Tuesday, March 27, 2012 7:29:44 AM
The Church Lady State
By TIMOTHY EGAN
March 22, 2012, 9:00 pm
When people complain about liberal overreach they always bring up the nanny state. You know, sorting your garbage to see if a banana peel slipped in with a cellophane wrapper; energy-efficient light bulbs; neutered language in the public square to make sure no one is ever offended.
But all of the above is a mere teardrop in the Amazon compared to what your freedom-hating Republican Party has been doing across the land to restrict individual liberty.
They want the state to follow you into the bedroom, the bathroom and beyond. They think you’re too stupid to know what to do with your own body, too ignorant to understand what your doctors tell you and too lazy to be trusted in a job without being subject to random drug testing. Your body is the government’s business.
Let’s take a tour of the church lady state to date. Our nation may soon turn its lonely eyes to Idaho, where Gov. Butch Otter could have the final say on a bill that would order women to undergo a medically unnecessary and invasive procedure before deciding to end a pregnancy.
This is the latest version of the mandatory ultrasound law, recently enacted by Virginia and Texas. But the Idaho bill, which passed the State Senate on Monday in a one-party Republican state, goes much further, and would subject many women to invasive, trans-vaginal inspections.
Idaho politicians love to go on and on about how government shouldn’t force people to do things that violate their conscience, or common sense. And for the last three years, we’ve heard Republican presidential candidates condemn the abomination of government coming between you and your doctor.
But given a chance to govern without a sanity filter, these same Republicans become Big Brother in a surgical smock.
In Idaho, almost one in five people have no health insurance. Except now the Republican Legislature wants to force you to undergo at least one medical procedure, no matter whether you have health care.
Compounding the lunacy of this reach into your family discussions, the bill’s main sponsor, State Senator Chuck Winder, suggested that rape victims seeking exceptions might be lying about how they got pregnant.
He said women should ask their doctors if their pregnancy was caused by rape or “normal relations in a marriage.” And, yes, I hate to say it, but politicians are that stupid and that mean-spirited in Idaho. Here’s a leader of the State Legislature suggesting that a woman is just too dumb to know whether she was raped or not.
In Texas, Carolyn Jones just went through the punitive end of a horrid law prompted by militant sanctimony. She is a working mother, married, who was anticipating the birth of her second child when she was told of deformities in the fetus. After agonizing, she felt she had no choice but to end the pregnancy. That was the start of her special hell in the Lone Star State.
When she went to an agency that performed abortions, she was told that she must have a sonogram, per the new law, in order to shame her into hearing a heartbeat. “I didn’t want another sonogram when I’d already had two today,” she wrote, in a gripping account in the Texas Observer [ http://www.texasobserver.org/cover-story/the-right-not-to-know ]. “Here was a superfluous layer of torment piled upon an already horrific day.”
Good people can argue the morality of early-stage abortion. But as long as abortion is legal, no woman should have to face Big Government’s medical wand — or gloved fist — for no other reason than some male politicians want to make you feel bad.
The same holds true for new restrictions on personal life in Florida, where Gov. Rick Scott, a Republican, just signed into law random drug testing for state employees. Earlier, he backed a bill requiring anyone in need of state assistance to take a drug test. The latter humiliation is stalled, for now, following a legal challenge by a Navy veteran who was denied help for his 4-year-old son because he refused to take a drug test.
“The law assumes that everyone who needs a little help has a drug problem,” said Luis Lebron, who brought the legal challenge.
Imagine if every politician, or Wall Street recipient of taxpayer money, was required to pee into cup, and to sit through an hourlong lecture on morality, before passing on or receiving a bailout. Yes, imagine — because it’ll never happen.
Did you see the banner behind Rick Santorum’s defeat rally on Tuesday? One word: Freedom. But just a few days earlier, Santorum applauded a preacher in Louisiana who said people who didn’t want to live in a Christian nation should leave the country. Freedom, in Santorum’s world, apparently only applies only to those of one religion.
