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May 2014

Posted by Mandy Nagy on May 25, 2014 5 Comments
A shooting at the Jewish Museum of Belgium in Brussels left three dead and another severely injured on Saturday. (Update: Fourth person has died.) From CNN:
Three people were killed and another was seriously injured in a shooting Saturday at the Jewish Museum of Belgium in Brussels, Belgian officials said. A person arrived by car at the museum in central Brussels, entered and quickly opened fire before leaving the scene, Belgian Interior Minister Joelle Milquet told CNN affiliate Bel RTL. The circumstances of the shooting have raised suspicions that it may have been an anti-Semitic attack, but no motive has been determined. The shooter remains at large, and the nation's terror alert level was raised. Belgian public broadcaster RTBF quoted Brussels Mayor Yvan Mayeur as saying those killed were two men and a woman, while a man was seriously injured at the museum, which is near the tourist sites. At a press conference, Milquet said the threat level is highest at locations frequented by the Jewish community. This measure was precautionary, she added.
Other news reports, including a BBC News report, indicated that a possible suspect had been detained, but no additional details had been released at the time of this writing (which was Saturday evening).

Posted by William A. Jacobson on May 25, 2014 3 Comments

Spotted by the wife at the Home Depot parking lot in Ithaca. The guy said he gets some interesting looks. Really, in Ithaca?...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on May 24, 2014 34 Comments
We previously addressed The dead-end Case for Reparations, Ta-Nehisi Coates’ backwards looking road to nowhere:
Coates never gives the answer as to who gets what and how. And that’s ultimately the problem with reparations arguments that are not based upon the people causing the harm paying the people directly harmed by specific conduct soon after the conduct is remedied.
As Coates explained his views to Melissa-Harris Perry this morning, it became clear that there is no sense at all of holding the guilty accountable in the sense we normally do, or compensating actual victims. There is a complete disconnect between cause and effect -- anyone with a particular skin color is presumed to be a victim of policies even from generations earlier. It's a simplistic and non-evidentiary approach which generalizes anecdotes and ignores the myriad of factors that influence success or failure in life. Rather, this is a societal redistribution, in which the not actually guilty pay, and the not actually injured get compensated, via the power of government to redistribute wealth. It's just redistribution with a different justification.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on May 24, 2014 3 Comments
One of the big issues in Dr. Milton Wolf's challenge to Pat Roberts in the Kansas Republican Senate primary is that Roberts isn't a resident of Kansas. Roberts hasn't lived in Kansas in any meaningful sense for decades. Unless you consider renting a couch being a resident: So Wolf's campaign supporters filed a challenge to Roberts' ability to appear on the ballot because Roberts doesn't meet the residency requirement. The elections panel deciding the issue all had endorsed Roberts. although they sent "substitutes" to the meeting:
Secretary of State Kris Kobach, Lt. Gov. Jeff Colyer and Attorney General Derek Schmidt, all Republicans who've endorsed Roberts, comprise the Objects Board. But all of them sent substitutes to the board meeting.
The Board qualified Roberts for the Ballot. Steve Kraske writes in The Kansas City Star, Sen. Pat Roberts’ residency in Kansas is a valid question:

Posted by Mike LaChance on May 24, 2014 6 Comments
Nancy Pelosi gave Harry Reid the weekend off from raving about the Koch Brothers but was unable to come up with a new villain to blame for the VA scandal. Old habits die hard. Joel Gehrke of The Washington Examiner...
Nancy Pelosi blames George W. Bush for Veterans Affairs scandal House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., repeatedly put the blame for the Veterans Affairs scandal on former President George W. Bush, while arguing that her party has worked hard for veterans in recent years. Pelosi took a shot at Bush while saying that the scandal is a high priority for Obama. "He sees the ramifications of some seeds that were sown a long time ago, when you have two wars over a long period of time and many, many more, millions more veterans," she told reporters during her Thursday press briefing. "And so, I know that he is upset about it." The Democratic leader never mentioned Bush by name, but she alluded to him early and often in the press briefing.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on May 24, 2014 11 Comments
Now that I am back to my normal schedule after a week's worth of blazes in San Diego County, we seem to have another kind of wildfire breaking out in the state. Over the past few months, it looks like nearly 1,500 Californians have complained to state regulators about their Obamacare coverage purchased through California's insurance exchange (Covered California).
New data reveal the biggest category of complaints centers on getting confirmation of health plan enrollment and basic issues such as getting an identification card to obtain care. Many consumers have also encountered difficulty finding a doctor who accepts their new coverage, as well as frustration with inaccurate provider lists, according to the California Department of Managed Health Care. "If you have a medical condition and can't get care that is a very serious issue," said Marta Green, spokeswoman for the managed healthcare agency. "We are still working to resolve many of these cases." Health insurers and officials at the Covered California exchange say they are working hard too to address consumers' gripes. They say some problems are inevitable from such a massive overhaul and that the number of complaints is a small fraction of the more than 1 million Californians who signed up under the Affordable Care Act.
So, let me get this straight: The problems that the 1,500 people have reported are "inevitable" and because it is a "small fraction" we shouldn't worry. When should I start worrying, then? When someone in my family dies waiting for an appointment?

