Quote of the Week (Election Edition)

I'll make this one quick and just throw out some interesting words to ponder, on this Presidential Election Day. I don't agree with everything written in Douglas French's epic rant, but I do think there is some serious food for thought in there.

No matter how things break tonight, there will be a lot of very happy people, a lot of very angry people, and a lot of people like me, wishing that it didn't have to be like that. When a nation is so bitterly divided that it forgets that we're all in this together, I think that's unequivocally a negative thing. But so be it.

This week's QUOTE OF THE WEEK

"There are thousands of elections every year. Political positions from constable to governor are elected constantly. So with all of these layers of democracy — this great thing that America spends so many lives and so much money exporting — is America freer? With this constant turnover of political blood, is business allowed to operate unfettered? After all, we are led to believe democracy is synonymous with freedom. No democracy, no freedom.

America was attacked on Sept. 11 because they hate us for our freedoms, we’re told. America is so free it has the highest incarceration rate in the world, with 750 prisoners per 100,000 citizens. More than 2.3 million people are locked up, and many more millions are on probation. Is this the upside of this great thing — democracy?"
                                                - Douglas French, The Daily Reckoning

Interesting stuff to think about, either way, and similar to this bit from Stephen Fry, which will be this post's parting shot.


Get out there and vote today, regardless—apathy may feel good, but it does nothing to help any of our issues.

[Daily Reckoning]

Voters are idiots, apparently

While many of us in America take our duties as voters and citizens very seriously (or at least think we do),  educating ourselves on the issues of the day and then trying our best to make the right decisions, many more of us... don't (emphasis mine).

Recent research has revealed that voter irrationality may be more arbitrary than we think. And in a razor-thin election just enough irrationality can make all the difference. Just how irrational are voters? It is statistically possible that the outcome of a handful of college football games in the right battleground states could determine the race for the White House. 

Economists Andrew Healy, Neil Malhotra, and Cecilia Mo make this argument in a fascinating article in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science. They examined whether the outcomes of college football games on the eve of elections for presidents, senators, and governors affected the choices voters made. They found that a win by the local team, in the week before an election, raises the vote going to the incumbent by around 1.5 percentage points. When it comes to the 20 highest attendance teams—big athletic programs like the University of Michigan, Oklahoma, and Southern Cal—a victory on the eve of an election pushes the vote for the incumbent up by 3 percentage points. That’s a lot of votes, certainly more than the margin of victory in a tight race. And these results aren’t based on just a handful of games or political seasons; the data were taken from 62 big-time college teams from 1964 to 2008. 

The good news, we suppose, is that sports really can cheer us up and make the world seem like a brighter place. The sports fan is left happier and more satisfied all around, not just on the gridiron. When you are feeling upbeat and happy, you feel more satisfied with the status quo in general. And feeling satisfied with the status quo makes you more likely to vote for the incumbent politician, even if that’s totally irrational. 

The study’s authors control for economic, demographic, and political factors, so the results are much more sophisticated than just a raw correlation. They also did a deeper analysis that took into account people’s expectations. It turns out that surprise wins are especially potent, raising local support for incumbent politicians by around 2.5 percentage points.

Oh, boy... taking a look at the schedule (and the electoral map), that means we should probably be keeping an eye on Missouri-Florida, UVA-NC State, Virginia Tech-Miami (not sure what to make of that one), and perhaps most importantly Ohio State-Illinois.

I've covered voter irrationality—and self-deception—before (here and here, mostly), but this takes that to a whole new level. It's one thing to vote based on contradictory principles or on platforms and ideologies that don't make a whole lot of sense. It's another thing entirely to walk into a voting booth and vote for the incumbent just because you're happy that day. But hey... that's democracy, right?

Now, for today's final word on voter idiocy, we'll turn to our friends at Freakonomics, who shared a fantastic letter that was sent to economist Bryan Caplan by a former (and, for our purposes, anonymous) Virginia state senator. I think it sums things up pretty nicely.

"I do want to thank you for confirming by your research that my ideas about the stupidity of voters is a valid thought." Pretty sure that's not exactly the sentiment we hope to hear from our elected officials. But given our level of competence with respect to investments, it's hardly surprising.  

[Slate]
[Freakonomics]

Quote of the Week

I've always been a big fan of The Onion, and this week I had to pass along what I thought was a particularly awesome bit of work from them.

Introducing The Onion Book of Known Knowledge, clearly the greatest encyclopedia in world history, and also the source of this week's Quote of the Week. I present to you the introduction to the Book's entry on "Christianity", the world's most popular religion.

