Offer Ends Soon, Act Now: Keystone Pipeline Public Comment Period Closes On Monday

By Ryan Koronowski, Think Progress from Climate Progress

Apr 21, 2013 at 3:00 pm

The last day that the State Department will accept public comments on what should be done about the Keystone pipeline proposal is Monday, April 22nd. This will end a 45 day period that started with the placement of the Draft Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) in the Federal Register. That draft statement becomes final on June 21st, and then in a matter of months, the State Department will issue a National Interest Determination. At that point, it would be difficult to reverse a decision, so the time for the public to tell the Administration how burning tar sands oil will impact the climate is now.The last day that the State Department will accept public comments on what should be done about the Keystone pipeline proposal is Monday, April 22nd. This will end a 45 day period that started with the placement of the Draft Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) in the Federal Register. That draft statement becomes final on June 21st, and then in a matter of months, the State Department will issue a National Interest Determination. At that point, it would be difficult to reverse a decision, so the time for the public to tell the Administration how burning tar sands oil will impact the climate is now.

The Think Progess article has some links to sources and suggested subjects, there has also been a #NOKXL Blogathon at Daily Kos.  To me there are 5 primary reasons to oppose Keystone XL-

• Mayflower, Arkansas
• The refined oil is destined for export profit, not “energy independence”.
• Only 35 permanent jobs will be created.
• There is no demand for more oil.

And the number one reason to oppose Keystone XL-

• In order to limit global warming to below 2 degrees Celsius (mass extinction level), scientists say we can emit only 565 more gigatons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, but the fossil fuel industry has roughly 2,795 gigatons of carbon dioxide just in their reserves, over five times too much.

I trust most of our readership has already taken action, but if not today is your last chance.

Will Social Security Be Unchained? Attacking the Serious People

Dean Baker

Al Jazeera English, April 15, 2013

President Obama’s efforts to appease Washington’s Serious People ran into serious obstacles last week. Responding to the cries of the Washington deficit hawks, President Obama proposed cutting Social Security by adopting a different measure of the rate of inflation for the annual cost-of-living adjustment (COLA).

This measure would gradually reduce the value of benefits through time. By age 75 retirees would see a benefit that is roughly 3 percent less than under current law. This is a much bigger hit to the income of the typical retiree than the tax increases at the end of last year were to the income of most of the wealthy people.

…

Why is a Democratic president trying to cut Social Security in response to a crisis created by a combination of Wall Street greed and Washington corruption and incompetence?

Chained CPI Helps Fund Corporate Tax Breaks and Trickle Down

By: masaccio, Firedog Lake

Friday April 19, 2013 10:49 am

Jack Lew, the Treasury Secretary and former head of the Office of Management and Budget, testified before the Senate Budget Committee recently. His written testimony explains the priorities set by President Bipartisan, Barack Obama, who seems to think he was elected on the long-term Republican promise to balance the budget.

Lew tells us that Obama’s budget is based on his Grand Bargain offers to Speaker Boehner that couldn’t garner any Republican backing. Lew doesn’t explain why that should be a starting point for further capitulations. Lew mentions such balanced ideas as the Chained CPI. That’s the part where we slash at Social Security and raise taxes on the middle class by raising income tax brackets less than inflation. Lew explains the reason for this assault on the 99%: “The chained CPI is a more accurate measure of inflation in that it does a better job of reflecting the substitution of goods in response to relative price changes.” That is a lie.

The CPI is supposed to measure how much it costs to maintain your lifestyle. The Chained CPI measures the decline in your standard of living as you change your protein intake from an occasional piece of beef to Alpo. Lew thinks that’s not a problem because it’s all protein. And it’s not a problem for the administration’s rich clients, whose life-style is utterly unaffected by inflation. For the 99%, the Chained CPI assumes that you are just as happy with canned catfood as you were with fresh salmon.