Mitt Romney has been decrying the Obama administration’s “assault on freedom.” But those who seem to “hate our freedom” — as George W. Bush called theocrats of another stripe — are the pilgrims with pitchforks in Romney’s own party.
There is one recent exception, and it deserves praise. A few days ago, the New Hampshire Legislature voted overwhelmingly to keep a law that gives people of the same sex the freedom to marry. Legislators decided, in the kind of deliberation that stills the cynic in me, that telling somebody whom they can or cannot marry is the ultimate restriction on personal liberty. If your official state motto is “Live Free or Die,” you ought to act like you believe it. They did.
© 2012 The New York Times Company
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/03/22/the-church-lady-state/ [with comments]
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The Tennessee Monkey Bill
By ANDREW ROSENTHAL
March 23, 2012
The Tennessee Senate approved legislation this week that some are calling a “monkey bill [ http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2012/mar/19/anti-evolution-class-discussions-get-senates-ok/ ]” — after the Scopes Monkey Trial, which also took place in Tennessee. In fairness to the state, it’s not quite that bad.
In the 1925 Monkey Trial [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scopes_Trial ], John Scopes was accused of violating the Butler Act [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butler_Act ], which made it illegal to teach evolution in a public school. (He was found guilty.) The 2012 Monkey Bill [ http://wapp.capitol.tn.gov/apps/billinfo/BillSummaryArchive.aspx?BillNumber=SB0893&ga=107 ], tame by comparison, merely guarantees that teachers will not be disciplined for “critiquing” the “weaknesses” of scientific theories “such as evolution and global warming.” It also requires school administrators to “assist teachers” in finding “effective ways to present the science curriculum as it addresses scientific controversies.”
Tennesseans who are members of the National Academy of Science have said the bill will lead to “unwarranted criticisms of evolution.” The National Association of Biology Teachers concurs. The group sent a letter [ http://ncse.com/news/2012/03/nabt-opposes-tennessees-monkey-bills-007265 ] to Gov. Bill Haslam arguing that “concepts like evolution and climate change should not be misrepresented as controversial or needing of special evaluation.”
The difference between the Butler Act and this new legislation encapsulates the change in the anti-science crowd’s strategy, from outright bans on disseminating factual information to fake controversy and false equivalencies. They’re learned to manufacture doubt and pretend it invalidates scientific consensus. It’s a surprisingly effective tactic.
© 2012 The New York Times Company
http://loyalopposition.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/03/23/the-tennessee-monkey-bill/ [with comments]
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AIBS denounces Tennessee's "monkey bills"
March 16th, 2012
The American Institute of Biological Sciences denounced Tennessee's "monkey bills" — House Bill 368 [ http://wapp.capitol.tn.gov/apps/BillInfo/default.aspx?BillNumber=HB0368 ] and Senate Bill 893 [ http://wapp.capitol.tn.gov/apps/BillInfo/default.aspx?BillNumber=SB0893 ] — as "bad for science, science education, and the future economic health of well being of Tennessee" in letters sent to the leadership of the Tennessee General Assembly [ http://ncse.com/webfm_send/1763 ] (PDF) and to Governor Bill Haslam [ http://ncse.com/webfm_send/1764 ] (PDF).
"It is important to note that there is no scientific controversy about the legitimacy of evolution or global climate change," the letters explained, adding, "These scientific concepts have repeatedly been tested and grown stronger with each evaluation. Any controversy around these concepts is political, not scientific."
The letters concluded, "As the nation struggles to reignite our economy and prepare our children for the jobs of the 21st century, we should be working to strengthen our science education system — not insert non-scientific concepts into the classroom to placate political special interests."
AIBS also issued an action alert [ http://capwiz.com/aibs/issues/alert/?alertid=61102976 ] encouraging people in Tennessee to urge their state representatives and the governor to oppose HB 368 and SB 893. AIBS is a professional society whose approximately 160 member organizations represent the breadth of the biological sciences and have a combined membership of nearly 250,000 scientists and science educators.
