Discussion on 2016 presidential race: Ornstein on MSNBC Live

Resident Scholar Norman Ornstein discusses the 2016 presidential race on MSNBC Live.

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Lack of transparency in the Fed: AEI’s Kevin Hassett on Fox Business Networks’ ‘Varney & Co’

Kevin Hassett of the American Enterprise Institute talks about uncertainty in the market and how the Fed may be responsible on Fox Business Networks’ ‘Varney & Co.’

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Is the GOP falling out of love with supply-side economics?

Is this true, I wonder? From the Wonkblog reporter Matt O’Brien:

 

A few thoughts:

1.) Some policies Donald Trump is talking about are clearly contrary to what most Republicans think of as “supply-side economics.” Raising trade barriers and investment taxes are two that most immediately come to mind. I mean, classic, 1980s-style supply-siders blame the Great Depression on 1930s protectionism, after all. But we’ll see if Trump’s tax plan more or less adheres to the idea that lowering marginal tax rates is the single most powerful economic level at the disposal of policymakers. I am guessing it will be a big tax cut for pretty much everybody. There are three things I am really looking forward to right now: autumn, “The Force Awakens,” and the Trump tax plan. And not necessarily in that order.

2.) As for the popularity of supply-side economics, I’ve written a bit about polls suggesting the public is deeply skeptical of the idea that lower tax rates on business and the wealthy will help everyone else.

3.) As far Republicans go, Tea Party types seem to be more concerned about small government generally than low taxes specifically. At least that’s my impression. And there also seems to be skepticism about wealth created by bankers benefiting from Too Big To Fail. On the hand, entrepreneurs still seem greatly admired, and I would guess most Republicans think low taxes are helpful in encouraging high-impact startups. It is also worth mentioning that politically successful Republican tax plans have typically combined high-end and middle-class tax cuts, rather than being exercises in ideological purity. Tax cuts for everybody. One might argue that the revealed GOP preference on taxes has been broader than what one might read in “The Way the World Works.” If you think about 1980s supply-side economics as low taxes, tight money, and free trade, certainly the first two seem like they are still core GOP issues given hostility to the Fed’s bond buying and the popularity of low-rate tax plans like the flat tax or fair tax. At the same time, there is growing interest in issues such that are not part of the traditional supply-side portfolio, such as higher education and healthcare. Which is great.

 

 

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Congress has options on Iran

Please join AEI on Tuesday, September 8th at 9:00am to welcome former vice president Richard B. Cheney for a major address concerning the deal’s consequences for the security and interests of the United States and its allies in the Middle East. Details here.

There was a time, not so long ago, when Congress did not hesitate to buck the president of the United States. On NATO enlargement, on standing against Saddam Hussein, on tightening the screws on Iran, on resourcing defense, and on so much more, past congresses led foreign policy, pushed the country, and dared the man in the White House to say no.

Those days are behind us. The Washington Post put it succinctly this weekend, reporting on DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Shultz’s refusal to take up an Iran resolution lauding Obama on his deal with Tehran. “Some Democrats on the national committee who were unhappy that the resolution did not come up for consideration said that, as DNC chair, Wasserman Schultz owed her allegiance in this instance to the president, regardless of her own local political considerations.” Matter of conscience? Genuine policy disagreement? Forget that. Now Democrats “owe” the president no matter their own mind nor their constituents’.

A woman holds a placard as she joins several thousand other protestors to demonstrate during a rally apposing the nuclear deal with Iran in Times Square in the Manhattan borough of New York City, July 22, 2015. REUTERS/Mike Segar.

Part of the problem with Congress is generational: so many new members simply do not know what they can do with the power the people of this country gave them. As Dick and Liz Cheney wrote this weekend in the Wall Street Journal,

As citizens, we have another obligation. We have a duty to protect our ideals and our freedoms by safeguarding our history. We must ensure that our children know the truth about who we are, what we’ve done, and why it is uniquely America’s duty to be freedom’s defender.

But for so many, what we have done, what we can do, and the unique role that Congress can play in righting the ship of state, are mysteries. Members are reduced to empty rants about constitutionalism instead of clearly thinking through legislative options on Iran. What to do? Vote the Iran Deal down. Tell the president what a deal should look like. What if the vote is lost or the veto not overridden? Enshrine the terms of the deal in legislation. Enshrine the president’s promises in legislation. Ensure any violation will reimpose sanctions. Go hammer and tongs after Iran’s support for terrorism, human rights violations and efforts to destabilize the Middle East. There are dozens of options available, and if the president doesn’t like them, let him veto those too. Start withholding funds for the president’s initiatives on issues anathema to American interests. Stop confirming ambassadors. Sit on foreign assistance programs. These are the tools of congressional power. They shouldn’t be used wantonly, but they should be used.

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Monday afternoon links

1. Chart of the Day I (above). As a result of revolutionary drilling technologies that have dramatically increased domestic production of shale oil and shale gas, America produced 89% of the domestic energy consumed this year (through May), which is the highest level of energy self-sufficiency since 1984, more than 30 years ago.

 

2. Chart of the Day II (above). Also a direct result of America’s bonanza of shale oil and gas, the US relied on foreign sources of petroleum products for only 25.2% of the total petroleum supply this year (through July), the lowest level of net petroleum imports since 1971, more than 40 years ago.

3. Peak What? Italian energy group Eni says it has found one of the world’s largest natural gas fields off Egypt’s coast. The company said the area was nearly one mile beneath the surface and covered 39 sq miles. It could hold as much as 30 trillion cubic feet of gas, or 5.5 billion barrels of oil equivalent, according to this report.

4. Peak Nitwitery? The University of Tennessee-Knoxville has told its staff and students to stop calling each other ‘he’, ‘she’, ‘him’ and ‘her’ – and to start referring to one another with terms like ‘xe’, ‘zir’ and ‘xyr’ instead, see news report here and graphic above from UT’s Office for Diversity and Inclusion.

5. Who’d a-Thunk It? Wal-Mart Cuts Some Workers’ Hours After Hourly Pay Raise Boosts Its Labor Costs? There’s no such thing as a free lunch?

6. Chart of the Day III (above). The chart above displays the history of Seattle’s minimum wage, both nominal and real (adjusted for inflation). Compared to the previous peak in 1968 of about $11 an hour (in today’s dollars), Seattle’s eventual minimum wage of $15 will be about 36% above that previous peak. Economic death wish? Free lunch?

7. Quotation of the Day, from Judge Andrew Napolitano:

We have migrated from a two-party system into a one-party system, the big-government party. There’s a democratic wing that likes taxes and wealth transfers and assaults on commercial liberties and there’s a republican wing that likes war and deficits and assaults uncivil liberties. Neither of them is interested in true freedom.

“And both parties love prohibition, just of different things,” writes Andrew Syrios.

8. Video of the Day, from Reason.tv (below): “Uber and the Great Taxicab Collapse.”

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State Department releasing more Clinton emails: Thiessen on Fox News’ ‘America’s Newsroom’

Fellow Marc Thiessen discusses the Clinton email controversy and Donald Trump's recent attacks on Clinton aide on Fox News' 'America's Newsroom.'

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Shareholder activism has gone overboard

In their quest for quick returns, activists make the mistake of forgetting that it takes time and patience to position any company for success.

A sea change is under way in the governance of America’s public companies. Today, we are witnessing a dramatic increase in attacks by activist investors demanding immediate improvement in shareholder returns. In the first six months of this year, activists have publicly confronted more than 200 American public companies, up substantially over previous years. As the contentious battle for board seats at DuPont DD -1.23% last spring demonstrated, even highly regarded, well performing and iconic companies are now vulnerable to public assault.

While the bid at DuPont narrowly failed, activist investors appear to have been remarkably successful in aggressive and high-profile campaigns, demanding and obtaining board representation, as well as substantial changes in business strategy and financial policy at leading American companies.

Managements and boards today are well advised to plan for the sudden emergence of potential shareholder activists. Indeed, many companies are being proactive in anticipating, and acting upon, potential activist demands — such as share repurchases and cost reductions — before an activist appears.

In the past, most shareholders weren’t overly concerned with influencing the direction of a public company. Investors, with countless investment alternatives, were simply focused on whether they should buy, hold or sell a company’s stock, depending on their own financial objectives and perceptions of a company’s longer-term prospects.