Lew’s headline number is $580 billion in tax hikes. It dwarfs the impact of cutting Social Security, which is $130 billion. At the same time, we are increasing taxes by $100 billion by raising the brackets more slowly than actual inflation. So, we have an actual $680 billion in increased revenues. Let’s see what we do with those. You probably think it has something to do with helping the middle class, as Lew claims in the section labeled “Strengthening the Middle Class by Investing in the U.S. Economy”. That translates to More Trickle Down From President Bipartisan. He wants to increase funding for US agencies to promote trade, including the Trans-Pacific Partnership, and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, the new NAFTAs, and will hurt even worse as we watch corporations erode our sovereignty. Then we recycle the money back to corporations that shift foreign production back to the US. We paid them to leave, through deductions available for moving out (which supposedly will be repealed), and now we pay them to return. But that’s not all the corporations won. Take a look at the budget, pp. 7-35, where you can see all the money going to corporations on its way to trickling into the pockets of the rich.

…

Let’s just skip the tax increases on the middle class and the destruction of their retirement benefits. Why do Lew and Obama think balance is a good thing? Did the people on Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid cause the Great Crash? Did they reap billions of dollars in benefits from the Reagan/Bush/Obama tax rate cuts? Did they steal from pension plans or from stock and commodities brokerage accounts? Did they manipulate LIBOR for their personal benefit? Did they launder money for drug cartels and terrorists? Did they need Get Out Of Jail Free cards from the fake prosecutors at the Department of Justice? Did anyone in the entire country vote for this guy thinking “Oh good, at last someone will make the tough decision to cut my Social Security and give the money to the rich and their corporations?”

Bahrain F1 Event Goes Ahead Despite Human Rights Protests

By HARVEY MORRIS, The New York Times

April 18, 2013, 8:17 am

(T)he government’s strong-arm reaction to demonstrators demanding greater democracy and equal rights for the island state’s Shia population has failed to quash the protest movement.

Dozens of people were injured in March as protesters clashed with the riot police on the second anniversary of a Saudi-led military intervention to assist the Bahraini authorities confront the unrest.

As isolated clashes between the police and protestors were reported on Thursday, the main Shia opposition group said it was planning a major demonstration to coincide with preparations for the Grand Prix.

Human Rights Watch, one of a number of groups that called for the event to be canceled, warned there was a risk that the Bahraini authorities would use repressive measures to clamp down on the protests.

“Bahrain is already tightening the lid on protest as the Formula 1 race grows near,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, the organization’s Middle East director. “The Formula 1 organizers apparently prefer to bury their heads in the sand, risking holding their race against repression it has provoked.”

Human rights groups say Bahrain’s Sunni rulers want to use the event to convey a semblance of normality in a country that is still wracked by regular clashes between the security forces and protesters.

The authorities have managed to confine the trouble mainly to Shia villages, out of sight of areas likely to be frequented by Grand Prix visitors.

“The public relations whirl around grand prix week always brings an attempt to suppress a few secrets that King Hamad’s regime would rather you did not see,” wrote Oliver Brown in the British newspaper, The Daily Telegraph.

Bahrain prince admits ‘issues’ on Grand Prix eve

AFP

4/20/13

Police were out in force for qualifying, with armoured vehicles deployed around the capital’s Pearl Square, epicentre of month-long pro-democracy protests in early 2011 that were crushed with deadly force.

Hundreds of Shiite demonstrators who attempted to gather in the square on Saturday evening were forcibly dispersed, witnesses said.

Police fired tear gas and chased demonstrators into side streets. Some protesters retaliated with petrol bombs, the witnesses added.

Hundreds had taken to the streets in Shiite villages outside Manama overnight, prompting clashes with police, but away from the circuit, witnesses said.

…

Prince Salman denied that the event was being exploited to boost the image and economy of the tiny Gulf monarchy that has a Shiite Muslim majority but is ruled by a Sunni dynasty and has been rocked by continuing Arab Spring-inspired unrest.

“We’ve never used this race to say that everything’s fine,” Prince Salman said. “We recognise there are issues in the country but they are to be solved in a political process which is well underway.”

Hactivists Anonymous threaten to ‘wreck’ Bahrain Grand Prix

By James Boylan, Metro (UK)

Monday 15 Apr 2013 1:01 pm

‘Bernie Ecclestone and the “Royal Family” of Bahrain have learned nothing.

