1
U.S.
Supreme Court Weighs Cases Redefining Legal Equality
Four blockbuster cases before the Supreme Court highlight the tension between formal equality and a more dynamic kind of equality that takes account of historical injustices.
2
Opinion
Don’t Count on Calorie Counts
Knowledge is no match for hunger, and if we fight the war on obesity with calorie counts alone, we may be doomed to defeat.
3
4
Opinion
Privacy and the Threat to the Self
The concept of privacy is not just a political issue. It is also intimately connected to what it means to be an autonomous person.
5
U.S.
FEMA Denies Texas Request for Full Disaster Aid, Rankling Stricken Town
The federal government has declined to give Texas officials all the disaster aid they sought after a deadly fertilizer plant explosion in April, raising a politically thorny issue.
6
Opinion
The Misnomer of ‘Motherless’ Parenting
For adopted kids of gay dads, “Where’s your mom?” can be an awkward question.
7
U.S.
A Policy Keeps Some Texas Doctors From the Delivery Room
A situation in Wise County illustrates how many family physicians are caught in a growing divide between rural and urban health care markets.
8
Opinion
A Ruling on Gene Patents
The president of Myriad Genetics discusses a recent Supreme Court case involving patents on human genes and his company.
9
N.Y. / Region
Bronx Teacher Is Charged in Rape of Girl, 10
A schoolteacher is accused of using the pretext of an award ceremony to lure the victim into his car, then assault her.
10
Business Day
Tax Programs to Finance Clean Energy Catch On
The program allows owners to borrow the money for conservation or clean energy upgrades and pay it back over time through a property tax surcharge.
11
N.Y. / Region
City Gets Legislature’s Nod to Install Speed Cameras
The measure to install speed cameras near schools was one of a slew of bills approved in the middle of the night just before the Legislature ended its annual session.
12
13
World
Daredevil’s Latest Test: Remaking Japan’s Democracy
At the end of his career, Hidetoshi Masunaga, 70, is pouring his time and fortune into an effort to apply the principle of one person, one vote to Japan’s democracy.
14
Real Estate
Real Estate Q & A
Subjects include the purchase of tenant-occupied condos, owner access to board meetings and managing communication between current and future landlord.
15
Travel
New Ways to Get Around Salt Lake City
Light rail, biking and a forthcoming streetcar line are all making is easier to get around the Utah capital.
16
Magazine
My Kids Are Obsessed With Technology, and It’s All My Fault
They crave SpongeBob. I craved Asteroids. But we’re both really looking for the same thing.
17
U.S.
Dissent Festers in States That Obama Seems to Have Forgotten
In a country splintered by partisanship and race, President Obama’s near-complete absence from more than 25 percent of states may have consequences.
18
Opinion
Extreme Budget Cuts of 2014
House Republicans, again, want dangerously low spending for all but their favorite programs.
19
Health
A Search for Harmony
Choruses for older adults have popped up in communities everywhere, and studies suggest they offer some unexpected benefits.
20
Arts
Sotheby’s Considers Putting Its Headquarters Up for Sale
Sotheby’s, the auction house, has hired two real estate firms, one to seek out buyers for its headquarters on the Upper East Side, the other to ponder where to move.
2
3
Opinion
A Ruling on Gene Patents
4
N.Y. / Region
Bronx Teacher Is Charged in Rape of Girl, 10
5
6
8
Real Estate
Real Estate Q & A
11
Opinion
Extreme Budget Cuts of 2014
12
Health
A Search for Harmony
13
16
Opinion
Pregnant, Pill-Free and Panicked
Once I got pregnant I had to abandon the drugs that made me stable enough to want to be become a mother in the first place.
17
Health
Living With Cancer: Seeking Intimacy
Sometimes the price of cancer treatment is a loss of intimacy, writes Susan Gubar.
18
Arts
Italian Praised for Saving Jews Is Now Seen as Nazi Collaborator
Information about Giovanni Palatucci, celebrated for saving Jews, is being removed from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in light of evidence that the tales may be untrue.
19
Fashion & Style
How I Got to Here
It started out as nothing serious, nothing permanent. We were there for the fun.
20
Business Day
Two Economies in Turmoil, for Different Reasons
Fed officials are convinced they have done enough stimulus, but some critics see evidence in the persistence of high unemployment and low inflation that the Fed should do even more.Florida Versus Spain, An Update
I’ve
suggested on a number of occasions that one good way to understand the
problems of the euro is to compare the experiences of Florida and Spain.
Both had huge housing bubbles, fed in part by buyers of coastal holiday
homes, which burst. Both suffered nasty recessions as a result. But
then their destinies diverged, because one was part of a fiscal as well
as monetary union, while the other wasn’t. As its economy shrank,
Florida paid much less in federal taxes, even as federal spending in
Florida rose; I’ve estimated the de facto federal aid to Florida in 2010
at around 5 percent of GDP. That’s aid, not loans; anything on that
scale would have been inconceivable in Europe.
Now, as everyone knows, Spain continues to suffer, with unemployment rising ever higher; and despite ECB actions that have contained its borrowing costs, no end to the debt crisis is in sight. Meanwhile, what’s going on in Florida?
Remarkably, the Florida unemployment rate is not only down, it’s slightly below the national average:
How
did that happen? It’s not because of a huge employment boom: Florida’s
employment decline was much bigger than that of the nation as a whole,
and it has not made up the gap:
What
has happened, presumably, is out-migration: workers leaving Florida for
better job markets. Oh, by the way: further evidence against the notion
that “structural” mismatches explain weak employment.
Now, out-migration is a big problem when it happens in Europe, because it undermines the fiscal base; but in Florida, which benefits from federal retirement and health-care programs, housing the elderly is actually an export industry.