©2012 NCSE
http://ncse.com/news/2012/03/aibs-denounces-tennessees-monkey-bills-007258
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Nobelists and the "monkey bills"
March 23rd, 2012
A Tennesseean Nobel laureate in science, Stanley Cohen, already denounced [ http://ncse.com/webfm_send/1759 ] (PDF) Tennessee's "monkey bills" as promising to "miseducate students, harm the state's national reputation, and weaken its efforts to compete in a science-driven global economy." But what would his fellow laureates say? Well, no fewer than seventy-five Nobel laureates in science have endorsed the effort to appeal Louisiana's antievolution law — Louisiana Revised Statutes 17:285.1, which implemented the so-called Louisiana Science Education Act, passed and enacted in 2008.
In a letter to the Louisiana legislature, seventy-four of the laureates urged the repeal of the law, saying [ http://www.repealcreationism.com/397/nobellaureateletter/ ] that it "creates a pathway for creationism and other forms of non-scientific instruction to be taught in public school science classrooms," and reminding the legislature that "{b}ecause science plays such a large role in today's world and because our country's economic future is dependent upon the United States' retaining its competitiveness in science, it is vital that students have a sound education about major scientific concepts and their applications."
But the Tennessee legislation [ http://www.capitol.tn.gov/Bills/107/Amend/SA0901.pdf ] (PDF) is not significantly different from the Louisiana law [ http://www.legis.state.la.us/lss/lss.asp?doc=631000 ]. Both misdescribe evolution, the origins of life, and global warming as scientifically controversial — even though the major national scientific organizations have said that they are not. Both disclaim any intention to promote religion — even though their main lobbyists and their legislative supporters have repeatedly revealed their true motivations. And both purport to help teachers aid their students — even though the main organizations of science teachers in both states have consistently opposed the bills.
The Tennessee House of Representatives is presently scheduled to consider the Senate version of the bill (now officially known as House Bill 368) on March 26, 2012. If the House passes HB 368, it will be sent to the desk of Governor Bill Haslam, who previously indicated that he wanted to discuss the bill with the state board of education, telling [ http://www.tennessean.com/article/20120319/NEWS04/120319011/Gov-Haslam-faces-questions-about-evolution-bill-during-grant-announcement ] the Tennesseean (March 19, 2012), "It is a fair question what the General Assembly's role is ... That's why we have a state board of education." Haslam will have ten days to decide whether to sign the bill, let it pass into law without his signature, or veto it.
©2012 NCSE
http://ncse.com/news/2012/03/nobelists-monkey-bills-007275
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Poll watcher: More Americans spurn faith talk by politicians
By Scott Clement
Posted at 02:48 PM ET, 03/22/2012
Nearly four in 10 Americans say politicians talk too much about religious faith, a sentiment that has spiked in recent years among Democrats and independents, according to a new survey [ http://www.pewforum.org/Politics-and-Elections/more-see-too-much-religious-talk-by-politicians.aspx ] by the Pew Research Center. Republicans also are more apt to say politicians talk too much about faith than in the past, though just one in four feel that way.
In general, Americans continue to think the nation has gone too far in keeping religion and government separate than mixing them together (36 vs. 25 percent), according to a Washington Post-ABC News poll [ http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/behind-the-numbers/post/poll-watcher-more-americans-spurn-faith-talk-by-politicians/2012/03/07/ ] released last week. Those results are comparable to an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll in 1994, though fewer expressed concern that religion and politics were mixing too much. Americans are more wary of religion’s influence on politicians themselves: 63 percent continue to say political leaders should not rely on their religious beliefs in making policy decisions.
Supporters of Republican presidential hopeful Rick Santorum take a very different view on religion’s role in politics in both polls. Nearly six in 10 said the country has gone too far in keeping church and state separate in the Post-ABC poll, while fewer than four in 10 of Mitt Romney’s supporters or the overall public says this. And while 30 percent of all Americans and 24 percent of Romney backers say there’s been “too little” talk of faith and politics in the Pew survey, that surges to 55 percent among Santorum’s supporters.