So we are coming forward this year to wreck your little party again Mr Ecclestone.

Anonymous will not stand by and allow you a race fuelled by the blood of our freedom-loving comrades in Bahrain.

We will remove you from the world wide web, whether you be grand prix or Bahrain government – we shall take it all down.

We will expose the personal data of any person who supports this race in any way. You have been warned.

Once the festivities for this race begin in Bahrain, all bets are off.

We call upon Bernie Ecclestone while there is still time – cancel your blood race now.’

I dunno, my problems seem to be mostly Java related but if I lose Timing and Scoring you’ll know why.  More Bahrain Outrage Here.

So I told you I’d get to more competition based topics today.  Let’s start with tires.  Pirelli is kind of pissed off at being dinked around by Bernie and says that unless they get a new contract soon they’re going to walk.  Since Bridgestone already told him to get bent and Michelin got dropped in 2006 because they weren’t safe, this doesn’t leave many manufacturers to replace them.

The compounds on offer this week are Hards and Mediums.  This was decided after seeing how badly the Softs degraded at Sepang.  If anything conditions are more difficult at Sakhir, it’s just as hot, the corners are flat putting on a lot of lateral Gs, and the surface highly abrasive because of the Welsh granite they mixed with the tar for the asphalt.  It’s about a 30 grit.  There is a negligible difference in speed between the 2, the Hard is about 5 laps more durable.  Of the Grid leaders only Massa is running the Hards out of the gate.

Speaking of Grid position, Webber and Gutierrez were handed penalties of 3 and 5 respectively for their collisions in Shanghai.  Hamilton was moved down 5 places from his 4th place qualifying time because he blew a rear tire in Practice 3 and they had to replace the suspension and the gear box it was attached to (fully reflected in the pretty tables below).  Qualifying laps are not as meaningful as they usually are because of the infinitesimal difference between the compounds.  What you will want to look out for is those starting on Mediums being forced to pit before they have established sufficient interval to avoid losing position.

Tires are not the only items under stress.  It is very, very hot which can cause engine and brake cooling problems.  Brad Spurgeon of The New York Times has a pretty good piece about setup issues.  It is also hot and stressful for the drivers who frequently have very little idea about their actual place and pace during the race as he notes in a companion article.  At Sakhir this is exacerbated by the track is very flat which makes the apexes of the corners extremely hard to see.

It’s dusty and windy and those pretty patterns in the overhead shots are basically glued sand with spray paint.

Lotus have given Grosjean a brand new chassis in the hope it will build his confidence, or at least stop his whining.

The drivers for McLaren are very unhappy with the car and Button admits Sakhir brings out it’s worst points.  Perez is feeling a lot of pressure to perform.  At Circuit de Catalunya in 3 weeks time the team will be replacing the front and rear wing and the suspension.

So basically the whole car except the tub.

Finally, as proof Bernie is not the only asshole in Formula One, just the biggest one, I leave you with this-

Why Sir Stirling Moss is wrong about women and motor racing

Patrick Barkham, The Guardian

Tuesday 16 April 2013 10.28 EDT

Women, opined Sir Stirling Moss, may have the strength to compete in Formula One, “but I don’t know if they’ve got the mental aptitude to race hard, wheel to wheel”.

To be fair, Sterling is 83 years old and probably more than a little senile.

Half hour of hype @ 7:30 am, racing @ 8.  Repeat @ noon and 11 pm.  IndyCar Long Beach @ 3 pm.

GP2 Results- Fabio Leimer, Racing Engineering; Stefano Coletti, Rapax; Alexander Rossi, Caterham.

• Bahrain Grand Prix
• Sakhir
• Guardian Interactive Track
• Formula One Interactive Track

• Formula One Official Site
• NBC Sports Motor Sports

Pretty tables below.

So it’s time for the two Pete Peterson bought and paid for deficit clowns to make the rounds and peddle their discredited austerity theory’s about the non-existent “deficit crisis”.

