Rich Free Riders?

Atlantic's April edition's Money Report discusses the relatively paltry charitable giving by the rich.  It turns out that the top 20 percent of earners in the U.S. give on average 1.3% of their income to charity, which all the rest of us subsidize through the charitable gift deduction in the internal revenue code.  The bottom 20% of U.S. earners contribute on average 3.2%, more than double the rich, despite not having any tax advantage in doing so.

Top Quote:

Last year, Paul Piff, a psychologist at UC Berkeley, published research that correlated wealth with an increase in unethical behavior: “While having money doesn’t necessarily make anybody anything,” Piff later told New York magazine, “the rich are way more likely to prioritize their own self-interests above the interests of other people.” They are, he continued, “more likely to exhibit characteristics that we would stereotypically associate with, say, assholes.”

A couple of thoughts:

1.   The New York Times yesterday spotlighted a new darling of the conservative right, Benjamin Carson, a talented neurosurgeon from Johns Hopkins.  One of Carson's contentions according to the article is that churches are better mechanisms for taking care of the poor than government.  But that approach would serve to let the rich "free-ride" as to the social compact moral people join for dealing with extreme poverty in the world.

2.   As an example of such a free-rider, I previously discussed the incredible generosity of another darling of the right, Paul Ryan, here.   Paul and Janna Ryan are free to do what they want with their hard-earned money.  But save us all the "devout Catholic" claim.

BLS' QCEW Shows Wisconsin in 42nd Place in Job Creation

Today the Bureau of Labor Statistics issued its Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW) for the second quarter of 2012.  The data compares employment numbers of each state on a year-to-year basis.  Thus, the data shows number of new jobs created from the end of the second quarter of 2011 to the end of the second quarter of 2012 for each state, the District of Columbia and two territories, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands.

 This is the data set that Governor Walker's administration calls the gold standard for measuring the success of his private job creation initiatives.  In raw numbers, the private jobs created in Wisconsin over the one year from June 30, 2011 to June 30, 2012, is not an abysmal number, 35,381.  However, the number equates to private job creation over the Governor's four year term of only about 140,000, well shy of his promise to create 250,000 private sector jobs in his first term.

What is more troubling is how Wisconsin stacks up against the other fifty states in percentage annual growth, and particularly with our Midwest neighbors.  In Q2 of 2012, based on year-to-year employment numbers, Wisconsin ranked 42nd out of 50 states in percentage growth of private jobs.  All of our Midwest neighbors ranked higher:

Indiana       - 8th
Michigan    - 9th
Ohio          - 18th
Iowa          - 25th
Minnesota  - 31st
Illinois        - 38th

To date, there have been three quarterly reports of the QCEW issued by BLA covering full year periods of the Walker Administration.  For the fourth quarter of 2011, we ranked 38th of all states in job creation on an annual percentage basis.  For the first quarter of 2012, we ranked 37th.  And today we rank 42nd.  So we are regressing vis-a-vis the other states in job creation over time during the Walker administration.

By contrast, here is our standing among the fifty states during the last four quarters of the Doyle Administration, based on year-to-year percentage increase results:

Q4 2010 - 11th  (Only Michigan and Indiana out-performed Wisconsin in the Midwest.)
Q3 2010 - 21st
Q2 2010 - 20th
Q1 2010 - 26th

The Doyle Administration was showing steady improvement in job creation compared to the other fifty states during the last four quarters of its term in office.  The Walker Administration has trended the other way, losing ground compared to the other states, and ranking dead last in the Midwest.

If we were going to issue the Walker Administration a letter grade on job creation, it would probably have to be a D. 

Something Completely Different

U.S. troops in Afghanistan having fun with a remix tribute to the Miami Dolphin Cheerleaders:

"Proctology Exams?" No need without A-holes.

A few comments from leaders on the right in response to November 6th:

Bobby Jindal, Governor of Louisiana and next Chairman of the Republican Governor's Association:

We’ve got to make sure that we are not the party of big business, big banks, big Wall Street bailouts, big corporate loopholes, big anything.  We cannot be, we must not be, the party that simply protects the rich so they get to keep their toys.

It is no secret we had a number of Republicans damage our brand this year with offensive, bizarre comments — enough of that. It’s not going to be the last time anyone says something stupid within our party, but it can’t be tolerated within our party. We’ve also had enough of this dumbed-down conservatism. We need to stop being simplistic, we need to trust the intelligence of the American people and we need to stop insulting the intelligence of the voters.”

This guy is a Rhodes Scholar.  He deserves to be listened to.

Bill Kristol, Weekly Standard editor, on Fox News Sunday the Sunday following Obama re-election:

I think honest debate, fresh thinking, leadership in the Republican party and the leadership in the conservative movement has to pull back, let people float new ideas. Let’s have a serious debate. Don’t scream and yell over what one person says.  You know what?  It won't kill the country if Republicans raise taxes a little bit on millionaires.  It really won't, I don't think.

I don’t really understand why Republicans don’t take Obama’s offer to freeze taxes for everyone below $250,000. Make it $500,000, make it a million. Really?  The Republican party is gonna fall on its sword to defend a bunch of millionaires, half of whom voted Democrat, and half of whom live in Hollywood and are hostile to Republicans?

Haley Barbour, former Governor of Mississippi and former RNC chairman:

The ground game is really important, and we have to be, I mean we've got to give our political organizational activity a very serious...Proctology exam. We need to look everywhere.

 Barbour, speaking about immigration reform:

What are we going to do? Send them home? Send five million people home and then try to figure out how to replace them? We need those people to do those jobs

Was 2010 the high water mark of the Tea Party movement?

Dank Shot. No, not dunk shot. Dank Shot.