This week's QUOTE OF THE WEEK

"Christianity, monotheistic religion occasionally rooted in the teachings of Jesus Christ, whom Christians regard as the son of God and a sometimes-convenient model for their own values and behavior. Christ promulgated charity, humility, nonviolence, and other virtues that Christians once in a while regard as sacrosanct and that, when sporadically adhered to, demonstrate the path to a righteous life. The world’s 2.2 billion Christians consider Jesus a messianic figure who will deliver to heaven all who conduct themselves as he did when the mood strikes them and if they have the time."
                             - The Onion Book of Known Knowledge

I think the timing of this little takedown is particularly apt, given the interesting (though rarely discussed) religious undertones which underlie our current Presidential election. With an ever-increasing population of evangelical Christians among the voting ranks, especially in many of the nation's swing states, the opinion of the so-called "Christian right" is typically heard very loudly in November.

In this election, those voters are faced with a bit of a dilemma—the sitting President is a practicing Christian whom many people believe is secretly a Muslim, whereas the Republican challenger is a high-ranking official of the Mormon church, which many Christians sneeringly deride as a cult. This has led to some strange and awkward moments for religious conservatives like Billy Graham, who recently had to remove Mormonism from his "list of cults" so as to encourage his followers to vote for Romney instead of Obama. These are strange times indeed for the Christians in our nation, many of whom are not sure exactly what to do in two weeks.

Of course, I must admit that The Onion's criticisms are hardly unique to Christianity—they could just as easily be applied to Islam, for example—but their short satirical summary certainly does give some food for thought, while possibly helping to explain people like this and places like this. No, not all Christians (or religious people of any persuasion) are bad people or hypocrites, but neither are all churchgoers good or honest people. One does not necessarily lead to the other, even though many people do profess to be good citizens and members of their community simply because they regularly attend services on Sunday. It's a pet peeve of mine, and it's a significant reason behind my personal disillusionment with the church during my adulthood.

Yes, I recognize that I'm treading on a third rail here, foolishly discussing both religion and politics at the same time—typically, it's advisable to talk about neither, under any circumstances. But with a possibly pivotal Presidential election hanging in the balance, it's simply no longer possible to ignore the elephant in the room. Whichever way voters lean in November, religion (and race) will certainly have a big role to play.

[The Onion]

Clip of the Week (Election edition)

Alright, time for Clip of the Week. I really wanted to give the Washington Nationals some love here, but their Game 5 choke in the NLDS (and... this) made me back off of that decision. Nevertheless, this and this are some pretty cool sports videos by any measure.

I also want to give some love to Felix Baumgartner, who jumped from the edge of space in the coolest way possible (or maybe this is cooler). There's some other random stuff out there as well this week, including this Pixar short with the Toy Story characters and this awesome SNL parody of the iPhone5.

But I feel like going the political route this week, so here are two fantastic election-related clips from a couple of late night hosts doing what they do best. I give you Jimmy Fallon and Jimmy Kimmel, with your politically charged co-Clips of the Week.

Quote of the Week

Oh, hi there. Haven't seen you guys in a while. My apologies for my unplanned one-week hiatus. I'll just blame things on tax season (doing business taxes sucks) and then we'll get back to business as usual. Sound good? Alright, cool.

I've actually had a good amount of material to post up here, but I just haven't gotten around to writing about it all. The good news is, that probably means a few good posts up here in the next couple of weeks. It also means I'm about to send you folks into the weekend with a flurry of posts, just the way you like it.

First up is your Quote of the Week. Originally, I'd planned to pass along President Obama's "warning" to the Supreme Court, in which he once again showed his utter disregard for the Constitution and its ingenious system of checks and balances. (Incidentally, I highly suggest that you read the linked article from Mish Shedlock--it includes a great overview of Obamacare that I think should be required reading). But I didn't feel like ending my one-week hiatus on a bitter note, with rants about Presidential duties and political this-and-that. It's all just so... tiresome.

So while I may get back to that topic at some point in the future, for today I'm sticking to happier things. Things like this ridiculous free-kick goal from Cristiano Ronaldo against Atletico Madrid, and Ray Hudson's absolutely amazing call of it. After referring to the goal (he calls it a "wunderstrike") as "a wet dream of orgasmic proportions", he follows up with one of my favorite lines in sports announcing history, one that might as well have been ripped out of a Kanye West song. Al Michaels, eat your heart out.

This week's QUOTE OF THE WEEK

"This has got more curves to it than Jessica Rabbit on steroids."
                            - Ray Hudson, GOL TV commentator

Yes it does, Ray. Yes it does.

