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Archives | Upcoming Events | Quick Reference List | Alumni & Student Newsmakers | Faculty in the
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1. “Can ‘Open Data’ Improve Democratic Governance?”
September 12, 2013, 8:30 am to 6:00 pm, Banatao
Auditorium, Sutardja Dai Hall,
Sponsored by: UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies & CITRIS Data & Democracy Initiative; more info & to register
Panel: 3:30-4:30pm “Transparency and its Discontents: Democratic Prospects and Challenges”
Moderator: Henry Brady, Dean, Goldman
2. “Reclaiming Rights
- Challenging Gender-based violence in South Asia beyond
September 25, 2013, 6-8 p.m. | IDEX,
Panelists:
Kavita
Krishnan, Secretary, All
Sudha Shetty, Assistant Dean, International
Partnerships and Alliances,
Krishanti Dharmaraj, CEO & Founder, Dignity Index Fund
More info at Center for South Asia Studies: http://southasia.berkeley.edu/
3. “Our Future. Our Fight” – Generational Equity Tour presented by The Can Kicks Back
September 25, 2013 at 7 pm - 8:30 pm, Alumni House, UC Berkeley
Panelists include:
•Alan Auerbach – Professor of Economics & Law, UC Berkeley
•Henry Brady – Dean,
•Joan Woodward – President, Travelers Institute
More information & RSVP (helpful but not necessary) can be found here: http://www.thecankicksback.org/berkeley .
ALUMNI AND STUDENT NEWSMAKERS
1. “ENERGY: How non-solar customers are getting zapped” (San Francisco
Chronicle, September 27, 2013); story citing SUSANNAH CHURCHILL (MPP 2009).
2. “Solazyme hits it big in deal
with Unilever for algae oil” (San Francisco Chronicle, September 26, 2013);
column citing DOUG HENTON (MPP 1975).
3. “Ask Emily: Will you qualify for Medi-Cal
under Obamacare?” (Sacramento Bee, September 26,
2013); advice column citing
4. “Investing in jobs for the neediest” (San Francisco Chronicle, September 20, 2013); column citing CARLA JAVITS (MPP 1985).
5. “Shadow Open Mkt Committee Blasts FOMC Decision on Bond Buying” (The Main Wire, Market News International, September 20, 2013); newswire citing MICKEY LEVY (MPP 1974).
6. “EDUCATION: CCSF’s impact detailed in report” (San Francisco Chronicle, September 19, 2013); story citing SEVERIN CAMPBELL (MPP 1999).
7. “For Workers Leaving Their Jobs, Health Exchanges Offer Insurance Choices Beyond COBRA” (Washington Post, September 16, 2013); story citing LAUREL (TAN) LUCIA (MPP 2005); http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/for-workers-leaving-their-jobs-health-exchanges-offer-insurance-choices-beyond-cobra/2013/09/16/e4a098d8-1f28-11e3-9ad0-96244100e647_story.html
8. “Study: Increased traffic throughout city as Alameda Point redeveloped” (Oakland Tribune, September 12, 2013); story citing JENNIFER OTT (MPP 2000); http://www.insidebayarea.com/my-town/ci_24074152/study-increased-traffic-throughout-city-alameda-point-redeveloped
9. “Myriad languages, cultures challenge health reform” (San Francisco Chronicle, September 11, 2013); newswire story by GARANCE BURKE (MPP 2005/MJ 2004), and citing CARY SANDERS (MPP 2002); http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Myriad-languages-cultures-challenge-health-reform-4806056.php
10. “New college rankings are out. Are they part of the problem?; The annual US News & World Report college rankings were released Tuesday, and critics charge they’re contributing to a national college affordability problem that has seen student debt soar” (The Christian Science Monitor, September 10, 2013); story citing AMY LAITINEN (MPP 2003).
11. “Congress Returns Facing Work besides Syria Resolution” (Morning Edition, NPR, September 9, 2013); program featuring STAN COLLENDER (MPP 1976).
12. “Forum Explores Challenges Facing Public Schools” (Uppity Wisconsin, September 9, 2013); blog citing JEFF PERTL (MPP 2009); http://www.uppitywis.org/blogarticle/forum-explores-challenges-facing-public-schools
13. “
14. “In Bloomberg’s City of Bike Lanes, Data Show, Cabs Gain a Little Speed” (The New York Times, September 5, 2013); story citing BRUCE SCHALLER (MPP 1982).
15. “MATIER & ROSS: Planners get rolling on west span bike path” (San Francisco Chronicle, September 4, 2013); column citing DAVE METZ (MPP 1998).
16. “
17. “SAME-SEX MARRIAGE: Licenses from ‘04 month of love preserved for posterity in S.F.” (San Francisco Chronicle, September 1, 2013); story citing CARMEN CHU (MPP 2003).
18. “Even With Job Gains, Many Californians Left Behind” (The California Report, KQED public radio, September 1, 2013); story citing LUKE REIDENBACH (MPP 2013); Listen to this story
19. “Brain injuries a big problem for NFL in
20. “MEDICARE RECIPIENTS: New health law doesn’t affect your coverage” (St. Louis Post-Dispatch, August 29, 2013); story citing JULIETTE CUBANSKI (MPP 1998/MPH 1999).
21. “Alameda Point: Planning Board weighs redevelopment plan” (Oakland Tribune, August 29, 2013); story citing JENNIFER OTT (MPP 2000); http://www.insidebayarea.com/my-town/ci_23967892/alameda-point-planning-board-weighs-redevelopment-plan
22. “Can daughter stay on parents’ insurance?” (The Bakersfield Californian, August 27, 2013); advice column citing MARIAN MULKEY (MPP/MPH 1989).
23. “Daniel Borenstein: Strike ban to solve BART dispute presents great risks” (Oakland Tribune, August 24, 2013); op-ed by DAN BORENSTEIN (MPP 1980/MJ 1985); http://www.insidebayarea.com/opinion/ci_23928151/daniel-borenstein-strike-ban-solve-bart-dispute-presents
24. “Profiling. Racial profiling is about fear, says Paul Staley, and leads us to assume things we don’t know” (KQED Perspectives, August 23, 2013); commentary by PAUL STALEY (MPP 1980); Listen to this Perspective
25. “TRANSIT POLL: Voters back tax rise for BART” (San Francisco Chronicle, August 22, 2013); story citing DAVE METZ (MPP 1998).
26. “Massive Open Online Courses: Should educators worry?” (The Financial Express, August 19, 2013); commentary citing MARINA GORBIS (MPP 1983).
27. “30 is the new 40, and 40 is the new jobless” (San Francisco Chronicle, August 19, 2013); story citing GREG LINDEN (MPP 1995); http://www.sfgate.com/business/bottomline/article/In-Silicon-Valley-age-can-be-a-curse-4742365.php
28. “Are You Ready to Dump Cable?” (The Huffington Post, August 13, 2013); analysis citing DEREK TURNER (MPP 2006).
29. “Mortgage Deduction in Cross Hairs?” (Sarasota Herald Tribune, August 12, 2013); story citing WILL FISCHER (MPP 1999).
30. “REMINDER: The US is Weeks Away from a Confluence of Risky Economic Events That’s Unlike Anything We Can Recall” (The Business Insider, August 12, 2013); analysis citing SEAN WEST (MPP 2006).
31. “Your cellphone: Can police seize it as evidence?” (The Bakersfield Californian, Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News, August 11, 2013); story citing GARY BOSTWICK (MPP 1976/JD 1977).
32. “Shades of gray: Deposition sheds light on
33. “Yesterday’s Courtroom Foes Become Today’s Business Partners: After Long Legal Battle over Copyright Infringement, AP and Meltwater Will Now Collaborate on Innovating New Products” (Bulldog Reporter’s Daily Dog, August 9, 2013); blog citing GARY PRUITT (MPP 1981/JD 1982).
34. “Savior to stop a strike unlikely. Politicians have too much to lose to force settlement” (San Francisco Chronicle, August 9, 2013); story citing DAVID LATTERMAN (MPP 2002).
35. “Washington Journal: State and Local Government Finances” (C-SPAN TV, August 9, 2013); program featuring TRACY GORDON (MPP 1996/PhD 2001); http://www.c-span.org/Journal/#
36. “Jolt to electric cars: Driving hybrids may be the greener choice” (San Francisco Chronicle, August 9, 2013); story citing ROLAND HWANG (MPP 1992).
37. “CITY INSIDER: Warriors alter roster for arena” (San Francisco Chronicle, August 7, 2013); column citing CARMEN CHU (MPP 2003).
38. “Deficit shrinks to 5.7% of GDP” (Republican-American (
39. “It’s time for both parties to lift game on slogans -
Federal Election 2013” (The Daily Telegraph (
40. “AP Joins New Year’s Eve in Times Square with Video Highlights” (Web Newswire, August 6, 2013); newswire citing GARY PRUITT (MPP 1981/JD 1982).
41. “BluForest Inc.: Anticipates New Technology to Measure Carbon Emissions Will Expand the Carbon Offsets Trading Market” (Marketwired, August 5, 2013); newswire citing KEVIN GURNEY (MPP 1996).
42. “BART strike put on hold. Gov. Brown’s intervention will keep the trains rolling for the next 7 days — with no work stoppage permitted” (San Francisco Chronicle, August 5, 2013); story citing CHRIS FINN (MPP 2006/PhD cand.).
43. “BART strike blocked for now; Court orders 60-day cooling-off period — negotiations bogged down” (San Francisco Chronicle, August 12, 2013); story citing CHRIS FINN (MPP 2006/PhD cand.).
44. “CITY INSIDER: Newest supervisor’s war chest talks” (San Francisco Chronicle, August 4, 2013); column citing DAVID LATTERMAN (MPP 2002) and CARMEN CHU (MPP 2003).
45. “City successfully crossing funding bridge it came to” (Denver Post, August 4, 2013); story citing JEFF KRAFT (MPP 1995).
46. “Local Power in
47. “On
48. “Bring
49. “Ask Emily: Help! What can Obamacare
do for me now?” (Sacramento Bee, August 1, 2013); advice column citing
50. “Global trendsetter?
51. “
52. “
53. “Why Americans All Believe They Are ‘Middle Class’; A
taxonomy of how we talk about class and wealth in the
54. “A Guide to Understanding International Comparisons of Economic Mobility” (States News Service, July 29, 2013); newswire citing JULIA BIXLER ISAACS (MPP 1985).
55. “Under wraps: £500m of public cash given to landowners. Anger at decision not to name 19,000 farmers, dukes, earls and
lords who received the subsidy” (Sunday
Herald, July 28, 2013); story citing JACK
THURSTON (MPP 1999).
56. “Fourth Circuit Upholds Decision to Block Key Portions of South Carolina Anti-Immigrant Law” (Targeted News Service, July 25, 2013); newswire citing KAREN TUMLIN (MPP 2003/JD 2004).
57. “What a city owes residents” (Los Angeles Times, July 24, 2013); op-ed citing AARON CHALFIN (PhD 2013).
58. “PUBLIC OFFICE, PRIVATE GAIN: We’re not asking for too much from Crew, Cogen” (The Oregonian, July 21, 2013); editorial citing JOANNE SPEERS (MPP/JD 1984).
59. “CSWA Introduces Online Tool to Measure Vineyard Greenhouse Gas Emissions” (States News Service, July 19, 2013); newswire citing ALLISON JORDAN (MPP 2004).
60. “A vow to rise above violence; In
61. “Bernanke: Congress still a risk to the economy” (CNN Wire, July 17, 2013); analysis citing SEAN WEST (MPP 2006).
62. “New EDM Forum Medical Care Supplement Focuses on Lessons Learned Using Electronic Data” (States News Service, July 15, 2013); newswire citing ERIN HOLVE (MPP/MPH 2000).
63. “NERC mulling options in light of recent shooting of Calif. substation, CEO says” (SNL Electric Transmission Week, July 15, 2013); story citing ALLEN MOSHER (MPP 1978).
64. “Reports of
65. “A town called Facebook: Social network’s move to San Mateo makes it the highest-paid county in America—with an average wage of $168,000 a year” (MailOnline, July 3, 2013); story citing DOUG HENTON (MPP 1975).
66. “Calif. PUC approves flexible capacity requirement for resource adequacy in 2015” (SNL Generation Markets Week, July 2, 2013); story citing DAVID GAMSON (MPP 1986).
67. “Brewster Denny: Great Seattlite of Greatest Generation” (Seattle Post-Intelligencer, June 25, 2013); appreciation citing SANDRA ARCHIBALD (MPP 1971/PhD 1974).
68. “How open data is transforming democracy in
69. “
FACULTY IN THE NEWS
1. “Minimum wage for tipped workers has been kept at $2.13 for 21 years” (The Real News, September 26, 2013); interview with Visiting Lecturer SARU JAYARAMAN; link to video at: http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=10780
2. “Free to be hungry” (The New York Times & The International Herald Tribune [*requires registration],
September 24, 2013); column citing HILARY
HOYNES; http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/23/opinion/krugman-free-to-be-hungry.html?ref=todayspaper
3. “The Great Divide: American Bile” (New York Times Online [*requires registration], September 22, 2013); commentary by ROBERT REICH; http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/09/21/american-bile/
4. “Things won’t be easy for next Fed leader” (San Francisco Chronicle, September 21, 2013); column citing JESSE ROTHSTEIN; http://www.sfgate.com/default/article/Things-won-t-be-easy-for-next-Fed-leader-4832947.php
5. “The Numbers Guy: New Way of Calculating Poverty Rate Faces Hurdles” (Wall Street Journal [*requires registration], September 20, 2013); column citing HILARY HOYNES; http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324807704579085860737840606.html?KEYWORDS=Berkeley
6. “Stimson Center Releases Collection of Essays” (PR Newswire, September 17, 2013); newswire citing MICHAEL NACHT.
7. “The leaking
8. “Op-Ed:
9. “Reich: Inequality approaching a tipping point” (CBS MoneyWatch, September 12, 2013); interview with ROBERT REICH; http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505123_162-57602560/reich-inequality-approaching-a-tipping-point/
10. “‘Inequality’ offers education on economy” (San Francisco Chronicle, September 19, 2013); interview with ROBERT REICH; http://www.sfgate.com/default/article/Inequality-offers-education-on-economy-4827878.php
11. “New documentary ponders nation’s growing income gap” (Sacramento Bee, September 25, 2013); movie review citing ROBERT REICH; http://www.sacbee.com/2013/09/25/5767177/new-documentary-ponders-nations.html
12. “The Economic Policy Institute (EPI) holds a discussion on a new report, ‘Mismatches in Race to the Top Limit Educational Improvement,’ focusing on ‘implementation of the administrtion’s flagship education initiative’” (The Washington Daybook September 12, 2013); event featuring DAVID KIRP.
13. “Missing in action on votes in House. Many Bay Area lawmakers often skip casting ballots” (San Francisco Chronicle, September 11, 2013); story citing HENRY BRADY.
14. “Opinion: From ‘Inequality for All,’ a
challenge for
15. “Politics Blog: Nancy Pelosi a ‘team player’
on
16. “Tech Mania Goes to College; Are MOOCs—massive open online courses—the utopia of affordable higher education, or just the latest fad?” (The Nation, September 4, 2013); commentary by DAVID KIRP; http://www.thenation.com/article/176037/tech-mania-goes-college#
17. “Trimmings for Labor Day — start with executive pay” (San Francisco Chronicle, September 1, 2013); op-ed by ROBERT REICH.
18. “Finding Her Tribe; A producer pursues her vision of a feminist TV show” (California Magazine, Fall 2013 issue); story citing GSPP Board Advisor NANCY GULT HANIS and Dean HENRY BRADY; http://alumni.berkeley.edu/news/california-magazine/fall-2013-film-issue/finding-her-tribe
19. “Improbable Scholars: The Rebirth of a Great
American School System and a Strategy for
20. “Public good losing ground as rich go their own way” (San Francisco Chronicle, August 25, 2013); op-ed by ROBERT REICH
21. “Economic issues at the root of our deeply divided society” (San Francisco Chronicle, August 18, 2013); op-ed by ROBERT REICH.