So the saga continues — and the evidence continues to mount that Europe just wasn’t ready for a single currency.
Now, as everyone knows, Spain continues to suffer, with unemployment rising ever higher; and despite ECB actions that have contained its borrowing costs, no end to the debt crisis is in sight. Meanwhile, what’s going on in Florida?
Remarkably, the Florida unemployment rate is not only down, it’s slightly below the national average:
Now, out-migration is a big problem when it happens in Europe, because it undermines the fiscal base; but in Florida, which benefits from federal retirement and health-care programs, housing the elderly is actually an export industry.
So the saga continues — and the evidence continues to mount that Europe just wasn’t ready for a single currency.
Dead-enders in Dark Suits
The
Bank for International Settlements is the central bankers’ central
bank; accordingly, it tends to exhibit the prejudices of the tribe in
especially concentrated form. In particular, it has been relentless in
making the case for higher interest rates, on the grounds that … well,
the logic keeps changing. For a while it was warning about inflation and
commodity prices; when the inflation failed to materialize and
commodity prices slumped again, it simply changed the argument to one
against bubbles, plus the quite amazing argument that central bankers
must not keep rates low because that would take the fiscal pressure off
governments. Who, exactly, elected these people to run the world?
But in its latest report the BIS really transcends itself.
Part of what makes the report so awesome is the way that it trots out every discredited argument for austerity, with not a hint of acknowledgement that these arguments have been researched and refuted at length. Early on, for example, it declares that
And that’s just one of many. For another example, the BIS goes on at length about the alleged difficult of shifting workers out of housing into other sectors, and the role of this alleged lack of flexibility in causing sustained high unemployment. What about all those studies showing that employment fell broadly across sectors and regions, indeed across occupations and skill classes, all of which is inconsistent with this story? Never mind.
But the real reason to be horrified by this report doesn’t lie in the details, it lies in the destructive incoherence of the whole vision.
The BIS largely accepts a balance-sheet, debt-overhang view of the crisis; indeed, it inveighs a lot against both public and private sector debt. And it demands that everyone, public and private both, deleverage fast, starting immediately.
Hello? Does anyone see the problem? If everyone is slashing spending, who will buy what they have to sell? And won’t a global depression — because that, in effect, is what they’re calling for — both undermine attempts to save and actually raise debt/GDP ratios, though a falling denominator?
In fact, their own data are trying to tell them this story. They lament the fact that debt ratios have risen, not fallen, in most countries:
But
they fail to note that some of the biggest increases have come in
countries pursuing savage austerity. This is not, of course, a mystery:
Greece has made budget cuts amounting to around 15 percent of GDP, the
equivalent of $2.5 trillion in the United States, but it has been
chasing a rapidly falling GDP. To some of us, this is evidence of the
futility of austerity; to the BIS it’s evidence that people need to cut
much more.
Now, you could argue that we need sharp spending cuts by private and public debtors, but that we can avoid a global depression by using expansionary monetary policy to encourage whoever is left to spend more. But noooo [/end Belushi]: the BIS is fiercely opposed to easy money, which it says just encourages irresponsibility.
So the BIS is calling both for sharp cuts in public spending and for sharp cuts in private spending, encouraged by an end to easy money. I’m not sure how this is supposed to work; maybe the idea is for everyone to run a large trade surplus, at the same time.
In the end, though, this isn’t about analysis, it’s about attitude. The BIS is basically embodying the notion that we must pay for our past sins, never mind the arithmetic.
And the worst of it is that these views will carry some weight, because the BIS still, for some reason, retains substantial credibility.
But in its latest report the BIS really transcends itself.
Part of what makes the report so awesome is the way that it trots out every discredited argument for austerity, with not a hint of acknowledgement that these arguments have been researched and refuted at length. Early on, for example, it declares that
studies have repeatedly shown that as government debt surpasses about 80% of GDP, it starts to become a drag on growth.Somebody didn’t get the memo (or, more likely, the report had already been sent to the printers when Reinhart-Rogoff-Wrong broke).
And that’s just one of many. For another example, the BIS goes on at length about the alleged difficult of shifting workers out of housing into other sectors, and the role of this alleged lack of flexibility in causing sustained high unemployment. What about all those studies showing that employment fell broadly across sectors and regions, indeed across occupations and skill classes, all of which is inconsistent with this story? Never mind.
But the real reason to be horrified by this report doesn’t lie in the details, it lies in the destructive incoherence of the whole vision.
The BIS largely accepts a balance-sheet, debt-overhang view of the crisis; indeed, it inveighs a lot against both public and private sector debt. And it demands that everyone, public and private both, deleverage fast, starting immediately.
Hello? Does anyone see the problem? If everyone is slashing spending, who will buy what they have to sell? And won’t a global depression — because that, in effect, is what they’re calling for — both undermine attempts to save and actually raise debt/GDP ratios, though a falling denominator?
In fact, their own data are trying to tell them this story. They lament the fact that debt ratios have risen, not fallen, in most countries:
Now, you could argue that we need sharp spending cuts by private and public debtors, but that we can avoid a global depression by using expansionary monetary policy to encourage whoever is left to spend more. But noooo [/end Belushi]: the BIS is fiercely opposed to easy money, which it says just encourages irresponsibility.
So the BIS is calling both for sharp cuts in public spending and for sharp cuts in private spending, encouraged by an end to easy money. I’m not sure how this is supposed to work; maybe the idea is for everyone to run a large trade surplus, at the same time.
In the end, though, this isn’t about analysis, it’s about attitude. The BIS is basically embodying the notion that we must pay for our past sins, never mind the arithmetic.
And the worst of it is that these views will carry some weight, because the BIS still, for some reason, retains substantial credibility.
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