Rolling US Economy Into The Shitbin Thread

that looks like its a share from a paywall that'll go away soon, so here are some links from inside:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lennard-davis/npr-reporter-chana-joffew_b_2971443.html
http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/planet-money-misses-the-boat-on-social-security-disability
http://mediamatters.org/research/2013/03/22/this-american-life-features-error-riddled-story/193215

http://observer.com/2012/08/adam-davidson-planet-money-media-ethics-08092012/
http://www.fair.org/blog/2012/08/17/at-npr-you-can-take-money-from-banks-just-dont-protest-them/
http://mediamatters.org/authors/hannah-groch-begley/188

piece had problems but the idea that it was due to NPR being paid off by banks is lol

the present is full of doom if the elites have turned your life to shit

yeah I've been following the kerfuffle over that piece. I had missed some of the more problematic statements in the planet money version that I think were absent from the TAL version (stuff along the lines of "SSI Disability is not achieving its mission and is failing" or whatever. That's bullshit. But I also think the reaction is missing a lot of the insights of the piece and reading stuff in that's not there (e.g. I didn't actually hear anything that suggested "moral turpitude" of the beneficiaries). I thought the point of the piece was largely that the economy has fucked these people and left them with little option other than to seek SSI disability, which seems to be exactly the point that people taking issue with the piece are also making. So IDGI.

i think the open question the piece left (tho it had a heavy bias) is if most ppl going on SSI were in fact disabled. It left itself open to the 'freeloaders off the guvment' interpretation, although there was obviously more interesting stuff going on.

https://www.nsfwcorp.com

?

well the bigger picture is 'in fact disabled' is not really a y/n thing

a constantly evolving interpretation of the word disabled is a very good thing in a country w/ no other long-term safety net for people under 62. it seems like it could evolve into a min guaranteed income over time. that's what I got out of the piece but you can very easily read the gd-freeloaders stuff in there. it was kinda all over the place, but def not a conspiracy by npr-funding banks.

i think heard all of the pm version, my thought at the time was that it did a not terrible job of pointing to a big structural problem, with a predictable, misleading side portion of disablility fraud. i wished it pointed out more explicitly that if all people had reliable healthcare coverage, much of the conflict between employment and disability qualification would be resolved.

the nsfw thing is interesting to know. i'm so used to finance's capture of journamalism everything, i just kind of -_- right by that shit.

I don't think the piece necessarily suggested it was fraud when people w/ no other options ended up on disability but if somebody wanted to read that into it, it wouldn't be hard

again tho the idea that finance 'captured journalism' here is just so lol, oh yeah ally bank has it out for people collecting disability

My first alert to the disabilities piece was the few right-wingers on my FB feed posting it, so I had an idea what to expect going in. But I thought the reporting was more fair and nuanced than the left-wing critics are making it out to be. I mean, it's the kind of piece where everybody's going to hear what they want to hear, but it did point out that for a lot of people, non-physical labor is not really an option. I'm including most service sector jobs in physical labor: standing on your feet, stocking shelves, running cash registers are all things that are hard to do with any kind of chronic physical condition. And it might not make anyone comfortable to note out that for a lot of families, getting a kid on disability is a way to get much-needed money, but it being uncomfortable doesn't make it untrue. (I am personally fine with people in need receiving assistance to help with their disabled kids, even if the disabilities are learning disabilities or whatever. But in any case, you can't have an honest discussion about it without acknowledging the incentives the system creates.)

i think the argt is more subtle, or at least there's a more subtle argt to be had w/r/t capture, which isn't about conspiracy theories or the like, but more about ongoing questionable deals w/r/t conflict-of-interest/disclosure/journos-too-close-to-topic stuff, and if there's an element where the consistently most ideologically libertarian segment on npr (which i guess this is, dunno?) happens to be the one solely funded by a single big bank, then it at least should be pointed out and make you go 'hmmm'.

financial reporting is one of the few forms of journalism left that actually make money (for proprietors, for journalists themselves) i.e. reuters' "normal" reporting is a loss-leader for their energy, bond, equity etc reporting; not too weird to think that shifts the agenda a little bit

it's Thompson Reuters now so it's probably all a loss leader for expensive legal compliance products like the one my dad edits.

you could also levy a variant of the journalistic capture stuff at sorkin at the times, for example, and certainly at nocera.

the article was written by this woman:
http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2009/05/who_am_i_and_where_did_i_come.html

I started in radio volunteering as a host and news writer at a outside Seattle. After that I spent several years of late nights learning from the generous people at , and NPR. I covered education, business and technology for Seattle's local stations and for and NPR. I also did a brief, really fascinating stint covering rural issues in central Washington state for the Northwest News Network

is it possible that she has been captured by banking interests? that her editors put stuff in because the piece wasn't right-wing enough? sure. I guess. I think it's more likely that she's a nice person who was just a little too ambitious w/ this, didn't even understand the extent that she was making a piece w/ any ideological bent and ended up w/ an article on a good subject but with an incoherent thesis.

