I'd love to read a paper about the boomers exiting the labor force. That's probably part of this, although there's probably more to it too. I'm sure the paper exists. Someone remind me to look for it Monday.

Also Newt is such an amazing dbag. And Romney is getting decent at these speeches. And I can't believe how terrible the Nevada GOP is at getting results.

From Nate Silver: "Nevada GOP to release Clark County results just as soon as it figures out why Mike Tyson's tiger is in their bathroom."

Mitt canned his debate coach because people noticed his speaking and debating picked up game... Stupid... Immature... Selfconscious... Shallow.... Arrogant.

A real leader would recognize his weaknesses.bust a move there mittens you weak shit candidate.

I will take the WSJ job numbers. F the spin. They are plenty conservative. If you need BS, ask the House of Reps

I thik facebook is kind of a dumb waste of time mostly.

I also think this NYTimes op-ed on facebook's evils is among the stupidest willful misinterpretations and exaggerations of what enterprises can genuinely do with web visits data that I've read in awhile, and I subject myself to more of this kind of thing than I'm happy to admit.

And even if it were, this is the stupidest "remedy" it is possible to propose:

We need a do-not-track law, similar to the do-not-call one

out of curiosity, what are the misrepresentations?

jerseyhoya wrote:I'd love to read a paper about the boomers exiting the labor force. That's probably part of this, although there's probably more to it too. I'm sure the paper exists. Someone remind me to look for it Monday.

it was authored by Our Own Dajafi; he should be able to come up with a link if it's public....

Thanks, Bucky. But my report took that as a premise and then pivoted to what it might mean for disconnected youth in specific sectors of the local economy. I think jh is probably looking for something from the BLS or one of the regional Federal Reserve branches about the macro effects of ongoing mass retirement.

I'll try to remember to take a look online later and will post anything I find.

jerseyhoya wrote:...And Romney is getting decent at these speeches....

He'll need to get quite a bit better on Medicare:

(1) "If I'm president, I will repeal Obamacare and return to the states and the people their right to set their own health care priorities. [Applause.] Now, by the way, I understand a few of you here are on Medicare. Is that true? [Crowd laughs.] That being the case, I hope you tell your friends who always fear that Republicans somehow might go after Medicare, you can tell them a couple of things. (2) One, we will never go after Medicare or Social Security. We will protect those programs. But also, you make sure and tell them this: (3) There's only one president in history that's cut Medicare $500 billion and that's Barack Obama. And guess what he did it for? He did it to pay for Obamacare."

1) no he won't

2) yes, he will. He publicly supported Ryan's plan for Medicare premium support - which radically amends Medicare, yet SPARED the cost reduction provisions of ACA. (see #3).

3) no he didn't. Itemized budget impact of ACA provisions - over the next 10 years:

- $156.6B in payment reductions to hospitals (which the hospital industry agreed to in exchange for the ACA's insurance coverage expansions for the uninsured)
- $135.6B in reductions to private insurers participating in Medicare Part C, (aka: 'Medicare Advantage"). The insurance industry opposed these reductions predicting they would harm enrollees; since 2010, Part C premiums have gone down 16%, enrollment has gone up 17%, according to new federal data).
- $40B in reductions to home health (the home health industry agreed to these reductions)
- $25B temporary adjustment to the calculation of Medicare Part B premiums for high-income beneficiaries.
- $22.1B in reduced Medicare payments to disproportionate share hospitals.
- $20.7B revision to the Medicare improvement fund.
- $15.5B in savings generated through the Independent Payment Advisory Board.
- $10.7B in reductions in the Part D subsidy for higher income beneficiaries.
- $7.1B in hospital preventable readmissions reduction program
- $5.7 in savings on dispensing of outpatient drugs in long-term care facilities.

So ACA includes provisions to reduce the rate of increase in Medicare costs over 10 years.

And so, item by item, did Ryan's Mitt-supported alternative plan.

drsmooth wrote:- $40B in reductions to home health (the home health industry agreed to these reductions)

Well, my wife personally didn't agree to her cut in pay, so there's that.

Romney has said a great many things about the president and his policies that are either flat-out factually untrue or otherwise tortuously constructed to reflect a kind of "truthiness" that plays on Fox but nowhere else. We've also seen him reduced to a stammering, shambling, high-speed dissembling wreck when pushed back, by moderators or debate opponents, on certain issues.

This combination has me looking forward to the debates this fall.

it really is interesting to just see flat out lies be uttered as applause lines in both debates and speeches. saying the truth just about gets an 'oh come on' eyeroll response from people.

The Dude wrote:out of curiosity, what are the misrepresentations?

I believe I labeled them misinterpretations, rather than misrepresentations. While I may indeed have issues with facts Andrews has presented, my larger concern is with her misinterpretation of the capabilities that facebook, or anyone else, has, and maybe more importantly, is capable of exercising, when in possession of the kinds of data they gather. Those capabilities are more limited than Andrews insinuates when she asserts things like "The magnitude of online information Facebook has available about each of us for targeted marketing is stunning". I feel Andrews misinterprets the nature of the power that aggregated data lends to enterprises like facebook, which leads her to a misplaced faith in the power of "solutions" like a "do-not-track" law.