22. “The Grid of the Future Could Be Brought to You by You” (All Things Considered, NPR, August 14, 2013); story citing DAN KAMMEN; Listen to this story
23 “Robert Reich: Why Congress’s Gridlock Doesn’t Paralyze Government but Gridlocks Democracy” (New York Times, August 14, 2013); op-ed by ROBERT REICH.
24. “Eric Holder is cutting federal drug
sentences. That will make a small dent in the
25. “Does corporate
26. “Three lies about the need to lower corporate taxes” (The Berkeley Blog, August 6, 2013); op-ed by ROBERT REICH; http://blogs.berkeley.edu/2013/08/06/three-big-myths-about-the-need-to-lower-corporate-taxes/
27. “Health Care Law Raises Pressure on Public Unions” (New York Times & International Herald Tribune [*requires registration], August 5, 2013); story citing ROBERT REICH; http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/05/nyregion/health-care-law-raises-pressure-on-public-employees-unions.html?pagewanted=all
28. “Close tax loophole that lets cash pour into CEOs’ wallets” (San Francisco Chronicle, August 4, 2013); op-ed by ROBERT REICH; http://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/reich/article/Loophole-lets-money-pour-into-CEOs-wallets-4703857.php
29. “US Solar Targets Could Save Americans $20 Billion Annually By 2050” (CleanTechnica, August 2, 2013); story citing DAN KAMMEN; http://cleantechnica.com/2013/08/02/solar-energy-could-provide-13-of-all-western-us-power-needs-by-2050/
30. “Climate change may increase violence, study shows” (CNN Online, August 1, 2013); story citing SOLOMON HSIANG; http://www.cnn.com/2013/08/01/us/climate-change-violence/index.html
31. “Tempers May Flare and Conflicts Rise as Climate Change Heats Up, Study Finds” (PBS Newshour, August 7, 2013); interview with SOLOMON HSIANG; View the video
32. “Researchers predict violent response to global warming” (Reuters, September 26, 2013); interview with SOLOMON HSIANG in video story; http://in.reuters.com/video/2013/09/26/researchers-predict-violent-response-to?videoId=273926450&videoChannel=105
By David R. Baker
Solar power’s surging
popularity in
The study [from the
California Public Utilities Commission] analyzes a question at the heart of an
ongoing fight between utility companies and the solar industry. And it could
help reshape the way solar homeowners get paid for the excess electricity they
send to the grid....
It finds that net
metering customers do shift some costs onto non-solar homeowners and
businesses. And it will grow as the number of homes and businesses with rooftop
solar expands.
But the study also finds
that, despite the shift, net metering customers still pay roughly enough on
their monthly bills to cover the utilities’
costs of providing service — essentially paying their fair share....
“Solar customers are not
only making our power mix greener, they are also on average paying more on
their power bills than what it costs the utility to serve them,” said Susannah Churchill with the Vote Solar
Initiative, a public advocacy group. “So where’s the problem with net
metering?”
Churchill also criticized the study’s methodology for analyzing the
cost shift, saying it didn’t consider solar power’s economic and public health
benefits....
2. “Solazyme
hits it big in deal with Unilever for algae oil” (San Francisco Chronicle,
September 26, 2013); column citing DOUG
HENTON (MPP 1975).
By Andrew S. Ross – The
Bottom Line
... Next stage: The good
news: Investment in
Put that down to a “hype
cycle similar to the Internet ‘hype cycle’ of the mid-to-late 1990s,” according
to a report released Wednesday by Next 10, a
One sign of change,
according to Next 10, is the increased amount of money coming from corporate
investors as opposed to traditional venture capitalists. “Of the $2.6 billion
of clean-tech venture capital investment in 2012 in
“Corporations provide
strategic market power, longer-term investment horizons, critical investment
capital, and access to customers in existing markets,” said Doug Henton, CEO
of Collaborative Economics in
There is also more
investment focus on later-stage deployment of existing technology, rather than
“development and growth” startups, says the report....
3. “Ask Emily: Will you
qualify for Medi-Cal under Obamacare?”
(Sacramento Bee, September 26, 2013); advice column citing
By Emily Bazar –
... Q: I’m 55 years old with no dependents and am
employed part time. I currently have individual health insurance that costs me
almost 20 percent of my monthly income. My
income makes me eligible for Medi-Cal starting next
year. Will I still be eligible even though I currently have individual
insurance?
A: This may come as a
surprise to Howard, who hails from
You can drop your
expensive, individual market plan and enroll in Medi-Cal
instead. Assuming that you qualify.
The same goes for those
who have health coverage through an employer. You, too, can join Medi-Cal if you qualify.
This won’t be a rare
occurrence. According to an analysis by the UC Berkeley Center for Labor Research and Education, 310,000
Californians who would have otherwise gotten job-based insurance next year will
be newly eligible for Medi-Cal. About 240,000 more
would have had individual market plans, like Howard.
“Many folks in the
individual market or who have job-based coverage are finding the premiums
they’re paying now are unaffordable,” says Laurel
Lucia, an Obamacare expert at the center.
“There won’t be any
premiums in Medi-Cal and the benefits will be more
generous than what they’re probably getting in the individual market.” ...
4. “Investing in jobs for the neediest” (San Francisco Chronicle, September 20, 2013); column citing CARLA JAVITS (MPP 1985).
By Andrew S. Ross, The Bottom Line
Carla Javits is president of the Roberts Enterprise Development Fund, which invests in nonprofits.
Patrick Carroll has spent more than half of his
life — 28 years — in jail for a variety of offenses, including attempted
murder. “It was stupid. I was in a gang,” he said. On Wednesday night, Carroll,
47, found himself at the Warfield being honored by the Roberts Enterprise Development Fund, a San Francisco “venture philanthropy”
organization devoted to finding jobs for California’s least employable —
ex-cons, the homeless, high school dropouts, drug addicts and the mentally
disabled....
“There should be many more enterprises like this,” Roberts said.
“Like this” meaning philanthropy treated as investment, on which returns “measured by jobs, changed lives and reduced public costs” are expected. Plus increased revenue generated by its portfolio enterprises, which receive business advice, networking and performance assessments from REDF staff and corporate associates, in addition to equity.
“They need to make money
to be able to employ more people,” said REDF’s president,
Carla Javits, daughter of the late Sen. Jacob Javits of
With an $8 million
annual budget, REDF says its portfolio enterprises have created 6,500 jobs in
“We’re building a new movement to create 100,000 new jobs in the next 10 years,” said Javits....
5. “Shadow Open Mkt Committee Blasts FOMC Decision on Bond Buying” (The Main Wire, Market News International, September 20, 2013); newswire citing MICKEY LEVY (MPP 1974).
By Steven K. Beckner
Marvin Goodfriend, a
Mickey Levy, chief economist of Blenheim Capital Management, echoed Goodfriend, asking, “How reliable are the Fed’s projections as forward guidance when the Fed downplays the unemployment rate in favor of a broader assessment of ‘overall labor market conditions’ and how should markets respond when the Fed’s forward guidance becomes a ‘moving target?’”
He said such questions “add to the market’s confusion, jeopardize the Fed’s credibility and establish a bad precedent for future monetary policy,” and the FOMC’s “continued revision of forward guidance only adds confusion” and “is not stimulating the economy.”
“It would be better to adopt a clear exit strategy and stick with it,” Levy declared....
6. “EDUCATION: CCSF’s impact detailed in report” (San Francisco Chronicle, September 19, 2013); story citing SEVERIN CAMPBELL (MPP 1999).
By Nanette Asimov
It’s a no-brainer that losing City College of San Francisco would cripple thousands of students who depend on its classes for a leg up into the workforce and higher education while hurting dozens of Bay Area industries that rely on its trained graduates to fight fires, nurse patients, serve up gourmet food and much more.
But now there’s proof.
As
Just 1,400
Similarly, thousands of students enrolled at City College for other purposes — it had 79,198 students at last count — are unlikely to be able to find or afford another program, many of which are already full at other community colleges or are offered at expensive for-profit schools.
“This report quantifies
the huge economic impact of
For example, more than 16,000 students studied English as a second language in the spring, while another 5,000 were there to earn a high school diploma.
If those students are
displaced, “each non-English-speaking student would earn an estimated $13,500
less per year than a worker who speaks English well,” says the study that used
7. “For Workers Leaving Their Jobs, Health Exchanges Offer Insurance Choices Beyond COBRA” (Washington Post, September 16, 2013); story citing LAUREL (TAN) LUCIA (MPP 2005); http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/for-workers-leaving-their-jobs-health-exchanges-offer-insurance-choices-beyond-cobra/2013/09/16/e4a098d8-1f28-11e3-9ad0-96244100e647_story.html
By Michelle Andrews, Kaiser Health News
Workers who lose their jobs and their employer-based health insurance will have new coverage options when the Affordable Care Act’s state marketplaces open in October. But consumer advocates are concerned many may not realize this and lock themselves into pricier coverage than they need.
Today, the only option for many laid-off workers is to continue their employer-provided coverage for up to 18 months under the federal law known as COBRA. Because they have to pay the entire premium plus a 2 percent administrative fee, however, the coverage can be a financial hardship for people who are scrambling to keep up with expenses after losing their jobs.
Many of these people will likely be better off buying a plan on the state health insurance marketplaces, also called exchanges. Plans sold there must cover a comprehensive set of 10 “essential health benefits,” and consumers can choose among four plan types with different levels of cost-sharing. Premium tax credits will be available to people with incomes between 100 and 400 percent of the federal poverty level ($11,490 to $45,960 for an individual in 2013), often making exchange coverage significantly more affordable than COBRA....
“Particularly in the
beginning, it could be common that people don’t understand all their options,”
says Laurel Lucia, a policy analyst at
the Center for Labor Research and Education at the
Lucia says she and her colleagues are concerned that the notice that workers receive informing them of their right to elect COBRA coverage may not make it clear that enrolling in that coverage will likely limit when they can enroll in plans on the exchange....
8. “Study: Increased traffic throughout city as Alameda Point redeveloped” (Oakland Tribune, September 12, 2013); story citing JENNIFER OTT (MPP 2000); http://www.insidebayarea.com/my-town/ci_24074152/study-increased-traffic-throughout-city-alameda-point-redeveloped
By Peter Hegarty
Noise would also increase as crews work to build the 1,425 homes and about 5.5 square feet of retail and business space proposed for the former U.S. Navy base, plus the resulting dust and debris would undermine air quality.
But the draft Environmental Impact Report, which city officials are now considering, also recommends steps that could lessen the short and long-term impacts, including offering incentives for the area’s future residents to use water taxis and other public transportation to lower geenhouse gas emissions....
The current plans
include a waterfront “
Some structures also “may not be economically feasible to rehabilitate and reuse, especially considering the cost of installing new infrastructure,” said Jennifer Ott, chief operating officer for Alameda Point. Some buildings have been vacant for at least 15 years.
The
While the draft EIR recommends steps to lessen the potential effects of the area’s transformation, it also concludes that some impacts may be “significant and unavoidable,” Ott said....
9. “Myriad languages, cultures challenge health reform” (San Francisco Chronicle, September 11, 2013); newswire story by GARANCE BURKE (MPP 2005/MJ 2004), and citing CARY SANDERS (MPP 2002); http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Myriad-languages-cultures-challenge-health-reform-4806056.php
By GARANCE BURKE and JUDY LIN, Associated Press
OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) — Set on a gritty corner of Oakland’s International Boulevard, the nonprofit Street Level Health Project offers free checkups to patients who speak a total of 22 languages, from recent Mongolian immigrants seeking a doctor to Burmese refugees in need of a basic dental exam.
It also provides a window into one of the challenges for state officials who are trying to implement the Affordable Care Act, President Barack Obama’s sweeping health care overhaul.
Understanding the law is a challenge even for governors, state lawmakers and agency officials, but delivering its message to non-English speakers who can benefit from it is shaping up as a special complication. That is especially true in states with large and diverse immigrant populations.
For Zaya
Jaden, a 35-year-old from
In California, two-thirds of the estimated 2.6 million adults who will be eligible for federal subsidies in the health care exchange will be people of color, while roughly 1 million will speak English less than very well, according to a joint study by the California Pan-Ethnic Health Network and the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research and the University of California, Berkeley Labor Center.
With such diversity in cultures and language, the authors said the success of health care reform “hinges in large part on how well the state conducts culturally and linguistically competent outreach and enrollment efforts.”
“If the exchange did no
targeted outreach, there could be 110,000 fewer limited-English proficient
individuals enrolled,” said
10. “New college rankings are out. Are they part of the problem?; The annual US News & World Report college rankings were released Tuesday, and critics charge they’re contributing to a national college affordability problem that has seen student debt soar” (The Christian Science Monitor, September 10, 2013); story citing AMY LAITINEN (MPP 2003).
By Amanda Paulson, Staff writer
The latest college
rankings from US News & World Report came out Tuesday, ending any
speculation about whether Harvard,
But, while jockeying for the top spot can be a friendly battle among elite institutions, whose positions in the top tier are largely assured and rarely shift more than a place or two, critics charge that the rankings—along with not delivering much useful information—are contributing to the college affordability problem.
This year, the rankings come out against the backdrop of a national discussion on soaring student debt and skyrocketing tuition, and a proposal from President Obama to create a new national college ranking system—one that would emphasize things like graduation rates and sticker price.
“We’re going to start
rating colleges not just by which college is the most selective, not just by
which college is the most expensive, not just by which college has the nicest
facilities—you can get all of that on the existing rating systems. What we want
to do is rate them on who’s offering the best value so students and taxpayers
get a bigger bang for their buck,” Obama said in a speech last month at the
Not so the US News rankings, in which sticker price doesn’t really play a factor, and there’s little effort to capture value or measure real outputs.
“They’re not asking the
right questions. They’re not asking questions about value and real value.
They’re focused much more on inputs like wealth and prestige and who they
exclude,” says Amy Laitinen,
deputy director for higher education at the New
Most students, she
notes, aren’t going to Harvard, Yale, or
“What they should be asking is: Am I going to graduate? How much debt will I graduate with, and how much money will I make to help me pay off my debt?” ...
But beyond merely telling readers little that’s really useful, the rankings, Ms. Laitinen and others argue, actively hurt college affordability in significant ways.
The rankings have become important to most schools in terms of their prestige and ability to attract students. As a result, the schools often spend money in unnecessary and inefficient ways in an effort to improve facilities and grounds and improve their reputation. The rankings reward this kind of spending, while doing nothing to encourage schools to charge less, serve more low-income students, or improve cost-efficiency.
Laitinen also talks about the “edifice complex.”
“There are incentives for schools to spend money on four-star dining halls and rock climbing walls and big buildings,” she says. “Colleges generally aren’t rewarded in the prestige game for how many low-income students they graduated, but they are for how many buildings went up.”
The rankings also give colleges incentives to essentially “buy” more academically prepared students to increase their average SAT scores—whether through “merit aid” programs or spending on facilities that will attract such students—rather than to focus on decreasing students’ debt load or giving need-based aid.
A big hurdle, notes Laitinen and others, is that some of the most important outcome-based data - particularly earnings of college graduates - isn’t available to US News or colleges or anyone trying to create rankings. The reason: a 2008 law, pushed by the higher education lobby, that prevents the federal government from collecting this data....
11. “Congress Returns Facing Work besides Syria Resolution” (Morning Edition, NPR, September 9, 2013); program featuring STAN COLLENDER (MPP 1976).
...TAMARA KEITH: Two
weeks ago, if you asked what Congress would be dealing when it returned from
recess, there would have been a long list, and the budget would have been at
the top. Without congressional action, there’s the risk of a government
shutdown at the end of this month. Just weeks after that, a fight over the debt
ceiling looms. But this barely even came up yesterday on the Sunday morning
talk shows, the gab fest that set the table for
... The House may also vote this week on a measure, which would postpone the budget fight and possible government shutdown until later this year. But that’s not getting much attention. Stan Collender is a long-time federal budget watcher.
