7/31/14 Today's Inquiries

Coffee 'n Links for breakfast.

The Links:

Andrew Sullivan checks in on Medicare and find that it's fiscal outlook has improved. Cost saving measures and payment reform have made the program solvent through 2030. More proof that the Very Serious People who constantly claim social programs are bankrupting the nation are full of it.

James Temple at Re/Code rounds up the various medical consultation apps out there. It is tough to see a doctor on short notice and many of the ER folks we see really don't need to be in an ER. Maybe "telepresence" in medicine is a good thing.

Healthy eating at $35 a week. Lisa and I have been working hard to keep our grocery bill down. One area where we seem to overspend is cereal. Unless you're buying super sugar fruit puffs, you're spending $4-5 on a box that lasts about a week.

US GDP showed a healthy 4% growth rate int he second quarter of the year. Now we need an equally good jobs number.

Bloomberg notes that employee pay is a small portion of overall compensation than in the past. What's taking it's place? Dividends and Interest. The big myth of becoming wealthy is that you have to earn your money. No, you have to earn enough money that you can buy more money through owning capital.

Menzie Chinn digs into Kansas's neoclassical economics policy and finds it a complete wreck. I can already hear conservatives arguing that it's only bad policy at the state level, when a whole country does it, things will be better! Or, maybe, the liberal media hasn't given Kansas a chance to succeed yet, just wait, you'll see.

The Economist says, Choose Your Parents Wisely.

Republicans sue the president. Remember, this is a political stunt and not designed to produce any real change. The hope is that a judge appointed by Obama throws the case out. Then they get the maximum outrage for minimal effort. One problem, the Tea Party wants to impeach the president and don't see the lawsuit as going far enough. The democrats are happy to highlight impeachment because it mobilizes their own base ahead of the midterm elections.

Charter schools are a cesspool of corruption. Not that regular schools aren't but thinking that there's going to be a meaningful difference is silly. At least this way, school CEOs can simply take the money and not have accountability.

One school district in NJ killed it's student-laptop program. Basically, the district was spending tons of time repairing the computers and tons of time constantly monitoring the kids' web use and blocking pornography. That's a tough bind. The schools are legally bound to prohibit children from accessing certain kinds of material on the internet. Any device purchased by the school has to uphold a nearly impossible standard of web-cleanlieness.

Scratch Jr. Coding for Kindergarteners. Great! In 12 short years all students will be perfectly logical thinkers. They will be proficient coders and linear logicians! All of America's employment problems will be solved and everyone will go work in the Bay Area.

As evidence of how perfectly a coder thinks, I present Google's pro slavery Software Engineer, Justine Tunney. Slavery. It's only logical.

Well, if coding in kindergarten can't save the world, maybe beavers can. Apparently these little engineers can save the Western US.

But, Coal leasing in the American West is the hidden flaw in Obama's climate plan. That's right, Obama allows energy companies to lease public land cheaply and then mine it for coal.

Also at Vox, Matt Yglesias seriously loves Star Trek because conservatives hate Star Wars and Neil deGrasse Tyson and stuff. I don't know. You see if you can figure it out.

Was NAFTA a disasta? Not really. It contributed to growth in the Mexican economy and employment. While it did have a negative impact on US jobs, it paled in comparison to the recession.

Al Qaeda earned $66 million dollars last year from kidnapping ransoms. Also, there are some perverse incentives int he kidnapping business.

Jason Jones asks why it matters that Christians acknowledge evolution. I especially like his closing note that Christian theology has to pass the "greatest commandment" test.

NPR promotes alcoholism among writers. Seriously though, I bet reading in a pub would be awesome. I don't think I ever got around to that in College but there weren't many good quite bars in Athens, even during the daytime.

Then, when you're done reading, you can impress other bar patrons with your age guessing abilities. Ain't statistics grand?

Closing it out today, someone is turning Roadhouse, the roundhouse kicking philosophy, umm, kicking, Patrick Swayze movie into a graphic novel.

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7/30/14 Today's Inquiries

You've got a long link list today.