In 1980, the average share of a company was held for 3 years; in 2010, the average share was sold every 6 months, and the turnover rate is accelerating, according to data from the New York Stock Exchange. More investors expect immediate results. In a culture that favors quick wins over long-term investment, activists who present a forceful way to increase immediate shareholder value often have a receptive audience, particularly with certain mutual funds, who are under growing pressure to boost their own annual returns.

Activists have also adroitly leveraged the growing federal regulation of corporate governance. An activist’s ability to pressure a company’s board emanates from the annual election of directors and their consideration of shareholder resolutions.

Historically, the rights of a shareholder were defined by a company’s charter and bylaws, the laws of the state where the company was incorporated (typically Delaware), and the listing requirements of the exchange where the company’s stock traded. In this context, governance rules, defined primarily by contract and state law, varied between companies, but generally afforded shareholders only a limited role in the governance of the company.

As certain investors in recent years have sought a more active voice, regulatory agencies have superimposed national standards to advance the perceived interests of shareholders. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) created in the 1930s to ensure uniform financial disclosure by public companies to reduce the risk of fraud and facilitate informed decisions by investors, has substantially expanded the federal role in corporate governance through a host of regulatory initiatives. These include precluding brokers — absent specific instructions from their clients, the individual shareholders — from voting on any contested matters, and draft rules that would provide direct access to a company’s proxy for a dissident slate of directors.

The government has also, until last year, implicitly encouraged institutional investors to rely upon the advice of the proxy advisory firm, Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS), over whom activists have very substantial influence. ISS is widely recognized as having very limited ability to evaluate the complex strategic and financial issues that surface in an activist challenge. Nonetheless, ISS has acquired an extraordinary role in corporate governance, as its guidance typically directs the voting of a third of a company’s shares.

Activists can offer constructive ideas to improve performance without compromising a company’s future prospects, and companies should respond accordingly. But most activists are inherently focused on what will immediately impact a company’s valuation, whereas the drivers of success in an enterprise require time and patient capital.

America’s greatest companies were inspired by a vision of the unique value they could provide in the markets they aspired to serve. While they created tremendous value for their investors over time, it was not the immediate and overriding preoccupation of management. A successful business typically requires a long-term strategy, a healthy culture, a motivated workforce, intellectual property, a meaningful brand, customer loyalty, capital investment and other valuable and frequently intangible assets. These factors can generate substantial economic return outside the time limits of most activists. As a result, they are easily discounted when the focus is solely on current financial performance.

Significantly, the largest institutional investors are now questioning whether aggressive steps taken to improve profitability in the short-term may damage a company’s longer-term prospects.

Larry Fink, CEO of Black Rock, America’s largest institutional investor, with over $4 trillion invested in America’s public companies, has cautioned that excessive focus on immediate financial results may be jeopardizing important elements required for longer- term profitable growth.

In a major recent development, Fink, William McNabb, the CEO of Vanguard, and others who are permanent, not short term, investors, are making clear their own firms now intend to engage directly with boards to protect the interests of long-term shareholders. Boards must now prepare to respond to this initiative. Of note, the independence of boards from management will be reinforced as they are called upon to engage directly in investor relations.

As for public policy, the SEC should focus on the critically important function of disclosure, and henceforth leave corporate governance to the private sector, to companies and their investors.

Finally, those institutional investors who continue to outsource decision-making on corporate governance issues should explore the creation of a more sophisticated alternative to ISS. The system is clearly out of balance when one agency, with manifest limitations and no meaningful competition, exercises such extraordinary influence on matters of this consequence.

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Clinton and Trump on the immigration debate: Thiessen on Fox News’ ‘The Kelly File’

Fellow Marc Thiessen discusses Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump's immigration proposals on Fox News' 'The Kelly File'

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Donald Trump’s evolving positions: Ponnuru on Fox News’ ‘Special Report’

AEI's Visiting Fellow of Society and Culture, Ramesh Ponnuru, offers insight into Donald Trump's conservative principals -- or lack thereof -- and what the candidate's flip-flopping could mean going forward.

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Trump is a nuisance, not a nightmare

Donald Trump is not high on my list of people who ought to be the president of the United States. I would prefer a candidate who has a track record of conservatism. Who supports free trade. Who has served in elective office. Who can keep his petty resentments below the surface. And who doesn’t casually slander whole ethnic groups or call reporters “bimbos” for asking him tough questions.

But even after weeks and weeks of what has become the Summer of Trump, I can’t get worked up about him. Former Texas Governor Rick Perry said that Trump is “a cancer on conservatism” that has to be excised. Washington Post columnists George Will and Michael Gerson, among others, seem to agree. Gerson even chided those of us who have said that other political figures could stand to move partway toward Trump’s position on immigration.

I just can’t take Trump that seriously. He is not going to be president. He’s not going to be the Republican nominee. He’s probably not going to hurt the eventual nominee’s chances of winning. Trump is an existential threat to the weakest primary candidates — but not to anybody else.

Trump won’t win the primaries. How do I know?

• Because parties don’t pick nominees who have never run for anything before, unless they happened to be the victorious Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in World War II a few years earlier.
• Because major parties don’t succumb to sudden hostile takeovers.
• Because too many of his supporters are just registering discontent before they make a real decision several months from now — or have a low likelihood of voting in the primaries at all.
• Because Republicans aren’t going to choose a nominee who wants to raise taxes on the rich. (A lot of Republicans may be fine with that idea, but a lot of opponents care deeply about it.)
• Because Republican elected officials would consolidate behind a consensus choice if Trump started winning delegates.
• Because the decisive Republican presidential primary voters are a pretty sober-minded bunch.

I’ll go further: Not only will Trump not be the nominee; his supporters won’t even determine who the eventual nominee is. Take away the celebrity-besotted, the non-voters, and the single-issue opponents of immigration, and you’re left with a group of conservatives who deeply dislike what they see as a spineless Republican establishment. These voters never determine the nominee, because too many of them waste their passion on hopeless candidates, such as Ben Carson, Michele Bachmann . . . Donald Trump.

In theory, Trump could hurt the eventual nominee even if he loses the primary, either by making a third-party run or by influencing the nominee to take unpopular positions. But a third-party run would happen only after Trump lost the primaries. Leaving aside legal and logistical issues, the successive losses would diminish him — both because they would inevitably diminish anyone and because Trump in particular makes so much noise about being a huge winner. He’d have to run instead as a sore loser, and spend a lot of money to register in the single digits on Election Day.

Are voters who object to Trump going to hold his views against other Republicans? So far the data suggest that most people, whether they love him or hate him, distinguish Trump from other Republicans. Hispanics have a strongly negative view of Trump, but view several other Republicans positively. That’s what you’d expect for someone who has such a strong personal brand: People think he speaks for himself.

Trump can’t pull any of the other candidates to take harmful positions against their will. The Washington Post asked whether Republicans “just gave away the 2016 election by raising birthright citizenship.” Answer: No. The overwhelming likelihood is that the Republican nominee will have no plans to end birthright citizenship. (Bush and Rubio have never called for it; Kasich and Walker now agree with them.)

So the risk Trump represents to the Republican Party, or conservatism, is really quite small. I understand why he gets some conservative commentators’ blood boiling. A lot of the resulting columns have been enjoyable. But some anti-Trump conservatives seem to think it’s a matter of great urgency for all decent and serious people on the right to denounce him or “stop him.” It’s not. This too shall pass.

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News startups are looking to avoid the viewability issue by designing ad-friendly sites from the start

You might have heard: Digital media is wrestling with ad viewability, with little agreement on whose responsibility it is to move the industry forward

But did you know: Ad viewability is a contested issue with publishers and advertisers, but some news startups are hoping to get around the issue by designing websites that are ad-friendly. Lauren Johnson writes that LittleThings, a year-old viral news and lifestyle site targeting women, will reveal an ad-friendly design during the fourth quarter of this year, and the redesign will be able to provide advertisers with more accurate data about how users interact with their ads. However, Johnson writes that the challenges of mobile ads throws a wrench in the plans of many of these publishers, due to smaller screens and a lack of data-tracking cookies.

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Should errors on old stories still be corrected?