STAN COLLENDER: The debate on the budget has basically been put
aside, pending a discussion and resolution of what happens in
KEITH: Or even later. Outside conservative groups had been pushing for congressional Republicans to use the budget bill to try and force defunding of the president’s healthcare law, before people start signing up for insurance in October. This makes that fight even less likely.
Collender says no one can
predict what the
COLLENDER: If the president gets a little weaker because of the
debate on
12. “Forum Explores Challenges Facing Public Schools” (Uppity Wisconsin, September 9, 2013); blog citing JEFF PERTL (MPP 2009); http://www.uppitywis.org/blogarticle/forum-explores-challenges-facing-public-schools
Submitted by Sen. K. Vinehout
... One of the biggest changes [in the public education system] is the expenditure this state budget makes in taxpayer-funded vouchers for private schools. At the same time, over half of public schools will see no increase in state aid. Many of our rural schools will see the maximum cut—a bit above 15%. But private school parents around the state are looking forward to two infusions of public money into private schools....
Jeff Pertl of the Department of Public Instruction (DPI) explained to forum attendees how poverty impacts student performance. High poverty schools are often low performing schools. Students simply do not have resources to learn. Minority students are more likely to attend a poor performing school. This exacerbates the state’s achievement gap.
To address this issue,
20 years ago the state embarked on an experiment with voucher schools in
While
The forum audience wanted to know the cost to public schools of the expansion of the private school vouchers.
Mr. Pertl explained on average the state funds 61% of the cost for public school students and 100% of the cost of statewide voucher and independent charter students. Although the voucher system was touted as a way to help poor students in failing public schools, two-thirds of the students who signed up for the statewide voucher program were already in private schools....
13.
“
By Ben White
The latest culprit: an
increasingly ugly battle over authorizing President Barack Obama to fire
missiles at
In terms of the
There are very few
legislative days left until the current resolution funding the government runs
out on Sept. 30th.
But these are likely to be short-term fixes at best, doing nothing to alleviate the underlying and persistent tension between Republicans who want to use fiscal debates to slash more spending and defund Obamacare and Democrats dug in to block any such moves.
“There will not be
enough time to get anything done in September and
That cliffhanger moment
could come in a less poisonous atmosphere if Obama ultimately gets the go-ahead
on
“Should Congress fail to
authorize strikes, we will grow increasingly bearish about upcoming budget
battles and the fate of any Federal Reserve chair nominee,” Sean West, head of the
14. “In Bloomberg’s City of Bike Lanes, Data Show, Cabs Gain a Little Speed” (The New York Times, September 5, 2013); story citing BRUCE SCHALLER (MPP 1982).
By Matt Flegenheimer
Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, builder of bike lanes and champion of congestion pricing, has seldom been cast as a friend to the automobile.
But according to the New York City Transportation Department, a lengthy campaign to reallocate street space for cyclists and pedestrians has produced a curious result: If anything, officials said, cars are moving more quickly in the city’s most congested areas.
Citing GPS data from the
city’s yellow cabs, the Bloomberg administration said that average traffic
speeds in
And it is not as though the streets have become less congested: traffic volume has remained relatively level in recent years, as transit ridership and bike commuting have increased....
‘‘We’re not, despite our reputation, trying to take from one and give to the other,’’ Bruce Schaller, the department’s deputy commissioner for traffic and planning, said. ‘‘It isn’t a zero-sum game.’’
The city’s report does
not discuss how certain projects, like the closing of several blocks along
Broadway, have affected speeds in their immediate surroundings, though a 2010
study found that travel speeds near the plaza had improved. A separate report
released that year from New York City Transit suggested that the plazas of
Times and Herald Squares had slowed some buses as traffic was rerouted onto
But Mr. Schaller argued that additions like protected bike lanes were not especially disruptive to drivers. ‘‘When we put in a bike lane, you think, ‘Oh, you’re taking a lane,’ ‘‘ Mr. Schaller said. ‘‘But that left curb was always taken by the left-turning cars anyway. And the through traffic has the same number of lanes that it did before.’’ ...
15. “MATIER & ROSS: Planners get rolling on west span bike path” (San Francisco Chronicle, September 4, 2013); column citing DAVE METZ (MPP 1998).
... By the numbers: Reps for alternative ride-sharing services such as Uber, Lyft and Sidecar have a new poll showing 77 percent of those surveyed in San Francisco, Los Angeles and San Diego believe the companies should be allowed to compete alongside traditional taxis.
The Fairbank, Maslin, Maullin, [Dave] Metz & Associates online survey of 573 residents in the three cities found 60 percent found the mobile ride services a good alternative to other modes of transportation, compared with 44 percent who described taxies as a good alternative. The survey, conducted over the Labor Day weekend, has a 4.1 percent margin of error.
Mobile services also scored ahead of taxis for being low cost and good for the environment.
The timing of the poll’s release is no accident. Thursday the state Public Utilities Commission will consider new rules allowing ride-sharing companies to be treated just like any other limo service, including when it comes to safety, insurance and other regulations....
16. “
By Richard Mauer; Staff
With the state forgoing
any role in a health insurance marketplace, federal officials and
That’s the first day of open enrollment under the Affordable Care Act, and the date by which each state is supposed to have an insurance exchange where the uninsured can shop for coverage....
Karen Pollitz, a senior fellow at the Kaiser
Family Foundation in
As it turned out, 27 states refused to set up marketplaces.
“It’s all stretched thin
where the federal government is having to do it for so many states, because
they just didn’t think they’d have to,” Pollitz said. “The federal government has to do everything.
They have to take the complaints, they have to operate the call center, they
have to review the plans, establish a website, do the outreach and
enrollment—it’s a lot of work. And there’s some
economies of scale, but just because you signed up a plan in
But [Gov. Sean] Parnell, who led Alaska into the losing lawsuit challenging the law’s constitutionality, didn’t take advantage of federal money set aside to study the marketplaces, also called exchanges....
Parnell said he was also concerned that once the federal government’s grants dried up, the state would be on the hook to operate the exchange.
Pollitz, from the Kaiser Foundation, said it’s true the grants will end in 2015. But the law allows states to collect a portion of premiums to operate the exchanges, she said. The federal government is planning on taking 3.5 percent, but states could opt to take less, she said.
Parnell said he was unaware “of that specific detail.” ...
17. “SAME-SEX MARRIAGE: Licenses from ‘04 month of love preserved for posterity in S.F.” (San Francisco Chronicle, September 1, 2013); story citing CARMEN CHU (MPP 2003).
By Marisa Lagos
Assessor-Recorder Carmen Chu (right), her
communications chief, Eddie McCaffrey, and City Archivist Susan Goldstein. (Sarah Rice / Special to The
Chronicle)
Stephen Kulieke woke
up in the middle of the night on Feb. 19, 2004, to drive from
A few hours later, he
married Jeff Milliken, his partner of two decades, as Milliken’s mother
listened in on the phone from
There have been plenty
of changes in the years since. Milliken’s mother has died. The marriage has
been invalidated. And Kulieke and Milliken were
married again, this time for good, in a July 2 ceremony in the
But the couple, along with 3,954 other gay and lesbian couples married in San Francisco that month between Feb. 12 and March 11, will never forget their first wedding day — and this week, Assessor-Recorder Carmen Chu helped make sure history will remember that unusual time as well.
On Wednesday,
The road toward legal
same-sex marriage in
...[O]n June 26, after years of court fights, the U.S. Supreme Court let stand a lower court’s decision striking down the [state’s ban on gay marriage].
Two days later, an
appeals court announced that same-sex marriages could resume.
Chu, who was appointed assessor in February, said that first weekend was eye-opening for her — in particular, talking to a couple who were about to be separated by a military deployment but were able to get married beforehand.
“When the (Defense of Marriage Act) and Prop. 8 decisions were announced, I got chills — this is a sea change, a big change to how we approach the rights of LGBT folks. That would have been great alone, but to be able to have a role in implementing it, making a difference in people’s lives immediately … I wanted to serve people as much as we could,” she said.
That service led
“As we took a look in June at the long struggle people have had to get the right to marry, to declare their love … we thought it would be important to preserve (the records from 2004) so people will be able to find them and say, ‘This is how the spark began,’ “ Chu said....
18. “Even With Job Gains, Many Californians Left Behind” (The California Report, KQED public radio, September 1, 2013); story citing LUKE REIDENBACH (MPP 2013); Listen to this story
A new report from the non-profit California Budget Project finds that even after more than three years of job gains the Great Recession has left many workers behind. Reporter: Scott Detrow
The state has added
nearly 800,000 jobs over the last three years but a new report says that those
numbers don’t tell the whole story. Unemployment rates remain much higher in
inland counties, and as policy analyst Luke
Reidenbach of the non-profit
LUKE REIDENBACH (California Budget Project): For example, the leisure and hospitality industry accounted for nearly one-quarter of all new jobs so far in this recovery, and last year the median wages in the industry was $11.20 an hour.
The report warns it may take another two more years before things get back to the way they were before things took a dive.
19. “Brain injuries a
big problem for NFL in
By Ken Bensinger, Armand Emamdjomeh and Marc Lifsher
... Now the NFL and five
other professional sports leagues are close to limiting their liability
drastically for such workers’ comp claims. They have lobbied for state
legislation that would bar athletes who played for out-of-state teams from
filing in
The state Senate is expected to approve the bill Tuesday; the Assembly already has....
Many out-of-state
athletes file for benefits in
Supporters of the bill — a group that consists almost entirely of the leagues, insurance companies and individual teams — argue that a small group of lawyers specializing in athlete claims is clogging California’s workers’ comp program with the rush of filings, making it harder for the state’s other workers to get their cases heard....
Some worry, meanwhile, about the far-reaching consequences — and constitutionality — of legislation that would carve out athletes as a different class of workers and allow teams to avoid much of the liability for old injuries.
20. “MEDICARE RECIPIENTS: New health law doesn’t affect your coverage” (St. Louis Post-Dispatch, August 29, 2013); story citing JULIETTE CUBANSKI (MPP 1998/MPH 1999).
By Susan Jaffe – Kaiser Health News
While the Obama administration is stepping up efforts encouraging uninsured Americans to enroll in health coverage from the new online insurance marketplaces, officials are planning a campaign to persuade millions of seniors to please stay away – don’t call and don’t sign up.
“We want to reassure Medicare beneficiaries that they are already covered, their benefits are not changing and the marketplace doesn’t require them to do anything,” said Michele Patrick, Medicare’s deputy director for communications....
Enrollment in health plans offered on the marketplaces, also called exchanges, begins Oct. 1 and runs for six months. Meanwhile, the two-month sign-up period for private health plans for millions of Medicare beneficiaries begins Oct. 15. In that time, seniors can shop for a private health plan known as Medicare Advantage, pick a drug insurance policy or buy a supplemental Medigap plan. And in nearly two dozen states, some Medicare beneficiaries who also qualify for Medicaid may be choosing private managed care plans. None of these four kinds of coverage will be offered in the health law’s marketplaces.
Because many of the same insurance companies offering coverage for seniors will also sell and advertise policies in the marketplaces, seniors may have a hard time figuring out which options are for them.
While Medicare officials steer seniors away from the marketplaces, nothing in the health law prevents beneficiaries from signing up for markertplace plans, said Juliette Cubanski, of the Kaiser Family Foundation. If they do, they will not qualify for premium tax credits for the marketplace plans....
These plans may appeal to wealthy seniors — about 5 percent of Medicare beneficiaries — who pay higher premiums for Medicare based on their income and assets, said Cubanski. But for the vast majority of seniors, she said, Medicare’s benefit package is better and more affordable compared to marketplace coverage....
21. “Alameda Point: Planning Board weighs redevelopment plan” (Oakland Tribune, August 29, 2013); story citing JENNIFER OTT (MPP 2000); http://www.insidebayarea.com/my-town/ci_23967892/alameda-point-planning-board-weighs-redevelopment-plan
By Peter Hegarty phegarty@bayareanewsgroup.com
Bike and pedestrian paths, overlooks and a marina are also proposed for the neighborhood surrounding what’s known as the Seaplane Lagoon at the former Alameda Naval Air Station.
But concerns about
rising sea levels, increased traffic in the city’s
The special session was a chance for the public to weigh in on the proposals. It was also the first of a series of meetings scheduled through next year as city officials consider documents related to transit, transportation and zoning as they work to jump-start redevelopment at the former U.S. Navy base.
“The economy is getting better,” said Jennifer Ott, chief operating officer for Alameda Point. “We are anxious to move this along and try and take it to the next step and move toward development.” ...
22. “Can daughter stay on parents’ insurance?” (The Bakersfield Californian, August 27, 2013); advice column citing MARIAN MULKEY (MPP/MPH 1989).
.... Q: You’ve said that starting in January, insurance companies can no longer deny coverage to people with pre-existing medical conditions. Does this mean that someone who is uninsured ... can, after needing a hospital stay, apply for insurance and cannot be denied? If so, why would anyone pay for insurance until they need an expensive procedure?
A: .... As I described above, you won’t be able to sign up for individual or family health plans through the exchange or on the open market outside of open enrollment, unless you experience one of those legitimate change-of-life events.
Having a car accident or unexpected heart attack is not one of them.
“If someone gets sick or
has an accident in the meantime, they’d have to pay their own way and/or get
stuck with big bills,” explains Marian Mulkey, a health reform expert for the
23. “Daniel Borenstein: Strike ban to solve BART dispute presents great risks” (Oakland Tribune, August 24, 2013); op-ed by DAN BORENSTEIN (MPP 1980/MJ 1985); http://www.insidebayarea.com/opinion/ci_23928151/daniel-borenstein-strike-ban-solve-bart-dispute-presents
By Daniel Borenstein
As the BART 60-day cooling-off period ticks down, calls for a ban on public transit strikes understandably grow louder.
After all, prospects for resolution of the labor dispute before Oct. 11 seem slim. The two sides remain far apart. The district board has already offered more than it should have—and the workers want more.
But the well-intentioned idea, floated by state Sen. Mark DeSaulnier, D-Concord, of banning BART employees from striking and imposing binding arbitration doesn’t protect voters, taxpayers or riders.
Sure, the idea has appeal. A strike ban would provide a sense of security to commuters who worry about gridlock. But arbitration is fraught with peril....
Unions across the state are generally better organized than local governments—and they have longer memories. Hence, professional arbitrators who anger labor leaders risk being blackballed elsewhere. That’s why they often split the difference between the two sides, no matter the merits of each position.
For BART, state imposition of binding arbitration on workers would raise a second problem. The U.S. Department of Labor would likely consider that an abridgment of collective bargaining rights that would make the rail system ineligible for federal transit funding.
Thus, while imposed binding arbitration might sound good, it would be very risky. For now, the best solution requires publicly elected directors with backbone who draw a line in the sand—and commuters with fortitude willing to back them up by enduring a strike.
24. “Profiling. Racial profiling is about fear, says Paul Staley, and leads us to assume things we don’t know” (KQED Perspectives, August 23, 2013); commentary by PAUL STALEY (MPP 1980); Listen to this Perspective
By Paul Staley
We often act as if we possess super human clairvoyant powers. A stranger crosses our path and all we need is a glimpse of their appearance—their clothes, their haircut—and we start assuming that we know what kind of person they are....
This instinct becomes especially problematic when people start making assumptions based on factors such as skin color. What makes racial profiling so dangerous is not merely that it is about race, but that the impulse behind it runs so deep. We are so accustomed to thinking of profiling as a prelude to violence or the exercise of power that we forget that it begins with this primal fear of the unknown. When we instantly assume that we know something about the stranger in front of us, we are transforming the unknown into the known. This may offer some reassurance, but, like any act of alchemy, it is a false promise....
There is an alternative available to all of us. As we move through a world where we encounter far more strangers than friends, we can recognize that not knowing somebody is the first step in getting to know them, not an excuse for assuming that we already do....
Paul Staley works for a housing non-profit. He lives in
25. “TRANSIT POLL: Voters back tax rise for BART” (San Francisco Chronicle, August 22, 2013); story citing DAVE METZ (MPP 1998).