The Links:

A brief New York Times profile of Osteopathic Medicine reports that almost 1/3 of medical students are graduating from DO programs. I had no idea it was that many. I also didn't know that there were no new MD schools between 1980 and 2002. It's a good primer on the difference between DO and MD, which is basically zero. Less than 10% of practicing DOs utilize the manipulative therapy described in the article.

McDonald's could be liable for it's labor practices. The NLRB changed the category of employer McDonald's falls under. No more unpaid over time. No more clocking out but still working. Sometimes unilateral executive action can have benefits.

WaPo reports that 1/3 of people with a credit report had debt collection in the past year. Which means they weren't even able to make minimum payments on some kind of borrowed money. Which means the sub-prime car loans linked a while back and other returning predatory lending practices are going in the same direction as the housing crisis.

Worldwide water shortage by 2040. Back when I was in early high school, my family visited a family friend for Thanksgiving. He was the director of the Naval War College or some such position. His summary of the future: most of the world will be at war over securing drinking water. This was probably 10 years ago.

Speaking of bleak futures, the Hungarian Prime Minister says he would like to end liberal democracy. I can't wait to see how that turns out. Maybe he can cozy up with Putin. I'm sure the Hungarian people just love the Russians.

Vox wants to know: What would happen in Ebola came to the US? I'd imagine it'd be pretty scary. A lot of the coverage right now focuses on how rural communities in the affected nations are deeply suspicious of WHO, MSF, and others. We like to think we're different from a bunch of tent-dwelling tribal Africans but we're not. People will panic.

The Anti-vaccine movement is not only growing, it's branching out into other kinds of healthcare. Numerous parents are now opting not to give their kids vitamin K shots shortly after birth. This means they are prone to bleeds. So yeah, you'll feel better about not giving your kid autism despite the total lack of evidence connecting vitamin K to autism but your kid is going to be hypotonic, have a blown pupil, and be shitting blood. Good job mom!

David Frum accused Reuters and the New York Times of staging photos of the Gaza crisis. There's a lot to the context of this story so definitely read on if you're at all interested. Warning: These are graphic photos.

The Decline of Milk. I wonder what's replacing it? Mountain Dew? Red Bull? Purple Drank?

A presentation from Open Source Conference about how techies should check their privilege:



This handy chart will tell you when a woman owes you sex. Apparently sex spreadsheets are a thing.

So, maybe it's appropriate that Wired takes a look a Tech's Ugly Gender Problem. Ugly indeed.

Richard Dawkins: You're not helping!

And, The Dark Side of ComicCon: Harassment amid the fantasy. But wait!? Aren't nerds magically immune to harassment because they were a 'marginalized' community and therefore open and accepting?

Andrew Sullivan looks at #Feminism and how feminism is becoming separated form it's cultural and historical context.

Also, two Dish posts about Conservatism: Montaigne and Conservatism and Toward a Conservatism of Joy. Posts like these remind me why I read Andrew Sullivan so much. He has a refreshing and enlightened view of conservatism which is almost completely absent from the fake libertarian leaning GOP and Fox News set.

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7/29/14 Today's Inquiries

Links 'n stuff!

The Links:

Today's Storyline theme: Bullying. As an educator I saw lots of low-grade bullying but you definitely have to put a hard stop to that sort of thing early in the year or the kids will learn it's okay.

Today's chart porn shows 5 decades of middle class wages and productivity.

Greenpeace says that by exporting coal, Obama is exporting climate change. I like the little rhetorical flourish that one could export a global problem.

David Sirota insists that there are huge differences between Elizabeth Warren and Hillary Clinton. I think these differences are easy when you're talking about stated positions and hard when you're talking about governing. In that sense, Hillary's stated positions are probably closer to what her realistic policy goals would be and she stands a greater chance of being a successful executor.

LeMonde figures out that the US army is only part of the way we blow billions of dollars on imperialist wars of occupation without any hope of accountability. Oh, contractors, how did we ever believe that you'd be more efficient than keeping it in-house?

Speaking of armies:



Williiam Gibson's Neuromancer is 30 years old. A prime example of life imitating art.