Is Obama alienating white Catholics?
Nearly twice as many white Catholics say the Obama administration is unfriendly toward religion as said this two years ago, up from 17 to 31 percent and possibly a result of a heated controversy over requiring religiously affiliated employers to cover birth control in their health plans.
Still, more white Catholics continue to say Obama is friendly than unfriendly, and Post-ABC polls find Obama’s approval rating among white Catholics has changed little since the controversy gained steam.
Both the Post-ABC and Pew polls were conducted among random national samples of adults using landline and cell phones.
© 2012 The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/behind-the-numbers/post/poll-watcher-more-americans-spurn-faith-talk-by-politicians/2012/03/07/gIQAFRwzTS_blog.html [with comment]
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IRS Audit Rate Nears 30% for Those Making $10 Million and Up
Mar 22, 2012
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-03-22/irs-boosts-audit-rate-to-almost-30-for-those-making-10-million.html [with comments]
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IRS Chief Says Agency Isn’t Targeting Political Nonprofit Groups
Mar 21, 2012
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-03-21/irs-chief-says-agency-isn-t-targeting-political-nonprofit-groups.html
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Republicans Accuse IRS of Scrutinizing Tea Party Groups
Mar 14, 2012
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-03-14/republicans-accuse-irs-of-scrutinizing-tea-party-groups.html
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The Rich Get Even Richer
By STEVEN RATTNER
Published: March 25, 2012
NEW statistics show an ever-more-startling divergence between the fortunes of the wealthy and everybody else — and the desperate need to address this wrenching problem. Even in a country that sometimes seems inured to income inequality [ http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/i/income/income_inequality/index.html ], these takeaways are truly stunning.
In 2010, as the nation continued to recover from the recession [ http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/r/recession_and_depression/index.html ], a dizzying 93 percent of the additional income created in the country that year, compared to 2009 — $288 billion — went to the top 1 percent of taxpayers, those with at least $352,000 in income. That delivered an average single-year pay increase of 11.6 percent to each of these households.
Still more astonishing was the extent to which the super rich got rich faster than the merely rich. In 2010, 37 percent of these additional earnings went to just the top 0.01 percent, a teaspoon-size collection of about 15,000 households with average incomes of $23.8 million. These fortunate few saw their incomes rise by 21.5 percent.
The bottom 99 percent received a microscopic $80 increase in pay per person in 2010, after adjusting for inflation. The top 1 percent, whose average income is $1,019,089, had an 11.6 percent increase in income.
This new data, derived by the French economists Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez from American tax returns, also suggests that those at the top were more likely to earn than inherit their riches. That’s not completely surprising: the rapid growth of new American industries — from technology to financial services — has increased the need for highly educated and skilled workers. At the same time, old industries like manufacturing are employing fewer blue-collar workers.
The result? Pay for college graduates has risen by 15.7 percent over the past 32 years (after adjustment for inflation) while the income of a worker without a high school diploma has plummeted by 25.7 percent over the same period.
Government has also played a role, particularly the George W. Bush tax cuts, which, among other things, gave the wealthy a 15 percent tax on capital gains and dividends. That’s the provision that caused Warren E. Buffett’s secretary to have a higher tax rate than he does.
As a result, the top 1 percent has done progressively better in each economic recovery of the past two decades. In the Clinton era expansion, 45 percent of the total income gains went to the top 1 percent; in the Bush recovery, the figure was 65 percent; now it is 93 percent.
Just as the causes of the growing inequality are becoming better known, so have the contours of solving the problem: better education and training, a fairer tax system, more aid programs for the disadvantaged to encourage the social mobility needed for them escape the bottom rung, and so on.
Government, of course, can’t fully address some of the challenges, like globalization, but it can help.