Discredited?  Thoroughly!  As if the factual wrongness of Reinhart and Rogoff (equally bought and paid for by that very same Pete Peterson who has so far invested $500 Million in his vendetta against Social Security) and the earlier discrediting of Alesina and Ardagna, there is now empirical (that means proven reality as opposed to faith based fantasy for my sado-austerity perverted readers) evidence from none less than Goldman Sachs economist Alec Phillips via Bill McBride at Calculated Risk–

The federal deficit continues to shrink. Through the first six months of the fiscal year, revenues have come in higher than expected, while spending has come in lower than expected. As a result we are lowering our deficit forecast for the current and next two fiscal years.

Earlier this year we lowered our FY2013 deficit forecast from $900bn (5.6% of GDP) to $850bn (5.3%). In light of recent trends, we are lowering it again to $775bn (4.8%). Spending in the fiscal year to date is lower than a year ago and the nominal growth rate is lower than it has been in decades. Revenues have also exceeded expectations, with a 12% gain fiscal year to date. What is more notable is that the strength in revenues preceded the payroll tax hike at the start of the year, and the spending decline does not seem to reflect sequestration, which has just started to take effect.

We expect the improvement to continue for the next few years. Although we had already expected additional cyclical improvement and residual fiscal policy tightening to reduce the deficit further in 2014 and 2015, we have reduced our estimates a bit further, to $600bn (3.5% of GDP) and $475bn (2.7%).

What kind of snake oil are these B-S artists peddling?

Simpson-Bowles Prod Congress Again to Anti-Deficit Fervor

By Richard Rubin, Bloomberg News

Apr 19, 2013 10:33 AM ET

The updated plan, released today in Washington, includes $740 billion in increased revenue over the next decade that Republicans have deemed unacceptable and a higher eligibility age for Medicare that President Barack Obama has rejected.

…

Their plan would reduce debt as a share of GDP below 70 percent by 2023, compared with 73 percent by that year in Obama’s budget released this month and 55 percent in House Republicans’ budget.

Over the past few days, a study by Carmen Reinhart and Ken Rogoff that warned of the dangers of government debt has been criticized for errors.

“What it doesn’t change is the common sense and my own personal experience in both the public and private sector that when any organization has too much debt, that that is an enormous risk factor,” Bowles said today.

See?  They know what they’re talking bullshit and they do it anyway.  To continue.

(T)he Medicare eligibility age of 65 would be gradually raised to 67.

…

Bowles and Simpson would cut $585 billion from health-care spending, including expanded means-testing of Medicare benefits. They would also cut $265 billion from other programs, such as agricultural subsidies and higher education.

Their plan adopts the chained consumer price index, a typically slower measure of inflation for benefits and tax brackets that Obama included in his budget.

And why?

Part of the plan is a rewrite of the U.S. tax code that would lower tax rates, remove breaks and impose lighter levies on multinational companies’ overseas income.

There you go.

The next potential point for action is the need for an increase in the debt limit, which will occur in the next several months.

Bowles said Congress has “one last good chance” to get a deal done between now and Aug. 1.

Instead of a so-called grand bargain, U.S. lawmakers have imposed about $2.7 trillion in deficit reduction through a series of deadline-driven agreements. That total doesn’t include the sequestration cuts.

“That’s not nothing,” Bowles said. “That’s a good step in the right direction. It doesn’t get us to the promised land.”

It may seem to the casual observer that Bahrain is surprisingly quiet this year.

The political problems have not ceased, however, and Bahrain remains in the thick of its social upheaval. Negotiations between the government and the opposition began again in February, and the move in March to appoint Crown Prince Salman bin Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa as first deputy prime minister was seen as a way to improve the negotiations, as he is considered to be a softer, more open man than his more hard-line father, King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa.

The opposition, meanwhile, is staging a series of peaceful demonstrations during the race weekend this year.

“These demonstrations show that the movement continues and the demands have not been met yet,” Khalil al-Marzouq, a leader of the main opposition group Wefaq, told Reuters on Wednesday. “Obviously, the presence of the media for the Formula One helps shed the spotlight on Bahrain.”

Bernie has been doing his unctuous best to try and pretend that he cares about anything except money-

But while Bernie has been going la la la, I can’t hear you and the toadies in the Sporting Media have been typically silent, what’s really been happening is brutal suppression.

