Late Night: Prop H8

I am angry, upset, furious, baffled and shocked by the Supreme Court of California ruling that upholds Proposition 8. In the long run, the ruling is not about same sex marriage, or if "opposite marriage" is the only morally correct form of marriage, but[...]

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http://lafiga.firedoglake.com/2009/05/26/late-night-prop-h8/

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The Changing Face of Homelessness

The stereotypical image of homelessness is a disheveled man, clutching a bottle of cheap wine in a[...]

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http://www.everydaycitizen.com/2009/05/the_changing_face_of_homelessn.html

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Iowa recognizes all California marriages

I was so sorry to hear today's news out of California. While I have no doubt that a future referendum will reverse Prop 8, that process will take years and resources that could have been spent organizing in other states. Couples left in legal limbo[...]

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http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/mydd/~3/VzHg5x62VGY/857

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Nevada Governor Refuses A Meet and Greet With
Obama

Nevada Governor Jim Gibbons is holding a grudge against Barack Obama:

The White House offered Gibbons the chance to greet Obama after he lands tomorrow evening for a fundraiser at Caesar’s Palace for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. But Gibbons, a Republican, declined because he was insulted by a comment the president had made about Vegas a few months ago, although he says he’s asked Obama to meet with him “to discuss improving tourism and business travel to Nevada.”

“While I appreciate the offer, I am not interested in a handshake and a hello from President Obama, I am interested in an apology and plan to undo the damage the President did,” Gibbons said in a statement posted on his Web site.

“Working families are suffering because of the President’s remarks."

At issue is a comment Obama made in February:

“We’re going to do something to strengthen the banking system," Mr. Obama said, “You are not going to be able to give out these big bonuses until you pay taxpayers back. You can't get corporate jets. You can't go take a trip to Las Vegas or go down to the Super Bowl on the taxpayers' dime. There's got to be some accountability and some responsibility.”

So there you have it. Three months ago, the tourism industry in Las Vegas was humming until Obama said bankers weren't going to be able to take luxury junkets on the taxpayers dime, which naturally meant that every Joe and Jane Q. Public who were packing their bags for Vegas, cancelled their trip. Or not.

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http://feeds.dailykos.com/~r/dailykos/index/~3/fnZPWN2pJMk/-Nevada-Governor-Refus
es-A-Meet-and-Greet-With-Obama

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Grandmother of World's 23rd Best Economist
Posthumously Offeneded by Sonia Sotomayor's Spending Habits; Will Obama Withdraw Nomination

Andrew has already alluded to this, but Greg Mankiw, a conservative blogger and Harvard economist whom I've sparred with in the past, has this to say about Supreme Court Nominee Sonia Sotomayor:

I once wrote a short paper called The Savers-Spenders Theory of Fiscal Policy based on the premise that there are two types of people: Some save and intertemporally optimize their consumption plans, while others live paycheck to paycheck, spending their entire income as soon as it's received.[...]

Apparently, the new Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor is an example of the latter. The Washington Post reports that the 54-year-old Sotomayer has a $179,500 yearly salary but

On her financial disclosure report for 2007, she said her only financial holdings were a Citibank checking and savings account, worth $50,000 to $115,000 combined. During the previous four years, the money in the accounts at some points was listed as low as $30,000.

My grandmother would have been shocked and appalled to see someone who makes so much save so little.

While admittedly, the She's-just-Sonia-from-the-Bronx narrative has already grown a bit tiresome, Mankiw's critique is a bizarre on several levels. For one thing, while a $179,000-per-year income is quite a lot wherever one lives, it doesn't go as far in New York City as in almost any other place. State taxes in New York are pretty high for the upper income brackets, and New York City also charges a city tax of 3.648%. As a single filer, Sotomayor's income tax burden, counting her federal nut, is probably something like $65,000.