By the end of the year, deadlines built into several pieces of complex legislation will force a gridlocked Congress’s hand. Most significantly, all of the Bush tax cuts [ http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/t/taxation/bush_tax_cuts/index.html ] will expire. If Congress does not act, tax rates will return to the higher, pre-2000, Clinton-era levels. In addition, $1.2 trillion of automatic spending cuts that were set in motion by the failure of the last attempt at a deficit reduction deal will take effect.
So far, the prospects for progress are at best worrisome, at worst terrifying. Earlier this week, House Republicans unveiled an unsavory stew of highly regressive tax cuts, large but unspecified reductions in discretionary spending (a category that importantly includes education, infrastructure and research and development), and an evisceration of programs devoted to lifting those at the bottom, including unemployment insurance, food stamps, earned income tax credits and many more.
Policies of this sort would exacerbate the very problem of income inequality that most needs fixing. Next week’s package from House Democrats will almost certainly be more appealing. And to his credit, President Obama has spoken eloquently about the need to address this problem. But with Democrats in the minority in the House and an election looming, passage is unlikely.
The only way to redress the income imbalance is by implementing policies that are oriented toward reversing the forces that caused it. That means letting the Bush tax cuts expire for the wealthy and adding money to some of the programs that House Republicans seek to cut. Allowing this disparity to continue is both bad economic policy and bad social policy. We owe those at the bottom a fairer shot at moving up.
Steven Rattner [ http://stevenrattner.com/ ] is a contributing writer for Op-Ed and a longtime Wall Street executive.
*
Related News
Economic Scene: Inequality Undermines Democracy (March 21, 2012)
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/21/business/economy/tolerance-for-income-gap-may-be-ebbing-economic-scene.html
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© 2012 The New York Times Company
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/26/opinion/the-rich-get-even-richer.html
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Why the Rich Are Getting Richer
American Politics and the Second Gilded Age
January/February 2011
http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/67046/robert-c-lieberman/why-the-rich-are-getting-richer [ http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/67046/robert-c-lieberman/why-the-rich-are-getting-richer?page=show ]
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The Best Nanny Money Can Buy
Illustrations by Jillian Tamaki
By ADAM DAVIDSON
Published: March 20, 2012
It took Zenaide Muneton 20 seconds to convince me that she was the perfect nanny. Short and dark-haired, she has a goofy, beaming smile and knows how to make everything fun for a little kid. Time to brush your teeth? She shakes her hands and does a pantomimed teeth-brushing dance. Bath time? She pumps her arms up and down in a going-to-the-tub march. After I told her I’d love to hire her, she smiled and thanked me.
Then we both laughed, because there is no way I could possibly afford her. As one of New York City’s elite nannies, Muneton commanded around $180,000 a year — plus a Christmas bonus and a $3,000-a-month apartment on Central Park West. I should be her nanny.
I began researching this bizarre microeconomy shortly after my wife and I started looking for someone to watch our son for a few hours a week. We met with several candidates, all of whom had good references and seemed fine with him. Still, we weren’t sure how to judge them. Should we hire the one who seemed to be the most fun? The most experienced? A native English speaker or someone who could speak a foreign language to him? Someone with a college degree? A master’s?
We had no idea. But I began to wonder if price conveyed any important information about the nanny market. All the candidates we spoke with charged about $15 to $18 per hour, which, though standard in our Brooklyn neighborhood, seemed like a bargain when I learned that some nannies charge considerably more than double that rate. Would my son suffer with a midmarket nanny?
This fear led me to the Pavillion Agency, which specializes in finding domestic workers for New York City’s wealthy. Pavillion introduced me to Muneton, 49, who grew up in “a very poor family” in São Paulo. In 1990, she befriended a young American woman who had relocated to Brazil. When Muneton invited her to her family’s home, the woman saw her natural ease with children and suggested that she move to America and become a nanny. Within a few months, Muneton was caring for the children of a rich family in South Carolina for only $100 a week.