I mean banks have more to gain from a huge underclass receiving disability checks than a huge underclass starving to death so it doesn't even make sense as a conspiracy

finance is a lot more than banks. ally is an interesting example in that it would seem gmac would have a different market bias. as i recall, they also suspended lobbying efforts for a while due to the federal bailout.

also, shit happening in the open while youre not really inclined or able to pay attention is not a conspiracy, really.

ending or reducing disability payments is certainly in line with right wing interests generally, which I think where the suspicion comes from. Anyone anti-tax might hate them. Anyone with interest in having a larger labor force (and hence one with less bargaining power) might them. That doesn't necessarily mean it makes sense to make the leap from "right wing interests" to ally bank here.

the args made aren't about this piece per-se, but the general bent of these segments, and the more damning stuff i think is about the warren interview (which npr actually apologized for), etc.

http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3388/3549254829_f873f0e515.jpg

^ captured by global banking interests or just not good at writing articles, which seems more likely

it's much commented on, but I did groan a lot at the "she literally didn't know about any jobs where you can sit down!" part. I think it's more likely that the woman didn't know about any jobs SHE COULD DO where you can sit down, it's not like she never saw an office on TV or something. Possibly symptomatic of a larger naivete in the reporter, although exaggerated faux-naivete seems to be an NPR style thing so it's hard to tell.

ffs 'capture' doesn't mean you sit in a smoke filled room or take secret payola or etc. it means yr. writing stories in an editorial and intellectual climate where certain sorts of ideas are taken for granted and certain sorts of angles are considered 'provocative' or 'balanced' when they're not.

its basically a variant of the sort of fake-non-middle-consensus that al3x p. writes about in his hack list coverage.

yes, capture can result from a failure of judgment, rather than probity alone.

There has been a lot of reporting about precarity and benefits lately. I didn't entirely get a 'right wing' vibe from her piece, though it was occasionally cringe-worthy, but more of a 'the economy sucks and people at the bottom are getting royally screwed' vibe.

from what I can tell the people running planet money have much of a background in this kinda stuff and are basically just learning this on the fly. their 'intellectual climate' is bad public radio.

don't have much*

iater otm repeatedly

iateE

There has been a lot of reporting about precarity and benefits lately. I didn't entirely get a 'right wing' vibe from her piece, though it was occasionally cringe-worthy, but more of a 'the economy sucks and people at the bottom are getting royally screwed' vibe.

― But I'm having so much foehn! (Michael White), Thursday, April 4, 2013 1:44 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah this. my big takeaway was "this is a symptom of there not being jobs for people without college-level skills and educations" not "disability is fucked up"

it is so incredibly unbelievably hard to get on disability anyway I have a hard time believing it's being widely abused. when my wife had cancer she was denied twice.

!!!

My wife was approved on the 1st try and I still am not entirely sure what I did right. I know there's a whole industry of disability lawyers and advisors who do disability applications as their main (only?) gig.

It can be harder or easier to get on disability depending on the circumstances. Many, many people with cancer are not on disability -- it depends on the diagnosis (including prognosis) and treatment.

The problem with disability from a doctor's perspective (mine) is that it's not a black/white yes/no thing. There are obvious cases of paralysis, organ failure, cognitive impairment etc, but there are also (and in my experience as a neurologist, many more) subjective cases of various sorts of chronic pain, chronic fatigue, and/or chronic psychiatric symptoms.

It is not true that everyone with subjective symptoms can function without disability under ideal circumstances, but some of them can and will continue to work if the circumstances permit or require. You might say, "but should they have to?", and you would have a point, but at the very least it's true that someone who continues working *can* work, and isn't disabled in the sense that they *literally can't* continue. From my experience, a significant recent increase in disability claims at a time of limited economic opportunities probably represents the change in circumstances more than any more specific change in medical realities (except inasmuch as medical diagnoses are made in part by description of subjective factors, etc).