It looks like Comic Con's attendees are fighting to stem the tide of sexual harassment at nerd mecca. Still, there's bound to be plenty of people crossing the line. It shouldn't just be on the attendees to get in the face of creeps. The Con needs to have a more stringent code of conduct.

What do Chinese Dumplings Have to Do With Global Warming? Everything, apparently.

Austria-Hungary declares war on Serbia and officially kicks off WWI.

Tyler Cowen asks, Why does the US economy do better under Democratic Presidents? Well obviously they're just skating along on the great economic policies created by Republican predecessors. Just like Obama's been doing.

An interview about prison reform with the real woman behind Orange is the New Black.

OkCupid seems to be experimenting on it's users by sending incompatible people on dates. I've said it before: they need to keep people from having successful long term relationships in order maintain user base.

Womens' brains saw a huge boost form things like sanitation, healthcare, and nutrition. Another series of fantastic 20th century achievements that the GOP is rapidly working to undo.

Michelle Nunn's campaign accidentally published it's strategy. I don't know how much this will damage her chances since we're still several months out but she'd better get some better staffers.

And The Upshot questions pay for performance as a model for improving healthcare. The way we're talking about healthcare increasingly reminds me of the way we're talking about schools. All the policy is focused on providers (teachers) and hospitals (schools) but nothing focuses on the patients (students). I'm sorry, but we have a very unhealthy public. 1/3 of the country is literally poisoning themselves with sugar. The chronic problems associated with diabetes are not going away just because you change the compensation structure for physicians. Same for heart disease, obesity, and all the other chronic-yet-preventable illnesses out there.

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7/28/14 Today's Inquiries

Garfield hates Mondays.

The links:

Minecraft is 5 years old and is still going strong. I can't say I've played much recently but that's not to say I won't play in the future. I need to find a way to merge all of the maps I've ever played into one super map.

XKCD speculates that Tommy Wiseau is actually DB Cooper. It's as good a theory as any.

New Mad Max


The New York Times goes to the beach and has a sad. Maybe it's because the 6th great extinction is upon us and we're to blame.

Or maybe they should have had better summer reading material. iO9 rounds up 21 important SciFi books.

Tolkein wouldn't be happy about this: 1/2 of Britain to be opened up for fracking. Maybe his chapters about the Shire becoming an industrial wasteland will become true again.

Tyler Cowen shares a fact about Germany. Apparently they've thrown open their borders and are keen to train immigrants for jobs and teach them German. Not a bad idea and the US is looking more and more a mess these days.

For example, the new GOP outrage of the moment is secret Obama inflation. I've totally been on the right's side with this issue before. Then I saw no inflation for about 10 years despite loose Fed policy.

And, Midterm Calculus now gives republicans better chances this fall than last week. I should stop following the polls.

Andrew Sullivan asks if the Christian Left is capable of gaining traction. I doubt it but I live in east Kentucky. I find it more likely that Christians become less political. Or at least less political because of their religion. 3-ish decades of the Moral Majority didn't stop the gay or any other perceived scourge on society.

How doctors think about healthcare vs how management think about health care. Allow me to summarize: Managers want to bring Common Core into hospitals. Physicians want to be left alone to practice medicine as they see fit. The managers will win.

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7/27/14 Today's Inquiries

The best thing about my job on sundays is all the people who are "overwhelmed by the spirit" while at church.

The links:

The New York Times contrasts the implied fictional violence of Comic Con weapons with the generally rule-following nature of it's attendees. I think the article is far more negative than the accompanying video. I'm beginning to be more inclined to agree with the anti-weapon critics. Perhaps it's because I don't think that nerd culture is open or accepting. Marginalized? Yeah, in the past, sure. But I see little evidence of nerds willingness to embrace outsiders.

NYT profiles Doc McStuffins, a female black doctor doll! We need so many more toys like this. A black male president is not enough.

More New York Times. A study finds that households are worth a third less now than they were prior to the recession. But the Times also has an article about how yacht owners see themselves as job creators. These ships aren't going to sail themselves!

How much would Paul Ryan's anti-poverty plan cost?

And, the New York Times is in favor of legalizing weed.

More investment advice for Millenials from Patrick O'Shaughnessy.