Steve Buttry asks, is there a statute of limitations on on correcting errors or updating flawed stories? Errors are often corrected soon after a story’s publication, but a flaw that’s pointed out years later may not be as likely to be corrected. Writing on a case involving The New York Times, Buttry writes that news organizations should still make the correction. Former chair of the SPJ Ethics Committee Kevin Smith says: “If the new facts significantly change the original story, they have an obligation to completely correct those in a way that rivals the original reporting and, at a minimum, apply corrections prominently.”

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Chinese journalist detained for fabricating and spreading false information about stock market

A Chinese journalist admitted to spreading false information that led to “panic and disorder” at China’s stock market, according to reports by state-run news agency Xinhua. Wang Xiaolu, a journalist for Caijing magazine, wrote a story in July that said the securities regulator was studying plans for government funds to exit the market, which China Securities Regulatory Commission denied and called “irresponsible.” Caijing magazine said in a statement posted on its website it “defended journalists’ rights to do their duty under the law.”

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Once a ‘high-stakes affair,’ political press conferences are now a farce with journalists playing along

Political press conferences were formerly events where politicians were “girded for pitched battle with the assembled journalists,” but Robert Mann writes that the political press conference has devolved into “little more than a theater production starring the politician.” Journalists are bit players in this production, Mann says, with politicians looking to make news with carefully scripted statements. Mann writes that reporters often have no choice but to submit to these productions: “If the reporters cause trouble — if they annoy the candidate or her staff with unreasonable demands or overly hostile questions — campaign staffers can make life much less comfortable for them. … To get ahead, they go along.”

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NPR ombud defends use of screengrab from WDBJ video

Though NPR did not use or link to videos from the WDBJ shooting, it drew criticism for its use of a screengrab taken from the shooter’s video. NPR ombudsman Elizabeth Jensen says NPR showed the appropriate restraint is choosing not to air the videos, and says its use of the screengrab was justified. Jensen writes: “[The pictures] and the audio could have been described instead of shown (as they have been here) and yes, they are disturbing. But a killing that takes place on live television is shocking and had NPR stripped out every audio or visual element it would have somehow failed to convey succinctly just how shocking it was.”

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How The Washington Post’s homepage redesign was inspired by print

The Washington Post’s redesigned homepage was revealed last week, the final piece of its sidewide reboot. But it’s not drastically different from its predecessor, which director of digital products and design Joey Marburger says was intentional. The new homepage was inspired by the print front page, as the Post was looking for the ability to emphasize big stories online the same way it can in print. But, Marburger says the bigger changes are things that readers may not be able to see: “The term people use a lot is more dynamic. Really what that means for us is we can manipulate and change the homepage faster, at the true pace of news.”

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Need to Know: Aug. 31, 2015

Fresh useful insights for people advancing quality, innovative and sustainable journalism

OFF THE TOP

You might have heard: Digital media is wrestling with ad viewability, with little agreement on whose responsibility it is to move the industry forward

But did you know: News startups are looking to avoid the viewability issue by designing ad-friendly sites from the start (Adweek)
Ad viewability is a contested issue with publishers and advertisers, but some news startups are hoping to get around the issue by designing websites that are ad-friendly. Lauren Johnson writes that LittleThings, a year-old viral news and lifestyle site targeting women, will reveal an ad-friendly design during the fourth quarter of this year, and the redesign will be able to provide advertisers with more accurate data about how users interact with their ads. However, Johnson writes that the challenges of mobile ads throws a wrench in the plans of many of these publishers, due to smaller screens and a lack of data-tracking cookies.

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+ Noted: Some publishers are using “out-stream ads,” video ads that run on text-dominant Web pages, as a way to increase mobile ad revenue (Wall Street Journal); With 20 million monthly readers and a valuation of $100 million, Mic expects to generate $5 million to $10 million in revenue in 2015, up from $0 in 2014 (Business Insider); Condé Nast breaks its tradition of not negotiating ad rates, a decision that “bows to the reality of digital” (Digiday)

TRY THIS AT HOME

Should errors on old stories still be corrected? (The Buttry Diary)
Steve Buttry asks, is there a statute of limitations on on correcting errors or updating flawed stories? Errors are often corrected soon after a story’s publication, but a flaw that’s pointed out years later may not be as likely to be corrected. Writing on a case involving The New York Times, Buttry writes that news organizations should still make the correction. Former chair of the SPJ Ethics Committee Kevin Smith says: “If the new facts significantly change the original story, they have an obligation to completely correct those in a way that rivals the original reporting and, at a minimum, apply corrections prominently.”

OFFSHORE

Chinese journalist detained for fabricating and spreading false information about stock market (News.com.au)
A Chinese journalist admitted to spreading false information that led to “panic and disorder” at China’s stock market, according to reports by state-run news agency Xinhua. Wang Xiaolu, a journalist for Caijing magazine, wrote a story in July that said the securities regulator was studying plans for government funds to exit the market, which China Securities Regulatory Commission denied and called “irresponsible.” Caijing magazine said in a statement posted on its website it “defended journalists’ rights to do their duty under the law.”

+ Crowdfunded journalism site Contributoria, which was funded by Guardian Media Group, folds, saying only that it was “the right time” (Politico)

OFFBEAT

Once a ‘high-stakes affair,’ political press conferences are now a farce with journalists playing along (Salon)
Political press conferences were formerly events where politicians were “girded for pitched battle with the assembled journalists,” but Robert Mann writes that the political press conference has devolved into “little more than a theater production starring the politician.” Journalists are bit players in this production, Mann says, with politicians looking to make news with carefully scripted statements. Mann writes that reporters often have no choice but to submit to these productions: “If the reporters cause trouble — if they annoy the candidate or her staff with unreasonable demands or overly hostile questions — campaign staffers can make life much less comfortable for them. … To get ahead, they go along.”

UP FOR DEBATE

NPR ombud defends use of screengrab from WDBJ video (NPR)
Though NPR did not use or link to videos from the WDBJ shooting, it drew criticism for its use of a screengrab taken from the shooter’s video. NPR ombudsman Elizabeth Jensen says NPR showed the appropriate restraint is choosing not to air the videos, and says its use of the screengrab was justified. Jensen writes: “[The pictures] and the audio could have been described instead of shown (as they have been here) and yes, they are disturbing. But a killing that takes place on live television is shocking and had NPR stripped out every audio or visual element it would have somehow failed to convey succinctly just how shocking it was.”

SHAREABLE

How The Washington Post’s homepage redesign was inspired by print (Poynter)
The Washington Post’s redesigned homepage was revealed last week, the final piece of its sidewide reboot. But it’s not drastically different from its predecessor, which director of digital products and design Joey Marburger says was intentional. The new homepage was inspired by the print front page, as the Post was looking for the ability to emphasize big stories online the same way it can in print. But, Marburger says the bigger changes are things that readers may not be able to see: “The term people use a lot is more dynamic. Really what that means for us is we can manipulate and change the homepage faster, at the true pace of news.”

+ Killing the comment sections prevents audiences from asking questions, and Jennifer Brandel says letting audiences weigh in on what stories to cover opens up new editorial opportunities, presents a marketing opportunity for newsrooms, and leads to stories that are often popular with readers (Medium)

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Amazon and America: A report on workplace cultures

Earlier this month, the New York Times created a firestorm with a description of what it’s like to work at Amazon, one of America’s most successful companies. The reporters described a brutal workplace culture where employees work long into the night, are pushed to their limits and beyond, and sabotage their colleagues’ performances. CEO Jeff Bezos pushed back, writing to his employees, “I don’t recognize this Amazon and I very much hope you don’t, either.” Readers responded with more comments than the Times had ever received for a single story.

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos demonstrates the Kindle Paperwhite during Amazon’s Kindle Fire event in Santa Monica, California September 6, 2012. Reuters

Using public polls, we at AEI have been looking at people’s attitudes about their jobs and workplaces for more than a decade. Our latest report will be published later this week. Pollsters such as Gallup and the National Opinion Research Center have been asking identical questions for many years, and we rely heavily on their results for broader judgments about work today. The stability of overall attitudes in their surveys is striking, and the general assessments are positive. Most workers say their jobs are a satisfying part of their lives. In Gallup’s most recent question, 89 percent of employed people were satisfied with their jobs (nearly half, 48 percent, were completely satisfied.) This response has changed very little over time. In 1963, 85 percent told Gallup they were satisfied. Work provides meaning for most workers, which explains why majorities tell pollsters their jobs provide them a sense of identity and are not just something they do to have an income. In polls about what people most want from their jobs, work that provides a feeling of accomplishment ranks higher than work that provides a big salary.