Last year most teams stayed in Manama, Bahrain’s capital, and had to make a 20 mile trip to the track each day.  This year the teams are housed in a hotel steps from the paddock and are in virtual "voluntary" lockdown.  No Force India Molotovs this year.

Also, just like last year, independent journalists have been denied visas or ejected lest they report on things like this-

Bahrain protests to be stepped up before grand prix, says rights group

(P)ro-democracy protesters opposed to Sunday’s race have also been frustrated by increased security measures which have driven them out of the capital, Manama. Shehabi said: “There was a blanket ban on all protests after last year’s grand prix. People have been forced underground now. Protesters have been pushed to parts of small villages where they can’t be heard or seen. As long as you’re not seen or heard by anyone it’s OK.

“There is a continuation of government repression. We haven’t seen justice or accountability for the F1 staff who were sacked and arrested and tortured in 2011. They were tortured at the circuit itself.”

…

Said Yousif, spokesman for the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights, said: “There has been a government crackdown here and it started two weeks ago, especially in the villages close to the F1 track, and 65 people have been arrested. Leaders have been beaten and tortured before being released, so everyone can see the marks of beating and torture. Houses have been razed in different villages. Tear gas has been used at close range. No one has died, as happened last year, but the crackdown has continued. I was in jail for a month three months ago just because I tweeted an injury in the capital.”

For make no mistake, protests are continuing.

Bahrain protests grow as Bernie Ecclestone considers city for F1 start

As tension built here on Friday, with an estimated 10,000 pro-democracy demonstrators gathering at Budaiya Highway in the afternoon and more serious trouble expected overnight, Ecclestone’s stance could be seen as provocative.

Around the Sakhir circuit itself, there was tight and vigilant security and those travelling here had to negotiate widespread road blocks. There were hundreds of police on view and police cars and armoured vehicles were even more in evidence than they were last year. Early in the afternoon a long plume of smoke could be seen a few miles from the circuit. As another security measure, everyone has been photographed on the way to the track.

According to sections of the Italian media, the Ferrari team were told to remain in their hotel at night, although this was denied by a spokesman, who said: “Everyone has just been told to be careful.” Nonetheless, more teams are staying in a trackside hotel to avoid driving through the capital, Manama, as many of them did last year.

Those who did drive back to Manama on Thursday evening went down a highway which separated demonstrators from the police, who looked to be firing tear gas. The Gulf Daily news carried a report of rioters blocking roads and attacking police as violence escalated on Thursday evening, with a Molotov cocktail attack on Sitra police station. Another report highlighted an attack on Tubli Primary School for Boys, with disruption caused by locking the gates with chains.

…

Meanwhile, the British government has upgraded its warning to visitors to Bahrain, telling them to avoid large crowds and demonstrations and Bahraini nationals have been advised to avoid villages and financial districts following last Sunday’s explosion at the Bahrain Financial Harbour, where a gas cylinder was detonated inside a stolen car.

Which I reported on here.

Protests held in Bahrain ahead of Formula One

Thousands of Bahrainis have demonstrated near the capital, Manama, urging democratic reforms, part of a series of protests planned by the political opposition ahead of next week’s Formula One Grand Prix.

…

A second opposition group, the February 14 Movement, organised another protest on Thursday night in the village of Khamis that was broken up by police.

Thursday night’s demonstration came as a report by Human Rights Watch said that police have been rounding up pro-democracy activists in bid to head off protests.

…

Clashes erupted when anti-riot police intervened to disperse the crowd and demonstrators responded with Molotov cocktails, witnesses said.

…

Human rights groups say a total of 80 people have been killed since February 2011.

Clashes as Bahrain gears up for Grand Prix

Clashes began when supporters of the February 14 Revolution Youth Coalition, a clandestine cyber-group that had called for a “Day of Rage”, tried to march on the former Pearl Square in Manama, the capital.

…

Police fired tear gas and shotguns to disperse the protesters before they neared the area, witnesses said, but no casualties were reported.