By Michael Cabanatuan
Riders wait at the Downtown Berkeley BART Station. A poll surveying
voters in
Voters in three Bay Area counties support BART, even if they don’t ride it, and would back ballot measures boosting sales or property taxes to improve the transit system, a public opinion poll shows.
... The poll has a 3.4 percent margin of error. It is important to note, however, that it was taken well before the July strike.
Still, the results are promising for the transit agency, which has said it needs to raise billions of dollars over the next 15 to 20 years to pay for its share of the $15 billion needed to buy new rail cars, build a modern train maintenance center and upgrade its aging train control system.
In recent years, polls consistently showed a lack of support for tax measures to pay for transportation and infrastructure improvements. But the most recent BART poll, by Fairbank, Maslin, Maullin, [Dave] Metz & Associates, found that 72 percent of those surveyed would support an additional sales tax, while 69 percent would vote for a general obligation bond, which would increase property taxes. Both would have to capture better than two-thirds of the votes in an election to pass....
BART officials and representatives of its unions may not agree on much, but both were pleased with the results of the poll.
The poll also included a handful of questions about BART employees and their compensation. About 71 percent thought employees should contribute to their pensions, 72 percent said they should pay part of their health insurance increases, and 78 percent believed they should have to work more than 40 hours a week before collecting overtime. But about 78 percent agreed that BART employees should “receive pay increases to keep pace with the cost of living in the Bay Area.”
26. “Massive Open Online Courses: Should educators worry?” (The Financial Express, August 19, 2013); commentary citing MARINA GORBIS (MPP 1983).
By Gita Bajaj
There is a lot of buzz around the massive open online courses (MOOCs) these days. When the Ivy Leagues like the Harvards and the MITs, traditionally considered elitist, open up their curriculum for mass consumption and that too free of cost, there is bound to be some commotion in the market. Justin Marquis of OnlineUniversities.com calls MOOCs as “the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. They are the opium of the people. The abolition of MOOCs as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness.” Some insist that MOOCs are a bubble that will burst, while others like Coursera and FutureLearn that have received investments to foster learning through MOOCs think otherwise.
Marina Gorbis of the Institute for the Future (IFTF) calls MOOCs a disruptive innovation that will enable replacement of current model of education gateways (that permit or restrain the social mobility) by a model where learning is best conceived as a flow where learning resources are abundant and not scarce, and a learner autonomously takes a dip in and out of the continuously available learning flows....
27. “30 is the new 40, and 40 is the new jobless” (San Francisco Chronicle, August 19, 2013); story citing GREG LINDEN (MPP 1995); http://www.sfgate.com/business/bottomline/article/In-Silicon-Valley-age-can-be-a-curse-4742365.php
By Andrew S. Ross
In 2012, three high-tech
companies in
At the same time, the
total number of jobs in the valley and in
But if demand is outstripping supply, how come so many skilled IT professionals in the Bay Area are out of work? In a nutshell, job experience in the tech industry matters far less than it once did. In fact, it can work against you....
Then there’s the change in America’s corporate culture, noted by UC Berkeley economist Clair Brown and Greg Linden, a research associate at Berkeley’s Haas School of Business in their book on the semiconductor industry, “Chips and Change.”
Besides the problem of
“older engineers who face rapid skill obsolescence and deteriorating job
opportunities,” they wrote, there’s a switch in how
One result their fieldwork and data found: “a troubling drop in real earnings and a decline in hours.” To bring things up to date, add unemployment to the list....
28. “Are You Ready to Dump Cable?” (The Huffington Post, August 13, 2013); analysis citing DEREK TURNER (MPP 2006).
As CBS and Time Warner Cable remain locked in a three-week battle over retransmission fees, you have to wonder when their millions of viewers will throw in the towel and abandon cable altogether....
Retransmission fees have increased more than 13-fold over the past seven years, from $215 million in 2006 to an estimated $3 billion by the end of 2013, according to SNL Kagan[1]. The money has given a boost to the broadcast and production companies on the dial, but cable companies don’t want to foot the bill. They solve this problem by passing these fees on to their subscribers....
But public attitudes about television are shifting, and a time may come when the cable industry can no longer expect viewers to pay, in some cases, hundreds of dollars a month to prop up this predatory business model....
“We don’t need the cable distributor as a monopoly conduit to get our TV content anymore,” says Free Press Research Director Derek Turner.
Turner says the cable industry relies on a model that hides prices and forces consumers to pay for dozens of channels they’ll never watch. “Consumers are starting to figure this out in larger numbers.” ...
For Turner, the answer lies in what he calls “big open pipes”—a shift to Internet television as the medium of choice for all Americans....
“What worries me most is that the pay TV problem will become a broadband problem,” says Turner, who’s concerned that these same companies will impose limits on Internet access so they can continue to rake customers over the coals.
“It’s classic protecting-the-monopoly behavior,” says Turner. “That’s why we need public policy interventions to help what is naturally happening in the marketplace occur much, much faster.” ...
29. “Mortgage Deduction in Cross Hairs?” (Sarasota Herald Tribune, August 12, 2013); story citing WILL FISCHER (MPP 1999).
By John Hielscher
The government is trying to raise revenue, and the deduction on interest paid on mortgages is a fat target.
The Mortgage Interest
Tax deduction has long been considered a sacred cow of the
But as Congress takes a comprehensive look at tax reform this year, some say it is time to change or eliminate a provision that costs the government at least $70 billion a year....
But a new study by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities,
a nonprofit think tank in
In 2012, 77 percent of the deduction’s benefits went to homeowners with incomes above $100,000, the study said. Close to half of homeowners with mortgages—mostly middle- and lower-income families—received no benefit.
“The mortgage interest deduction costs the federal government at least $70 billion a year but is not well designed to further its purpose of promoting home ownership,” said the study’s authors, Will Fischer and Chye-Ching Huang....
Some economists, along with the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, want the deduction replaced with a tax credit.
That would help more lower- and middle-income families and trim the subsidies for wealthier home owners, they say, while raising about $200 billion over 10 years in added revenue for the government.
“Unlike simply eliminating or scaling back the deduction, which some fear would undermine the recovery in the housing market, replacing the deduction with a credit would make a major overall drop in housing prices unlikely,” Fischer and Huang said.
“The credit would replace much of the deduction’s overall dollar value and would subsidize more households to purchase homes than the existing deduction. Congress could further reduce the risk of market disruption by phasing reforms in gradually.” ...
30. “REMINDER: The US is Weeks Away from a Confluence of Risky Economic Events That’s Unlike Anything We Can Recall” (The Business Insider, August 12, 2013); analysis citing SEAN WEST (MPP 2006).
... Starting sometime in September, we can expect to see the following:
A fight over the government’s budget, leading to a possible government shutdown. A fight over the debt ceiling. The beginning of Fed tapering (the reduction of large-scale asset purchases, known as Quantitative Easing). A nomination for a Fed Chair to replace Ben Bernanke.
Each one of these could be economically significant to varying degrees. Together they’re likely to be very exciting....
The White House is also likely to stick hard to its vow not to negotiate over the debt ceiling.
This is a point that Eurasia Group analyst Sean West made back in mid-July[3]:
Democrats are increasingly convinced that this is the moment to “break the fever” of sequestration and debt ceiling pay-offs. They will attempt to break up the upcoming deadlines by cutting a short-term deal on the 30 September continuing resolution—insisting on a clean debt ceiling increase with no pay-off for Republicans—and then gearing up for battle later in the fall when the short-term CR expires if necessary to get a sequester deal before January. In reality, Democrats would prefer to trade mandatory cuts and other piecemeal fiscal reforms for a sequester offset that can be implemented around the same time as the debt ceiling, without a direct negotiation on the latter issue. But Democrats have less appetite to agree to large-scale reforms amid a declining deficit: If Republicans demand too high a price for the Democrats’ key goal of offsetting the sequester, Democrats, are willing to threaten shutdown even though they don’t actually want it....
31. “Your cellphone: Can police seize it as evidence?” (The Bakersfield Californian, Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News, August 11, 2013); story citing GARY BOSTWICK (MPP 1976/JD 1977).
By Jason Kotowski, The
You’ve witnessed an altercation involving law enforcement. Not only that, you recorded what you saw and you’re not sure whether officers used legitimate force or what you’ve witnessed was an unwarranted beating on the part of police.
An officer approaches and says he’s going to need your phone as evidence. Or, he even goes so far as to come to your home to tell you to hand it over. What should you do? Do you need to hand it over or can you keep your property?
It’s a question with no easy answer, one that’s been raised locally following the seizure of cellphones from witnesses who said they recorded the struggle between David Sal Silva and law enforcement. The issue is being grappled with across the country as virtually every cellphone in production contains some sort of recording/photography option and people carry them just about everywhere....
Gary Bostwick, a defense attorney with Los Angeles-based Bostwick & Jassy LLP, agreed that the seizing of cellphones as evidence is a “very murky area” of the law. He said he’s been involved in trials where officers have taken cellphones without a warrant and were able to do so because they said they believed the phones contained important evidence that the owner might destroy.
Should people just go along when asked to do something by officers?
“I usually tell my clients that if you’re confronted by someone with a gun who said to do something, it’s always dangerous not to do it,” Bostwick said.
That includes being detained. Bostwick said police have a right to detain you and ask questions if you witnessed a crime.
But even in that situation there are gray areas, Bostwick said. For example, can a person legally be detained for an hour? Two hours?
And while it would be nice to have a law that lays out exactly what can and can’t be done in all sorts of situations involving being detained by law enforcement, that’s a tall order.
“It would be really difficult to write a law and still maintain the state’s right and duty to collect evidence,” Bostwick said.
32. “Shades of gray:
Deposition sheds light on
By Kaci Poor/The Times-Standard
The line between the
public and private lives of elected officials is at the center of a lawsuit
that questions the role of invocations at council meetings and whether the
mayor of
Filed by
Martin argued during a motion hearing this week before Judge Bruce Watson that Jager crossed the line with his handling of the annual breakfast by using city resources and staff for the event’s promotion....
have nearly three months to issue a decision on the matters, the details from the deposition and the issues Martin raised paint a picture of the gray area politicians can find themselves in when attempting to navigate between personal and official business.
JoAnne Speers, executive director and ethics director for the Institute of Local Government out of Sacramento, said, unfortunately, agencies tend to make their policies more specific only after a perceived overreach has occurred, or after seeing a sister agency grapple with the fallout from a perceived overreach.
A general policy and a shared understanding of what is and is not appropriate works until it doesn’t, Speers said. When it no longer works, there is one good way for the agency to fix the problem—create a more specific policy to avoid the issue in the future, she added....
33. “Yesterday’s Courtroom Foes Become Today’s Business Partners: After Long Legal Battle over Copyright Infringement, AP and Meltwater Will Now Collaborate on Innovating New Products” (Bulldog Reporter’s Daily Dog, August 9, 2013); blog citing GARY PRUITT (MPP 1981/JD 1982).
Putting an end to a lengthy copyright-infringement legal battle, PR services provider Meltwater and the Associated Press this week announced they have entered into an agreement to develop new and innovative products based on the AP’s content and Meltwater’s technical expertise in online media analytics. The companies will seek to create new revenue opportunities for both parties through the sale of new products through Meltwater’s extensive global sales network....
“We are pleased with this outcome,” said Gary Pruitt, AP president and CEO, in the release. “The litigation is behind us, and we are looking forward to partnering with Meltwater in a positive and constructive relationship going forward. With Meltwater’s expertise and innovative approach to develop new products for new markets and the depth and speed of AP’s global content, we can provide customers both new and existing products focused on their needs.” ...
34. “Savior to stop a strike unlikely. Politicians have too much to lose to force settlement” (San Francisco Chronicle, August 9, 2013); story citing DAVID LATTERMAN (MPP 2002).
By Joe Garofoli
BART union workers David Rodriguez (left) and Rhoel Casil walk the picket line at the Oakland Shop on July 1 after a strike shut down the entire transit system for several days. Contract negotiations between the unions and BART management are continuing as the deadline for a second strike draws closer. (Mike Kepka / The Chronicle)
With BART unions and
management tens of millions of dollars apart in contract negotiations,
frustrated commuters may be waiting for a
That seems unlikely.
Most elected leaders have stayed on the sidelines, paralyzed by the fear of offending voters — who are siding with management, polls show — or of ticking off organized labor, which provides the mother’s milk of campaign contributions to Democratic legislators in California.
“They’re frozen,” said David Latterman, a
But, after calling for
labor peace, many politicos quickly disappear into a political
One set says that 44 percent of those surveyed think that BART management has made the better case so far during the negotiations, according to a Survey USA/KPIX 5 phone poll of 531 Bay Area residents; 19 percent said the union had.
The other set says that SEIU, which represents some of the BART workers, contributed $2.6 million to state Senate and Assembly candidates in the 2010-12 election cycle....
35. “Washington Journal: State and Local Government Finances” (C-SPAN TV, August 9, 2013); program featuring TRACY GORDON (MPP 1996/PhD 2001); http://www.c-span.org/Journal/#
Tracy Gordon and Jeff Barnett speak about state and local government finances....
TRACY GORDON, Brookings Institution, Economic Studies Fellow: ... [F]undamentally, we have a question is how much government do we want and how much are we willing to pay for, and once we set that amount, then the question becomes what is the most efficient, equitable, economically competitive, administratively feasible, fair way of doing it? One positive outcome or silver lining of the fiscal crisis is that people have become much more engaged with their local government; they know a lot more about where the money is coming and where the money is going to....
36. “Jolt to electric cars: Driving hybrids may be the greener choice” (San Francisco Chronicle, August 9, 2013); story citing ROLAND HWANG (MPP 1992).
By David R. Baker
... In most states, you’ll be better off buying a hybrid than an electric car, according to a new study that adds up the greenhouse gases associated with building, fueling and driving different vehicles.
“Electric cars aren’t,
by default, the best cars for the climate, even though we tend to think they
are,” said coauthor Alyson Kenward, a senior
scientist with the Climate Central nonprofit research group in
But, according to the Climate Central study, the electric car has one significant drawback as a weapon against global warming — its battery....
As a result, each new electric car carries with it a significant “carbon debt” — greenhouse gases that have been expended before the car drives a single mile....
Roland Hwang, transportation program director for the Natural Resources Defense Council, called the Climate Central study “a little pessimistic.” Other researchers, he said, had come up with lower emission estimates for the battery-making process.
But he noted that the Climate Central study still showed a benefit to driving electric cars, even in coal-dependent states.
“If you’re asking, ‘Are electric cars better than the average gasoline car?’ then in every study, including this, the answer is an unambiguous yes,” Hwang said. “If you’re asking, ‘Are electric cars better than the best gasoline car available?’ that’s different.”
The relative benefits of
driving an electric car will change over time. With natural gas prices at or
near historic lows, energy companies have been closing old coal plants and
using more gas to generate electricity. That cuts the global warming emissions
associated with the power grid, because burning natural gas produces roughly
half as much carbon dioxide as burning coal. Meanwhile, 29 states, including
Both of those developments will make electric cars more useful as a way to fight climate change.
“Unlike oil, the grid is actually getting cleaner over time, with more renewables coming online,” Hwang said. “With tar sands, oil is getting dirtier.”
37. “CITY INSIDER: Warriors alter roster for arena” (San Francisco Chronicle, August 7, 2013); column citing CARMEN CHU (MPP 2003).
— John Coté
Firing back: Not to be outdone by a celebrity chef, some local officials and a deep-pocketed developer, opponents of a luxury condo development across from the Ferry Building have tapped their similarly deep-pocketed backers for a counter video blasting the project as the second coming of the Embarcadero Freeway....
It’s the subject of dueling ballot measures that so far are the only real action on the November ballot.
Each side in the condo fight has spent more than $350,000 on their campaigns, according to filings with the city’s Ethics Commission. That’s more than double the $158,000 that Assessor-Recorder Carmen Chu — the top fundraising candidate this election ... — has raised so far....