(h/t Deadspin)

Song of the Week(end)

Alright, time to send us all into the weekend with some tunes (or, at least, a tune). I may not like Obama much as a President, but the man showed us last night that he can at least sing, busting out a bar of Al Green's "Let's Stay Together" at the Apollo. Politics aside, he remains a likable guy--it's partly why he got elected in the first place.

So, in honor of the Prez, that's going to be your Song of the Week(end)--because if you can't get down with a little Al Green, you can't get down at all. Go Pats.

Quote of the Week

The frontrunner for this week's Quote of the Week was Jon Stewart (always a Crimson Cavalier favorite), with his final punchline from this clip. After detailing Congress' utter failure to perform its most basic functions (hi, Super Committee), Stewart lampoons them for their apparent decision to declare pizza a vegetable--clearly a pressing matter of national security, and the subject of my tweet last week. Noting that this decision was an apparent kickback to the all-powerful frozen pizza lobby, Stewart determined that "it's not democracy, it's DiGiorno". Brilliant. Satire at its best.

And yet, it's not the Quote of the Week. This week, that honor goes to Rolling Stone's Tim Dickinson (how is it that Rolling Stone is suddenly the only hard-hitting journalistic outlet we've got left?), who penned an excellent article on "How the GOP Became the Party of the Rich". It's fascinating throughout (worth a read despite its length), but its true magic lies in its lead paragraphs. That's where Dickinson does a terrific job of pointing out the absurdity and relativism that is inherent in political debate today.

Let's not waste any more time. Let's let Dickinson do his thing.

This week's QUOTE OF THE WEEK

The nation is still recovering from a crushing recession that sent unemployment hovering above nine percent for two straight years. The president, mindful of soaring deficits, is pushing bold action to shore up the nation's balance sheet. Cloaking himself in the language of class warfare, he calls on a hostile Congress to end wasteful tax breaks for the rich. 

"We're going to close the unproductive tax loopholes that allow some of the truly wealthy to avoid paying their fair share," he thunders to a crowd in Georgia. Such tax loopholes, he adds, "sometimes made it possible for millionaires to pay nothing, while a bus driver was paying 10 percent of his salary – and that's crazy."

Preacherlike, the president draws the crowd into a call-and-response. "Do you think the millionaire ought to pay more in taxes than the bus driver," he demands, "or less?"

The crowd, sounding every bit like the protesters from Occupy Wall Street, roars back: "MORE!"

The year was 1985. The president was Ronald Wilson Reagan.
                     
                          - Tim Dickinson; Rolling Stone

Wow, I did NOT see that one coming. I've long lamented the fact that the Republican Party has taken a sharp turn away from its true "conservative" ideals, and that it now sells out aggressively to corporations and the Christian right, merely paying lip service to its original conservative principles.

No longer is the Republican Party the party of fiscal conservatism, regardless of what current party leaders might try to tell you. This is the party of the Bush tax cuts and of constant war-mongering, both of which have done more to increase our deficits and debt than just about any Democratic social program, ever. That they continue to religiously oppose tax increases is not indicative of fiscal conservatism--it's indicative of fiscal recklessness, which the party has quietly espoused for decades now.

That we can read the words of President Reagan--that great shining beacon of Republican conservatism--and easily mistake them for the words of President Obama, whom the Republicans reflexively label as "socialist" and "communist" (when they're not calling him a terrorist) is telling. Unfortunately, it's not telling a good story.

Our two-party system is irreparably broken, having devolved into a self-defeating us-versus-them competition/race-to-the-bottom rather than a cooperative effort to lead and govern. In Washington, diversity of opinion breeds not true compromise but utter contempt, and we all lose in the process. In this case, we seem to have lost sight of who we are, or used to be anyway. Rarely has the "big picture" been so out of focus in Washington--does anybody there see it at all anymore?

[Rolling Stone]

Interesting related graphics (and how they relate to Occupy Wall Street)

I've already posted Jon Stewart's terrific take on Occupy Wall Street here, and if you're looking for an equally well-executed (albeit much less humorous) summary of the situation, I'd suggest you read this piece from Barry Ritholtz. He correctly points the finger not only at Wall Street execs, but also at Washington, the mainstream media, and even the Supreme Court.

Ritholtz also warns that if the Occupy Wall Street movement isn't careful, it could suffer the same fate as the Tea Party--that is, being co-opted by a partisan political message that over-simplifies and distorts the original themes of the movement for the benefit of an established political party. In the initial stages of a movement or protest, disorganization doesn't really matter, but eventually it does--people (especially those in the media) are always looking for a coherent narrative, and they'll find it wherever they can.