When Muneton started working through Pavillion in 2002, however, she increased her salary to $85,000 a year. As she gathered sterling recommendations, she began increasing her pay. Eventually she worked for some of the country’s wealthiest people, whom she accompanied on private jets to many of the world’s most exclusive resorts. Today, she says, “there are no more poor people in my family.” Muneton bought a nice house for her mother, a condo for her sister and a taxi cab each for two of her brothers. She also owns a beach house in Brazil, a penthouse in Miami and two properties (a six-unit building and a duplex) in Los Angeles.
How does a nanny earn more than the average pediatrician? The simple answer is hard work — plus a strange seller’s market that follows a couple of quirky economic principles. A typical high-priced nanny effectively signs her (and they are almost always women) life over to the family she works for. According to Cliff Greenhouse, Pavillion’s president, that kind of commitment is essentially built into the price. Many clients are paying for the privilege of not having to worry about their child’s care, which means never worrying if their nanny has plans. Which, of course, she can’t, pretty much ever.
And, alas, it seems that there just aren’t enough “good” nannies, always on call, to go around. Especially since a wealthy family’s demands can be pretty specific. According to Pavillion’s vice president, Seth Norman Greenberg, a nanny increases her market value if she speaks fluent French (or, increasingly, Mandarin); can cook a four-course meal (and, occasionally, macrobiotic dishes); and ride, wash and groom a horse. Greenberg has also known families to prize nannies who can steer a 32-foot boat, help manage an art collection or, in one case, drive a Zamboni to clean a private ice rink.
And then there’s social climbing. “A lot of families, especially new money, are really concerned about their children getting close to other very affluent children,” Greenhouse says. “How do they do that? They find a superstar nanny who already has lots of contacts, lots of other nanny friends who work with other high profile families.” There are the intangibles too. “I’m working with a phenomenal Caribbean nanny right now,” Greenhouse says. “She is drop-dead beautiful. Her presentation is such that you’re proud to have her by your children’s side at the most high-profile events.”
My wife and I don’t care about any of that stuff. But it’s hard not to wonder if the nannies who make twice as much an hour as the ones we’re considering are also twice as good. Nannies can be evaluated in the same way as what economists call “experience goods” — like wine, whose value can only be determined after experiencing it. When it comes to experience goods, price can be useful to reject anything below a certain minimum. After all, a $3 bottle of wine or a $5-an-hour nanny are pretty sketchy.
But price is useless — or worse, misleading — in differentiating among the adequate. I’ve often assumed that a $40 bottle of wine is twice as good as a $20 bottle even though the American Association of Wine Economists has essentially proved that the price of wine has almost no bearing on enjoyment. When nonconnoisseurs buy an expensive bottle, they’re acting like new parents hiring a nanny: they’re basically paying for a false sense of assurance. Or hoping to impress somebody.
Actually, nanny prices might be even more misleading than the wine market. They also bear resemblance to “credence goods,” an economic term for something — whether a jar of vitamins or an auto tuneup — whose true value can never quite be determined. You’re more likely to overpay for a credence good in the hope that a higher cost increases the likelihood of a benefit.
So if economics can’t fairly convey the price of a nanny, what does? Jeanne Brooks-Gunn, a director at Columbia University’s National Center for Children and Families, reassured me that academics know, roughly, nothing about how nannies impact children. There has not been any sort of serious study on nanny quality, she says, because it would be nearly impossible to get permission from nannies (often paid under the table) or their employers. Also, most child-development research is dedicated to at-risk children, and the kids of people with the resources to hire nannies don’t typically qualify.
Brooks-Gunn did, however, have some advice for what can make a good nanny. The single-most important characteristic is the extent to which a nanny is responsive to the child’s mood and interests. Brooks-Gunn said that when she chose a nanny, she simply handed her son to every candidate she interviewed and chose the one who responded most sensitively.