Learn more:

• Persistent anxiety amid market fluctuations

But what about workplace culture? Does it bear any resemblance to the story about Amazon? Do most workers like and work well with their colleagues and their bosses? What about hours at work and vacation time? Are employers flexible? Gallup’s extensive battery of questions provides some answers.

Seventy-two percent in Gallup’s latest survey say they are completely satisfied with their coworkers, making it the highest-rated job characteristic of the 13 Gallup examined. Fifty-four percent were completely satisfied with their boss or supervisor, and another 29 percent were somewhat satisfied. Fifty-five percent were completely satisfied and another 31 percent somewhat satisfied with the recognition they receive for their work.

Despite this notable satisfaction with their work, most people want to have a life outside their jobs. In a new Aspen Institute/Atlantic survey on the American Dream, when people were asked about their professional goals, having a good work-life balance ranked at the top, with 45 percent giving that response as one of their top three goals. A job that pays a lot of money ranked second at 37 percent. Fifty-three percent told Gallup they were completely satisfied, and another 29 percent somewhat satisfied, with the amount of work required of them. Only 16 percent were dissatisfied.

Learn more:

• Persistent anxiety amid market fluctuations

Consistent with these responses, most people also report that their work isn’t all-consuming, as it appears to be for some at Amazon. In a question about how much time every 7 days they work on a home computer or a smartphone, people’s median response was 3 hours per week. Thirty-two percent said their employer expected them to check email and stay in touch remotely outside of business hours, but 63 percent said this wasn’t expected. Fifty-seven percent were completely satisfied with the vacation time they had and another 20 percent somewhat satisfied. Fifty-eight percent were completely satisfied and 25 percent somewhat satisfied with the flexibility of their hours.

That being said, there are aspects of work with which people aren’t as satisfied as they are with those described above. Nearly everyone would like to make more money, and only a third say they are completely satisfied with what they earn (another 36 percent are somewhat satisfied). Worries about being laid off in the near future and salary and benefit cuts were especially acute in the immediate aftermath of the financial crash. Levels of concern in these areas have since dropped, but the concern is still very real. The last time Gallup asked about them, 19 percent worried they would be laid off, 23 percent that their hours would be cut back, and a third that their benefits would be reduced.

Learn more:

• Social Security at 80: Yawn

Based on the polls, Amazon’s workplace culture, as described by the Times, appears unique and very different from what most workers experience. With that in mind, we wish you a happy Labor Day.

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Is America forgetting American values?

Khadija Ismayilova, an Azerbaijani journalist working for the congressionally funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, has been sitting behind bars in Baku since December and faces up to 19 years in prison.

With the number of journalists jailed around the world surging, a case like hers hardly seems like news these days. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, or CPJ, last year 221 journalists were locked up, an increase of 10% on the previous year and the second-highest number since CPJ began keeping track of such data in 1990.

But Ismayilova’s case deserves special attention for what it reveals about today’s authoritarians—and us.

Beginning in 2010, Ismayilova had begun work on a series of articles focused on state-level corruption in Azerbaijan. Her reporting pointed to the involvement of Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and his family. Among the numerous allegations were that Aliyev’s 11-year-old son owned real estate in the United Arab Emirates worth $44 million, that several offshore companies have been registered in the names of Aliyev’s daughters, and that President Aliyev and his family were serving as senior managers for three Panamanian companies involved in extracting some $2.5 billion worth of gold and silver from an Azerbaijani mine.

Ismayilova’s reporting seemed to touch a nerve with the country’s “first family.” The day before she was arrested she was publicly accused by an official close to the President of spreading lies and behaving treasonously. As Charles Davidson, founder and director of the Hudson Institute’s Kleptocracy Initiative, notes, “Carefully structured kleptocracies are both the backbone and the Achilles’ heel of many of today’s autocracies.”

Of course, to charge her with libel would have brought more attention to her reporting about the family’s financial wheeling and dealing. So, instead, Ismayilova was bizarrely originally charged with attempting to incite a former colleague to commit suicide —an ex-colleague, one should add, who withdrew his complaint and is still alive. Now, new charges of tax evasion and embezzlement have been added. Such tactics are common among authoritarian regimes that can, if they choose, forge papers and create paper trails pretty much at will.

In some ways, Azerbaijan is a difficult case. Because the country possesses oil wealth and sits between Russia and Iran, foreign policy realists—including, apparently, those in the Obama administration—contend that the internal affairs of Azerbaijan are not a priority for the United States. American interests override American values. But should that be the case?

Certainly there are times in extremis when liberal democracies, fighting for their very existence, such as in World War II, must cut deals with the devil. The British and American alliance with Stalin’s Soviet Union was a matter of necessity. And, arguably, during the Cold War, with the West facing totalitarian threats from both Moscow and Beijing, there were also periods when dealing with less than savory regimes, like the military juntas in Turkey or Syngman Rhee’s South Korea, might arguably have been strategically required as well.

But such judgments can too easily become habit, with policymakers not truly weighing whether the interests at stake are of such importance that it is worth ignoring American ideals. Absent the kind of threat the United States faced during World War II and the Cold War, should American administrations be so ready to compromise the country’s principles?

Even during the late stages of the Cold War, when former UN Ambassador Jeanne Kirkpatrick’s argument in “Dictatorships and Double Standards” was popular among a segment of the foreign policy right, the Reagan administration ultimately set aside the article’s case for taking a more sympathetic view of autocratic regimes in favor of the Reagan Doctrine of supporting democratic change in places like the Philippines and Latin America. Although often difficult, the promotion of liberal ideals was understood as being in the country’s longer-term strategic interest.

Today, the United States needs a closer fusing of its interests and values when dealing with authoritarians around the globe. Following such a path increases Washington’s bargaining power precisely because the authoritarians come to see that they can’t play one American interest off against another. In turn, such a policy also heartens those states who are paying the price for keeping their own turn to liberalism on track. And no less important, US administrations reinforce their credibility with global publics who, rather than see policy hypocrisy on Washington’s part, see an America acting consonant with its stated principles.

No doubt, judgment is still required. But Ismayilova’s is not that hard a case. Earlier this year, her fearless reporting won her the PEN “Freedom to Write Award.” On July 29, the National Press Club in Washington awarded her one of its press freedom prizes. American taxpayers have employed Ismayilova to do her job. It’s high time we do ours, and use US leverage to get her released.

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Obama to let China handle Iran’s plutonium plant

Senators supporting the Iran deal may want to reflect long and hard about just what they are endorsing. The faults are many:

• The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) is far weaker than previous non-proliferation agreements with South Africa and Libya.
• Contrary to White House talking points, the inspection and verification mechanisms are also weaker than previous agreements.
• The JCPOA provides Iran rewards upfront, allowing it to cheat or walk away from the deal without consequence.
• Secretary of State John Kerry has apparently acquiesced to Iran conducting its own sampling as the suspect Parchin site, where Iran is alleged to have conducted nuclear weapons work.

Shutterstock.

Now it’s time to add another problem: Kerry, in his myopic quest for a Nobel Prize, appears to have put China in charge of redesigning the Arak heavy water reactor, where Iran can produce plutonium. According to the Chinese news agency Xinhua (emphasis added):

The accord helps maintain the non-proliferation mechanism and safeguard Iran’s rights on civil nuclear energy, [Foreign Minister] Wang [Yi] said, adding it also “created more favorable conditions for the development of the China-Iran relationship.” China will work closely with Iran to ensure the implementation of the deal and continue to play a positive and constructive role in redesigning the Arak heavy-water reactor and other issues, Wang added.

Given that China has always been North Korea’s number one sponsor, what could go wrong?

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When China-bashing isn’t

China’s leaders must love the narrative Western media has adopted regarding presidential candidates’ views on China. Consider a selection of headlines from the past few days:

• “China bashing: American campaign ritual or harbinger of tougher policy?” The Interpreter, August 25
• “Republicans line up to take potshots at China,” Financial Times, August 26
• “The 2016 China-bashing race,” The New York Times, August 26
• “The Republican’s Red Scare: GOP hopefuls are bashing China ahead of next month’s state visit,” Politico, August 28
• “A mainstay of presidential campaigning: China-bashing,” CBS News, August 28
• “China-Bashing 2016: We’ve seen this movie before,” Bloomberg, August 28

Shutterstock

 

Over the past week, candidates from both right and left have been talking tough about China. Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump have focused on economic issues. Hillary Clinton has commented on Chinese cyberattacks. Scott Walker and Marco Rubio have each brought up Beijing’s behavior in the South China Sea as well as its intensifying crack down on human rights activists. To be sure, some have expressed a better understanding of China and of US-China relations than others, and scrutiny of their comments is necessary and appropriate.