The first book about Millenials as a generation was, apparently, very bad at making predictions.

Barry Ritholtz, meanwhile, encourages you not to let your emotions ruin your investing decisions.

And Zero Hedge calls anyone who invests in Indexed funds a socialist. Which pretty much doesn't make sense because you're literally buying a piece of the entire stock market. I think I'm going to remove Zero Hedge from my news rotation because they're just getting dumb.

Meanwhile Elite Colleges are becoming less and less friendly to anyone but the rich.

In 1985, 46 percent of incoming freshmen at the 250 most selective colleges came from the top quarter of the income distribution. By 2000, it was 55 percent. As of 2006, only about 15 percent of students at the most competitive schools came from the bottom half. The more prestigious the school, the more unequal its student body is apt to be. And public institutions are not much better than private ones. As of 2004, 40 percent of first-year students at the most selective state campuses came from families with incomes of more than $100,000, up from 32 percent just five years earlier.

The author advises sending your kids to non-ivies. As an Oligarch-American, I agree with this advice. College doesn't really matter so long as you go. Obviously it's your family connections and educational signaling that get you the job.

There is a ton of competition between Tech companies and Fashion companies for the best talent.  Given that technology and fashion are industries completely devoid of meritocracy and only serve to enrich a small number of people while numerous others toil in substandard conditions, I think this competition over talent makes perfect sense.

Facebook is now the most powerful newsreader. I'm doing just fine without it but I get where the article is going. If Facebook decided what kind of news it will let you see, then it can seriously manipulate your perception of the world.

Andrew Sullivan notes Kimberly Winston who notes the growing interest in the theological foundations of WWI. Very interesting indeed. The quoted portions touch a little on the link between masculinity and Christianity and warmongering. I have admit that while reading some Virginia Woolf essays I was always confused by her connection of masculinity and fascism. Maybe some more reading is required.

Andrew also looks at professional gaming. I want it to catch on but at the same time, I don't want to watch competitive gaming. I want to watch people play Skyrim. Or The Last of Us. Or The Wlaking Dead.

Vox gives us a map made by reddit of common surnames from the 1881 census of England and Wales. Joneses are from Wales, apparently.

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7/26/14 Today's Inquiries

Fresh from the series of tubes and in no particular order, links:

Google is aggregating lots of health data so they can make tons and tons of money. Although they says it's to better understand healthcare and health in general. But really it's money.

Dean Baker wants to end protectionism in the medical field. He notes that people decrying the doctor shortage don't usually mention bringing in more foreign doctors. 

Thinking about Social Security is problematic because there's so much confusing information out there. For example, my post about retirement a few months back. Tim Stuhldreher points out that the lost economic activity of the great recession is enough to pay for all the shortfalls. Just a reminder of how much those bankers ruined the world.

More on the recession. A recent study broke down recent graduates' employment outcomes. I especially like that they took the time to figure out whether or not the employed were in positions requiring college degrees. I also like that liberal arts and business are pretty much the same. Fuck business school students. I hate those guys. 

WaPo posts 5 myths about the gender pay gap. I found that I believed most of these at some point in time and two of them currently. I need to do more research!

Bill Moyers reports on the Center for Community Change report released this week. One big thing was how poor people are not willing to call themselves poor and prefer to say they can't make ends meet. I wonder how the dislike for that pejorative makes people think and vote about poverty programs. 

Brendan Nyhan thinks we're likely to see more 'worst' presidents. I found myself thinking about impeachment recently. What if we start seeing every president get impeached? There was talk of doing it to Bush. Obama might get impeached. We're already clearly at a point where having effective governance is unimportant to politicians. They've figured out how to stay in office through outrage alone. I mean, is impeachment going to become like repealing Obamacare? Is it just something every conservative votes for dozens and dozens of times because that's what their base wants to hear?

More evidence that only white people are Americans. 

And, an asshole gets lunch:

There is nothing more annoying than trying to enjoy a meal, cigar or just some quiet time and have people come up to ask for money. And since the City-County Council Democrats continue to block any meaningful proposal to get these guys off the streets, I decided to take matters into my own hands. I decided to turn the tables on the panhandlers and start asking them for money.