38. “Deficit shrinks to
5.7% of GDP” (Republican-American (
-Editors: Mark McQuillan, Steven Komarow, Bloomberg News
As congressional
Republicans prepare to risk a government shutdown or
With tax collections rising and spending growth slowing down, the deficit is on track to drop to 4 percent of the $16 trillion U.S. GDP for the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, according to a May forecast by the Congressional Budget Office. It will shrink to 3.4 percent of GDP next year, the CBO says, close to the 3.3 percent average over the past 30 years, according to Bloomberg data....
The improving budget
outlook hasn’t eased the partisan battles in
“The deficit has never been a substantive issue, and the fact that it’s getting better doesn’t change the politics one iota,” said Stan Collender, a partner at Quorvis Communications and a former Democratic congressional budget aide. “This is an emotional issue, not a substantive issue.” ...
Collender rates the risk of a temporary government shutdown during the dispute at 40 percent, though he considers it unlikely that congressional leaders will permit a debt default.
“Being willing to shut down the government, even if it’s just for a couple days over Obamacare, may be what the Tea Party wing needs, to show its voters they were willing to do that,” Collender said. “And it may be what John Boehner needs to do to show the Tea Party wing he should continue to be speaker.” ...
39. “It’s time for both
parties to lift game on slogans - Federal Election 2013” (The Daily Telegraph (
By Patrick Lion
... Industry experts were unimpressed yesterday with both the Labor and Liberal pitches, saying neither would go down alongside great lines like Labor’s 1972 slogan “It’s Time’’ or the 1996 Democrats “Keeping The Bastards Honest’’.
Labor might have
attacked the Coalition for three-word grenades such as Opposition Leader Tony Abbott’s
“stop the boats’’ pledge but Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has adopted a three-word
slogan himself with “
The Liberals hit back with three interchangeable three-word slogans: “Choose Real Change, A Stronger Australia and A Better Future’’.
Most felt the Liberal slogan was too confusing and done “by a committee which could not decide on one line’’ while Labor’s slogan was considered contradictory.
University of Queensland associate professor of marketing Frank Alpert said Labor’s was stronger as it was “simple and safe’’, if vague.
“People will interpret
it in a positive way. The Liberal slogan is too long and too repetitive and the
phrase ‘a stronger
40. “AP Joins New Year’s Eve in Times Square with Video Highlights” (Web Newswire, August 6, 2013); newswire citing GARY PRUITT (MPP 1981/JD 1982).
The Associated Press
will again present a video retrospective of the year at New Year’s Eve in
“We’re thrilled to be
able to share the work of AP’s video journalists with an international audience
in
41. “BluForest Inc.: Anticipates New Technology to Measure Carbon Emissions Will Expand the Carbon Offsets Trading Market” (Marketwired, August 5, 2013); newswire citing KEVIN GURNEY (MPP 1996).
Details of the new
system are published in the journal and according to the scientists from
Dr Kevin Gurney, one of the leaders of the project states that “We
can go to any city in the
42. “BART strike put on hold. Gov. Brown’s intervention will keep the trains rolling for the next 7 days — with no work stoppage permitted” (San Francisco Chronicle, August 5, 2013); story citing CHRIS FINN (MPP 2006/PhD cand.).
By John Coté and John Wildermuth
Chris Finn of the Amalgamated Transit Union speaks as strike plans are put off for at least seven days. (Rohan Smith / The Chronicle)
Commuters were spared another BART strike after Gov. Jerry Brown intervened late Sunday in the negotiations, calling for an investigation into the transit agency’s talks with its workers.
The three-member board appointed by Brown is charged with providing a written report to the governor in seven days, during which time the unions are not allowed to walk off the job nor can they be locked out by BART. Brown, in a letter to BART’s general manager and three top union leaders, said he is stepping in because a strike “will significantly disrupt public transportation services and will endanger the public’s health, safety and welfare.” ...
A spokeswoman for Service Employees International Union Local 1021 said in a statement: “Our hope is that the Governor’s Board can show the public how BART has manipulated the process and continued to bargain in bad faith.” ...
Brown’s intervention Sunday came after some progress was made on the most contentious issues — pay raises, health care and pensions — figures on both sides said, but the negotiations went into recess shortly before 8:30 p.m.
About a dozen union workers shouted down lead BART negotiator Tom Hock as he exited the building at 8:15 p.m. Unions blame Hock’s hardball tactics for causing a 4½-day strike in July. As he was being heckled with shouts of “Hock go home,” Hock indicated progress was being made on the main financial issues.
Union negotiators were less optimistic.
“I think you just saw the chief negotiator for BART headed out of the building,” said Chris Finn, recording secretary for Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1555. “We’ve heard so many reports and promises of when Thomas Hock was going to be at the table and none of those have come through, so we’ll be anxiously awaiting some kind of movement.” ...
43. “BART strike blocked for now; Court orders 60-day cooling-off period — negotiations bogged down” (San Francisco Chronicle, August 12, 2013); story citing CHRIS FINN (MPP 2006/PhD cand.).
By John Wildermuth and John Coté
BART riders got a two-month strike reprieve Sunday when a San Francisco Superior Court judge ordered the 60-day cooling-off period requested by Gov. Jerry Brown.
The injunction, which will stay in effect until midnight Oct. 10, blocks a repeat of the 4½-day walkout in early July that snarled traffic and disrupted the commute of hundreds of thousands of workers across the Bay Area....
The judge’s order seemingly stripped the urgency from the long-promised effort by BART and its unions to reach a contract agreement by Sunday. Instead of lasting late into the night, the talks were completed by 7 p.m., with no one sure when they would resume. “We are done for the day,” said Chris Finn, a member of the bargaining team for Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1555. “We don’t have any negotiation dates scheduled.”
Finn blamed the stalemate on the transit district, calling its latest contract offer “regressive” and saying it would have led to a pay cut for hundreds of workers....
44. “CITY INSIDER: Newest supervisor’s war chest talks” (San Francisco Chronicle, August 4, 2013); column citing DAVID LATTERMAN (MPP 2002) and CARMEN CHU (MPP 2003).
— Neal J. Riley
If there was ever any question that the newest member of San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors, Katy Tang, would stand a better shot at winning elections than Mayor Ed Lee’s previous board appointee, Christina Olague, a look at the District Four representative’s fundraising figures should put those doubts to rest.
Since she took office in March, Tang has raised a staggering $157,544 and spent $41,460, according to recently filed campaign finance reports. That’s about $18,000 more than Olague raised for her entire losing campaign in last year’s heated District Five race, and also exceeds contributions to Supervisors David Campos and John Avalos when they were re-elected last year without opposition....
Of course, Tang has more
than just November’s election to worry about. She’ll also have to run again for
a full four-year term in 2014. Still,
“This is the cobra-defending-its-lair, stay-away-don’t-even-think-about-coming-here kind of amount,” Latterman said. “If anyone is thinking about running against her, this amount basically says ‘go home.’ “
“From day one (Tang) was the easy pick. … This utterly guarantees she’s not going to lose,” Latterman said. “People are assuming she’s going to be there for a while.”
Tang, a former legislative aide who was tapped to replace her boss and new Assessor-Recorder Carmen Chu, has raked in thousands from real estate interests and received maximum contributions from Lee allies like tech investor Ron Conway....
The only person who
topped Tang’s fundraising so far for the November election is her former boss.
45. “City successfully crossing funding bridge it came to” (Denver Post, August 4, 2013); story citing JEFF KRAFT (MPP 1995).
By Aldo Svaldi
Pueblo has signed a contract with the state, is preparing for a bond offering and could break ground on its project next summer.
“In
The Regional Tourism Act, passed in 2009, provides local governments with a rebate against future state sales tax revenues so they can jump start large scale projects to draw out of state visitors and their spending....
46. “Local Power in
“Unlike Marin,
47. “On
--C.W. NEVIUS
You can see the beach
again along
In other words, the controversial pilot program to limit oversize vehicles from parking in specific areas of the city is working — and so well that it may be enlarged and extended.
But it’s taken years to get to this point and see these results.
Two years ago, then-Supervisor Carmen Chu began
talking about an ordinance that would ban the cluster of campers, trucks and
recreational vehicles that jammed the parking spaces along
It wasn’t a parking issue, advocates for the homeless said, it was a case of criminalizing the “vehicularly homeless.” The strident opposition made it seem that restrictions would never pass.
But in 2011, a Municipal Transportation Agency survey found otherwise. A check of 208 of the vehicles that had verifiable registration revealed that 60 percent were registered to San Francisco addresses. The survey found most of those vehicles were in the Sunset, Bay-view and Tenderloin/ South of Market, represented by Supervisors Chu, Malia Cohen, and Jane Kim....
Cohen teamed up with Chu (and later Katy Tang, the Chu aide who replaced her when
The ban has also helped make some neighborhoods safer.
“We had folks dumping
their black-water tanks into the storm drains in the middle of the night,” said
48. “Bring
—Jesse Kaplan and Sean West
Vice President Joe Biden
returned from
Meanwhile, 2,000 miles
away, the latest round of negotiations for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP)
trade agreement was kicking off in
These events are
unrelated, but they needn’t be. Following a decade of rapid growth,
The TPP, meanwhile,
could be the most important initiative in global trade in a decade. With
It’s also a no-brainer
from a geopolitical standpoint—a chance to rack up a rare diplomatic victory
against
Jesse Kaplan, a former Babar Ali fellow at Lahore University of
Management Sciences, is a student at Yale Law School. Sean West
is head of Eurasia Group’s
49. “Ask Emily: Help!
What can Obamacare do for me now?” (Sacramento Bee,
August 1, 2013); advice column citing
By Emily Bazar
... Q: Are premiums and subsidies on the exchange going to be based on Gross Income or Adjusted Gross Income? And what about Medi-Cal eligibility?
A: The answer to both questions is, technically, neither....
It turns out that the tax credits offered by Covered California as well as Medi-Cal eligibility for most people will be determined using Modified Adjusted Gross Income, known as MAGI.
For most people seeking tax credits and Medi-Cal coverage, MAGI will be the same thing as Adjusted Gross Income found on your 1040 federal income tax forms, according to Laurel Lucia, an Affordable Care Act expert at the UC Berkeley Center for Labor Research and Education. But for some, it will include more.
Technically, MAGI is Adjusted Gross Income “plus nontaxable Social Security benefits, tax-exempt interest, and foreign income and housing expenses for Americans living abroad,” Lucia says.
For those of you trying to figure out whether your work-based insurance is considered “affordable” under the law (click here for more details), you’ll also be using MAGI as your reference, she notes.
50. “Global trendsetter?
By Jonathan Gilbert, Correspondent
After a 13-hour debate,
politicians in the lower house of parliament voted late last night in favor of
the controversial initiative, which is similar to laws approved last year in
The legalization bill, backed by President José Mujica, has been framed as a move to tackle narcotics-related crime, decrease health risks for consumers, and separate the marijuana and hard-drug markets.
The state will license and regulate private cannabis farms and then sell the marijuana at pharmacies. There will be a monthly limit of 40 grams per person and all consumers will have to register.
Giving the state control
of production is “unprecedented,” says Beau
Kilmer, a director at the
51. “
By Chris Christoff and John McCormick, Bloomberg News
As
Cities receive a variety
of indirect
In 2011, local
governments received 5 percent of their general revenue directly from federal
sources, according to a July 24 Census Bureau report.
Federal funding for cities peaked during President Lyndon Johnson’s administration in the late 1960s, and has been falling since the 1970s, said Tracy Gordon, a fellow in economic studies at the Washington-based Brookings Institution.
“I don’t see that changing,” Gordon said. “Just tinkering around with existing grants is not going to make much of a difference.” ...
52. “
By Peter Hegarty
Along with considering the infrastructure plan, the board will review a draft plan for a “waterfront town center” at the former Alameda Naval Air Station during the Aug. 21 meeting....
The aim is to secure City Council approval, including certifying an Environmental Impact Report, by January 2014, said Jennifer Ott, the site’s chief operating officer.
“These are the last major planning documents needed for the city to attract private investment and put a shovel in the ground at Alameda Point,” Ott said. “We are seeking broad public involvement in this crucial planning process so that we can ensure that future development at Alameda Point reflects a community-supported vision.” ...
53. “Why Americans All
Believe They Are ‘Middle Class’; A taxonomy of how we talk about class and
wealth in the
By Anat Shenker-Osorio
(rSnapshotPhotos/Shutterstock)
Last week, President Obama went on the road promoting an economic agenda for the middle class. As expected, John Boehner and other Republicans fired back by charging Obama with “squeezing the middle class.” It’s not even an election year, yet “middle class” is hotly contested linguistic real estate. But nobody seems to know what this term means.
“Middle class” remains
our favored self-designation, although the percentage of Americans who select
it fell from 53 percent in 2008 to 49 most recently, according to Pew Research.
As a friend’s high-school teacher loved to say, “The great thing about
Given this popularity, it is no mystery why “in the interest of the middle class” now beats “for the children” as political cliché. The puzzle is why so many who do not fit the category (as median family income reported as just above $50,000 defines it) believe they do. Why does the description “middle-class nation” continue to feel appropriate, desirable, or both? ...
Peering behind the once iconic picket fence surrounding a house, we see what “middle class” used to mean. The mortgage was close to paid off; the car loan settled. This feat was accomplished on a single income that came with health care plus pension and enough for domestic vacations and college.
Today, we are left with mere symbols, but these turn out to muddle, not mark. Being in the middle class once guaranteed choices and life without fear that the unexpected would prove catastrophic. Now, this is far from the case. Politicians of all stripes will continue to claim allegiance to the middle class, but that’s just because they’re hoping we don’t notice it’s a brand without a product.
Anat Shenker-Osorio is an independent researcher and communications consultant and the author of Don’t Buy It: The Trouble With Talking Nonsense About the Economy.
54. “A Guide to Understanding International Comparisons of Economic Mobility” (States News Service, July 29, 2013); newswire citing JULIA BIXLER ISAACS (MPP 1985).
By Donald Schneider – Heritage Foundation
... International comparisons of economic mobility are useful in terms of providing an important perspective, as they are in other fields such as education and health care. But they can also be misleading when used by analysts and journalists to rank mobility or economic opportunity in various countries. Furthermore, drawing inferences from the basic numbers can be dangerous....
As noted by Julia Isaacs, currently a senior fellow at the Urban Institute, because most of the cross-country studies use this father-son [intergenerational earnings elasticity] measure to illustrate relative mobility, they “ignore the question of cross-country differences in absolute mobility, that is, the likelihood that individuals in a given country will have higher standards of living than their parents due to national rates of economic growth.”[16] Unfortunately, comparable longitudinal data needed to compute absolute mobility are not widely available for most countries....
In a Brookings
Institution paper, “International Comparisons of Economic Mobility,” Julia Isaacs summarizes longitudinal earnings
data contrasting “rags to riches” mobility in
What exactly does this
mean? That the opportunity to rise is less available in
55. “Under wraps: £500m
of public cash given to landowners. Anger at decision not to
name 19,000 farmers, dukes, earls and lords who
received the subsidy” (Sunday Herald, July 28, 2013); story citing JACK THURSTON (MPP 1999).
By Rob Edwards – Environment Editor
The names of more than 19,000 landowners and farmers who annually receive public subsidies totalling more than £500 million are to be kept secret as a result of a new ruling by the Scottish Information Commissioner, Rosemary Agnew. Despite the fact that they have been named in previous years and are likely to be named again, the vast majority of those currently profiting from taxpayers’ money are to be kept under wraps.
Agnew is this week
publishing a decision that backs the Scottish Government’s refusal to release
the names of individuals in receipt of farming subsidies. It follows a ruling
in November 2010 by the European Court of Justice in
The secrecy has been condemned by campaigners. They pointed out that a change in the EU rules should ensure that most subsidy recipients would be named from 2014 onwards....
Jack Thurston from farmsubsidy.org, a group that campaigns for greater transparency on agricultural payments, described the European court ruling as “frankly bizarre”.
The last time the
subsidy information was released in 2010, the Sunday Herald revealed that four farmers in
56. “Fourth Circuit Upholds Decision to Block Key Portions of South Carolina Anti-Immigrant Law” (Targeted News Service, July 25, 2013); newswire citing KAREN TUMLIN (MPP 2003/JD 2004).