As doctors we are trained to diagnose and treat diseases and symptoms but we do not have any specific training (beyond human experience) in deciding if someone is able to put up with a given situation, or for how long. If someone tells me their headaches are so severe that they can't work (I hear this often as a neurologist, and usually from patients not doing manual labour), there is no specific way in which I can judge that self-assessment as true or false. I can point out that many people continue to work (with occasional sick days, which are better provided in Canada than in the US I believe) with chronic headaches, and that there is evidence that staying off disability is a good prognostic factor for long term reduction of symptoms and maintenance of function at work and at home (but which is cause and which is effect here?), and of course I will try to treat the headaches and improve the pattern of symptoms -- but in the meantime, even as a specialist, who am I to say if the patient is in fact disabled?

One would have to be the most woolly-headed bleeding heart to believe that patients would never under any circumstances (even when sincerely mistaken about their own capacities) tell their physician that they are not capable of continuing to work even when they are in fact capable (as judged by them continuing to work if disability is denied -- as many claims are, after which many/most patients IME do in fact continue working). Even if we take away the idea of deliberate fraud, the disability from subjective symptoms (including many forms of chronic pain, even when attributed to an underlying illness or injury) is by definition a state of mind (which is not to say the problem is imaginary, "not real", not a big deal, or something that should be easily fixable). And subjective states are impossible to adjudicate objectively, by anyone.

The best uses of disability in my experience are for short term, resolving problems (injuries, monophasic illnesses), or for chronic static (like mental retardation, cerebral palsy, spinal cord injury, post-stroke paralysis, etc) or chronic progressive (like dementia, ALS, advanced MS, metastatic cancer, COPD, heart failure, etc) diseases. When the condition is subjective (pain of various types, psychiatric symptoms), and/or when the natural history of the condition involves considerable variability over the years (IBS for example), long-term disability is a poor match for the medical situation.

Disability claims typically require the doctor to describe the state of disability and the prognosis for recovery. With most of the subjective / variable conditions, the best description of the disability is the patient's own report and the prognosis is uncertain, but carries the possibility of considerable improvement (patients with hundreds of migraines a year in their 20s sometimes have no headaches at all in their 40s for instance). At the same time, many people with chronic pain or chronic psychiatric conditions never improve and are in fact disabled indefinitely. And there is no clear way to tell ahead of time which is which, and there is good reason to worry (as a doctor responsible for trying to help people get better, not as a sociologist or political type) that having them plan to never go back to work again can be detrimental to the very syndrome that brought them to the point of not working in the first place.

And then there's the problem with a social / political / economic dysfunction being managed primarily through the prism of medical diagnosis and treatment, but that's another rant...

Bottom line: it's definitely a good thing that disability insurance exists. It's an important social good that people suffering from chronic diseases or injuries have a safety net. But long-term disability for chronic subjective syndromes, including pain, is a complicated situation, with real downsides. That those downsides can be exploited for political gain by right wingers does not mean they do not exist.

excellent post, ty

different subject but:
http://www.deptofnumbers.com/affordability/us/

this lends support to one of my pet issues/theories about the economy, i.e. that we are still overinflating housing with QE and low rates, and that we should be allowing home prices to fall back to affordability

http://tinyurl.com/c6ogwsy

sorry, that's the "home price to income index ratio" with green being case-shiller, blue being fhfa, and 100 being set at january 2000 levels

I happen to agree with you, but the difficulty is that monetary policy (QE and low rates) cannot control the particular uses to which an increased money supply is put. A financial policy (gov spending or capital controls) could direct money into other economic sectors, but Congress is controlled by idealogues who will not use financial policy in this way, because that would entail 'interference with markets'.

I actually think they are quite deliberately "interfering" in the housing market, for misguided reasons. I mean, it's sort of a case of bailing out one group of homeowners (those who bought during the runup to the crisis especially) on the backs of another (people trying to buy homes now). The people entering the market now are facing either (1) higher prices coupled with lower future price appreciation (as rates will eventually increase) or (2) inflated rents as more people than usual are in the rental market, since they can't buy. A much preferable, but hard to work alternative imo would have been greater efforts at haircutting existing mortgages and/or forcing short sales -- make the banks/lenders/mortgageholders take the hit. A third option would be just letting more people default, -- a harsh option to be sure, but I wonder if it would inflict less pain in the long run, especially in non-recourse states (i.e. the borrower loses his home but gets a clean slate). But there are also all the residual effects of foreclosures and whatnot, so IDK. Maybe they picked the best of bad options.

not gonna argue this again, but the whole point of QE is you do it when you can't drive rates any lower, so i really don't think its been driving up housing prices.

mainly i suspect the banks are just sitting on supply.

and low rates in housing also aren't necc an artifact of govt intervention, even though they were a stated goal.

and furthermore its hard to argue that low rates cut against homeownership, since on their own they make owning more affordable, not less.