But to describe all of this discussion as “China-bashing” is irresponsible and dismissive of very real concerns regarding the People’s Republic. It suggests that candidates are not describing China as it actually is. The facts are that China is engaged in a prolonged cyber campaign against US businesses and the US government; that China is bullying its neighbors and driving up tensions in Asia; that China is increasing oppression of human rights activists, Christians, and Muslims; and that China has yet to adopt wide-reaching market-oriented economic reforms.

Many analysts seem to believe that pointing out those truths—and suggesting that those truths require an American response—is little more than “bashing” China. The Chinese Communist Party couldn’t agree more.

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Why Georgia’s quest for Euro-Atlantic integration matters more than ever

Seven years after his invasion of the former Soviet Republic, Russian President Vladimir Putin is busy in Georgia again. Since early summer, Russian-backed security forces have been inching further into the country from the breakaway province of South Ossetia to install signs unilaterally creating a new border with Georgia. As a result of the new demarcations, part of a BP-operated gas pipeline has now been shifted from Georgian to Russian control, and Georgian farmers have been losing their fields. As one local farmer noted, “I was in Georgia when I went to bed,” but “when I woke I was in South Ossetia.”

Georgia is not considered as important as Iran. Nor is ongoing shelling and gunfire in the Russian-sponsored war in eastern Ukraine as deadly as the conflict in Syria and Iraq. But, while Washington’s focus is elsewhere, Moscow continues to undermine the unprecedentedly peaceful European security order—an order that more than 180,000 Americans in World War II gave their lives to help establish and three generations of Americans then worked to ensure that such a sacrifice would not be fruitless.

Ukraine has been an especially disturbing case. The 1994 Budapest Memorandum offered Ukraine assurances from Russia, the US, and the UK that each would respect Ukraine’s independence, sovereignty, and existing borders in exchange for Kiev’s willingness to give up its nuclear arsenal. That a Putin-led Russian government has reneged on its promise has surprised few in the region. That the United States’ signature on the agreement has been shown to be worthless, however, has triggered alarm bells throughout Eastern Europe.

In the case of Georgia, Washington for years held out the promise of NATO membership if only Georgians did their homework: reformed at home and showed they were likely to be a good ally by providing boots on the ground in both Iraq and Afghanistan. But like the hare at the dog tracks that the greyhounds can never quite catch, NATO membership was always just out of reach.  This all came to a head at NATO’s Bucharest Summit in 2008 when the alliance declined to offer Georgia (and Ukraine) a NATO Membership Action Plan, signaling to Moscow that Washington and Brussels had determined that Georgia resided firmly outside its security zone and would likely remain there. Four months later, Russian tanks, engines running, were parked 25 miles outside the Georgian capital, Tbilisi.

Today, the Georgian government continues to proclaim its commitment to Euro-Atlantic integration. But Georgians, not surprisingly given how little interest the West has shown in the young democracy’s security, have undertaken their own version of Ostpolitik. On the one hand, over the past two years, Georgian and Russian diplomats have engaged in negotiations aimed at improving bilateral political and economic ties. On the other hand, NATO has just opened a joint training center in Georgia, but whose size and the military exercises to be carried out there are designed, it’s said, not “to provoke” Moscow.

Imagine the predicament of a small nation. If you don’t think you can count on the United States or the European Union—whose response to recent border incursions by the Russians was a resounding “steps perceived as provocative must be avoided”—you’re apt to hedge bets. Nearly a third of the Georgian population, up from 16 percent a year ago, now wants to join Mr. Putin’s Eurasian Economic Union.  And over half now opposes Georgian military participation in NATO and US operations.

But why should we care?

The most basic reason is that Washington gave its word to the peoples of Georgia and Ukraine that if they wanted to become part of the West, Europe whole and free, we would help them do so. Credibility matters when it comes to world affairs.

Second, we only whet Putin’s appetite for further troublemaking by failing to respond now. Washington and the capitals of Europe seem to rest their policies today on the hope that his ambitions will be satiated by letting him have Crimea and by letting him have one more chunk of Georgian territory. But Putin has made no secret that his ambitions are much larger and include nothing less than undermining the existing European security order. That may seem improbable to us, but keeping the door ajar for him to continue to push and prod invites a crisis that we should avoid at all costs.

To shut that door, NATO needs a new strategy for aspirant countries. Georgia and Ukraine, Moldova, Montenegro, and Macedonia—they all find themselves in different circumstances, geographically and internally. But they’re all under Russian pressure, and they all have segments of their populations that crave rule of law, democracy, and human rights. It remains in our interest to help them join the West. The “made in Moscow” alternative means damaged American credibility, fewer US allies, and more broken destinies for nations that have surely suffered enough.

Jeffrey Gedmin is a former President, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and co-director of the Transatlantic Renewal Project.

Gary Schmitt co-directs the Marilyn War Center for Security Studies at the American Enterprise Institute.

 

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Three tensions in health care: Guideline fatigue, patient power, end of life dollars

As we savor the fading days of summer and begin to gear up for a busy autumn, it seems like to good time for another edition of “Three Tensions In Healthcare.” (My usual disclosure/reminder: I work at a cloud genomics company in Mountain View, CA.)

Tension 1: Guideline Fatigue

The delivery of care is said to suffer from excessive variability, which can result in some patients receiving a higher quality of care than others.

To improve performance, there has been the widespread adoption of guidelines, standards and checklists, which have often been critiqued for their imperfections – the level of evidence can be remarkably weak, the motivations behind the guidelines may be questionable and their implementation can reflect excessive generalization.

But even if these guidelines, individually, are flawless, it turns out that the sheer number of guidelines can create a problem of its own, as Bill Gardner, citing recent papers by Leonard Wong and by Blumenthal and McGinnis, has discussed with characteristic elegance.

 Clinicians, Gardner writes,

have to optimize their time by prioritizing from an indefinitely long list of tasks that could potentially benefit patients. Therefore any requirement that constrains clinician choice has an opportunity cost in terms of the other things that she might do for her patient. Ideally, before setting a standard we should compare the benefit that can be achieved by implementing the standard against that opportunity cost.

There are two issues here. First, we tend to promote adoption of a particular guideline based on a narrow definition of effectiveness – how it performs at improving the specific task at hand. We often fail to consider the collateral harm adopting the guideline might be doing by distracting providers from potentially more important tasks. Second, adherence to guidelines is often used as a measure of physician quality; I’ve even seen it invoked to support the efficacy of standardized tests, as some exam scores may correlate with the degree of adherence.

But given the explosion of guidelines, the very best clinicians may not be the ones who meticulously and indiscriminately plow through each one, determined to document completion, but rather those who intelligently prioritize, and try to determine on a patient-by-patient basis, where best to spend their limited time.

Tension 2: Patient Power

On the one hand, we seem to live in the age of the empowered patient; there are books like Eric Topol’s The Patient Will See You Now (my WSJ review here), and laudable populist movements like GetMyHealthData, championed by Farzad Mostashari and others. The general thesis is that as more patients demand data, it will inevitably start flowing more freely.

I passionately endorse this ambition. In fact, my own contribution to this discussion, a vision for the “Data Inhaling Clinic Of The Future,” is predicated on the idea that clinical centers offering improved data sharing would have a competitive advantage, since patients would preferentially choose to receive care in such an institution.

Lately, however, I’ve been having some doubts. Not about whether we as patients deserve improved access to our own data – we absolutely do – nor about whether we as patients deserve far more liberty in our ability to order laboratory testing – we absolutely shouldn’t need to go to Arizona (thank you, Theranos) to get this done easily and legally. We also should be able to obtain access to our raw DNA sequence without requiring either a physician’s prescription or an IRB’s stamp of approval.

My concern is whether there are really enough activated consumers to drive the change required. Without question, seriously ill patients, and families of these patients, clamor for improved access. So do a relatively small number of quantified-self folks.