The court also determined that plaintiffs in the civil rights coalition’s lawsuit had the right to sue the state over its law....
“Today’s decision isn’t
just a victory for civil rights, It’s also a victory for our plaintiffs, who
took a brave stand against racial profiling in their state,” said Karen Tumlin,
managing attorney for the
57. “What a city owes residents” (Los Angeles Times, July 24, 2013); op-ed citing AARON CHALFIN (PhD 2013).
By Michelle Wilde Anderson, Michelle Wilde Anderson is an assistant professor of law at UC Berkeley School of Law.
Though it is the biggest
city in
For now, it is left to
politics and moral judgment to determine whether it is acceptable that less than 1 in 3 streetlights are operational in
... Indeed, having curtailed everything beyond emergency services, it would be tempting to refer to a government like Detroit’s as a night-watchman state—the libertarian ideal of a government focused only on public safety.
That is, we’d be tempted
to use such a term for
58. “PUBLIC OFFICE, PRIVATE GAIN: We’re not asking for too much from Crew, Cogen” (The Oregonian, July 21, 2013); editorial citing JOANNE SPEERS (MPP/JD 1984).
By Susan Nielsen, associate editor
I don’t know precisely
what kind of ethics training Rudy Crew and Jeff Cogen
received before taking their high-profile, high-salary government jobs. But I
can tell you that most regular people in
Don’t touch. Don’t cheat. Don’t steal, not even a paper clip. Don’t waste money. Don’t cross the line ever, not at a holiday party, on an expense claim or in a single email, or you could find yourself out of a job. This is the rule-encrusted world that ordinary employees must live in, so it’s not extraordinary to ask government leaders to meet the same minimum standards as everyone else.
“We kind of expect our public officials to walk in the same shoes as we do. Most of us don’t get to travel first class. Most of us don’t travel very often,” said JoAnne Speers, executive director of the California-based Institute for Local Government. If public officials use their jobs to leverage fancy trips or have questionable relationships, she added, the public’s confidence in government can suffer.
“When you’re in public service,” Speers said, “you really are stewards of the public trust.”
Crew and Cogen both face blistering criticism for different kinds of dismaying behavior. Public records released last week show that Crew, the state’s recently departed chief education officer, spent much of his short time in Oregon flying off to other cities and trying to charge taxpayers for expenses such as first-class seats and a private town car.
Cogen, chairman of the Multnomah County Board of Commissioners, admitted last week to an affair with a county employee. Cringe-inducing details about their relationship and the employee’s promotion continue to ooze from county headquarters.
In both cases, the harm to government credibility is obvious and immediate....
“It’s probably human nature to generalize about all public servants” after incidents of wrongdoing, Speers said. “As you can imagine, this is very frustrating to other public servants who then have questions raised about their transparency and integrity.” ...
59. “CSWA Introduces Online Tool to Measure Vineyard Greenhouse Gas Emissions” (States News Service, July 19, 2013); newswire citing ALLISON JORDAN (MPP 2004).
“More than 1,400 researchers and stakeholders worldwide use the DNDC Model on over 40 agricultural crops to assess the effects of various management practices on greenhouse gas emissions,” said Allison Jordan, CSWA executive director. “By incorporating the DNDC model into our program, growers can see more clearly how vineyard practices combine to reduce nitrogen applications, save money and minimize soil-related greenhouse gas emissions. Avoiding excess nitrogen benefits growers’ bottom-line, contributes to wine quality and delivers better environmental outcomes.”
60. “A vow to rise above
violence; In
By Lee Romney
Anyka Barber decided to open her
Those struck by the seemingly random vandalism have included Youth Radio, an organization that aims to teach young people in Oakland, many of them minority and low-income, tools they can use to further their educations and get jobs....
Youth Radio’s executive director, Richard Raya, said the teens who began their journalism summer session this week would focus on the feelings stirred by the acquittal rather than the vandalism. He noted, however, that the response to the violence has in a way proved healing.
“Last night I was shoveling glass with an art gallery director and two bartenders,” Raya said Tuesday. “And we became closer for it.”
Now those people, who in
recent years have been trying to breathe new life into
[Anyka] Barber, who is African American, opened a gallery and community space downtown a year ago, not far from City Hall. At 11:30 p.m. on Monday, the 34-year-old was among those helping Raya a few blocks away....
61. “Bernanke: Congress still a risk to the economy” (CNN Wire, July 17, 2013); analysis citing SEAN WEST (MPP 2006).
By Jeanne Sahadi
Among other concerns are the abrupt, across-the-board spending cuts that went into effect in March....
Those short-term cuts will continue unabated if lawmakers don’t change course soon. And they will have a few opportunities this fall to do so.
But it won’t be pretty.
Indeed, Sean West,
... The
And there may be a sweet spot where the parties can finally agree to offset the sequester with some longer term reforms.
But the lack of unity among House Republicans and an increased conviction among Democrats that now is the time to say no to further near-term budget cuts and debt ceiling trade-offs will make that sweet spot hard to find.
“The process to get there is unclear and the potential for a nasty fight is real,” West said.
62. “New EDM Forum Medical Care Supplement Focuses on Lessons Learned Using Electronic Data” (States News Service, July 15, 2013); newswire citing ERIN HOLVE (MPP/MPH 2000).
The supplement features thirteen papers that provide an update on the process of engaging stakeholders in groundbreaking projects focused on building a foundation for using electronic clinical data in quality improvement and comparative effectiveness research. Taken together, the issue offers early lessons learned based on experiences building transparent, scalable, and reusable networks for research and QI.
“Current investments in electronic clinical data present many opportunities to improve patient outcomes,” says Erin Holve, senior director, AcademyHealth who leads the EDM Forum project. “But there are still huge questions to be answered. Collaboration and shared learning is essential if we want to make real progress. These papers offer real on-the-ground’ insights others can apply right now.” ...
63. “NERC mulling options in light of recent shooting of Calif. substation, CEO says” (SNL Electric Transmission Week, July 15, 2013); story citing ALLEN MOSHER (MPP 1978).
By Esther Whieldon
The North American Electric Reliability Corp. has not decided whether there should be new standards to protect transmission assets from coordinated physical attacks following an incident in April in which someone riddled a bank of transformers at Pacific Gas and Electric Co.’s Metcalf substation near San Jose, Calif., with bullets from a high-powered rifle, NERC President and CEO Gerry Cauley said July 9....
Cauley suggested that “we have to set the right expectation for what the standards would do and that would be to provide a baseline.” People should not expect the CIP standards to “cure the cybersecurity threat” or that new standards would make it better, he said. “CIP 5 is going to hold us for a while.” ...
Allen Mosher, the American Public Power Association’s vice president of policy analysis and reliability standards, agreed with Cauley that NERC is done “for now” with updating its cybersecurity standards. The standards have gone through multiple iterations since they were first approved by FERC in 2008. A number of trade groups recently urged FERC not to mandate any changes to the Version 5 standards because any more directives would further complicate implementation.
“There’s so much else that we need to do on cybersecurity,” including collaboration with agencies and drills to see how the industry would recover from an attack, said Mosher, who formerly chaired the NERC standards committee. “We need to drill those things out through exercises so that when those actions happen we’re not looking through a phone book for the person to contact” and so that companies are not inundated with calls from multiple people, Mosher said.
64. “Reports of
By Jon Talton, Special to The
... The headline on a
blog post in Pacific Standard
magazine a couple months ago got my attention. It read: “
It is true that the
statistics [writer, geographer Jim] Russell cites from the U.S. Bureau of Labor
Statistics are tepid compared with the same series for Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue.
Here, the labor force and employment have both surpassed their old highs, while
unemployment, especially in
But these statistics contain a good deal of what economists call “noisy data.” They can be unreliable and prone to cherry picking.
That’s one reason why
He explained that the
recession had hit Metro Portland harder than many other parts of the country.
One big reason is
“We were in a deeper hole,” Cortright said. “Since then, we’ve been growing somewhat faster, with a 2.2 or 2.3 percent employment growth rate. Given sluggish recovery nationally, that’s pretty strong.” ...
As for being the city “where young people go to retire,” a line from television’s “Portlandia,” Cortright responded: “Great anecdote, but it doesn’t seem to be borne out by the data.”
He did say that the city’s livability, light rail and hip vibe draw educated young people, even those who move there without a job. That may push the unemployment rate higher until they find work....
...
“
Rather than slackers, Cortright sees the biggest challenge coming from the state, defunding education and being stuck in a 1950s mindset of transportation (sound familiar?). “There’s no sense of urgency if people are thinking about our economic future,” he said....
65. “A town called Facebook: Social network’s move to San Mateo makes it the highest-paid county in America—with an average wage of $168,000 a year” (MailOnline, July 3, 2013); story citing DOUG HENTON (MPP 1975).
By Becky Evans
Facebook
has helped push wages up $1,677 a week in the
Since the company moved
to
Wages in the county,
where Facebook’s
The Wall Street Journal reported that Facebook’s
contribution to the huge rise in wages in
Workers at headquarters also exercised about $1billion worth of stock options that contributed to the rise.
Doug Henton, chief executive of San Mateo firm Collaborative Economics told The Wall Street Journal: ‘That kind of a jump can only be explained by what’s happening with stock.
‘It will be interesting to see if that wealth bump is reflected in giving back to the community.’ ...
66. “Calif. PUC approves flexible capacity requirement for resource adequacy in 2015” (SNL Generation Markets Week, July 2, 2013); story citing DAVID GAMSON (MPP 1986).
By Jeff Stanfield
Diverse parties, including ratepayer advocates, marketers, merchant power producers, renewable energy interests and environmental groups, said the requirement will discriminate against renewable energy, add an undesired layer of command and control rules to what should be a competitive energy market, and will increase consumer costs. Vote Solar Initiative and the Sierra Club said the requirements could cost billions of dollars....
Nevertheless, the PUC decided each load server must now report all of its qualified flexible resources in its annual and monthly resource adequacy filings. In 2014 the calculated flexibility need “will be a non-binding, flexible capacity procurement target,” but all load servers must make procurement arrangements for 2015 when there will be a binding flexible capacity procurement amount.
Assigned Commissioner Mark Ferron introduced the proposed decision of Administrative Law Judge David Gamson. Ferron said the proposal will add procurement of flexible capacity to the resource adequacy requirements for systemwide and local grid reliability needs....
67. “Brewster Denny: Great Seattlite of Greatest Generation” (Seattle Post-Intelligencer, June 25, 2013); appreciation citing SANDRA ARCHIBALD (MPP 1971/PhD 1974).
By Joel Connelly
Brewster C. Denny, a
great Seattlite of the “Greatest Generation,” and a
descendent of founders of the
Denny was founder of the
Daniel J. Evans School of Public Affairs at the
“Brewster Denny
established the
“He was a key player in leading the way for the UW to assume a national leadership role among schools of public policy and administration,” Archibald said....
68. “How open data is
transforming democracy in
... At the recent The
Next Web Conference Europe held in
Gorbis defines ‘socialstructing’ as ‘creating value by aggregating micro contributions by large networks using social tools and technologies’...
One of the key points raised by Gorbis in the presentation was the shifting of governance away from politicians and governments towards the citizens thanks to open data and social technology solutions.
Kenya’s citizens with the help of technology tools such as Uchaguzi and Ushahidi have proved that with the buy-in of citizens, technology can be used to a certain extent in improving the transparency and accountability of governance — in this case elections — and putting that power in the hands of citizens....
I caught up with Gorbis and her
colleague Tessa Finlev (Research Manager, Ten-Year
Forecast) to hear their views on and expand more on this and how they see open
data shaping governance in
Gorbis explained that socialstructed governance means using open data tools to somehow shift governance from governments to citizens, i.e. ‘governance beyond government’. This, according to Gorbis, includes citizens actively participating in provisioning of services that are traditionally provided only by the government.
She concurred though,
that repressive governments (in
69. “
A recent article in Scientific American highlights ASU’s Ventus Project – an effort by scientists to gather information on power plants to help conduct basic research on climate change.
Kevin Gurney, an associate professor in ASU’s School of Life Sciences and lead scientist for the project, estimates there are as many as 30,000 power plants around the world burning fossil fuels. While a list of those facilities (created by the Center for Global Development) does exist, scientifically accurate information the researchers need to map each power plant’s location and carbon dioxide emissions does not.
“A big portion of the
climate change problem is due to the production of electricity everywhere in
the world,” said Gurney, also a senior
sustainability scientist with the Global Institute of Sustainability.
“While you might imagine that we would know where all the power plants are and
how much they’re emitting, it turns out we don’t. With the growth in countries
such as
1. “Minimum wage for tipped workers has been kept at $2.13 for 21 years” (The Real News, September 26, 2013); interview with Visiting Lecturer SARU JAYARAMAN; link to video at: http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=10780
... SARU JAYARAMAN, COFOUNDER AND CODIRECTOR, ROC UNITED: ... So, for example, I have a new book out called Behind the Kitchen Door, and in the book I describe a story of a worker named Claudia Muñoz, who is actually a leader in our organization, immigrant from Mexico, very intelligent woman, ended up going to graduate school in Texas, worked at the IHOP while she was in graduate school, earning $2.13 an hour in Houston, Texas.
Now, the law says that the employer is supposed to make sure that tips make up the difference between $2.13 an hour and the regular minimum wage of $7.25. But the IHOP, megacorporation that it is, and even though it is illegal, told Claudia, we're not going to be held liable to make sure that tips make up the difference; we're going to report that you're earning $7.25 regardless of what you earn. And so Claudia would earn sometimes $3 in tips, sometimes $4 in tips, sometimes zero in tips an hour when she was doing side work or something else. And yet she was being taxed at $7.25 an hour. When you get a wage of $2.13, you literally get a paycheck that says, this is not a paycheck, it's a zero, because your wages are so low they go entirely to taxes....
2. “Free to be hungry” (The New York Times & The International Herald Tribune [*requires registration],
September 24, 2013); column citing HILARY
HOYNES; http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/23/opinion/krugman-free-to-be-hungry.html?ref=todayspaper
By Paul Krugman
... The recent growth of [the food stamp program] has indeed been unusual, but then so have the times, in the worst possible way. The Great Recession of 2007-9 was the worst slump since the Great Depression, and the recovery that followed has been weak. Multiple careful economic studies have shown that the economic downturn explains the great bulk of the increase in food stamp use. And while the economic news has been generally bad, one piece of good news is that food stamps have at least mitigated the hardship, keeping millions of Americans out of poverty.
Nor is that the program’s only benefit. The evidence is clear that spending cuts in a depressed economy deepen the slump, yet government spending has been falling anyway. SNAP, however, is one program that has been expanding, and it has indirectly helped save hundreds of thousands of jobs....
Still, is SNAP in general a good idea? Or is it, as Paul Ryan, chairman of the House Budget Committee, puts it, an example of turning the safety net into ‘‘a hammock that lulls able-bodied people to lives of dependency and complacency.’’
One answer is, some hammock: Last year, average food stamp benefits were $4.45 a day. Also, about those ‘‘able-bodied people’’: Almost two-thirds of SNAP beneficiaries are children, the elderly or the disabled, and most of the rest are adults with children.
Beyond that, however, you might think that ensuring adequate nutrition for children, which is a large part of what SNAP does, actually makes it less, not more, likely that those children will be poor and need public assistance when they grow up. And that’s what the evidence shows. The economists Hilary Hoynes and Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach have studied the impact of the food stamp program in the 1960s and 1970s, when it was gradually rolled out across the country. They found that children who received early assistance grew up, on average, to be healthier and more productive adults than those who didn’t—and they were also, it turns out, less likely to turn to the safety net for help.
SNAP, in short, is public policy at its best. It not only helps those in need; it helps them help themselves....