Long time conservative, Andrew Sullivan, explains why he seems to be moving left. No, Andrew, it's just that politics is moving right.

Apparently Hamas didn't kidnap those kids and murder them kicking off this recent war. Is it bad that I don't care? Like. At. All. Not from a humanitarian standpoint. I definitely sympathize with any human suffering. But I couldn't care less about the conflict. It's never going away. Both sides are shitty murderous thugs. It's like watching a gang war. Why should I care who wins?

I didn't know this: Corporations used to pay 1/3 of federal taxes. I thought it had alwas been a lower portion. I'm glad the government is no longer stealing their hard earned incomes and distributing it to the takers. Let the job creators keep their money (in banks overseas).

Grow your hair out and paint pixels on your face to defeat facial recognition software.

And, the South finally gets it's revenge on those damned yankees as climate change allows Kudzu to spread north. The end game is finally in sight. Or, you know, buy some goats.

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7/25/14 Today's Inquiries

Links I liked from around the web presented in no particular order.

The links:

Today Storyline peeks in at a town that blocked child immigrants. Also, the site seems to be featuring more story lines today which gives me a sad.

The NY Times asks, Why Do Americans Stink at Math? To which it's editorial page responds, Don't Teach Math, Coach It. I blame the lack of computer programming courses in our elementary skills - kids don't know how to think!

iO9 wants to know how Christians would deal with extraterrestrial life if it were discovered. It's especially problematic if it's intelligent life. Although I suppose about 30% of Christians would just deny extraterrestrial life exists citing a lack of biblical evidence.

Speaking of Christians who would have no problems with extraterrestrial life, Jason Jones reviews The Fifth Element and remembers to bring his multi-pass. Did I say reviews? Well, offers some constructive criticism may be more accurate. Read it anyway. And then all his other movie and game reviews.

The Daily Dish's book club this month is a book about the essays of Montaigne. Andrew Sullivan posts some reader feedback, specifically about the fear of dying. You can find the book club archive here.

Children don't like to eat healthy things. I'm pretty sure this has been know sine forever. Listen up parents! Your the boss of your children. Don't let them eat shitty food. You have that control. Fight them! Yes, I know they're genetically programmed to seek fat, salt, and sugar. Yes, I know you're genetically programmed to love them and make them happy. But you have to make them healthy too.

Andrew Prokop was at The Christian Science Monitor breakfast. A White House aid was genuinely worried that the House may impeach the president.

Pay - for - performance is a myth in corporate America. It really makes the gender-wage gap less defensible. Also, if people aren't paid more for being smarter and better than everyone else, how will we know who's best? Last, if this is the case, why do we want to emulate pay-for-performance in schools?

In the journal Personality and Individual Differences, a study looks at internet trolls.

In two online studies (total N = 1215), respondents completed personality inventories and a survey of their Internet commenting styles. Overall, strong positive associations emerged among online commenting frequency, trolling enjoyment, and troll identity, pointing to a common construct underlying the measures. Both studies revealed similar patterns of relations between trolling and the Dark Tetrad of personality: trolling correlated positively with sadism, psychopathy, and Machiavellianism, using both enjoyment ratings and identity scores. Of all personality measures, sadism showed the most robust associations with trolling and, importantly, the relationship was specific to trolling behavior. Enjoyment of other online activities, such as chatting and debating, was unrelated to sadism. Thus cyber-trolling appears to be an Internet manifestation of everyday sadism. 

Newsweek covers Valdimir Putin's life. The dude is pretty cool in a shirtless crazy power mad dictator kind of way. Also, how are these guys a superpower?

How Big of a Problem is Harassment at Comic Conventions? Very Big.

Why Captain America Should Stay Black Forever. Because a Black President isn't enough.

John Oliver and Clickhole. Fake news in opposite directions. I highly recommend pirating Oliver's show if you can't afford a $60 + $15 per month cable and HBO subscription. He's really come into is own and is far more biting than Stewart.

The New Yorker tells a 'guy walks into a bar' joke. Archives are fun.