After our talk, I spoke with one of her graduate students, Erin Bumgarner, who moonlights as a part-time nanny for around $17 an hour — the same amount that Park Slope parents pay to immigrant nannies with no college education. I couldn’t think of any other field in which people with such disparate educational backgrounds could make the same amount. But Bumgarner told me it makes sense. She is willing to work for only parents she likes — she already quit one well-paying job for this reason — and who allow her to focus on her school work. The value of that is also built into the price. Even if it costs her a Central Park West apartment.
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The Nanny 1%
“Over the last 10, 15 years, there has been a big change in how people view their household staff,” says Seth Norman Greenberg, vice president of the Pavillion Agency. Here are some demands on supernannies.
Domestic Life
A nanny can increase her marketability if she can help manage an art collection, draft correspondence, wash and fold 50 linens a day and help set up philanthropic events. Bonus points if she can do it all in Mandarin.
Travel
Elite nannies should be comfortable flying privately and in helicopters.
Sports
In addition to the generic stuff like skiing and snorkeling, some wealthy families request a nanny to steer a boat, groom a horse, operate a Zamboni or use a firearm to scare off a bear (at the country house).
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Adam Davidson is the co-founder of NPR's "Planet Money," a podcast [ http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/npr-planet-money-podcast/id290783428 ], blog [ http://www.npr.org/money ] and radio series heard on “Morning Edition,” “All Things Considered” and “This American Life.”
© 2012 The New York Times Company
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/25/magazine/the-best-nanny-money-can-buy.html [ http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/25/magazine/the-best-nanny-money-can-buy.html?pagewanted=all ] [with comments]
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The House's IPAB mistake
Mar 23, 2012
http://maddowblog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/03/23/10827026-the-houses-ipab-mistake [with comments]
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'Obamacare' and the rationing myth
March 22, 2012
http://opinion.latimes.com/opinionla/2012/03/obamacare-ipab-the-ryan-plan-and-medicare-rationing.html [with comments]
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California seeks limits on small-business self-insurance trend
Critics say health insurers offering new type of self-insurance for firms with as few as 25 workers are gaming the system and may undermine a key goal of the federal Affordable Care Act.
March 23, 2012
Sensing a fresh threat to state and federal healthcare reforms, California insurance officials are seeking new limits on a controversial form of health coverage insurers are selling to small employers.
At issue is a new type of self-insurance for small businesses with as few as 25 workers.
Critics said insurers such asCigna Corp.are using these new plans to game the system and cherry-pick companies with healthier workers. They said this could undermine a key goal of the federal Affordable Care Act to lower premiums by pooling together more healthy and sick Americans into insurance exchanges. Premiums could continue to escalate without a diverse pool of consumers. That prospect has federal health officials weighing action against this practice as well.
[...]
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-small-business-insure-20120323,0,4149546.story [with comments]
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10 lesser known effects of health care reform law
March 26, 2012
http://www.cnn.com/2012/03/26/health/health-reform-fun-facts/index.html [with comments]
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Lashing at healthcare law, Santorum says only 'creator' can grant rights
http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-pn-lashing-at-healthcare-santorum-says-only-creator-can-grant-rights-20120326,0,1045853.story [with comments]
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Santorum lashes out at reporters; Romney spokesman calls him 'unhinged'
03/26/2012
http://www.mercurynews.com/presidentelect/ci_20257457/santorum-lashes-out-at-reporters-romney-spokesman-calls [with embedded video of Santorum cussin' at the NYT reporter, and comments]
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Atheists, others gather at Reason Rally
Atheists, nontheists, secularists and others who believe in reason, not God, gather on the Mall for the first Reason Rally, seeking to defuse distrust of their views. Despite intermittent rain, several thousand people gathered on the lawn across from the National Museum of American History to hear a roster of speakers.
View Photo Gallery — ?http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/nonbelievers-rally-in-dc-for-recognition-respect/2012/03/24/gIQALPBkYS_gallery.html
By Lori Aratani, Published: March 23, 2012 | Updated: Saturday, March 24, 2012 12:11 PM
It was, one speaker said, their coming-out moment.
