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More on the blue to red migration: state income taxes have little to do with it. Pretty much blow up that whole talking point when the data show it's more about low costs of living than anything else. Also, does that mean it's an unstable trend? My reasoning goes like this: a certain amount of the higher cost of living is due to blue state social services, schools, and other government services which red states rarely pay for. These things are generally good for communities that are upwardly mobile as they can, in a sense, pay of themselves. If the economy continues to recover, will the migration ebb or even reverse as people in red states begin to want those services again?
James Bessen, writing at the Harvard Business Review, says the skills gap is real. However, he has a nuanced argument. People aren't really lacking in basic math and literacy. There really isn't a shortage of STEM folks either. What's lacking are the skills that the education system and labor market haven't had time to create yet. He uses graphic designers as an example. Of course he completely leaves out the possibility of companies training employees.
The composition and sector break down of part time employees courtesy of the FRBA.
The Republican civil war over taxes is coming, so says Wonkblog.
But the supply-side Jacobins are having none of it. "I'm a classic growth conservative," Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) told John McCormack of the Weekly Standard, who "believe[s] that the best way to help families, the best way to help the economy is to reduce rates across the board" rather than expanding the Child Tax Credit instead. Daniel Mitchell of the Cato Institute downplays the idea that giving middle-class families more money even helps them, and says Republicans should keep focusing on cutting tax rates. And Kimberly Strassel of the Wall Street Journal thinks that the Lee plan is just a "capitulation to the left's inequality and middle-class talking points" that ignores the timeless lessons of, you guessed it, Ronald Reagan.Also, why is Paul Ryan ashamed of Ayn Rand? Maybe he realized that, like Rand Paul, he needed to shed some of his more extremist trappings to remain palatable for the general public.
Speaking of libertarians, Pew finds that only 11% of people it surveyed for identifies as libertarian and accurately understood what the term meant.
Ohio legislators seek to limit the teaching of the scientific method. I suppose that the next step after banning evolution is to try and stop a process of reasoning that would arrive at that conclusion. Although we need to be honest: the only way to learn to think is to learn programming.
Glenn Greenwald points out that we're now effectively fighting on and agains all sides of the Syrian civil war. Forever war, we're gonna be forever war....
Yet another Pew research report. This one is on the chilling effect of social media. Apparently, social media makes you less likely to speak out about political topics. Apparently I missed that memo.
Overall, the findings indicate that in the Snowden case, social media did not provide new forums for those who might otherwise remain silent to express their opinions and debate issues. Further, if people thought their friends and followers in social media disagreed with them, they were less likely to say they would state their views on the Snowden-NSA story online and in other contexts, such as gatherings of friends, neighbors, or co-workers.Sue Halpern reports that colleges haven't improved access to minorities or poor people in the last 30 years. As if that's a desirable outcome!
Samantha Allen thinks we need to talk about Silicon Valley's racism. I agree.
In light of the increasing political clout of Silicon Valley, the fact that black entrepreneurs continue to face barriers to access is even more concerning. In 2011, CNN’s series “Black in America” drew attention to the underrepresentation of black people in the tech industry. At the time, CNN reported that less than 2 percent of entrepreneurs receiving venture capital were black. The documentary sparked a national conversation on race in the tech industry with entrepreneurs like Angela Benton and Vivek Wadhwa drawing attention to the racism implicit in tech investment’s practice of “pattern-matching,” undisclosed techniques that investors use to determine whose projects to back. Pattern-matching supposedly favors inherently successful candidate traits but, in practice, as CNN notes, it tends to favor “white computer-science graduates of Stanford University or a similar elite school.”You know that old trope where black people's skin is described like food? Yeah, it's racist. Buzzfeed did a quick turnaround and decided to describe white people's skin like food to show just how stupid it sounds.
She took off his shirt, his skin glistening in the sun like a glazed doughnut.Lastly, I don't usually expect MAD Magazine to be at the forefront of, well, anything but this cover playing off the Norman Rockwell painting The Runaway is pretty ingenious.
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