Contextual certainty of the kind you should practically insist on - for your own good, not merely for the 'safety' of others - when you're in the process of trying to cultivate a customer, or a prospective employee, or a citizen, is hard to obtain in ideal circumstances. The kind of information that can be gleaned from internet profiles, click behavior, and post fragments doesn't really do all that much to advance the level of certainty you can have about an individual, or categories of individuals, or their subsequent behavior. It's easy to succumb to "overthinking" it - to become overconfident about what you know. And ultimately perhaps more perilous to you, the entity possessing that scanty info, than for the person or people whose data you've accumulated.

People at facebook and other entities do know this. Sure, they've taken bonehead action in the past, and probably will in the future, but they'll be increasingly wary of doing so, because that kind of action severely risks their future - arguably as much as, or more than, it risks the futures of individuals or groups whose data bits they've gleaned.

I had gotten about 750 words into a reply & realized I was only about 1/4 thru unraveling the problems I have with her essay. so if you're interested in talking about it further, I'll try to unpack my discontents here, in a more conversational manner.

Dude, you're in luck; Evgeny Morozov, a guy who usually gives me gas, has written an essay that eventually gets at some of the problems I find in Andrews' piece, though without actually being a response to her piece, and he does it more artfully than I would.

Sidestep if you can all of his droning on about flaneurs; he gets less peevish and more substantive towards the end.

Figures it would be a Russian that would have a handle on the thing; if it weren't him, it might have been Chekhov

drsmooth wrote:

The Dude wrote:out of curiosity, what are the misrepresentations?

I believe I labeled them misinterpretations, rather than misrepresentations. While I may indeed have issues with facts Andrews has presented, my larger concern is with her misinterpretation of the capabilities that facebook, or anyone else, has, and maybe more importantly, is capable of exercising, when in possession of the kinds of data they gather. Those capabilities are more limited than Andrews insinuates when she asserts things like "The magnitude of online information Facebook has available about each of us for targeted marketing is stunning". I feel Andrews misinterprets the nature of the power that aggregated data lends to enterprises like facebook, which leads her to a misplaced faith in the power of "solutions" like a "do-not-track" law.

Contextual certainty of the kind you should practically insist on - for your own good, not merely for the 'safety' of others - when you're in the process of trying to cultivate a customer, or a prospective employee, or a citizen, is hard to obtain in ideal circumstances. The kind of information that can be gleaned from internet profiles, click behavior, and post fragments doesn't really do all that much to advance the level of certainty you can have about an individual, or categories of individuals, or their subsequent behavior. It's easy to succumb to "overthinking" it - to become overconfident about what you know. And ultimately perhaps more perilous to you, the entity possessing that scanty info, than for the person or people whose data you've accumulated.

People at facebook and other entities do know this. Sure, they've taken bonehead action in the past, and probably will in the future, but they'll be increasingly wary of doing so, because that kind of action severely risks their future - arguably as much as, or more than, it risks the futures of individuals or groups whose data bits they've gleaned.

I had gotten about 750 words into a reply & realized I was only about 1/4 thru unraveling the problems I have with her essay. so if you're interested in talking about it further, I'll try to unpack my discontents here, in a more conversational manner.

Yeah, the problem definition in cases like this is one that usually requires a good imagination. In reality, it's O MY GOD THEY'LL BE ABLE TO TRY TO SELL US STUFF THEY THINK WE WANT

i think you're a bit naive if you think facebook won't "accidentally" allow tracking AFTER leaving Facebook, is all.

Is there anything on how important the budget is to voters?

The Dude wrote:i think you're a bit naive if you think facebook won't "accidentally" allow tracking AFTER leaving Facebook, is all.

I don't know what you mean

and if I were to guess at what you mean, I would guess I should reiterate that while the additional data may help them sell something to advertisers, it doesn't help them with the whole longer-term "users think you're evil bastards when you do stupid crap like this" issue.

I'm not worried about facebook amassing data, from FB or beyond, because the fact is neither they nor their advertisers can gain as much from it as they may currently believe they can, and when they begin to understand that better, the value of zuckerberg's stock drops - probably sharply.

TenuredVulture wrote:Is there anything on how important the budget is to voters?

The country has operated without an actual budget for since 2009, so why start now?

drsmooth wrote:

The Dude wrote:i think you're a bit naive if you think facebook won't "accidentally" allow tracking AFTER leaving Facebook, is all.

I'm not worried about facebook amassing data, from FB or beyond, because the fact is neither they nor their advertisers can gain as much from it as they may currently believe they can, and when they begin to understand that better, the value of zuckerberg's stock drops - probably sharply.

eh, they're getting what they want: very specialized data to target ads, it's exactly what they're paying for, and it's been going on for years. That kind of data is exactly what people placing ads kill for