But the reality is that although all of us are potential patients (as Susan Love, a strong advocate of the idea that everyone is a patient, phrased it, you are either post-op or pre-op), we rarely see it that way. Most people are not seriously ill most of the time, and tend to avoid thinking about the possibility of being sick. Most might even support improved data access in theory, but it’s unlikely to be a top-of-mind issue; most people are blissfully unaware. Consequently, the patient “call to arms” evokes the image of John Belushi charging out of Delta House (the first time), followed by no one. Hopefully this will change – as it did for the Deltas.

If there was any sense at all the improved data access and better sharing would encourage consumers to select care from that particular hospital, I suspect that more clinics would jump at the opportunity to provide it. Instead, and rather perversely, sticky data likely represents a business advantage for most hospitals, and unfortunately, one they seem reluctant to give up any time soon.

Tension 3: End Of Life Dollars

There are two major contemporary issues around how care is provided at the end of life. First, there is the very real sense that patients often receive more care and more intensive care than they would actually want, if anyone had bothered to ask. Instead, horror stories – all too real – abound. Improved dialog (many would add: any dialog) should lead to end-of-life care far more aligned with the patient’s wishes.

At the same time, end-of-life care is also frequently associated with a consistent economic message: a disproportionate amount of money is spent for care at the very end of life, care that is often said to be futile. Reduce this spending, we are told, and you could save the system a lot of money.

It’s not hard to see where the tension is, especially as more care delivery organizations begin to own a sizable share of the financial risk (such as in ACO models). An at-risk organization (and its physicians, who generally share in any cost-savings) generally does better, financially, if very sick patients select hospice rather than pursue aggressive treatments.

The key question – as Lisa Rosenbaum insightfully suggested on Twitter – is how to ensure that thoughtful conversations with patients (through the process of “shared decision-making”) do not become a mechanism for consistently nudging patients towards less care.

Will physicians who work in at-risk organizations feel pressure to goose patients towards hospice? Will there be a tendency for physicians in these organizations to convince themselves nudging towards hospice is generally the right thing to do? Conversely, will patients worry their doctors are de-emphasizing potentially beneficial treatments in an effort to save money?

Arguably, the larger concern is not that a particular physician will nudge an individual patient towards hospice, motivated by the tiny financial gain that might accrue, but rather that the underlying economics will result in a subtle shift in the culture and ethos of the healthcare system, in a fashion that favors less care rather than more.

Providing less care to the extremely ill would be a very positive development if driven by the thoughtful evaluation of patient preference. However, such a bias becomes a much more concerning development if driven by providers who are either looking out for their own financial interests, or are motivated by their high-minded perception of what’s in the best interest of the healthcare system as a whole, rather than exclusively considering the individual patient.

A patient must be able to trust that his physician is focused exclusively on discerning and delivering the best care for the individual patient before her.

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Is Turkey heading to partition?

Malaysia and Singapore. Ethiopia and Eritrea. The Czech Republic and Slovakia. Yugoslavia. Serbia and Montenegro and Kosovo. Indonesia and East Timor. Sudan and South Sudan. Many countries which once swore they would uphold their territorial unity have acquiesced to partition. Turkey may be the next.

The Turkish government, its military, and Turkish diplomats may deny any implication that partition could be Turkey’s fate, and US officials will do so publicly, but behind the hot denials, it seems increasingly likely that some sort of division will be the second order effect of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s cynical drive toward autocracy.

It is now clear that Erdoğan’s much ballyhooed interest in a peace process with the Kurds was motivated less out of a desire for peace and more for electoral gain. Erdoğan hoped that he could leverage Kurdish support to provide a deathblow to Kemalism while at the same time providing Erdoğan with the support he would need to change the constitution to solidify his position.

Demonstrators stand behind portraits of Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK)’s jailed leader Abdullah Ocalan during a march in solidarity with him in Diyarbakir, Turkey, August 1, 2015. REUTERS/Umit Bektas.

When the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) agreed to a ceasefire in 2013, they were in a strong position: They controlled territory in Hakkari and southeastern Turkey, and had growing overt support among Turkey’s Kurds. Years of purges and arrests of the top brass by Erdoğan had left the Turkish Army demoralized and a shadow of its former self. Indeed, the Turkish military has in just over a decade gone from being among NATO’s fiercest and capable to little more than a banana republic level of competence. The PKK also had nothing to lose. Imprisoned since 1999, Turkish authorities had long declared PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan irrelevant. But, by seeking to negotiate with Öcalan, Erdoğan affirmed his relevancy as the predominant Kurdish politician.

Erdoğan’s buffoonery also has had a price. Diplomats may favor stability over change, but Turkish support in the international community is no longer solid. The list of places where Erdoğan has made himself persona non grata is long. He is not welcome in Egypt, Libya, the Palestinian Authority, Israel, Syria, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and perhaps even Saudi Arabia. His reception in Europe and a post-Obama United States will be cool. By embracing Hamas as both a liberation movement and a group with democratic legitimacy, he undercut any opposition to the outside world treating the PKK the same. After all, the PKK—through its electoral proxies—has won majority support in southeastern Turkey. The major difference between Hamas and the PKK is that the former targets civilians with terrorism and attacks indiscriminately, while the latter wages much more of an insurgency.

Erdoğan may have been shocked by his failure in June 2015 to win a majority of seats in parliament, but rather than abide by the spirit of democracy, he has sought to subvert it further. New elections will now be on November 1, but the combination of Erdoğan’s drive to assert dictatorial powers and his efforts to suppress the main Kurdish party and its supporters may be the final nail not in Kemalism but rather in the territorial integrity of the Republic of Turkey. Charismatic Kurdish politician Selahattin Demirtaş, co-chair of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), has declared that the curfew imposed by the government on Kurdish supporters of the HDP gives the Kurds little choice but to demand autonomy.

Mustafa Kemal Atatürk declared the Republic of Turkey almost 92 years ago. Erdoğan increasingly shows himself to be the anti- Atatürk in more ways than one. It’s no longer a question of secularism vs. Islamism. It may take a decade, but it is time to begin the countdown to the partition of Turkey. The Kurds will have their state, and its capital will ultimately be Diyarbakir, not Erbil.

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As the GOP plays with Trumpism, Hillary and the Democrats work to shape the new American economy

Donald Trump’s policy views have a high degree of plasticity, even for a politician. But the retrograde version he currently espouses — mass deportation, protectionism, maybe even the gold standard — and the harsh way he espouses them have a foothold in the GOP. Columnist George Will may be correct that each “sulfurous belch from the molten interior of the volcanic Trump phenomenon injures the chances of a Republican presidency.”

And what might that mean, beyond the obvious of probable GOP defeat in November 2016? In the Financial Times today, Labour Party campaign guru and Blairite Peter Mandelson warns of the potential damage if his party makes hard left Jeremy Corbyn its new leader:

It would be a sad and possibly final chapter in the British Labour party’s history. If the leadership election that closes in two weeks’ time is won by Jeremy Corbyn, the current favourite, his policies — printing money, state ownership of major industries, unilateral disarmament and quitting Nato — will make the party unelectable. That would be a very bad outcome for anyone who cares about fairness in our society or Britain’s place in the world. … The Conservative party, which won a majority in May’s general election, is being given a free ride in coming to terms with this modern world. We have to reforge Labour’s tools for creating prosperity and sharing it more widely. The scale of the task is enormous. The price of failure would be immense.

Much the sames goes for the possible Trumpification of the GOP, even if Trump himself is not the presidential nominee. Not only is it an electoral loser, but it gives the left-lurching Democrats the upper hand in shaping policy to meet modern economic challenges. As Marco Rubio said on CNBC today:

Part of it is recognizing we’re not dealing with a cyclical economic downturn that we are trying to climb out of. This is a massive economic restructuring. This is a massive shift in the very nature of the economy. It’s akin to the Industrial revolution expect it’s happening faster than the Industrial Revolution. We need policies that allow us to be globally competitive. We need policies that allow us lead on innovation. That is why I’m for tax reform and regulatory reform. We need have to compete with dozens of other markets and economies. We also have to revolutionize what we mean by higher education. The 21st  Century new economy is going to produce better paying jobs than the 20th Century economy . But those new jobs will require additional skills that perhaps weren’t required in the past. We do not have a higher education system that delivers those skills or that is affordable for the people who need it the most.