In addition, New York City is an expensive place to live: particularly on the Island of Manhattan, and even more particularly in the West Village neighborhood where Sotomayor has her apartment. The average price of a two-bedroom rental apartment apartment in a doorman building in Greenwich Villiage is $5,396 per month, or about $65,000 per year. (Sotomayor, from what I can gather, in fact still rents her space). So considering her tax bill and the cost of her apartment, Sotomayor is down to "only" about $50,000 in disposable income per year. A single person can certainly live very well on that sort of income -- even in Manhattan -- but would probably not live what we'd ordinarily consider an extravagant lifestyle. It would be quite easy to spend a good chunk of that $50,000 on utilities, transport, groceries, and extra medical care (Sotomayor is diabetic); throw in a couple of nice meals out every month, tickets to a dozen Yankees games each year, and maybe a week's worth of vacation, and you're not going to have a whole heck of a lot left over. And of course, if one is generous with one's friends, or gives money to one's extended family or to charity, the money will go even faster. Sure, it's a pretty full life. But it's not likely that Sotomayor is downing bottles of Cristal and snorting coke in the bathroom every Friday at Hotel Gansevoort, or having four-martini lunches with the Sex and the City girls at Bryant Park.

What makes Mankiw's argument even sillier, however, is that it reflects a lack of understanding of the very thing that he, as the World's 23rd Best Economist*, ought to know very well: incentives. What are a person's incentives to save, rather than spend, money? The four basic ones are usually these:

1. To protect against downside in one's income, particularly the risk of being fired.
2. To save for retirement.
3. To save for one's family and children.
4. To save for an expensive purchase, such as a home or a nice car.

Nos. 1-3 don't really apply to Sotomayor. With the possible exception of being a tenured professor at Harvard, few positions offer more job and income security than that of a justice on the Federal Circuit Court; Sotomayor would have to be impeached by the House and found guilty by the Senate to lose her job, something which has happened only a handful of times in American History. Sotomayor's federal pension is undoubtedly very generous, rendering #2 somewhat moot, particularly as she could also stand to make a significant "post-retirement" income in private practice or on the lecture circuit. And she does not have a children or a husband to support. It would be quite irrational if she had half a million dollars collecting dust and 0.01% interest in her Chase checking account.

Perhaps Mankiw's grandmother would find her more virtuous if she were saving up for a Lexus or a summer home in the Hamptons, but that doesn't seem to be her cup of tea. Her one real indulgence is the apartment she keeps in the West Village. Although virtually anywhere that would be a reasonable commute from her courtroom in Lower Manhattan would be relatively expensive, she could save a bit by living in the Financial District or perhaps in Brooklyn. But Mankiw, who lives in a zip code where the median price of a house is 1.65 million dollars, should not exactly be throwing stones from his undoubtedly very charming, New England Colonial home.


* Barry Julian Eichengreen, who recently surpassed him in the rankings, should not be expecting any Christmas Cards from the Mankiw family!

Read The Full Article:
http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/05/grandmother-of-worlds-23rd-best.html

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Grandmother of World's 23rd Best Economist
Posthumously Offended by Sonia Sotomayor's Spending Habits; Will Obama Withdraw Nomination

Andrew has already alluded to this, but Greg Mankiw, a conservative blogger and Harvard economist whom I've sparred with in the past, has this to say about Supreme Court Nominee Sonia Sotomayor:

I once wrote a short paper called The Savers-Spenders Theory of Fiscal Policy based on the premise that there are two types of people: Some save and intertemporally optimize their consumption plans, while others live paycheck to paycheck, spending their entire income as soon as it's received.[...]

Apparently, the new Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor is an example of the latter. The Washington Post reports that the 54-year-old Sotomayer has a $179,500 yearly salary but

On her financial disclosure report for 2007, she said her only financial holdings were a Citibank checking and savings account, worth $50,000 to $115,000 combined. During the previous four years, the money in the accounts at some points was listed as low as $30,000.

My grandmother would have been shocked and appalled to see someone who makes so much save so little.

While admittedly, the She's-just-Sonia-from-the-Bronx narrative has already grown a bit tiresome, Mankiw's critique is a bizarre on several levels. For one thing, while a $179,000-per-year income is quite a lot wherever one lives, it doesn't go as far in New York City as in almost any other place. State taxes in New York are pretty high for the upper income brackets, and New York City also charges a city tax of 3.648%. As a single filer, Sotomayor's income tax burden, counting her federal nut, is probably something like $65,000.