I'm not saying Reason magazine published a Holocaust denial issue in 1976, but Reason magazine published a Holocaust denial issue in 1976. Also, they're super racist.

How many molecules of ink are used to print a single 12pt numeral?

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7/24/14 Today's Inquiries

Howdy partner, mosey on down to the links today.

In no particular order, the links:

Paul Kurgman asks, How's California Doing? I suppose it's best seen when in contrast to states like Kansas and Wisconsin but most accurately measured against Texas and New York.

Catherine Rampell provides an overview of the supposedly shrinking workweek. Many people have argued for such a thing from Keynes to Carlos Slim. The reality looks a little bit different.

The NY Times created a tool to search for word frequency through it's entire print history. I searched for Old Grey Lady. Very cool.

Eduardo Porter asks, Why aren't voters angrier about economic inequality? As far as I can tell, it's more about the poor and disenfranchised not voting than about them not being angry. Also, people don't understand inequality because they don't get how awesome the rich really have it. We Oligrch-Americans inhabit different world from the poors.

Storyline is all about energy policy today. Here's The (possibly) Slow Death of Coal. I hope they stick with the daily themes.

Noah Smith thinks Wall St. skipped economics class back in the 70s and 80s. What did those bankers miss while they were doing quaaludes and blow? Well, the entirety of economics abandoned Structural Economic Modeling in favor of approaches which sought to model individuals within the economy. This matters because SEM methods can only ever find correlations while modeled behaviors get closer to causation,

Monkey Cage's Andrew Gelman takes issue with the idea that meritocracy somehow excludes the elite passing on their fortunes to family.

Speaking of meritocracy and bootstrapping, Valleywag gives us, If TaskRabbit Is the Future of Employment, the Employed are Fucked. But I seem to remember Silicon Valley types saying that services like this, Uber, AirB&B, and other 'sharing economy' apps are democratizing work?

WSJ looks at Millennial views on housing and thinks they're not that different after all. I guess, because, umm, they're likely to consider being married and living in a house ideal? I dunno, you figure it out.

The Providence Journal tried to figure out how the hedge funds that Rhode Island State Pensions are performing. They got their asses slapped down in court. That's right! In state after state, the public is being denied, in court, the right to know how their public pensions are performing. No more retirement.

Andrew Sullivan points to Strategic Counter-trolling on the internet. Western government hire people to go around and challenge terrorists' points of view on the internet. I think it's really more about surveillance. Maybe you convince some people not to agree with the terrorists but you also see who is 'engaged' with their posts.

He also looks at The Left's Elizabeth Warren Fantasy. Oh how I can dream.

Our poor mental health coverage basically means the mentally ill go to jail.

The Pacific Standard has an article about how time is racist. More accurately, African Americans suffer from more degenerative aging than other races. Limited access to healthcare, education, good communities, and good jobs means you live a shorter and more painful life. That's why we need reparations.

Why are people Malnourished in the Richest County on Earth? An interactive media experience from The National Geographic.

Vox gives us a trendy post on food trendsetters. I think it's interesting to see how they are really only targeting one market over and over again.

Vox provides an overview of Paul Ryan's new budget. It's mostly what you'd expect plus a proposal to expand the EITC.

But what Paul Ryan doesn't do is provide better public transit, which is proven to help ameliorate poverty.

XKCD presents Snake Facts.

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7/23/14 Today's Inquiries

Working overnight shifts in the ER this week. Hopefully I'll put these posts out at a more regular time in the future.

And now, in no particular order, the links:

Nate Cohn argues that Georgia has a good chance of having a Democratic senator soon. I can only hope he's right. While Michelle Nunn is not her father, I certainly hold out more hope for pragmatic governance from the left than the right these days.

David Leonhardt looks at data showing US principals are more likely to view their students as poor than those on other countries. The question is, are they simply making assumptions about these students or are they really seeing more poor students? I'd imagine that principals are overestimating the number of poor children because poverty has an outsized impact on their jobs.

Claire Cain Miller reports on the status of the workforce. She focuses particularly on the impact of technological change and the recession and finds that the workforce is becoming split between high-paid high-skill jobs and the marginally employed. Basically there's nothing left in the middle.