But so far the GOP campaign overall doesn’t seem to be about any of that stuff. It doesn’t seem to be about applying empirically sound ideas and solutions, informed by conservative values, toward today’s problems. Instead, it has been dominated by Trump’s zero-sum vision of a besieged America hunkered down in crouch position hoping to hold its own against the technological tide. “We don’t win anymore!” But listen to Hillary Clinton. Her campaign is shoveling out ideas on everything from worker benefits in the “gig” economy to corporate short-termism. Disagree with her solutions if you will, but Team Hillary is outlining a broad response to a changing economy. Right now, at least, Republicans are missing the opportunity to do the same. My favorite Tim Geithner quote is appropriate: “Plan beat no plan.” When Trump is out of the picture — if he is every out of the picture — will the GOP be ready to offer a policy path that comes to term with the modern world or will it offer little more than a base-pleasing, watered-down version of closed, backward-looking Trumpism with a sprinkling of fantasy tax plans?

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Hillary Clinton’s higher ed plan: Something (expensive) for everyone

Hillary Clinton’s higher education plan is extensive and expensive.

The plan contains multitudes (almost every idea proposed in the past five years is in there somewhere—some of which are good). But most of the good ideas are window dressing for what is, first and foremost, a call for more resources. Clinton would spend $350 billion over ten years on a laundry list of priorities designed to bring the price of college down. The plan includes: Grants to states that pledge to invest more of their own money in public colleges and universities; grants to institutions (public and private) that enroll low-income students; lower interest rates for student loan borrowers; interest subsidies for existing borrowers that “refinance” their loans; more spending on childcare for student-parents; and more.

Yes, some of the $350 billion would have strings attached, but most of those strings are themselves about spending more money. In order to access “incentive grants,” states would have to guarantee “no-loan” tuition at four-year public college (and free tuition at two-year colleges) by “[halting] disinvestment in higher education” and “[ramping] up that investment over time.” States, in turn, would only distribute federal grant funds to colleges that demonstrate they can meet the debt-free tuition requirement and contain costs.

Set aside the fact that simply pumping more money into the system won’t solve quality problems and may well inflate college spending further, no matter how tight the new rules. What’s especially odd, given Clinton’s effort to cast herself as a Progressive, is where much of that new spending will go: to upper-income students who would go to college anyway.

To be sure, families up and down the income distribution are anxious about the cost of college. But we already spend plenty of money on policies that subsidize upper-income students and families—federal tax credits, loan forgiveness for graduate students, and heavily subsidized state flagship colleges come to mind. These investments haven’t made college any cheaper, they likely relax the incentive for students and colleges to be cost conscious, and they spend taxpayer dollars on those who would still attend without a handout from the government.

Clinton’s plan would double down on such policies in three key areas. First, the plan calls for a significant investment in lowering interest rates for new and outstanding federal loans. Her plan would both allow borrowers to “refinance” at current rates and slash interest rates on new loans. Campaign documents show they expect about one-third of the $350 billion price tag would go toward these interest subsidies.

But across-the-board interest subsidies are poorly targeted—they go to all borrowers, regardless of their income and ability to repay. Take loan refinancing proposals, like the one introduced by Senator Elizabeth Warren, as an example. The Congressional Budget Office estimated that about 95 percent of outstanding federal loans would be eligible to refinance at lower rates at a cost of nearly $60 billion. The problem here is that a lower interest rate disproportionately benefits those with the highest debts—often graduate students with masters and professional degrees. These grads are actually the best equipped to pay back their loans, and they are already free to refinance federal loans in the private market. Meanwhile, those who are most likely to default—drop-outs who usually have more modest balances—would receive only limited benefits.

Slashing interest rates on new loans suffers from the same problem. Any student can take out a federal loan, regardless of their income, and data suggest that about 50-60 percent of college graduates from high and upper-middle income families borrow. Low interest rates on new loans would make loans more affordable, but by the same amount for students across the income distribution and at a significant cost to the government.

Second, the Clinton plan calls for extending the American Opportunity Tax Credit (AOTC). The AOTC was created in 2009 and allows families with qualified expenses to deduct up to $2,500 from their taxes ($1,000 is refundable). In 2012, the credit was extended through 2017, and President Obama has proposed to make it permanent and expand it even further.

Here again, though, the problem is that tax credits disproportionately benefit upper-income families. These families are the most likely to spend enough on college expenses and pay enough in taxes to qualify for the full credits. An analysis by the Tax Policy Center found that a quarter of the money spent on the AOTC and half of the spending on the student loan interest deduction went to families earning between $100,000 and $200,000 a year. Students from these families are very likely to enroll whether there’s a tax credit or not. As conservative policy wonk Reihan Salam has written, “tuition tax credits increase demand for all students, including those that are already willing and able to spend large sums on higher education.”

AOTC is particularly regressive and expensive because it has much higher income cut-offs than earlier credits. In a recent paper, for instance, economists George Bulman and Carolyn Hoxby found that the AOTC caused a “massive increase” in the share of tax expenditures that went to students from families earning more than $120,000. It also “greatly increased” the credit for middle-income families. The refundable portion does help some low-income families that would not have benefited under earlier tax credits, but the real winners are higher up the ladder.

Most importantly, not a single study has shown tax credits to be effective in terms of affecting college enrollment, choice, or persistence. As a result, Bulman and Hoxby conclude that the government is unlikely to recoup its spending on tax credits through higher tax revenue. If the goal is simply tax relief, doubling down on the AOTC might make sense. But the Clinton plan says it is designed to raise attainment. Is this really the best use of finite resources?

Third, the incentive grants to states would also channel public money toward higher income families in ways that are obvious and less than obvious. Clearly, the free community college in the “New College Compact” could be a boon to upper-income state residents who choose to get two years under their belt for free. Such families would still pay something at four-year public colleges under the “no loan” requirement, but likely less than they do now.

The issue goes deeper than that, though. State funding formulas generally spend the most on students attending selective research universities, while open access institutions get less money per student. According to the Delta Cost Project, for every dollar per student that states and localities appropriated for public research universities in 2010, they sent 70 cents to community colleges. Master’s-level four-year colleges got 72 cents on the dollar. Together, these two sectors enrolled 1.75 times as many full-time students as public research universities in 2010, and they educate far more low-income students.

If Clinton’s incentive grant simply requires states to spend more but leaves funding formulas and admissions standards intact, students at selective research universities would benefit more than those at open access schools. That’s the odd thing about the Left’s constant plea for more state appropriations: as others have noted, a lot of that money operates as merit aid in disguise. Changing funding formulas to level out per-pupil funding—or voucherizing state appopriations and indexing voucher amounts to family income—would be more progressive.

The plan vaguely states that the size of federal incentive grants will “depend in part on the number of low- and middle-income students enrolled in public colleges and universities.” But it isn’t clear how those numbers would be measured or whether such a policy would compel states to change their funding formulas.

In sum, Clinton and her Democratic rivals seem to have lost sight of the problem federal aid was created to solve in the first place: that some low-income students who would benefit from college were not able to afford it on their own. Progressives have made no secret that their goal is much grander: to create a federally-funded universal entitlement for all, regardless of income.

They have a political rationale here, in that universal programs are often better funded and more protected than need-based ones. But that also makes them the hardest to reform when spending grows more than expected, as it will in this case. The poorly targeted tax benefits and interest subsidies will chew up a larger chunk of the budget each year, while public colleges will plead that they need more money to enroll students at the mandated tuition rates. Universality will raise the political costs of messing with any of this. That is, of course, part of their strategy.

Our money would be better spent on ensuring the neediest can access colleges that have incentive to serve them well. That may entail additional spending, but most of all it requires targeting our money where it belongs and creating policies that give colleges a greater stake in their students’ success. Focusing our resources and reform energy on these priorities would advance postsecondary opportunity for a fraction of Clinton’s bloated $350 billion price tag.

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LinkedIn’s referral traffic to publishers has dropped by as much as 44 percent this year

You might have heard: LinkedIn is building a publishing platform for professionals, and more than 130,000 posts are published with LinkedIn’s publishing tools every week

But did you know: LinkedIn was once a steady source of referral traffic for many publishers, but that’s slowing as LinkedIn prioritizes its own publishing tools. In the first 8 months of 2015, SimpleReach, which provides metrics on content performance and distribution, found that referral traffic from LinkedIn to its 1,000 publishers dropped by 44 percent. While referral traffic is dropping, readers are still sharing more content from publishers to LinkedIn: According to ShareThis, the average monthly number of articles shared to LinkedIn has grown from 500,000 to 3 million in the past 18 months.