Hmm, realize only after posting my rant has little to do with the US economy. We should maybe have a rolling medicine and society thread?

and furthermore its hard to argue that low rates cut against homeownership, since on their own they make owning more affordable, not less.

― s.clover, Thursday, April 4, 2013 6:04 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Home affordability is determined by monthly ownership cost. Low rates mean you can afford "more house" in dollar value, but the result is that they're likely to exert upward pressure on prices -- the monthly amount someone can afford hasn't actually changed. OTOH, this shouldn't necessarily make housing less affordable either, I suppose, except by pushing up the amount of down payment needed (although low down payment loans like FHA should be taking care of some of this).

maybe putting lazy freeloading kids to work will fix the economy?

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/04/04/school-forces-25-hungry-students-to-throw-away-lunches-when-they-couldnt-pay/

MA, bastion of liberal thought

maybe to deal with the crisis, we need monetary and fiscal stimulus, to induce those who aren’t too deeply indebted to spend more while the debtors are cutting back?

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/05/opinion/Krugman-The-Urge-To-Purge.html?ref=opinion&_r=0

The Locust Economy
http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2013/04/03/the-locust-economy/

from the comments:

...Work tends to fall into one of two categories. Concave work means that the input/output curve– the relationship between factors like talent, skill, effort, morale, and wage level; and productivity– is concave, so the difference between noncompliance and mediocrity is large but that between mediocrity and excellence is insubstantial. It’s low-risk, mundane work where mediocrity is acceptable. Concave work built the large middle class of 1925-2000. Convex labor’s the opposite: the difference between mediocrity and excellence is huge (“10x programmer”) and that between mediocrity and noncompliance is small. It means you probably shouldn’t show up to work if you’re going to be mediocre; you probably won’t get a job in the first place. The implications for job security, education, and employment are *vast* and I really think that Convexity is *the* economic problem of the 21st century. It’s *why* we will never again see a society where everyone between 18 and 65 can get paid work at a living wage. (We’ll need to implement basic income at some point, but I wouldn’t hold my breath, given the US political climate.)

Software isn’t eating “the world”. It’s eating the concave commodity work that just happened to be 90+ percent of paid wage work in the industrial era, and 99+ percent of the work for where there’s *regular* pay. (Convex work is highly sensitive to small differences in performance that the concave world could ignore.) It comes down to this. Convex labor is work where the “saturation point” is so far out that no one has found it yet. It’s so far away to the right that the logistic (“S-curve” in what they call it in Econ 1o1 to avoid scaring future investment bankers with math, but that’s what it is– a logistic) looks like an exponential curve. The work is very hard, but if you do it well, the rewards are extreme, and no one knows yet what the upper limit is. With concave work, we know what perfect completion is. If we know perfect completion, we can specify it. If we can specify it, we’re either able to program it, or it’s a field of active machine learning research. Software isn’t eating “the World”. There will be plenty of World left. It’s just eating all of the concave labor on which the risk-intolerant middle class (who fall into poverty if a few paychecks fail) relies. We can’t compete with machines. We thought *cab driving* (concave labor that required humans until recently) would always be done by people. We’d have said the same thing about sorting mail (optical character recognition) in 1985. Yeah, about that…

what is the point of progress when progress means fewer and fewer people can afford to live?

that dude's comment is a lot better than the ribbonfarm blog itself, which is mostly just fluff

That's an excellent comment, but it leaves something out -- it's not just a matter of mediocrity and excellence, but one of access. There will continue to be jobs of the executive sort where mediocre people can thrive, but in order to have a shot at those jobs you have to have the kind of background and millieu that gives you access to them. Broadening inequality, skyrocketing education costs, etc. are raising the barriers for anyone not from a wealthy, well-connected background. The "mediocre" children of "excellent" software entrepreneurs will continue to be fine.