At any rate, in that vein, I was struck by a couple of charts (appropriately enough, all brought to my attention by the very same Barry Ritholtz) that I came across this weekend, and they seemed both related and relevant. I'll leave the conclusions to you.

The first is a series of charts showing the changing distribution of income gains in the U.S. over the past century (culled from this interactive graphic).

Between 1917 and 1981, the bottom 90% received 69% of income gains.

Between 1982 and 2000, the bottom 90% received just 23% of income gains.

Since 2001, incomes for the bottom 90% have declined. The top 10% have still gained.

Related to that is a graphic showing which Presidents were responsible for the majority of our country's debt accumulation. (Note: I always take these "debt by President" charts with a massive grain of salt, because it's always difficult--if not impossible--to properly assess "blame" to one President or another for certain long-standing projects or proposals. If TARP was passed by Bush but enacted under Obama's watch, who bears the brunt of that debt hit? What about tax cuts, and then the extension of those tax cuts? And do we give Obama a free pass for certain of his policies that are certain to create debt in the future, even if they haven't officially done so yet? As a result, the findings of these types of charts have a tendency to be... a bit inconsistent. But they're generally consistent in a range--like, it's indisputable that George W. accumulated significantly more debt than Clinton--if not in specific numbers and percentages. They're far from statistically perfect, and therefore heavily prone to statistical manipulation to suit the artists' needs. But if you appreciate that fact, they can still be interesting.)

Alright, that's it for now. That should at least help explain why so many people are so angry, and why they're out in the streets (that and the fact that they're unemployed and really have nothing better to do). Good times.

Entrepreneurship and the American Jobs Act

It's a really slow news day (meaning that nothing's gone ka-BOOM in Europe yet), so I thought I'd share what I think is one of the more interesting proposals within Obama's recently revealed jobs plan. Surprise! It involves entrepreneurship, which I'm always talking about here.

For what it's worth, in general I don't think the new jobs plan is a particularly good one--it seems to be mostly window-dressing to save Obama's job next year, and it does little to solve the significant structural problems in our current job market--but this specific recommendation seems to be a step in the right direction. (This guy takes a comically long time to get to the point, so skip down a bit if you're impatient like I am. Seriously, this guy is killing me...it's like reading Dickens. Skip ahead.)

It’s no big secret that young Americans are hurting. Youth unemployment is double the national average, college debt loads and defaults are the highest in history, and only 25% of young people had traditional jobs lined up upon graduation this year.

Thankfully, alongside these chronic epidemics, another trend has emerged: the growth of entrepreneurship as a viable career path for young people.

However, the vast majority of recent college graduates and twenty-somethings face significant hurdles when it comes to starting a business, especially when it comes to obtaining startup capital. Mind you, I’m not talking about hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars — or in most cases even tens of thousands. It takes just the few thousand dollars to start the most basic service-based businesses. But banks require collateral and credit history, a rare combination for eager upstarts. Micro-loan programs (that work as intended) are few and far between. And, in many instances, “friends and family” have their own financial woes to deal with. Bottom line: None of these sources is a reliable or scalable solutions for the vast majority of young Americans looking to join the entrepreneurial ranks.

But it seems the president’s American Jobs Act may have just the solution young people need to transition from unemployed to self-employed...

The provision I’m talking about is reform to federal unemployment insurance. (Yes, I’m serious. Hold the skepticism, please.)

Traditionally, unemployment insurance has only been made available to unemployed individuals who were actively seeking a traditional job. These funds could only be accessed for personal use; all other uses — such as starting a business — were strictly prohibited, and only job seekers qualified for these funds. Individuals with a desire to seek self-employment opportunities were ineligible for any unemployment money.

Now, imagine if aspiring entrepreneurs — individuals whose main priority is to hire themselves, build revenues and hire others to grow — had access to this sort of guaranteed startup capital. Well, under the American Jobs Act, they will.

According to Obama’s plan, all 50 states would be able to establish Self-Employment Assistance (SEA) programs, enabling aspiring entrepreneurs to utilize unemployment insurance money to fund their businesses for up to 26 weeks —providing roughly $10,000 to $13,000 in assistance, or what I would refer to as “seed funding.” Not a bad deal when you consider that the cost of most startups, especially most service-based businesses and tech ventures, have relatively low startup and operating costs. In essence, the president’s plan will create a guaranteed source of startup capital for businesses without any of the traditional credit and collateral requirements as barriers — or the need to give away equity to investors. Someone pinch me...