Posted by Mike LaChance on May 24, 2014 3 Comments

If nothing else, the Class of 2014 will be remembered for commencement season. “Thanks for Not Disinviting Me” Condoleezza Rice Defended by… The New York Times? Smith College Economics Profs Decry Campus Activists for IMF Director’s Commencement Cancellation Former Princeton President Blasts College Students for Speaker Controversy Harvard joins list...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on May 24, 2014 6 Comments

From Don: I saw this vehicle this afternoon while visiting my Mom at the hospital in Greensboro, NC. The pale yellow bumper sticker reads as follows: Somehow I don't think the owner would view conservative dissent in quite the same light. It's also another misattribution, which is common in...

Posted by Mandy Nagy on May 23, 2014 0 Comments

Some links for your Friday evening reading. "Naked guy at White House"...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on May 23, 2014 10 Comments
If it turns out that the campaign of Chris McDaniel was involved in the taping of Thad Cochran's wife in a nursing home, then it really doesn't matter who knew what when. The damage would be, and should be, a game changer. As of this writing, though, the proof either is not there or has not been made public. At most there is a cloud of suspicion because the alleged perpetrators were supporters and/or volunteers and/or prior acquaintances of McDaniel or the campaign. But if it turns out either that we don't get the answer until after the June 3 primary, or that the McDaniel campaign was not involved, then the fact that the story broke so close to the election is important. We know one of the reasons the story broke so late -- the Cochran campaign has admitted waiting at least two weeks to inform authorities. We don't know exactly how many weeks beyond two weeks. That pushed the story closer to the election which means we may not know the answer by June 3, which makes the seeming presumption of guilt based on the unknown potentially decisive. Erick Erickson suggested early on that there might have been collusion between the Cochran campaign and the National Republican Senatorial Committee. I don't if that's true or not. One way to find out would be to find out when the NRSC, its staffers and strategists, found out about the taping. If there was collusion to delay the story until closer to the election, we should know that. If there was no collusion to delay the story, should know that too. And we should know it prior to the election. But as of this writing, I have not been able to get an answer to that question.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on May 23, 2014 14 Comments
Thomas Piketty is the new wonder-boy of redistributionists. The Financial Times reports, however, that his numbers are off, skewing his findings, Piketty findings undercut by errors (h/t Sean Davis):
Thomas Piketty’s book, ‘Capital in the Twenty-First Century’, has been the publishing sensation of the year. Its thesis of rising inequality tapped into the zeitgeist and electrified the post-financial crisis public policy debate. But, according to a Financial Times investigation, the rock-star French economist appears to have got his sums wrong. The data underpinning Professor Piketty’s 577-page tome, which has dominated best-seller lists in recent weeks, contain a series of errors that skew his findings. The FT found mistakes and unexplained entries in his spreadsheets, similar to those which last year undermined the work on public debt and growth of Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff. The central theme of Prof Piketty’s work is that wealth inequalities are heading back up to levels last seen before the first world war. The investigation undercuts this claim, indicating there is little evidence in Prof Piketty’s original sources to bear out the thesis that an increasing share of total wealth is held by the richest few. Prof Piketty, 43, provides detailed sourcing for his estimates of wealth inequality in Europe and the US over the past 200 years. In his spreadsheets, however, there are transcription errors from the original sources and incorrect formulas. It also appears that some of the data are cherry-picked or constructed without an original source.
I think Rick Perry had a reaction once similar to what Piketty worshippers should be having:

Posted by Leslie Eastman on May 23, 2014 8 Comments
Professor Jacobson just reported that a ponderous tome explaining why black Americans are entitled to reparations has just been published. In other news, hundreds of Chinese families are suing Japan for compensation related to World War II enforced labor.
As relations between China and Japan plumb a new low, the descendants of hundreds of of Chinese men forced to work in wartime Japan are taking big, modern-day Japanese corporates to court. They are seeking millions in compensation. ...In possibly the biggest class-action suit in Chinese legal history, about 700 plaintiffs lodged a case against two Japanese firms at a courthouse in eastern Shandong province in April, said Fu Qiang, a lawyer representing the families. Among the plaintiffs are several forced labourers, now in their 80s and 90s, and this might be their last chance to seek redress. The suit was filed against Mitsubishi Corp (Qingdao) Ltd, a subsidiary of Mitsubishi Corp, and Yantai Misubishi Cement Co, a joint venture between Mitsubishi Corp and construction firm Mitsubishi Materials Corp, Fu said. The plaintiffs are each seeking 1 million yuan ($160,100) in compensation, a public apology in several prominent Chinese and Japanese newspapers, as well as the erection of a memorial and monument in remembrance of the forced labourers, Fu said, adding that they also want the companies to fund their legal expenses.
Perhaps they would settle for control of a certain set of islands called the Senkakus in Japanese (and the Diaoyu in Chinese) that both countries have been vying to control and which have become a source or regional tension?
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