From WaPo's new Storyline, we get a series of climate change stories with a particular focus on Chicago. Here's the one with the best headline: Attack of the Chicago climate change maggots. And: The man who makes sure climate change doesn't ruin your beer.

Libby Nelson on teacher salaries by state. Even after 10 years, some teachers make under $40k. Of course they get summers off, those lazy commie bastards.

The Economist says jobs are not enough for America's economy.

Over at Bloomberg View, Leonid Bershidsky thinks people hate bankers because they don't understand what bankers do. Then he provides some example of people's financial literacy problems and says bankers help people make better decisions with their money. I don't think Leonid Bershidsky knows what bankers do. He even writes this:

Because so many people are financially ignorant, they are ripped off by payday lenders; sold homes they cannot really afford with the help of mortgages they cannot finance; bilked out of their savings by penny stock brokers; and, on the other end of the scale, by bankers offering interest rates lower than inflation. The 1 percent preys on the 70 percent of U.S. illiterates, not because they are poor but because they don't know enough to make informed decisions.

As if those aren't all exactly the reason people hate bankers! Of course people don't have the same financial expertise as bankers. That's why they rely on bankers to aid their financial decision making. And then the bankers screw them out of their money. And that's why people hate bankers.

Border Patrol agents protect our borders form Boy Scouts with cameras.

NY Times says we need more investment in pharmaceuticals because there aren't any new antibiotics to combat resistant diseases. Obviously they don't realize there's no profit in healing people. You need to generate repeat customers or your stock price goes down. Penis pills for everyone!

What's the deal with those two conflicting healthcare rulings?

This one took a while to filter through to me: Classcraft makes the classroom into a giant role-playing game. I knew those years of playing WoW would pay off!

New Anti-Abortion Legislation requires doctors to scale 18-foot wall. Funny because it's probably going to be true soon.

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7/22/14 Today's Inquiries

Please note, this will be the last blog post that automatically gets emailed to my friends and family.

And now, in no particular order, the links:

Noah Smith, writing at Bloomberg View, takes Zero Hedge and other gold bugs to task. Apparently, investing in gold hasn't gone very well. I prefer the headline from his personal blog: You'll get no edge with Zero Hedge.

Related to the above link, Gallup surveys Americans' beliefs about the best investment. Looking at the numbers, Dylan Matthews says "Less than a quarter of Americans get the most important investment question right." Stocks > Gold, Real Estate, etc. Buy money people. Buy money.

Wage Growth Gap for Recent College Grads, a study by the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. Surprisingly, they argue that young workers, even skilled ones, are "marginal" workers. This means that, unlike older or higher paid workers, the young can't get their pay cut. It's already at the bottom of the salary ladder so youth pay stays flat. Job growth and economic recovery should improve this situation.

At Vox, Andrew Prokop notes the resignation of Chris Christie's chief economist. Somehow, cutting taxes and raising spending doesn't yield a balanced budget. But don't let the numbers get in the way!

The New Yorker has made it's archives free for the next three months. Libby Nelson, also at Vox, rounds up 12 education articles to read while the archives are free. Enjoy!

One last Vox link, I swear! Why a federal court just ruled Obamacare subsidies are illegal in 36 states. It is, apparently, the greatest threat the law has ever faced.

Do trans-fat bans save lives? Yes, especially old ones.

What's the deal with a US court getting to decide how the state of Argentina pays its debts to hedge funds? Read this to get a good overview of the whole issue.

Over at EdSurge, Rebecca Butler takes a look at the most recent cohort of Imagine K12 "graduates." Imagine K12 is an edtech startup incubator. One big shift is the move toward developing teacher resources over the past three cohorts.

What Millennials want most is, apparently, inflation. I don't know if higher inflation necessarily leads to wage growth, investment growth, higher real estate values, or anything that Taylor Tepper claims. I think it's more complicated than that. But he's absolutely right that it's bad for people in debt or who save and invest conservatively.

Jeff Sommer at the NY Times notes that only 2 of 2,862 funds beat Wall St. Which is just another way of saying, buy indexes. You can't beat the market even when that's your job.

