How bad is it? It’s so bad that I miss Newt Gingrich.
—Paul Krugman on the sorry state of the legislature, which he likens to the Sejm in 18th century Poland. Krugman laments, “Rules that used to be workable have become crippling now that one of the nation’s major political parties has descended into nihilism, seeing no harm — in fact, political dividends — in making the nation ungovernable.”
They need to get realistic that change is coming
—Chris Christie, of the NJ Educational Association, and his general attitude toward unions of government employees
You can’t just terminate a contract unilaterally. These are just recommendations. These aren’t on tablets coming down from the mountaintop.
In 1976 the New Jersey Supreme Court ruled that school district funding based on property taxes disadvantaged poor districts. The court ordered the state to raise supplemental revenues and provide “indirect property tax relief” to poorer districts. The decision spawned New Jersey’s income tax. Today, 78% of the fund supports 605 school districts, 31 court-designated low-income “Abbot districts” account for nearly half of these dollars. New Jersey’s 566 municipal governments receive 6%, and the remaining 15% is shared through homeowner rebates, such as the homestead act. Eileen Norcross notes the abysmal results of the system:
The fund has failed on all counts. Property taxes have risen every year since 1978. Homeowner rebates, averaging less than $1000 when distributed, do little to dull property tax pain. And in the meantime, the court has continued to monitor the Abbott districts, often with disastrous results. For example, a decision requiring poor school districts to spend as much per pupil as the wealthiest school district has transformed New Jersey’s income tax into an eight-bracket beast with a top rate of 10.75 percent on those earning over a million dollars a year.
In spite of this massive transfer of resources to poor districts, however, outcomes remain abysmal. Since 1998, Camden has received $2.8 billion for its schools and has spent close to $24,000 per pupil. Yet last year, just 18 percent of Camden’s 8th graders scored proficient in math. By contrast, Woodbridge Township has received $169 million in school aid over the period, spending a little more than $10,000 per pupil. Nearly 75 percent of Woodbridge’s middle school students met or exceeded proficiency in math.
In other words, is the crash over? Has the Great Recession come to an end? Are we now heading back, albeit slowly, to normal economic growth rates and rising assets? Or is this just the eye of the hurricane?
–WSJ, from an article on the resilience of the London housing market’s seemingly inflated prices
It will be like water off a duck’s back. They’re puzzled by the criticism. They think they should be praised for keeping their currency stable at a time of global turmoil.
–Nicholas R. Lardy, Peterson Institute for International Economics: NYT. As predicted, Ma Zhaoxu, a Foreign Ministry spokesman, would plead ignorance on Thurdays and say, “wrongful accusations and pressure will not help solve this issue….Judging from the international balance of payments and the currency market’s supply and demand, the value of the renminbi is getting to a reasonable and balanced level.”
Google and N.S.A. are entering into a secret agreement that could impact the privacy of millions of users of Google’s products and services around the world
—Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center: NYT. Rotenberg’s comments frame the announced agreement between the NSA and Google to review the security breach attributed to the Chinese government. Importantly, the selection of the NSA over the Department of Homeland Security would shield Google from further regulation as a part of the nation’s critical infrastructure. The investigation and partnership comes at a time when Dennis Blair, director of the Office of National Intelligence, and others have begun talking about a cyber pearl harbor, evoking the recent use of the term economic pearl harbor to describe the financial crisis. The relationship will technically follow the terms of the Federal Technology Transfer Act of 1986 and be known as a cooperative research and development agreement.
Upon requesting a fee schedule from the dean of the college, the latter would patiently explain that different prices had been negotiated with different parents and that all of those fees are proprietary information…
In his defense, the professor would further point out that his university is ringed by law firms eager to sue the faculty on behalf of parents, should their child still confuse Iraq with Iran or should a typographical error be found in their child’s finished and bound senior thesis — a total embarrassment if the neighbors discovered it upon being shown that opus by the proud parents.
If universities conducted their business in this fashion they, too, might provoke endless rancor and suspicion, endless lawsuits and, sooner or later, much government regulation on how they conduct their business. It may be the reason universities prefer to function like staff-model H.M.O.’s.
—Uwe Reinhardt, extrapolating a university model from the send-up on air-travel in the National Journal: NYT Economix
Case in point, via NYT, which showcases the pernicious role the word experimental has taken on in the health-insurance industry lexicon:
Maria Carr had a bone-spur on her hip and seeks arthroscopic surgery to stop the pain
UHC denies the claim, and the hospital bills $21,225
Carr researches the procedure, establishes that it’s not experimental, collects an attestation from her doctor, and fights the denial. Presumably, having failed to win approval from the internal board, it is sent an external review board: the procedure is not experimental if UHC or other Insurers paid for other patients to have it
UHC pays $12,282 for Carr’s claim, a rate that UHC had negotiated with the doctor and hospital, and Carr contributes $500
Carr conducted the process herself, but a cottage industry of billing advocates has sprung up around
A Good Home Water Filter Will Protect You From Drinking Human Feces, Chlorine, Lead, Pesticides, and Prescription Drugs
I don’t have any explanation for that. All I know is that one day I said to myself, ‘I think I’m a writer.’ I started making sentences I didn’t know I was capable of.
—Don DeLillo: NYT
sells itself again
Stilltitled 