SEA has a proven track record of success in states that are both red and blue. According to a Department of Labor study of state self-employment assistance programs, SEA participants were 19 times more likely than eligible non-participants to be self-employed. In a handful of states where SEA programs are active, such as Arizona and Maryland, hundreds of businesses and new jobs have been created as a result. In Oregon, nearly half of the successful SEA entrepreneurs have each created an average of 2.63 new jobs.

Though this program is geared toward people of all ages who wish to start their own businesses, I would argue that young people are the best suited to maximize its advantages. Members of older generations tend to have families and other financial obligations, making it more difficult for them to transition into the roles of entrepreneurs. Young people who have fewer commitments, and therefore more flexibility, can more easily adapt to less expensive lifestyles.

You guys still with me here? No, our guy put you to sleep? Okay, sorry about that. But I really am excited about the fact that the federal government finally seems to be appreciating the need for entrepreneurship and innovation to get us out of our now decade-long economic malaise.

Now if they could just double or triple the size of this program, and cut back on all of the thousands of programs that are basically just handouts to large corporations, that'd be great. Good talk.

[Time]

Quote of the Week

On occasion, I'll cheat a little bit on Quote of the Week, using it as a weak excuse to post what is in fact a clip rather than just a quote. This is one of those times.

But what can I say--this clip is too good to save until Thursday, and it seems especially pertinent given the events of the past weekend. Many of you have probably watched Seth Meyers' amusing remarks at the White House Correspondents' Dinner. I enjoyed his standup, but I found the first few minutes of President Obama's remarks to be absolutely hysterical.

I fully recognize that many people are incapable of letting down their political guard to enjoy the humor of a situation--I am not one of them, but if you are, I apologize in advance. You won't find this funny. But it is. Without further ado...

This week's QUOTE OF THE WEEK

"As some of you heard, the state of Hawaii released my official long-form birth certificate. Hopefully, this puts all doubts to rest. But just in case there are any lingering questions, tonight I'm prepared to go a step further. Tonight, for the first time, I am releasing my official birth video."
                              - President Barack Obama

I highly recommend that you watch up until the 4:15 mark in this video. I haven't laughed so hard in a long time. 

Interactive view of the US federal budget

I mentioned in passing in a post last week that most Americans suffer from a certain type of cognitive dissonance when it comes to the federal budget (and by extension, our deficit and debt)--essentially, we humans are just very bad at visualizing really big numbers. Hence this video, which I also shared in last week's post.

For those of us who think that we can solve our budgetary woes simply by "trimming the fat", the New York Times is here to help, with an interactive view of President Obama's 2012 budget proposal. The green rectangles indicate increases from 2010, while the red rectangles indicate cuts from the 2010 budget. Notice that the majority of the red spaces are small, where the majority of the green spaces are quite large.

The graphic isn't embeddable, so you'll have to click on this link to play around with it. Personally, the more time I spend perusing the graphic, the more hopeless it all starts to seem.

You can't balance a budget by going out to dinner less often but also buying a bigger house--that's essentially what this budget is trying to do. Most Americans--and apparently politicians, too--seem to think that we can solve our deficit problems by making our smaller programs more efficient, while letting our bigger programs (Medicare, Defense, and ahem, interest on our debt) grow ever larger. That's a losing proposition, akin to bailing out a sinking ship using a leaky bucket.

The only way we will ever be able to balance our budget is by hacking away at the big green rectangles--that's simple mathematics, because you better believe we aren't balancing it through tax increases. It won't be easy or fun, but we literally don't have a choice.

[New York Times]

Infrastructure takes center stage

In the wake of President Obama's proposal to invest $50 billion in our nation's roads, runways, and railways as the next phase of his "economic stimulus" plan, public concern about the state of our nation's infrastructure has once again been piqued. Enter the American Society of Civil Engineers' (ASCE) recent Infrastructure Report Card.

The site is a bit clumsy and admittedly alarmist in nature, but definitely worth a look if you've got some time to kill. My greatest concern about our massive government budget deficits--amassed via Medicare, military conflicts, and ongoing economic stimulus--is that the resultant debt makes us much less capable of addressing the significant deferred maintenance on our nation's infrastructure.

It is never politically sexy to address these sorts of issues, so few politicians really do (except, maybe, the Sewer Mayor). But the longer we defer the maintenance, the harder and more expensive it will be to address. It is my sincere hope that we will somehow be able to find the money to do so soon. It won't be easy.