Truth Bias

kiplinger: The U.S. suffers from staggering economic inequality...

remierk — Tue, 09 Oct 2012 20:48:29 -0700

The U.S. suffers from staggering economic inequality — as staggering, in some places, as Nigeria, El Salvador and the Dominican Republic. Richard Florida ran the numbers and compared cities in the U.S. to highly unequal foreign countries. That colorful map might look pretty, but its implications for U.S. income inequality are not.

recall-all-republicans-2012: stfuconservatives: A fun visual...

remierk — Sun, 30 Sep 2012 11:50:50 -0700

recall-all-republicans-2012:

stfuconservatives:

A fun visual representation of how unbelievably pointless and wasteful Florida’s drug testing law is. Not pictured: the fact that that $178 million dollars went to a company owned by the governor’s wife.

-Jess

The Republican governor’s wife.

The 386,000 jobs we didn't know about - The Maddow Blog

remierk — Thu, 27 Sep 2012 23:30:18 -0700

The 386,000 jobs we didn't know about - The Maddow Blog:

There has now been net job creation over the entire Obama administration

saturniinae: le-kif-kif: sexartandpolitics: To test...

remierk — Fri, 21 Sep 2012 16:00:40 -0700

saturniinae:

le-kif-kif:

sexartandpolitics:

To test scientist’s reactions to men and women with precisely equal qualifications, the researchers did a randomized double-blind study in which academic scientists were given application materials from a student applying for a lab manager position. The substance of the applications were all identical, but sometimes a male name was attached, and sometimes a female name. Results: female applicants were rated lower than men on the measured scales of competence, hireability, and mentoring (whether the scientist would be willing to mentor this student).

(via Scientists, Your Gender Bias Is Showing | Cosmic Variance | Discover Magazine)

BUT SCIENCE ! (TM)

oh god, the comments

theatlantic: The Most Misleading Part of ‘The 47%’: Total U.S....

remierk — Tue, 18 Sep 2012 17:46:00 -0700

theatlantic:

The Most Misleading Part of ‘The 47%’: Total U.S. Taxes Are Barely Progressive

Mitt Romney is worried that half of make the wealth and half of us take the wealth. So is his running mate Paul Ryan. If this sounds like something out of a dystopian novel, that’s because it is. The world we live in is far different from the world Ayn Rand imagined. Just take a look at total taxes.

The chart above, from the Citizens for Tax Justice, looks at how much households earn and how much they pay in all taxes. In other words, it compares what percent of overall income they make and what percent of overall taxes the government takes from them. It’s not exactly a picture of moochers waging war on heroic entrepreneurs.

Read more. [Image: Citizens for Tax Justice]

azmatzahra: I dug into the numbers for some shocking...

remierk — Fri, 14 Sep 2012 11:34:04 -0700

azmatzahra:

I dug into the numbers for some shocking perspective: More civilians died in Syria in August than the bloodiest months for civilians in the recent Iraq and Afghanistan wars, as well as the recent uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Yemen and Bahrain.

But these numbers, as stark as they are, can’t fully illustrate the escalating war playing out on the ground. Learn more here, and please watch FRONTLINE’s two-part special, The Battle for Syria, this Tuesday.

"Everybody talks about food and gas prices when they’re rising. Think of gas prices in the past few..."

remierk — Tue, 11 Sep 2012 18:24:00 -0700

“

Everybody talks about food and gas prices when they’re rising. Think of gas prices in the past few weeks, and earlier this year. But, somehow, we don’t hear so much about gas prices falling, as they did for much of the spring.

“People focus on bad news more than they focus on good news,” Paul J. Healy, an Ohio State University economist who has studied how people perceive inflation, told me. “When prices go up, they notice it. When prices go down, they don’t care.”

”

- Everybody Always Thinks Inflation Is Higher Than It Really Is

(via planetmoney)

What if we switched to a society that sought out good news more than bad?

(via moneyisnotimportant)

arielnietzsche: Unemployment Rate Would Be Near 7% Without Cuts...

remierk — Fri, 11 May 2012 18:45:34 -0700

arielnietzsche:

Unemployment Rate Would Be Near 7% Without Cuts to Government Spending

As we have shown HERE - cuts in government spending have cost 1.7 million jobs. There has been a significant departure from prior year government spending under the Obama administration; since the federal government won’t help states cover their temporary shortfalls unlike in years past. In fact – president Reagan saw an increase in government spending that was significantly more than under the Obama administration (source). And if the Republican party wouldn’t be holding up assistance to state budgets – then the unemployment rate would be around 7%. That’s the difference.

Talking Points memo explains:

Obama’s been hobbled by public-sector layoffs during this crisis in a way his predecessor George W. Bush never was back in 2001. Where the federal government stepped up to prevent states and municipalities from laying off teachers and other government workers in previous recessions, it’s fallen on its face under Obama.

More broadly, government spending at all levels rose steadily under Presidents Reagan and both Bushes, but was mostly flat under Clinton and has gone negative under Obama.

