaucratic billing codes — and it matters a lot.
The battle centers on something called “ICD-10.” That’s insurance-speak for the Tenth Edition of the International Classification of Diseases, a laundry list of thousands of billing codes that health insurance plans use to categorize various medical conditions. Get injured by a flaming water-ski? There’s an ICD-10 code for that. Have an unfortunate encounter with a parrot? ICD-10 has not one but nine codes to categorize parrot-related injuries (“W61.01” refers to being “bitten by a parrot” while W61.02 denotes being “struck by a parrot.”)
Wall Street and the Ivy League: Is it just a quirk of the data?
A reader responds to my column on Wall Street and the Ivy League:
I’ve seen these stats thrown around a lot, but I would love it if someone would investigate what percent of all grads go into finance — not just those who have a job before graduation!
I’m sure mine is a skewed sample, but the majority of people I knew at Brown did not have a job lined up at graduation. I suspect those going into finance are far more likely to have that settled, considering the very ordered, systematic recruitment process of big finance (and consulting) companies. Those going into, say, journalism, are more likely to figure that out in the months following graduation.
America’s tax system: progressive, but ineffective
Lucy Barnes explains an apparent puzzle in the American tax system:
How is it possible that American taxes be progressive, while achieving so little redistribution? The answer is that redistribution is not driven primarily by the structure of taxation, but by its level.
More here, including lots of charts.
One casualty of the payroll tax deal: clean energy
As we’ve reported before, the payroll tax cut and unemployment insurance aren’t the only items that would sunset soon if Congress didn’t agree to extend them.
The tax break for commuters who take mass transit has already lapsed. A production tax credit for wind power will soon come to an end. And a grant program that makes it easier for solar-panel makers to take advantage of an existing tax credit is set to disappear. There were a few efforts to include these items in the final payroll tax deal that Congress is set to approve this week. But, in the end, none of them made it.
Are faster machines making Wall Street riskier?
At 2:42 pm on May 6, 2010, the Dow suddenly fell by 1,000 points, then recovered just five minutes later. The so-called “Flash Crash” has prompted further investigation into such anomalous “black swan” events. And new research concludes that these unexpected, volatile events are happening even more often than we think — or are even able to perceive — and are increasing systemic risk as well.
Column: How Wall Street takes advantage of the Ivy League’s failures
In recent years, many top universities have tried to guide their students into careers other than finance.
In 2008, Drew Gilpin Faust, the president of Harvard University, went so far as to give a speech to graduating seniors asking them to stand fast against Wall Street’s “all but irresistible recruiting juggernaut.” Tufts University is paying the student loans of graduates who go into public service.
Insurers not totally sold on contraceptives coverage
Most coverage of the contraceptives fight (mine included) has focused on Congress and the presidential campaign. But to understand how this battle will play out, there’s one other party worth keeping an eye on: the health insurance companies. They are, after all, the ones expected to foot the bill if a faith-based employer objects to covering contraceptives.
Wonkbook: Choose your own (Greek) adventure
Let's say it was up to you. What would you do about Greece? Hand it more money? That won't work for very long. Get its economy growing again? If anyone knew how to do that, we wouldn't be in this mess. Kick it out of the Euro? Good luck protecting Portugal, Ireland, and Italy after that proves a possibility.
Reconciliation
— The economics of Jeremy Lin.
— How Target learns all your deep, dark secrets.
— A lot of foreign companies are keen on investing in North Korea.
— A depressing choose-your-own-adventure for Greece. Not a whole lot of good solutions here.
— Citigroup thinks (pdf) we’ve licked this peak oil business.
— A map of countries that were never colonized. Lots of quibbling in comments.
Leaked docs offer insight into how climate-skeptic groups operate
Recently, the DesmogBlog got its hands on a trove of alleged internal fund-raising documents from the Heartland Institute, a Chicago-based nonprofit that spends a fair bit of time disputing mainstream climate science. Do they actually tell us anything?
First, some important details. At least one of the “strategy” documents (PDF) acquired by DesmogBlog appears to be a forgery — Heartland says that it is a “total fake” — though the forged document is mostly just a more inflammatory version of what’s in the actual fund-raising documents, which are not currently in dispute. (The Heartland Institute confirms that the fund-raising documents were inadvertently sent to an imposter who had set up a counterfeit e-mail address.) And, on the surface, there’s not a lot that’s new here: It’s been well-known for ages that skeptic groups spend a lot of money trying to call into question the scientific consensus on man-made global warming. But the documents do offer some fuller insight into how these organizations operate. For instance:
Interview: Sen. Burr explains his new Medicare proposal
This morning, Sens. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) and Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) rolled out a Medicare reform proposal that they estimate would save the program at least $300 billion to $500 billion over a decade. Their plan would, like the Ryan-Wyden proposal, have private plans compete against traditional Medicare for seniors’ business. It would, however, do so faster--launching in 2016, rather than 2022--while also raising Medicare’s eligibility age and increasing premiums that higher-income seniors pay.
Meet Sandra Fluke: The woman you didn’t hear at Congress’ contraceptives hearing
Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) held a hearing Thursday on the health reform law’s mandated coverage of contraceptives.
(Stephen Morton - BLOOMBERG)
Congress held a lengthy hearing Thursday morning on the health reform law’s mandated coverage of contraceptives, probing whether the provision violates religious liberties.
The hearing has gotten a lot of attention not necessarily for what happened there, but what didn’t. Namely, no one testified in favor of the contraceptives mandate. Moreover, no women participated in the first, three-hour panel (two women did testify against the provision in the second panel.)
The Democrats did, however, invite one woman to speak: Sandra Fluke, a third-year student at Georgetown Law and past president of the school’s Students for Reproductive Justice group. Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), who chaired the hearing, said the minority party had submitted her name too late to be considered (Democrats contest this). I caught her outside the hearing room, and we spoke about what she would have told the committee.
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