3. “The Great Divide: American Bile” (New York Times Online [*requires registration], September 22, 2013); commentary by ROBERT REICH; http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/09/21/american-bile/
By Robert B. Reich
... I’m 67 and have lived through some angry
times: Joseph R. McCarthy’s witch hunts of the 1950s, the struggle for civil
rights and the
The puzzle is that many of the big issues that used to divide us, from desegregation to foreign policy, are less incendiary today. True, we disagree about guns, abortion and gay marriage, but for the most part have let the states handle these issues. So what, exactly, explains the national distemper? ...
Put simply, most people are on a downward escalator. Although jobs are slowly returning, pay is not. Most jobs created since the start of the recovery, in 2009, pay less than the jobs that were lost during the Great Recession. This means many people are working harder than ever, but still getting nowhere. They’re increasingly pessimistic about their chances of ever doing better....
Political scientists have noted a high
correlation between inequality and polarization. But economic class isn’t the
only dividing line in
Inequality is far wider now than it was then, and threatens social cohesion and trust. I don’t think Bill O’Reilly really believes I’m a Communist. He’s just channeling the nation’s bile.
Robert B. Reich, a professor of public policy at the University of California, Berkeley, and the author of “Beyond Outrage: What Has Gone Wrong With Our Economy and Our Democracy, and How to Fix It,” is featured in the new documentary “Inequality for All.”
4. “Things won’t be easy for next Fed leader” (San Francisco Chronicle, September 21, 2013); column citing JESSE ROTHSTEIN; http://www.sfgate.com/default/article/Things-won-t-be-easy-for-next-Fed-leader-4832947.php
By Andrew S. Ross
... “The gap between the actual and the predicted path of real output (GDP growth) gives a sense of how much economic performance has lagged in this recovery,” [Janet Yellen, former UC Berkeley economist and one-time head of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco] said in a speech in February. A major cause: Unlike earlier recessions, “fiscal policy this time has actually acted to restrain the recovery. I expect that discretionary fiscal policy will continue to be a headwind for the recovery for some time, instead of the tailwind it has been in the past.”
She was referring in part to Washington-imposed spending cuts, including sequestration, which went into effect a month after her speech and is supposed to cut spending by $1.1 trillion between now and 2021. The House insists on further cuts, such as defunding Obamacare and slashing food stamps by $40 billion. A government shutdown and debt default is once more in the cards, which of course will do wonders for an economic recovery....
So, what might she do, if chosen to lead the Fed? Likely stay the course, judging from her speech. That means the Fed keeping its promise to maintain short-term interest rates near zero, and continuing its monthly bond-buying program until the economy gets demonstrably better—meaning unemployment dips below 6.5 percent while inflation stays below 2.5 percent.
Tapering off? “By all means stop talking about it
before you know you can really do it,” said Jesse Rothstein, an economist at UC Berkeley’s Richard &
5. “The Numbers Guy: New Way of Calculating Poverty Rate Faces Hurdles” (Wall Street Journal [*requires registration], September 20, 2013); column citing HILARY HOYNES; http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324807704579085860737840606.html?KEYWORDS=Berkeley
By Carl Bialik
Public policy professor Hilary Hoynes comments on a possible overhaul of the national poverty measure: “There will be winners and losers and thus the politics of this are not inconsequential.” ...
6. “Stimson Center Releases Collection of Essays” (PR Newswire, September 17, 2013); newswire citing MICHAEL NACHT.
The Stimson Center issued a collection of six essays titled, “Anti-satellite Weapons, Deterrence and Sino-American Space Relations,” which provide a range of viewpoints about cooperation between the U.S. and China in space.
“As these essays demonstrate, there are no simple answers to avoiding a dangerous military competition in space,” [Stimson Co-founder and Space Security Project Director Michael] Krepon said. “But all of the authors agree that it would be prudent for major powers to agree on a code of conduct that establishes rules of responsible behavior in space.” ...
In addition to Krepon, the group noted that other authors of essays in the volume include James A. Lewis of the Center for Strategic and International Studies; Bruce W. MacDonald of the United States Institute of Peace; Karl Mueller of the RAND Corp.; Michael Nacht of the University of California, Berkeley; and Brian Weeden of the Secure World Foundation....
7. “The leaking
Michael O’Hare, professor of public policy
Hey, the famous
What happened here is that [Larry] Ellison (and the whole arrangement, including the design of the boats that would compete, is his call) completely misunderstood what’s important about the sport, and what’s not. What he thought was important, and would gin up public engagement with the sport, was going fast, so the boats, if you can call them that, are enormously expensive catamarans with rigid airfoil sails and hydrofoils that can lift the hulls out of the water.
Wow, they really go fast! But they don’t have any of the tradition of real sailing; no spinnakers or even Genoa jibs (at least not in any pictures I’ve seen yet) to balloon out on downwind legs and change at the turn, practically no rigging, no worrying about luffing.
Most important, they have nothing to do with what constitutes sailing for people who sail, whether dinghies or ocean racers....
... Losing the culture, aesthetics, and spirit of yachting to just go fast is sort of like trying to make music better by playing it louder with a bigger amp, or “improving marksmanship” by putting lots of processing power into the rifle....
8. “Op-Ed:
By Robert Reich
... A decent society would put people to work—even if this required more government spending on roads, bridges, ports, pipelines, parks and schools.
A decent society would lift the minimum wage, expand the Earned Income Tax Credit (a wage subsidy), and provide food stamps and housing assistance so that no family with a full-time worker has to live in poverty.
We can afford this minimal level of decency....
Yet, while attention is focused on
While attention is focused on
While attention is focused on
While attention is focused on
We are paralyzed at home—as we turn our attention to a potential quagmire abroad. This is the great tragedy of our time.
© 2013 Robert Reich Robert Reich, former U.S. secretary of labor, is professor of public policy at UC Berkeley and the author of “Beyond Outrage,” now available in paperback. His new film, “Inequality for All,” will be out Sept. 27....
9. “Reich: Inequality approaching a tipping point” (CBS MoneyWatch, September 12, 2013); interview with ROBERT REICH; http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505123_162-57602560/reich-inequality-approaching-a-tipping-point/
By Erik Sherman
(MoneyWatch) Income
inequality has become big these days in the media. But it’s not a new issue for
Robert Reich—Secretary of Labor in
the
He’s been beating the drum for more than 30 years about the problems of too having too much concentration of wealth in too few hands and the effective loss of a middle class. His latest effort is a new documentary, “Inequality for All.” ...
But although unequal income distribution is the problem, Reich argues that blaming one side or the other isn’t the answer. “You can’t completely leave or ignore the issue of individual responsibility,” he said. Simply calling the poor or middle class victims isn’t completely accurate. “People have to take responsibility for themselves and their families. Nor can you ignore the problem of lack of opportunity: 40 percent of children born into poverty will never get out of poverty. It’s as wrong to blame the poor as to blame the rich. The typical middle class person is working harder than ever but getting nowhere.” ...
In the past, sometimes a tipping point has resulted in major upheaval, such as revolutions and violence. If Reich is correct, the stakes could be high. “The purpose of the film is to give people a deeper understanding of what’s going on and therefore let them be active participants in change,” he said. “The real question, it seems to me, is whether we will succumb to the demagogues—scapegoating of the rich or of the poor—and find ourselves in a more divided and polarized society or whether we will roll up the sleeves and make the changes in the economy.”
[Robert Reich was also interviewed on the subject of “Inequality for All” on Democracy Now (FSTV, September 13, 2013) http://www.democracynow.org/ :
ROBERT REICH: ... First of all, it is not about me. It is about the economy, it is about inequality, it is about our democracy.... This film also provides a kind of guide to people. There’s a social action movement that is connected to the film. We hope that the film really spurs not just a different discussion in this country, but also a movement to take back our economy and democracy....]
[Robert
Reich and his film are featured in
[Robert Reich calls for a new era of citizen activism on “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart” (Comedy Central, September 16, 2013); http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon-september-16-2013/robert-reich ]
10. “‘Inequality’ offers education on economy” (San Francisco Chronicle, September 19, 2013); interview with ROBERT REICH; http://www.sfgate.com/default/article/Inequality-offers-education-on-economy-4827878.php
By Walter Addiego
Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich, now a UC Berkeley professor, will see his message move from the lecture hall to the big screen with “Inequality for All.” (72 Productions)
Working and middle-class Americans have a
passionate advocate in Robert Reich,
secretary of labor during the first
The film uses footage from Reich’s popular “Wealth and
Poverty” class at
Directed by Jacob Kornbluth (“Haiku Tunnel,” “The Best Thief in the World”), the film won a special jury award at Sundance earlier this year, and is about to open theatrically....
[Robert Reich also discussed “Inequality for All” with Bill Moyers on Moyers & Company (PBS TV, September 21-22, 2013):
REICH:
“Our goal—
11. “New documentary ponders nation’s growing income gap” (Sacramento Bee, September 25, 2013); movie review citing ROBERT REICH; http://www.sacbee.com/2013/09/25/5767177/new-documentary-ponders-nations.html
By Julie Hinds,
His hope is fueled in part by his
“They’re fired up. They don’t like partisan politics. They’re not political as such, but they are committed to public service,” says Reich. “It’s up to them. One reason I teach the course, honestly, is I’ve reached the age (where) I’m not going to do much more than I’ve done, but I rely on them. They’re inheriting this mess.”
12. “The Economic Policy Institute (EPI) holds a discussion on a new report, ‘Mismatches in Race to the Top Limit Educational Improvement,’ focusing on ‘implementation of the administrtion’s flagship education initiative’” (The Washington Daybook September 12, 2013); event featuring DAVID KIRP.
PARTICIPANTS: Daniel Domenech, executive director of the American Association of School Administrators (AASA); Elaine Weiss, national coordinator of Broader, Bolder Approach to Education; Noelle Ellerson, associate executive director for policy and advocacy at AASA; and David Kirp, professor of public policy at the University of California Berkeley
13. “Missing in action on votes in House. Many Bay Area lawmakers often skip casting ballots” (San Francisco Chronicle, September 11, 2013); story citing HENRY BRADY.
By Carla Marinucci
When Congress begins voting on whether to take
military action in
But when the spotlight isn’t quite so bright, the Bay Area’s all-Democratic House delegation isn’t always that diligent about casting votes....
[Rep. George Miller, D-Martinez], the dean of the California delegation who has been in office since 1975, has missed 64 votes this year, including two this week — with a career average of missing 7.5 percent of votes, according to govtrack.us.
[Rep. Jackie Speier, D-Hillsborough] has missed 51 votes so far this year and has an average of missing 12 percent of all votes during her tenure in the House — by far the highest among the Bay Area representatives....
Henry Brady, dean of the Goldman School of Public Policy at UC Berkeley, said California House members also are often disadvantaged by a five- to six-hour cross-country trek to get home to be with their families and to spend time with constituents, he said.
“The distance does make it hard for them to get
back’’ to
14. “Opinion: From ‘Inequality for All,’ a
challenge for
By Katrina vanden Heuvel [Editor and publisher of the Nation magazine, vanden Heuvel writes a weekly column for The Post]
... As Clinton
Labor Secretary Robert Reich intones in the film, “Of all developed
nations, the
... Following the diminutive Reich on his “statistics-driven and impassioned” crusade,
“Inequality for All” throws into sharp relief the numbers and stories we hear.
Combining footage from Reich’s
electrifying
Reich breaks down the passel of complex factors — from the rise of globalization to the decline of union membership, from stagnant middle-class wages to reduced tax rates for the richest, from deregulation to de-funding education, from Wall Street lobbyists to their friends on the Supreme Court — that have converged to squeeze the middle class dry. With his signature heart and humor, he breaks through the cynicism fomented by an intransigent political class, offering some measure of hope to a worn-out electorate.
Indeed, what makes “Inequality for All” unique even among social-issue documentaries is that it aims not just to educate and entertain but also to empower....
Reich
concludes his
Democracy is not a spectator sport, this film reminds us. And in this case, neither is movie-going.
15. “Politics Blog: Nancy Pelosi a ‘team player’
on
By Carolyn Lochhead
House minority leader Nancy Pelosi, D-San
Francisco, led opposition to Congressional authorization for the Iraq War under
former president George W. Bush, but is a lead supporter of an intervention in
Henry Brady, Dean of the Goldman School of Public Policy at UC Berkeley, said Pelosi is “being a team player,” who as an inside player is “very attuned to the president’s status and prestige and the sense that he’s efficacious. That is what is on the line now.’’ ...
16. “Tech Mania Goes to College; Are MOOCs—massive open online courses—the utopia of affordable higher education, or just the latest fad?” (The Nation, September 4, 2013); commentary by DAVID KIRP; http://www.thenation.com/article/176037/tech-mania-goes-college#
By David L. Kirp
... The MOOC movement is in the midst of what’s
become known as the technology “hype cycle.” According to Gartner, the IT consulting
firm that developed the model, a “technology trigger” leads to the “peak of
inflated expectations,” followed in short order by the “trough of
disillusionment.” Today, MOOCs are oscillating
between those two poles. In recent months, the Amherst College faculty voted
not to join edX, and Duke University’s faculty forced
it to back out of a deal to create a pool of for-credit MOOCs.
At the same time, Udacity announced a partnership
with Georgia Tech to deliver a $6,600 MOOC-based master’s degree in computer
science, while Coursera, the biggest MOOC, has
attracted millions in new venture capital. Meanwhile, students have been voting
with their feet: at
It’s time to push the pause button, not just on
the
David L. Kirp, professor of public policy at the University of California, Berkeley, is the author of The Sandbox Investment: The Preschool Movement and Kids-First Politics and Healthy, Wealthy and Wise: Five Big Ideas for Transforming Children’s Lives.
17. “Trimmings for Labor Day — start with executive pay” (San Francisco Chronicle, September 1, 2013); op-ed by ROBERT REICH.
By ROBERT REICH
The good news this Labor Day: Jobs are returning. The bad news this Labor Day: Most of them pay lousy wages and provide low, if not nonexistent, benefits.
The trend toward lousy wages began before the Great Recession. According to a new report from the Economic Policy Institute, weak wage growth between 2000 and 2007, combined with wage losses for most workers since then, means that the bottom 60 percent of working Americans are earning less now than 13 years ago.
This also is part of the explanation for why the percentage of Americans living below the poverty line has been increasing — from 12.3 percent in 2006 to around 14 percent this year — even as the economy has started to recover. More than 35 million Americans now live below the poverty line....
According to a report by the National Employment Law Project, most low-wage workers are employed by large corporations that have been enjoying healthy profits. Three-quarters of these employers (the 50 biggest employers of low-wage workers) are raking in higher revenues now than they did before the recession....
It would not be a tragedy if some of these shareholder returns and compensation packages have to be trimmed in order that low-wage workers at McDonald’s, KFC and Walmart get a raise.
Indeed, if this nation is to reverse the scourge of widening inequality, such a trimming is necessary.
© 2013 Robert Reich Robert Reich, former U.S. secretary of labor, is professor of public policy at UC Berkeley and the author of “Beyond Outrage,” now available in paperback. His new film, “Inequality for All,” will be out Sept....
18. “Finding Her Tribe; A producer pursues her vision of a feminist TV show” (California Magazine, Fall 2013 issue); story citing GSPP Board Advisor NANCY GULT HANIS and Dean HENRY BRADY; http://alumni.berkeley.edu/news/california-magazine/fall-2013-film-issue/finding-her-tribe
By Vicki Haddock
(Photo by Toni Gauthier / CaliforniaMag)
... Those who know her best trace her instincts for material back to her years collecting stories as a stewardess, reporting stories as a journalist, and studying both history and journalism at Berkeley.
“In
That recognition is reciprocal, and it explains
her value as an advisory board member to
19. “Improbable Scholars: The Rebirth of a Great
American School System and a Strategy for
David Kirp,
public policy professor at the University of California at Berkeley,
profiles the Union City, New Jersey public school system. The author reports that
20. “Public good losing ground as rich go their own way” (San Francisco Chronicle, August 25, 2013); op-ed by ROBERT REICH
By ROBERT REICH
... The great expansion of public institutions in
But in a post-Cold War
Public institutions have morphed into
“public-private partnerships” or, for Republicans, simply “vouchers.”
Education, infrastructure and basic research have dropped dramatically as a
portion of gross domestic product.