The movement’s supporters – armed with petrol bombs and stones – clashed with police in Shia villages outside Manama and burnt tyres to block main roads, the sources said.

Smoke from burning tire fires which the protesters use as barricades is visible from the track and the road to and from Manama is lined with Police and Military in riot gear.

I reported last week on Damon Hill’s staunch opposition to holding this race at all in which he is joined by curren driver Mark Webber.

Ecclestone, however, has said he is considering returning Bahrain to its ‘Season Opener’ status next year which is attractive to the Bahrainis because the teams arrive a week earlier for additional testing and would further bolster their “Everything’s perfectly all right now. We’re fine. We’re all fine here now, thank you.” case, even though there is a premium fee to be paid to Ecclestone and Formula One Management.

Most teams are lukewarm at the prospect–

Ferrari’s Stefano Domenicali said: “I don’t think it would be good for Formula One to be involved in the political situation of the country because then there is the risk of being pulled from one side to the other, which is not really what we should do.”

His counterpart at McLaren, Martin Whitmarsh, said: “I think we’re only all qualified to talk about it from a sporting perspective and since Bahrain introduced Formula One to this region, it’s been a great event and a hospitable grand prix to attend,” and Lotus’s Eric Boullier added: “It’s true that we don’t want to be dragged into a political situation. If the promoter, the FIA and the commercial rights holder agree with the decision to race here, we race here.”

Others on the grid though, privately are looking forward to getting the first available flight out on Sunday evening.

Qualifying starts at 7 am on NBCSports with a repeat at 1 am tomorrow.  Also today from Bahrain the start of the GP2 season at 4:30 pm and IndyCar Long Beach Qualifying at 6 pm and 9:30 pm.

• Bahrain Grand Prix
• Sakhir
• Guardian Interactive Track
• Formula One Interactive Track

• Formula One Official Site
• NBC Sports Motor Sports

This here’s the wattle – the emblem of our land. You can stick it in a bottle or you can hold it in your hand.

Republicans pull plug on Mark Sanford

By ALEX ISENSTADT, Politico

4/17/13 1:47 PM EDT

Blindsided by news that Sanford’s ex-wife has accused him of trespassing and concluding he has no plausible path to victory, the National Republican Congressional Committee has decided not to spend more money on Sanford’s behalf ahead of the May 7 special election.

…

The NRCC’s move comes hours after Tuesday night’s report by the Associated Press that Sanford’s ex-wife, Jenny Sanford, filed a court complaint accusing him of trespassing at her home in early February – which would be a violation of the terms of their divorce agreement.

…

(T)he news of the alleged trespassing once again thrusts Sanford’s damaged family life to the forefront of the campaign. It threatens to undercut his already shaky support among women, who polls show are unenthusiastic about voting for an admitted adulterer.

…

And, most dangerous of all, it undermines what had been the driving theme of the ex-governor’s campaign: that he has learned from his personal mistakes and put them behind him.

“The reason this is bad is because it takes all of Sanford’s problems in the past and takes them right into the present,” said one GOP official. “Every dollar that he’s spent reforming his image has been wiped away.”

…

“It’s an unfortunate reality that divorced couples sometimes have disagreements that spill over into family court,” he said. “I did indeed watch the second half of the Super Bowl at the beach house with our 14 year old son because as a father I didn’t think he should watch it alone. Given she was out of town I tried to reach her beforehand to tell her of the situation that had arisen, and met her at the back steps under the light of my cell phone when she returned and told her what had happened.

“There is always another side to every story, and while I am particularly curious how records that were sealed to avoid the boys dealing with embarrassment are now somehow exposed less than three weeks before this election, I agree with Jenny that the media is no place to debate what is ultimately a family court matter, and out of respect for Jenny and the boys, I’m not going to have any further comment at this time,” Sanford said.

Apparently it was a drive by shooting.

Ringling Bros circus elephant recuperates from Mississippi shooting

Adam Gabbatt, The Guardian

Monday 15 April 2013 13.59 EDT

The Asian elephant was touring with Ringling Bros and Barnum & Bailey Circus in Tupelo, when she was shot near the shoulder while relaxing in her enclosure. A suspect was witnessed fleeing the scene, and multiple agencies have contributed money in a bid to track him or her down.