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News organizations should alter the way they cover mass killings to avoid fueling copycats

The media coverage and social media surrounding the Virginia shooting was likely exactly what the shooter was aiming for, Zeynep Tufekci writes. Tufekci says media should reevaluate how mass killings are covered to prevent giving the killers the notoriety they seek, as well as preventing copycats. Tufekci writes: “This doesn’t mean censoring the news or not reporting important events of obvious news value. … It means somber, instead of lurid and graphic, coverage, and a focus on victims.”

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UK may require social networks to add warnings on controversial autoplay videos

In the wake of the Virginia shooting, after which raw video was widely shared, the U.K. is considering a law that would require social networks to add warnings to autoplay videos. Government officials say social networks should be using “automatic and manual” techniques to identify controversial content that users should be warned of. Head of the Parliamentary Internet, Communications and Technology Forum Matt Warman says: “Social media, just like traditional media, should consider how shocking other content can be, and make sure consumers are warned appropriately.”

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The Daily Show looks to expand its production of original digital content with the hire of Baratunde Thurston

The Daily Show has hired author and comedian Baratunde Thurston to oversee its expansion of original digital content. Thurston was previously director of digital for The Onion and is planning to expand The Daily Show’s content to other platforms beyond TV. Thurston says: “There’s more to what ‘The Daily Show’ can make than what people have seen. This is a 21-and-a-half-minute show that airs on a box in your house, and it can also be a great experience on these other platforms.”

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Techmeme CEO: The homepage can be valuable for publishers and readers

Some say that the homepage is dead, but Gabe Rivera, the CEO of tech news aggregator Techmeme, says it can be valuable for readers, if publishers make them more useful. Rivera says publishers are often too focused on their stats, but the homepage “captures what the site is about and illustrates to readers what the site thinks is important.” Techmeme’s success shows the homepage’s relevance, Rivera says, because it is only a homepage with no side-door traffic.

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How competition between a Cincinnati TV station and newspaper is leading to better journalism for their audiences

Cincinnati TV station WCPO launched a paywall in January 2014 and focused on increasing the quality and breadth of its coverage, leading to increased competition with the city’s leading daily newspaper the Cincinnati Enquirer. Management at both news outlets say the competition between the two is leading to better journalism for their audiences. Chief digital officer for Scripps, which owns WCPO, Adam Symson says: “I feel great about the journalism that the city now has access to as a result of WCPO. I think it’s safe to say that even our competitors at the Enquirer have upped their game. To me, it’s just a win-win when the complacency is shaken out of a marketplace.”

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Need to Know: Aug. 28, 2015

Fresh useful insights for people advancing quality, innovative and sustainable journalism

OFF THE TOP

You might have heard: LinkedIn is building a publishing platform for professionals, and more than 130,000 posts are published with LinkedIn’s publishing tools every week

But did you know: LinkedIn’s referral traffic to publishers has dropped by as much as 44 percent this year (Digiday)
LinkedIn was once a steady source of referral traffic for many publishers, but that’s slowing as LinkedIn prioritizes its own publishing tools. In the first 8 months of 2015, SimpleReach, which provides metrics on content performance and distribution, found that referral traffic from LinkedIn to its 1,000 publishers dropped by 44 percent. While referral traffic is dropping, readers are still sharing more content from publishers to LinkedIn: According to ShareThis, the average monthly number of articles shared to LinkedIn has grown from 500,000 to 3 million in the past 18 months.

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+ Noted: Snapchat is reportedly charging advertisers for video ads viewed for less than a second (Digiday); The Daily Beast becomes the latest publisher to kill the comments section, citing the shift of conversations to social media (Daily Beast); GroupM and BuzzFeed sign deal for year-long partnership, which will include “preferential rates, dedicated staffers in BuzzFeed creative studio BuzzFeed Motion Pictures, and exclusive access to BuzzFeed’s proprietary data and analytics platform Pound” (Advertising Age); Scientific American marks its 170th birthday this week, and Rick Edmonds says it had a sustainable concept from the start but has adapted as times changed (Poynter)

API UPDATE

The week in fact-checking
As part of our fact-checking journalism project, Jane Elizabeth highlights stories worth noting related to truth in politics and on the Internet. This week’s round-up includes fact-checking “The Unauthorized Full House Story,” why facts are sexy, and verifying ways to get rid of student loan debt.

TRY THIS AT HOME

News organizations should alter the way they cover mass killings to avoid fueling copycats (New York Times)
The media coverage and social media surrounding the Virginia shooting was likely exactly what the shooter was aiming for, Zeynep Tufekci writes. Tufekci says media should reevaluate how mass killings are covered to prevent giving the killers the notoriety they seek, as well as preventing copycats. Tufekci writes: “This doesn’t mean censoring the news or not reporting important events of obvious news value. … It means somber, instead of lurid and graphic, coverage, and a focus on victims.”

+ All Things Considered took readers behind the scenes for the production of a story via Snapchat (NPR Social Media Desk)

OFFSHORE

UK may require social networks to add warnings on controversial autoplay videos (Digiday)
In the wake of the Virginia shooting, after which raw video was widely shared, the U.K. is considering a law that would require social networks to add warnings to autoplay videos. Government officials say social networks should be using “automatic and manual” techniques to identify controversial content that users should be warned of. Head of the Parliamentary Internet, Communications and Technology Forum Matt Warman says: “Social media, just like traditional media, should consider how shocking other content can be, and make sure consumers are warned appropriately.”

OFFBEAT

The Daily Show looks to expand its production of original digital content with the hire of Baratunde Thurston (New York Times)
The Daily Show has hired author and comedian Baratunde Thurston to oversee its expansion of original digital content. Thurston was previously director of digital for The Onion and is planning to expand The Daily Show’s content to other platforms beyond TV. Thurston says: “There’s more to what ‘The Daily Show’ can make than what people have seen. This is a 21-and-a-half-minute show that airs on a box in your house, and it can also be a great experience on these other platforms.”

UP FOR DEBATE

Techmeme CEO: The homepage can be valuable for publishers and readers (Digiday)
Some say that the homepage is dead, but Gabe Rivera, the CEO of tech news aggregator Techmeme, says it can be valuable for readers, if publishers make them more useful. Rivera says publishers are often too focused on their stats, but the homepage “captures what the site is about and illustrates to readers what the site thinks is important.” Techmeme’s success shows the homepage’s relevance, Rivera says, because it is only a homepage with no side-door traffic.

SHAREABLE

How competition between a Cincinnati TV station and newspaper is leading to better journalism for their audiences (Nieman Lab)
Cincinnati TV station WCPO launched a paywall in January 2014 and focused on increasing the quality and breadth of its coverage, leading to increased competition with the city’s leading daily newspaper the Cincinnati Enquirer. Management at both news outlets say the competition between the two is leading to better journalism for their audiences. Chief digital officer for Scripps, which owns WCPO, Adam Symson says: “I feel great about the journalism that the city now has access to as a result of WCPO. I think it’s safe to say that even our competitors at the Enquirer have upped their game. To me, it’s just a win-win when the complacency is shaken out of a marketplace.”

FOR THE WEEKEND

+ The future of The New York Times: There’s a three-way contest happening within the Sulzberger family to become the next publisher of NYT (New York Magazine), but Mathew Ingram says the best decision for NYT may be to sell the paper (Fortune)

+ Ken Doctor examines what effects the next recession could have on media: Mergers and acquisitions could actually speed up and display advertising would likely take a hit (Politico Media)

+ What the end of the American Journalism Review means: Mike Hoyt says media criticism elevates the “civic conversation,” and the media can’t critique itself well enough or completely enough (Columbia Journalism Review) and Kevin Lerner says the loss of AJR is more about the loss of the institution, as journalism review is now happening in more than just a few institutions (Nieman Lab)

+ Remembering journalism professor and College Media Matters blogger Dan Reimold, who died at 34: “Losing Dan is a huge blow to College Media Association and Associated Collegiate Press, but also to college media in general” (Nieman Lab)

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