We’re losing public goods available to all, supported by the tax payments of all and especially the better off. In its place, we have private goods available to the very rich, supported by the rest of us.
© 2013 Robert Reich Robert Reich, former U.S. secretary of labor, is professor of public policy at UC Berkeley and the author of “Beyond Outrage,” now available in paperback. His new film, “Inequality for All,” will be out Sept. 27....
21. “Economic issues at the root of our deeply divided society” (San Francisco Chronicle, August 18, 2013); op-ed by ROBERT REICH.
By ROBERT REICH
Why is the nation more bitterly divided today than it has been in 80 years? Why is there more anger, vituperation and political polarization now than even during Joe McCarthy’s anticommunist witch hunts of the 1950s, the tempestuous struggle for civil rights in the 1960s, the divisive Vietnam War or the Watergate scandal? ...
But I think the deeper explanation for what has happened has economic roots. From the end of World War II through the late 1970s, the economy doubled in size, as did almost everyone’s income. Almost all Americans grew together. In fact, those in the bottom fifth of the income ladder saw their incomes more than double. Americans experienced upward mobility on a grand scale.
Yet for the past 3½ decades, the middle class has been losing ground. The median wage of male workers is lower than it was in 1980, adjusted for inflation....
Meanwhile, income, wealth and power have become more concentrated at the top than they’ve been in 90 years....
Make no mistake: The savage inequality
© 2013 Robert Reich Robert Reich, former
22. “The Grid of the Future Could Be Brought to You by You” (All Things Considered, NPR, August 14, 2013); story citing DAN KAMMEN; Listen to this story
By Elizabeth Shogren
... It used to be that when Hawaiians needed electricity, grid operators just turned up their oil- and coal-fired generators. But now, as they’re relying more on wind and solar, their balancing act has gotten a lot trickier.
Wind is a particular challenge. It doesn’t blow all the time, so it always needs a backup. But keeping an oil-fired power plant at the ready is expensive.
[Nohea Hirahara, an engineer for Hawaiian Electric Company] is working on a new remedy for that problem, and it’s all about customers. She has recruited big energy users, like hotels, hospitals, office buildings, schools and condos, and is tempting them with discounts.
Here’s how the idea works: If, for instance, the wind was decreasing quickly right now, a grid operator would send a message to these customers.
“And the customers would reduce or shut down air conditioning, heat pumps — big energy users,” Hirahara says.
This way, the grid operators wouldn’t have to switch on another expensive oil plant. So far, only a few dozen companies have signed up....
“What’s going on in
To get ready for renewable energy, experts say a closer relationship between utilities and customers is key.
For example, Kammen has solar panels at his home.
“If it’s a really hot day and our utility calls an alert where they want people to minimize consumption, if I turn down appliances in our home, then I can sell back more energy, which benefits me but also benefits them,” he says.
And Kammen says the grid of the future also needs more ways to store clean energy. Customers can help here, too.
“In
23. “Robert Reich: Why Congress’s Gridlock Doesn’t Paralyze Government but Gridlocks Democracy” (New York Times, August 14, 2013); op-ed by ROBERT REICH.
By Robert B. Reich
CONGRESS began its summer recess last week and won’t reconvene until after Labor Day. You’d be forgiven for not noticing a difference. With just 15 bills signed into law so far this year, the 113th Congress is on pace to be the most unproductive since at least the 1940s.
But just because the legislature has ceased to function doesn’t mean our government has. Political decision making has moved to peripheral public entities, where power is exercised less transparently and accountability to voters is less direct. What we’re losing in the process isn’t government—it’s democracy.
Take the Federal Reserve. Absent any Congressional legislation to speak of—no short-term spending to increase job growth, no long-term plan to reduce the budget deficit—the nation’s central bank has been forced to do all the heavy lifting with the economy. The $85 billion of bonds it buys each month is now the main form of government stimulus to the economy as well as the linchpin of continued job growth. Congress’s inability to pass effective fiscal policy means that the Fed’s monetary policy, to keep long-term interest rates as low as possible, has become the only game in town for boosting private spending and investment....
Congress’s paralysis has also encouraged the Supreme Court to enter the political fray. Normally the judicial activism of recent years might be checked by Congressional action in response. But not now. Justice Anthony M. Kennedy’s opinion for the majority in the 2010 “Citizens United” case, which struck down limits on corporate campaign contributions, rested partly on the presumption that Congress would require corporations to disclose their political expenditures. But no bill requiring full disclosure has stood a chance of making it through the quagmire....
In any event, it’s bizarre that a self-styled populist insurrection would end up making our government less accountable to the people. But that’s exactly what it’s done. What’s really gridlocked now is democracy.
ROBERT B. REICH, Chancellor’s Professor of
Public Policy at the
24. “Eric Holder is cutting federal drug sentences.
That will make a small dent in the
By Dylan Matthews –
Attorney General Eric Holder will announce Monday that the Justice Department will no longer charge nonviolent drug offenders with serious crimes that subject them to long, mandatory minimum sentences in the federal prison system....
He’s also expected to call for the expanded use of prison alternatives, such as probation or house arrest, for nonviolent offenders and for lower sentences for elderly inmates. And he’ll endorse legislation by Sens. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), Pat Leahy (D-Vt.), Mike Lee (R-Utah), and Rand Paul (R-Ky.) that would increase federal judges’ flexibility in sentencing nonviolent drug offenders....
Focusing on drug offenses is a smart way to go about reducing the federal incarceration rate. According to data in Why Are So Many Americans in Prison?, a new book by UC Berkeley’s Steven Raphael and UCLA’s Michael Stoll, the most serious charge for 51 percent of federal inmates in 2010 was a drug offense. By comparison, homicide was the most serious charge for only 1 percent, and robbery was the most serious charge against 4 percent.
Tougher drug sentencing accounts for much of the increase in the incarceration rate. “If you go back and decompose what caused growth in the federal prison system since 1984, a large chunk can be explained by drug offenses, around 45 percent,” Raphael says. The other big category accounting for the federal increase is weapons charges, such as the five-year mandatory minimum faced by drug offenders caught with guns. Raphael estimates that that accounts for 18 to 19 percent of the increase.
There’s also been an increase in incarcerations on immigration charges, with the rest of the increase in other areas. But there’s no doubt that the biggest category of crime behind the increase in the federal incarceration rate is drugs. Easing up on drug sentencing would make a big dent....
25. “Does corporate
By ROBERT REICH
Job growth is sputtering. So why aren’t the captains of American industry and finance — the nation’s top CEOs, the titans of Wall Street, the corporate movers and shakers — demanding that more be done to revive the economy? They have the political clout to make it happen....
They don’t really mind high unemployment. In fact, they rather like it.
That might seem a harsh conclusion, but consider the realities. For one thing, high unemployment is keeping wages down. Workers who are worried about losing their jobs settle for whatever they can get — which is why hourly earnings keep dropping. The median wage of American workers is now 4 percent lower than it was at the start of the recovery....
But wait. Over the longer term, high unemployment can’t possibly be good for the captains of American industry and finance.
The real job creators are consumers, and if average people don’t have jobs or good wages, this economy can’t have a vigorous recovery. As growth slows, it’s only a matter of time before profits take a beating and stock prices plummet....
© 2013
Robert Reich Robert Reich, former
26. “Three lies about the need to lower corporate taxes” (The Berkeley Blog, August 6, 2013); op-ed by ROBERT REICH; http://blogs.berkeley.edu/2013/08/06/three-big-myths-about-the-need-to-lower-corporate-taxes/
Robert Reich, professor of public policy | 8/6/13
Instead of spending August on the beach, corporate lobbyists are readying arguments for when Congress returns in September about why corporate taxes should be lowered.
But they’re lies. You need to know why so you can spread the truth.
Lie #1:
Lie #2:
Rather than investing in expansion, they’re buying back their own stocks or raising dividends. They have no economic incentive to expand unless or until consumers want to buy more, but consumer spending is pinched because the middle class keeps shrinking and the median wage, adjusted for inflation, keeps dropping....
27. “Health Care Law Raises Pressure on Public Unions” (New York Times & International Herald Tribune [*requires registration], August 5, 2013); story citing ROBERT REICH; http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/05/nyregion/health-care-law-raises-pressure-on-public-employees-unions.html?pagewanted=all
By Kate Taylor
Cities and towns across the country are pushing municipal unions to accept cheaper health benefits in anticipation of a component of the Affordable Care Act that will tax expensive plans starting in 2018.
The so-called Cadillac tax was inserted into the Affordable Care Act at the advice of economists who argued that expensive health insurance with the employee bearing little cost made people insensitive to the cost of care. In public employment, though, where benefits are arrived at through bargaining with powerful unions, switching to cheaper plans will not be easy.
Cities including
But some prominent liberals express frustration at seeing the tax used against unions in negotiations.
“I think it was misguided all along,” Robert B. Reich, the former labor secretary, said in an e-mail. When the law was being written, he said, he worried that the tax was “a blunt instrument that could too easily become a bargaining chit for cutting back benefits of workers.”
“Apparently, that’s what it’s become,” Mr. Reich, who is a professor of public policy at the
28. “Close tax loophole that lets cash pour into CEOs’ wallets” (San Francisco Chronicle, August 4, 2013); op-ed by ROBERT REICH; http://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/reich/article/Loophole-lets-money-pour-into-CEOs-wallets-4703857.php
By ROBERT REICH
Almost everyone knows CEO pay is out of control. It surged 16 percent at big companies last year, according to the New York Times, and the typical CEO raked in $15.1 million. Meanwhile, the median wage continued to drop, adjusted for inflation.
What’s less well known is that you and I and other taxpayers are subsidizing this sky-high executive compensation. That’s because corporations deduct it from their income taxes, causing the rest of us to pay more in taxes to make up the difference.
This tax subsidy to corporate executives ought to be one of the first tax expenditures to go when and if Congress turns to reforming the tax code....
© 2013
Robert Reich Robert Reich,
former
29. “US Solar Targets Could Save Americans $20 Billion Annually By 2050” (CleanTechnica, August 2, 2013); story citing DAN KAMMEN; http://cleantechnica.com/2013/08/02/solar-energy-could-provide-13-of-all-western-us-power-needs-by-2050/
By Silvio Marcacci
Concentrating solar power image via CleanTechnica.
Solar energy could supply one-third of all
electricity demand in the
Researchers made the bold prediction in “SunShot Solar Power Reduces Costs and Uncertainty in Future
Low-Carbon Electricity Systems,” a study released this week by the
The UC Berkeley team used SWITCH (Solar, Wind,
Transmission, Conventional, and Hydro) a high-resolution electricity system
planning model, to study what the future of solar energy could look like across
the
A cap-and-trade or carbon tax system will be
initially required to provide utilities the incentives they need to shift
toward solar, good news considering
But if SunShot works, the transition to a solar-based electrical system with reduced emissions could save consumers 14% off their bills, roughly $20 billion annually by 2050. “Given strategic long-term planning and research and policy support, the increase in electricity costs can be contained as we reduce emissions,” said Dan Kammen, UC Berkeley professor and study leader. “Saving the planet may be possible at only a modest cost.” ...
30. “Climate change may increase violence, study shows” (CNN Online, August 1, 2013); story citing SOLOMON HSIANG; http://www.cnn.com/2013/08/01/us/climate-change-violence/index.html
By Elizabeth Landau
When the
... A new study in the journal Science shows that shifts in climate historically have been associated with violent conflicts, among both individuals and groups, and that current warming patterns could significantly increase the abundance of human conflict by midcentury.
Researchers’ meta-analysis of 60 studies suggest that, consistent with links between conflict and climate shifts in the past, the risk of intergroup conflict around much of the planet would be amplified by 50% in 2050.
“It does change how we think about the value of
avoiding climate change,” said Solomon
Hsiang, lead study author and researcher at the
... Large-scale changes in technologies or political institutions may also alter the risk of violence in the future, Hsiang said.
... Hsiang and colleagues incorporated research on civilizations dating back as far as 10,000 B.C. and across all major world regions....
Conflict is also associated with extreme rainfall, particularly in societies dependent on agriculture. Higher rates of personal violence are found in low-income settings, where agriculture income suffers from extremely wet or dry conditions.
The Mayan civilization appears to have collapsed
during long periods of drought, Hsiang
said. The same global climate event seems to have brought down the Tang dynasty
in
[Stories on this topic appeared in more than 100 international sources, including the <a href=“http://www.sfgate.com/news/science/article/Study-Hotter-temperatures-leads-to-hotter-tempers-4700976.php”>San Francisco Chronicle</a>, <a href=“http://www.businessweek.com/news/2013-08-01/global-warming-sparks-conflict-from-rape-to-war-researchers-say”>Bloomberg Businessweek</a>, <a href=“http://www.nbcnews.com/science/hot-bothered-climate-change-amplifies-violence-study-says-6C10817483”>NBC News Online</a>, <a href=“http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/36822/title/Climate-Change-and-Violence/”>The Scientist</a>, <a href=“http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/36822/title/Climate-Change-and-Violence/”>Discover</a>, <a href=“http://www.nature.com/news/warming-climate-drives-human-conflict-1.13464”>Nature</a>, and the <a href=“http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/science/2013/08/climate-change-could-increase-armed-conflicts-by-50-percent-worldwide/”>Smithsonian Magazine Online</a>.]
31. “Tempers May Flare and Conflicts Rise as Climate Change Heats Up, Study Finds” (PBS Newshour, August 7, 2013); interview with SOLOMON HSIANG; View the video
SOLOMON
HSIANG,
We observe, even in a laboratory, if we put people in a room and raise the temperature, they actually change how they behave towards others. But, as you suggest, there’s economic mechanisms as well that are incredibly important. So you can have crop failures when you have extremely high temperatures, and that leads to all sorts of changes.
It changes people’s incentives to participate in the formal labor market, in comparison to more violent activities. And it also changes how people migrate, food prices. And all of those things can have an influence on human conflict, which is a very complex phenomena and is affected by both how we...
[Solomon Hsiang was also interviewed on the subject on Science Friday, NPR, August 9, 2013; Link to audio ]
[Marshall Burke, Solomon Hsiang and Edward Miguel authored the “Sunday Review Op-Ed: Weather and Violence,” published in New York Times & International Herald Tribune on September 1, 2013; http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/01/opinion/sunday/weather-and-violence.html ]
32. “Researchers predict violent response to global warming” (Reuters, September 26, 2013); interview with SOLOMON HSIANG in video story; http://in.reuters.com/video/2013/09/26/researchers-predict-violent-response-to?videoId=273926450&videoChannel=105
By Ben Gruber
Protesters clash with police. It’s a scene that repeats itself on a regular basis, all over the world. And as the world gets warmer such outbreaks are likely to become even more frequent, according to UC Berkeley’s Solomon Hsiang and Marshall Burke. The researchers say their studies demonstrate a link between climate change and violence. After gathering historical data identifying incidents of conflict and comparing those accounts to climate data from the same period, Hsiang says a pattern emerged.
SOLOMON
HSIANG, ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF PUBLIC POLICY, UC
Hsiang and Burke are now working to better understand the relationship between climate change and violence. They’re aware that many will treat their research with scepticism, but say they’re taking a cool, considered approach to an extremely hot topic.
August 30 Michael Nacht
was featured in the panel, “
September 12 Henry Brady, Dean of the
September 22 Robert Reich was featured on the “Political Roundtable” (This Week with George Stephanopoulos, ABC TV).
September 24 Robert Reich discusses his new documentary, On Point with Tom Ashbrook: “Robert Reich on Inequality” (WBUR Radio (Boston Public Radio); link to audio: http://onpoint.wbur.org/2013/09/24/robert-reich-on-inequality
To view a complete list
of GSPP videos, visit our Events Archive at: http://gspp.berkeley.edu/events/webcasts
Recent events viewable on UC Webcast: http://webcast.berkeley.edu/events.php?group=The+Richard+%26+Rhoda+Goldman+School+of+Public+Policy
If you would like further information
about any of the above, or hard copies of cited articles, we’d be happy to
provide them.
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