…

“It was surreal, I just couldn’t believe it,” Carden said of the moment she realised Carol had been wounded. “I saw a hole in my elephant, and a trickle of blood running down her leg, and she was just standing there like nothing had happened.”

…

The Asian elephant is listed as endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature and there are believed to be fewer than 50,000 left in the wild.

Carol has entertained crowds across the US during her career, but Carden said the elephant had no known enemies. Although two other elephants in the enclosure escaped unharmed, Carden ruled out the possibility of the gunman having a grudge against Carol specifically.

How Much Unemployment Was Caused by Reinhart and Rogoff’s Arithmetic Mistake?

Dean Baker, Center for Economic and Policy ReSearch

Tuesday, 16 April 2013 09:49

Just to remind folks, Reinhart and Rogoff (R&R) are the authors of the widely acclaimed book on the history of financial crises, This Time is Different. They have also done several papers derived from this research, the main conclusion of which is that high ratios of debt to GDP lead to a long periods of slow growth. Their story line is that 90 percent is a cutoff line, with countries with debt-to-GDP ratios above this level seeing markedly slower growth than countries that have debt-to-GDP ratios below this level. The moral is to make sure the debt-to-GDP ratio does not get above 90 percent.

There are all sorts of good reasons for questioning this logic. First, there is good reason for believing causation goes the other way. Countries are likely to have high debt-to-GDP ratios because they are having serious economic problems.

Second, as Josh Bivens and John Irons have pointed out, the story of the bad growth in high debt years in the United States is driven by the demobilization after World War II. In other words, these were not bad economic times, the years of high debt in the United States had slow growth because millions of women opted to leave the paid labor force.

Third, the whole notion of public debt turns out to be ill-defined. Countries can sell off assets to pay down debts, would this avoid the R&R high debt twilight zone of slow growth? In fact, even the value of debt itself is not constant.Long-term debt issued in times of low interest rates will fall in value when interest rates rise. If there is a high debt twilight zone effect as R&R claim, then we can just buy back bonds at steep discounts and send our debt-to-GDP ratio plummeting.

But HAP (Herndon, Ash, and Pollin) tells us that we need not concern ourselves with any arguments this complicated. The basic R&R story was simply the result of them getting their own numbers wrong.

After being unable to reproduce R&R’s results with publicly available data, HAP were able to get the spreadsheets that R&R had used for their calculations. It turns out that the initial results were driven by simple computational and transcription errors. The most important of these errors was excluding four years of growth data from New Zealand in which it was above the 90 percent debt-to-GDP threshold. When these four years are added in, the average growth rate in New Zealand for its high debt years was 2.6 percent, compared to the -7.6 percent that R&R had entered in their calculation.  

…

If facts mattered in economic policy debates, this should be the cause for a major reassessment of the deficit reduction policies being pursued in the United States and elsewhere. It should also cause reporters to be a bit slower to accept such sweeping claims at face value.

Holy Coding Error, Batman

Paul Krugman, The New York Times

April 16, 2013, 1:38 pm

The intellectual edifice of austerity economics rests largely on two academic papers that were seized on by policy makers, without ever having been properly vetted, because they said what the Very Serious People wanted to hear. One was Alesina/Ardagna on the macroeconomic effects of austerity, which immediately became exhibit A for those who wanted to believe in expansionary austerity. Unfortunately, even aside from the paper’s failure to distinguish between episodes in which monetary policy was available and those in which it wasn’t, it turned out that their approach to measuring austerity was all wrong; when the IMF used a measure that tracked actual policy, it turned out that contractionary policy was contractionary.

The other paper, which has had immense influence – largely because in the VSP world it is taken to have established a definitive result – was Reinhart/Rogoff on the negative effects of debt on growth. Very quickly, everyone “knew” that terrible things happen when debt passes 90 percent of GDP.

Some of us never bought it, arguing that the observed correlation between debt and growth probably reflected reverse causation. But even I never dreamed that a large part of the alleged result might reflect nothing more profound than bad arithmetic.