Barry Ritholtz offers a small mea culpa about his membership in the "inflation truther" community in the 2000's. He points out that one big difference between now and then is the target of criticism. Then: the BLS. Now: Obama.

Tyler Cowen asks, For whom are the moochers actually voting? Given the absurdity of the moocher label, they're not voting for anyone person or part in particular.

The Washington Post launched a new media news venture called Storyline. It looks like a cross between Vox and The Upshot which is not a bad thing. Their headline article at the moment is, "Why should the economy play into my family planning?"

A lengthy look at how changing demographics are affecting wages.

And last but by no means least, The fall of Yogscast and their Kickstarter game, Yogventures.

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7/21/14 Today's Inquiries

I thought I'd collect some of the posts I liked reading this morning and put them all in one place.

Thomas Frank argues that the Obama presidency has been a Failure for liberals. The left wanted a more radical and left leaning president following the Bush years and the Great Recession. Instead they got a centrist hellbent on compromise and consensus. I prefer the version noted by Yves Smith:

"It couldn't be more clear that Obama’s presidency has been a massive success. The bailouts were the largest upward transfer of wealth in world history. Not  single bankster executive has been prosecuted, let alone jailed, and the banks are bigger than ever. Unemployment has been kept high and hysteresis has set in. Occupy was smashed. The President can now execute US citizens without due process. The government has openly became a surveillance state, on the scale of the Stasi. And lots of faraway brown people got blown to pink mist. Now, to be fair, Obama built on the solid foundations Bush laid."

Slate's David Auerbach takes a look at the Roko's Basilisk thought experiment which has, apparently, been driving the techno-futurists crazy. It looks like this:

"What if, in the future, a somewhat malevolent AI were to come about and punish those who did not do its bidding? What if there were a way (and I will explain how) for this AI to punish people today who are not helping it come into existence later? In that case, weren’t the readers of LessWrong [the rationalist/futurist/technologist community] right then being given the choice of either helping that evil AI come into existence or being condemned to suffer?"

Apparently unable to cope with the idea that their current technological skills and market rewarded genius were not the results of pure bootstrapping, they flamed the hell out of the original poster.

Nate Cohn at The Upshot does some more midterm calculus and waves goodbye to the republican wave.

Claire Cain Miller, also at The Upshot, looks at some of the Universities who are getting women into their computer science programs.

Dealbook reports on subprime vehicle loans. Strangely, the banks still seem to be happy to loan money at incredibly disadvantageous terms to individuals obviously unable to pay it back.

Looks like the poors will have to enter through a separate entrance in new "mixed use" buildings in NYC. I guess Oligarch-Americans like myself just can't handle seeing the common rabble. We prefer to live in a world free from the sight of anyone who is unlike us.

Understanding Society feeds Tyler Cowen's troll from the past week. Basically they point out that Tyler's absolutely correct and his analysis is spot on. But, he's not addressing the problem that people are actually complaining about when they worry about rising inequality.

Robert Waldman writes a quick post on how epistemic closure in right wing media may have helped Obama.

Yves Smith posts a tirade against free trade as practiced by Western governments. As usual, she argues, it benefits companies and political operators while not doing much to help the public of either trade partner. Moreover, the media is unabashedly pro "free" trade.

Over at Vox, Libby Nelson says the 'not everyone should go to college' argument is classist and wrong. She rightly points out that the argument is mostly applied to the poor and lower middle class who, like the residents of mixed use NYC buildings, we Oligarch-Americans don't want to see muddying the clear waters of our colleges and universities.

Andrew Sullivan takes a look at the spreading belief that Central American refugees crossing into the US are carrying diseases. He calls it public health nativism. I call it racism.

Andrew Sullivan also considers a recent study looking at the rate of US Government "failures" over the past several administrations. I found the reader response posted at the end to be spot on.

Robert Reich notes the recent rise in the non-working rich. Oligarch-American's prefer to call them bootstrapped from birth.

And lastly, Liberty Island an online magazine and site devoted to reviving Conservative Literature.

#103014334 / gettyimages.com