Zlatan Ibrahimovic's amazing goal in Sweden - England friendly last Wednesday:



Liverpool's Steven Gerrard, earning his 100th cap for England in the game, called it the best goal he had ever seen.

The New York Times was inspired by Ibrahimovic's goal to put together a retrospective of great goals over the years. I am partial to Zidane's. But Maradona's is considered the best ever by most.

The Wisconsin Nine: Helping to Demonstrate Why the Republican Party is The Party of the Unbalanced.

Chris Kapenga, Republican State Assemblyman from Deerfield.






To paraphrase Mark Twain:  "Politicians are not merely food for laughter, they are an entire banquet."

Nine Wisconsin GOP legislators want to introduce a bill to have arrested any federal officials who enter the state of Wisconsin to help implement the Affordable Care Act.   That is just the tip of the iceberg of new legislation the nine are proposing.  At least one of them, Chris Kapenga, of Deerfield, apparently takes the position the ACA is unconstitutional, notwithstanding the decision in National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius.  Heaven only knows where Mr. Kapenga was back in June, when the Supreme Court ruled.  Here is what he had to say this week: "Just because Obama was re-elected does not mean he's above the constitution,"  Hopefully two years from now the citizens of Deerfield and other communities in his district will give some serious thought to whether Mr. Kapenga is intelligent enough to ably serve their interests in the assembly.  None of the nine has indicated whether they intend the legislation to mandate the president's arrest if he chooses to come visit the Badger State again. 

These nine devoutly dumb legislators are among the latest in a long string of bizarre folks the GOP has given us to lead at the local, state and federal level.  Until more mature and prominent leaders of the GOP are willing to promptly call out these kinds of folks for talking as if they have the intelligence of rocks, even at the risk of offending the far right base of the party, the Republican party can expect to have many more election nights like November 6 in the future. 

So what did Governor Walker or the leadership of the Senate or Assembly have to say about the silliness of the nine?  No statement was issued by Scott Fitzgerald or Robin Vos.  New Assembly speaker Vos was too busy threatening to cut UW-Madison funding for hosting President Obama's rally last month.  The best Governor Walker was willing to do was to parade out a spokesman on Thursday to say: "Governor Walker doesn’t support arresting people for implementing federal law.”   Gee, I'm glad we got that reassurance.

The GOP will continue its downward spiral  if its party leaders continue to refuse to rebuke the kind of crazed rhetoric that continues to issue from its elected officials and its Tea Party base.  Here are some recent examples of the craziness:

Alan West, Republican congressman from Florida who has refused to concede defeat in the 2012 election, at an April town-hall meeting of constituents:

"That’s a fair question. I believe there’s about 78 to 81 members of the Democratic Party that are members of the Communist Party,"

Joe Walsh, Republican congressman from Illinois who was defeated by Tammy Duckworth last Tuesday:

"Abortions are absolutely never necessary to save the lives of pregnant women.  With modern technology and science, you can't find one instance." "There is no such exception as life of the mother, and as far as health of the mother, same thing."

Paul Broun, Republican congressman from Georgia, whom the party caucus named to the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology, speaking at a church gathering last month:

"God's word is true, I've come to understand that. All that stuff I was taught about evolution and embryology and Big Bang theory, all that is lies straight from the pit of hell."

The folks in Athens, Georgia, where the University of Georgia is located, knowing that Broun was a shoe-in based on the electorate outside Athens, mounted a campaign to have Charles Darwin receive write-in votes.  The  British scientist now dead for 130 years, received some 4,000 votes.  I marveled in a previous post over a year ago about Representative Broun.

The Republican State Senate Caucus in Georgia (group inanity award!) had a four-hour briefing at a closed door meeting on the following topic:

How President Obama is using a Cold War-era mind-control technique known as "Delphi" to coerce Americans into accepting his plan for a United Nations-run communist dictatorship in which suburbanites will be forcibly relocated to cities . . . and prescribing mandatory contraception as a means of curbing population growth.

This doesn't even begin to touch the zaniness about climate change issuing from right-wing politicians. A topic for a future post perhaps.

Not Mississippi, but Darn Close. Wisconsin is 47th in Economic Growth Since January 2011

Here is the pledge Governor Walker made at the start of his inaugural address:

And as your Governor, I make this pledge:

Wisconsin is open for business. We will work tirelessly to restore economic growth and vibrancy to our state. My top three priorities are jobs, jobs, and jobs.

We will right-size state government by ensuring government is providing only the essential services our citizens need and taxpayers can afford. My fellow state workers, I invite you to partner with me in this necessary work.

Reasonable minds might differ on whether the governor has achieved his promise to "right-size" state government.  But it is difficult to find any indication that the governor's policies have restored economic growth and vibrancy to Wisconsin.

This past Tuesday the Philadelphia Federal Reserve Bank issued its Coincident Index for each of the fifty states for September 2012.   The coincident index is a measure of the growth of state economies.  Since Governor Walker's inauguration in January the economies of the fifty states taken as a group have grown at a rate six times the rate of growth of Wisconsin's economy.  Here is how Wisconsin's economic growth rate compares to our Midwestern neighbors over the twenty months since the governor came to office:




So Wisconsin's rate of economic growth is less than one-tenth that of Ohio,  less than one-eighth of Indiana's, and one-fifth of Illinois'.    Only three states have had slower rates of economic growth since January 2011:  Alaska, Delaware and Mississippi.  Remember back in February and March of last year when protestors around the state capitol in Madison carried signs accusing the governor of trying to remake Wisconsin into the Mississippi of the Midwest, "Wississippi?"  Well, we aren't Mississippi on the Philly Fed's Coincident Index.  We beat them out by one one hundredths of a percent!!