Researchers Finally Replicated Reinhart-Rogoff, and There Are Serious Problems.

Mike Konczal, Next New Deal

Apr 16, 2013

(T)hree main issues stand out. First, Reinhart and Rogoff selectively exclude years of high debt and average growth. Second, they use a debatable method to weight the countries. Third, there also appears to be a coding error that excludes high-debt and average-growth countries. All three bias in favor of their result, and without them you don’t get their controversial result.

…

This error is needed to get the results they published, and it would go a long way to explaining why it has been impossible for others to replicate these results. If this error turns out to be an actual mistake Reinhart-Rogoff made, well, all I can hope is that future historians note that one of the core empirical points providing the intellectual foundation for the global move to austerity in the early 2010s was based on someone accidentally not updating a row formula in Excel.

So what do Herndon-Ash-Pollin conclude? They find “the average real GDP growth rate for countries carrying a public debt-to-GDP ratio of over 90 percent is actually 2.2 percent, not -0.1 percent as [Reinhart-Rogoff claim].” [UPDATE: To clarify, they find 2.2 percent if they include all the years, weigh by number of years, and avoid the Excel error.] Going further into the data, they are unable to find a breakpoint where growth falls quickly and significantly.

Reinhart/Rogoff is the study all the Austerian politicians and pundits, Republican AND Democratic, cite to claim we have a debt/deficit problem.

Well today, with no more changes in policy at all, we no longer have a defict problem and Reinhart/Rogoff is wrong, Wrong, WRONG!

You think that will stop them?

Heh.

Republicans embrace Obama’s offer to trim Social Security benefits

By Lori Montgomery, Washington Post

Apr 15, 2013 11:53 PM EDT

President Obama’s offer to trim Social Security benefits has perplexed and angered Democrats, but GOP leaders are embracing the proposal and rushing to jump-start a debate that will delve even more deeply into the touchy topic of federal spending on the elderly.

This week, two House subcommittees plan to hold hearings on “reforms to protect and preserve” programs for retirees, starting with Obama’s proposal to apply a less generous measure of inflation to annual increases in Social Security benefits.

Also on the table are higher Medicare premiums and reduced benefits for better-off seniors, and a higher Medicare eligibility age.

Located on Frogstar World B, the machine was originally invented by one Trin Tragula in order to annoy his wife. Because she was forever nagging him for having no sense of proportion, he decided to invent something that would show her what having a sense of proportion really meant. Unfortunately the shock of being placed in the Vortex destroyed her brain, but Trin Tragula’s grief was tempered by the knowledge that he had been right and she had been wrong.

“In an infinite universe, the one thing sentient life cannot afford to have is a sense of proportion.”

• Casualties (reported) from the Boston Marathon Bombing- 3 dead, including an 8 year old boy from Ashmont, and 130 injured, some critically.
• Casualties in the Sandy Hook Shootings– 26 dead, most between 6 and 7 including 6 Adults.
• Deaths by gun violence in the U.S. since Sandy Hook (122 days)- 3,474.
• Deaths at the World Trade Center on 9/11/2001- 2,726.
• U.S. and Coalition Uniformed Combat Personnel Deaths in Iraq (4804) and Afghanistan (3281)- 8085.

Brief Comments on the Boston Bombing

by Ian Welsh

2013 April 16

I will note that the response to this, as the quote indicates, will be to increase the police state.  In context, your lords and masters (and they consider themselves both, and by your actions and lack of them you confirm they are right) believe that new technologies have made the police state cheaper, and thus affordable.  The alternative to a police state is to take care of people: widespread affluence and liberty.  But the lessons of the late 19th and early 20th century, that technology makes individuals and small groups deadly, and that in modern life  you cannot remove the precursor chemicals from everyone’s hands, have been forgotten, because those who lived through that period are dead, and their children are past their years in power.

And so we walk the road again.  Rather than take care of everyone, we will surveil everyone, and use every attack as an excuse to crack down further.

And the elites are wrong about the cost of the police state, this time, too, because the real cost is in societal stasis, in loss of creativity and actual productive change.  Police states become stagnant, and eventually they crack, because no one believes in them.