In addition, New York City is an expensive place to live: particularly on the Island of Manhattan, and even more particularly in the West Village neighborhood where Sotomayor has her apartment. The average price of a two-bedroom rental apartment apartment in a doorman building in Greenwich Villiage is $5,396 per month, or about $65,000 per year. (Sotomayor, from what I can gather, in fact still rents her space). So considering her tax bill and the cost of her apartment, Sotomayor is down to "only" about $50,000 in disposable income per year. A single person can certainly live very well on that sort of income -- even in Manhattan -- but would probably not live what we'd ordinarily consider an extravagant lifestyle. It would be quite easy to spend a good chunk of that $50,000 on utilities, transport, groceries, and extra medical care (Sotomayor is diabetic); throw in a couple of nice meals out every month, tickets to a dozen Yankees games each year, and maybe a week's worth of vacation, and you're not going to have a whole heck of a lot left over. And of course, if one is generous with one's friends, or gives money to one's extended family or to charity, the money will go even faster. Sure, it's a pretty full life. But it's not likely that Sotomayor is downing bottles of Cristal and snorting coke in the bathroom every Friday at Hotel Gansevoort, or having four-martini lunches with the Sex and the City girls at Bryant Park.

What makes Mankiw's argument even sillier, however, is that it reflects a lack of understanding of the very thing that he, as the World's 23rd Best Economist*, ought to know very well: incentives. What are a person's incentives to save, rather than spend, money? The four basic ones are usually these:

1. To protect against downside in one's income, particularly the risk of being fired.
2. To save for retirement.
3. To save for one's family and children.
4. To save for an expensive purchase, such as a home or a nice car.

Nos. 1-3 don't really apply to Sotomayor. With the possible exception of being a tenured professor at Harvard, few positions offer more job and income security than that of a justice on the Federal Circuit Court; Sotomayor would have to be impeached by the House and found guilty by the Senate to lose her job, something which has happened only a handful of times in American History. Sotomayor's federal pension is undoubtedly very generous, rendering #2 somewhat moot, particularly as she could also stand to make a significant "post-retirement" income in private practice or on the lecture circuit. And she does not have a children or a husband to support. It would be quite irrational if she had half a million dollars collecting dust and 0.01% interest in her Chase checking account.

Perhaps Mankiw's grandmother would find her more virtuous if she were saving up for a Lexus or a summer home in the Hamptons, but that doesn't seem to be her cup of tea. Her one real indulgence is the apartment she keeps in the West Village. Although virtually anywhere that would be a reasonable commute from her courtroom in Lower Manhattan would be relatively expensive, she could save a bit by living in the Financial District or perhaps in Brooklyn. But Mankiw, who lives in a zip code where the median price of a house is 1.65 million dollars, should not exactly be throwing stones from his undoubtedly very charming, New England Colonial home.


* Barry Julian Eichengreen, who recently surpassed him in the rankings, should not be expecting any Christmas Cards from the Mankiw family!

Read The Full Article:
http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/05/grandmother-of-worlds-23rd-best.html

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All In

Robert Reich on Sotomayor and whether Republicans will take the gamble.[...]

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http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Talking-Points-Memo/~3/fNdLxXHD89k/all_in_1.php

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A First I Never Thought About Seeing

Growing up in a black, Pentecostal family in Cleveland, Alysa Stanton never imagined the day when[...]

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http://www.everydaycitizen.com/2009/05/a_first_i_never_thought_about.html

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Deep Thought

I'm glad we're in the post-racial era so we can get on to discussing whether Judge Sotomayor is a luke-warm IQ affirmative action hire. [...]

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http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Talking-Points-Memo/~3/7yIYywV8NN8/deep_thought_82
.php

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Iraq TV: Squabbling, Al-Baghdadi's Brother

By Daniel W. Smith and Yousif al-Timimi There was a lot of political squabbling on tonight's news.

Read The Full Article:
http://www.iraqslogger.com/index.php/post/7702

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