Stable Genius Liberal

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Meticulously Wrapped Aluminum Wire Sculptures by Seung Mo Park

How Germany Builds Twice As Many Cars As The U.S. While Paying Its Workers Twice As Much

In 2010, Germany produced more than 5.5 million automobiles; the U.S produced 2.7 million. At the same time, the average auto worker in Germany made $67.14 per hour in salary in benefits; the average one in the U.S. made $33.77 per hour.

…

“the salient difference is that, in Germany, the automakers operate within an environment that precludes a race to the bottom; in the U.S., they operate within an environment that encourages such a race.”

The right shift of the past 30 years has been far more focused with punishing the poor than actually promoting economic growth.

A War on the Poor

I still sometimes see pundits claiming that the Tea Party movement is basically driven by concerns about budget deficits. That’s delusional. Read the founding rant by Rick Santelli of CNBC: There’s nary a mention of deficits. Instead, it’s a tirade against the possibility that the government might help “losers” avoid foreclosure. Or read transcripts from Rush Limbaugh or other right-wing talk radio hosts. There’s not much about fiscal responsibility, but there’s a lot about how the government is rewarding the lazy and undeserving.

The tea party merges the prosperity gospels with Ayn Rand and walks away with a belief that economics is nothing more than a morality play where the wealthy are wealthy because of virtue and the poor are poor because of vice.

F1: Alexander Rossi Becomes First American To Claim GP2 Win

I home someone puts him on the grid for the 2014 season. Caterham? Lotus? Williams? You still don’t have your slots booked. There are two US races in 2014, you can have a American on the grid for it.

House Republicans Skip Obamacare Briefing They Furiously Demanded

most of the House Republicans who had demanded their own closed-door briefing from the administration on President Barack Obama’s struggling health care rollout were no-shows on Wednesday.

This is what is wrong with congress in one simple headline. There is far more interest in outrage than due diligence. You would think that they would want to actually do their jobs, or simply to sit in the briefing and then attack the parts of Obamacare they hate. But no. They just want to yell and scream and don’t care if they get any facts right.

Why Is Obamacare Complicated?

Obamacare isn’t complicated because government social insurance programs have to be complicated: neither Social Security nor Medicare are complex in structure. It’s complicated because political constraints made a straightforward single-payer system unachievable.

Pretty much.

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friendlyatheist: sorayachemaly: NOT A JOKE: Photos from Personhood for Women Also, check out National Advocates for Pregnant Women, org that stands up for the rights of women (often the ones with the least means) who have no way of debunks bad science and challenges religious lunatics in courts. The Christian Taliban and the consequences of their… Continue reading Untitled

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Of recent years… representative government all over the world has been threatened with a growing paralysis. Legislative bodies have tended more and more to become wholly inefficient for the purposes of legislation. The prime feature in causing this unhealthy growth has been the discovery by minorities that under the old rules of parliamentary procedure they… Continue reading Untitled

Millionaire tax migration is a myth!

Those echoing Cuomo’s tax migration myth defend their argument by citing a decline in the number of New York millionaires from 2007 to 2009 after the state passed a tax surcharge. Yet, the real story is what Crain’s Business reports: “New York lost millionaires (between 2007 and 2009) primarily because New Yorkers made less money and saw their property values drop during the recession, not because they moved to other states.”

If you compare median incomes by zip code with property taxes by zip code you’ll see that the wealthy seem to live in places with significantly higher tax burdens. By choice.

Obamacare part-timism: A myth debunked.

My strong suspicion is that if the ACA has an impact on the labor force (which it probably will) it will be through a different mechanism. Right now “in order to qualify for health benefits” is a very good reason to work full-time, even if you’d rather have more free time and less money at your current wage level. The Affordable Care Act will make this benefit qualification rationale less compelling,

The changes to part time employment in the past few years has almost nothing to do with Obamacare and everything to do with improved scheduling and time management systems in retail, hospitality and fast food sectors.