How does this phenomenon contribute to current economic woes? It’s impossible to know for sure. But if like the Wall Street Journal you imagine that the massive government job losses in Obama’s first term had never happened, then, all else equal, the unemployment rate right now would be down near 7 percent, a full percentage point below where it actually is.

ilovecharts: motherjones: Hey you guys! Slate’s Farhad Manjoo...

remierk — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 16:03:03 -0700

ilovecharts:

motherjones:

Hey you guys! Slate’s Farhad Manjoo says MoJo should have won a Pulitzer for our charts. If they gave Pulitzers for that kind of thing. #humblebrag

We concur with Manjoo.

futurejournalismproject: The Internet’s Population Doubled Over...

remierk — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 09:51:29 -0700

futurejournalismproject:

The Internet’s Population Doubled Over the Last Five Years

Royal Pingdom susses out some interesting trends about the world’s 2.27 billion Internet users:

Africa has gone from 34 million to 140 million, a 317% increase.

Asia has gone from 418 million to over 1 billion, a 143% increase.

Europe has gone from 322 million to 501 million, a 56% increase.

The Middle East has gone from 20 to 77 million, a 294% increase.

North America has gone from 233 to 273 million, a 17% increase.

Latin America (South & Central America) has gone from 110 to 236 million, a 114% increase.

Oceania (including Australia) has gone from 19 to 24 million, a 27% increase.

They also note that Asia’s Internet population is almost double the entire Internet population was in 2007.

U.S. Judges Admit to Jailing Children for Money

remierk — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 21:15:16 -0700

U.S. Judges Admit to Jailing Children for Money:

stfuconservatives:

reagan-was-a-horrible-president:

jonathan-cunningham:

Judges Mark Ciavarella and Michael Conahan of the Court of Common Pleas in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, plead guilty in open court that they sentenced children to juvenile detention because they were paid off to do it by the PA Childcare and a sister company, Western PA Childcare corporation that ran the private facilities.

[…]

The companies in question paid the two judges more than $2.6 million dollars to send children to detention. The companies receive a stipend from the government for each inmate they house. So as more children were sentenced to the detention center, PA Childcare and Western PA Childcare received more money from the government, prosecutors said.

According to the Juvenile Law Center, a Philadelphia nonprofit group, teenagers were sentenced to detention for simple misdemeanors.

“The two judges face up to seven years in prison under a plea agreement made with the state.”

They made millions of dollars by selling children (and driving them to suicide), and all they get is a handful of years? The US legal system is a joke and people who pretend we have the rule of law are the punchline.

Uncompromising Photos Expose Juvenile Detention in America

Sometimes I have no response to this sort of thing other than WOW WHAT THE FUCK AMERICA

Photo

remierk — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 20:56:28 -0700

The taxes Americans really pay, in two graphs

remierk — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 16:04:14 -0700

The taxes Americans really pay, in two graphs:

wonklife:

When we focus on the federal income tax, we miss all the taxes that low-income Americans do pay. The payroll tax, for instance. And state sales taxes. And lots of local taxes. Indeed,

Citizens for Tax Justice, a left-leaning tax policy group, produces a study every year showing the total tax burden for different groups once federal, state and local taxes are taken into account. And when you include all the taxes people pay, then, as you can see in the graph atop this post, it turns out that most Americans do pay taxes, and they in fact pay about as much as the rich.

govtoversight: That bar at the top is outrageously long and it...

remierk — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 12:31:56 -0700

govtoversight:

That bar at the top is outrageously long and it represents the most expensive weapons program in all of human history. The Joint Strike Fighter is 38 percent of the cost of all DoD weapons procurement.

think-progress: What women could afford if the gender gap...

remierk — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 15:18:10 -0700

think-progress:

What women could afford if the gender gap didn’t exist.

Put another way, a woman over the course of her lifetime could afford two houses, 7 college degrees from a public university, 14 new cars, or $431,360 for retirement.

barackobama: amprog: Since 1980, the incomes of the top 1%...

remierk — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 10:32:49 -0700

barackobama:

amprog:

Since 1980, the incomes of the top 1% have quadrupled.

The Buffet Rule would reduce inequality in America.

Tweet to let your senators know you’re for it.

ilovecharts: 10 Big Companies That Pay No Taxes (and Their...

remierk — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 08:10:49 -0700

ilovecharts:

10 Big Companies That Pay No Taxes (and Their Favorite Politicians)

Between 2008 and 2011, 26 major American corporations paid no net federal income taxes despite bringing in billions in profits, according to a new report (PDF) from the nonprofit research group Citizens for Tax Justice. CTJ calculates that if the companies had paid the full 35 percent corporate tax rate, they would have put more than $78 billion into government coffers.

Here’s a look at the 10 most profitable tax evaders and the politicians their CEOs, employees, and PACs give the most money to.

Click through to see them all!

Photo

remierk — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 13:41:05 -0700

Photo

remierk — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 17:34:52 -0700

Teen Pregnancies Highest In States With Abstinence-Only Policies | ThinkProgress

remierk — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 23:55:40 -0700

Teen Pregnancies Highest In States With Abstinence-Only Policies | ThinkProgress