Atheists, non-theists, secularists and others who say they believe in reason, not God, gathered Saturday on the Mall for the first Reason Rally [ http://reasonrally.org/ ], where they pledged to stand up for their beliefs in a society that they say sometimes views them with skepticism and distrust.
“God is a myth,” said Dave Silverman [ http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/guest-voices/post/why-we-need-a-reason-rally/2012/03/19/gIQAp9zEOS_blog.html ], president of American Atheists. “Closet atheists, you are not alone.”
Despite intermittent rain, several thousand people gathered on the lawn across from the National Museum of American History to hear a roster of speakers that included comedians, activists and the first openly atheistic member of Congress — Rep. Pete Stark (D-Calif.).
“We’re here,” the crowd yelled in a chant led by Fred Dewords [ http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/guest-voices/post/the-great-atheist-coming-out/2012/03/20/gIQAFciuPS_blog.html ], national director of the United Coalition of Reason [ http://unitedcor.org/national/page/home ]. “We’re godless — get used to it.”
Organizers said the aim of the rally was twofold: to unite individuals with similar beliefs and to show the American public that the number of people who don’t believe in God is large and growing.
“We have the numbers to be taken seriously,” said Paul Fidalgo, spokesman for the Center for Inquiry, which promotes scientific method and reasoning and was one of the organizations sponsoring the rally. “We’re not just a tiny fringe group.”
According to the American Religious Identification Survey in 2008 [ http://commons.trincoll.edu/aris/ ], the number of people who claim no specific religious belief was 34 million, 15 percent of the U.S. adult population. A survey by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life conducted in 2008 yielded similar numbers.
Saturday’s attendees included a mix of young and old, white, black, Hispanic and Asian. Inside the exhibitor tent, they could speak with representatives of groups ranging from the Society for Humanistic Judaism [ http://www.shj.org/ ], a group that embraces the secular roots of Jews, the Hispanic American Freethinkers [ http://hafree.org/ ] and Recovering from Religion [ http://recoveringfromreligion.org/ ], a group whose goal is to help people leave their religion.
A small number of counterprotesters stood at the fringes of the rally, holding signs that said, among other things, “Jesus forgives sin” and “Fear God.” Some of them engaged in heated debate with non-believers. One woman, a Reason Rally attendee, approached a group of counterprotesters with a sign on which she’d written, “So many Christians, so few lions.”
Catherine Williams, 13, of Leesburg came to the rally with her mother, Lisa, and brother Nathaniel. She said she attends a small conservative private school where she is the only student who is openly an atheist. Sometimes, she said, it can be uncomfortable because many of her classmates are vocal about their religious beliefs. When talk in the classroom focuses on religion, students turn and look at her for her reaction, she said.
“Coming here makes me feel less alone,” she said, a sentiment echoed by many in Saturday’s crowd.
Dustin Taylor, 21, a student at SUNY Cortland [ http://www2.cortland.edu/home/ ], attracted some attention with his T-shirt, which said: “Free drinks to the person who can prove God exists.”
The student, who plans to become a science teacher, said he wants to ensure that his future students have a strong grounding in science. Too often, he said, people believe something simply because it’s what they’ve been told.
Taylor, along with classmates Erica Deretz and Nick Gardner, recently formed the Secular Student Alliance on the SUNY Cortland campus. The three were in the District for the rally and to take part in the American Atheists National Convention [ http://atheists.org/events/2012_National_Convention ], meeting Sunday and Monday in Bethesda.
Deretz carried a poster with the slogan, “Let’s have a moment of science.”
Matthew Zemo, 29, of Brooklyn said atheists have been too nice for too long. He said he hopes the rally will encourage people to step up and speak out.
“This gathering is long overdue,” he said. “This is just the beginning.”
© 2012 The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/atheists-others-to-gather-at-reason-rally/2012/03/23/gIQAvqY2WS_story.html [with comments]
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Richard Dawkins, Unreasonable Atheist?
Mar 26 2012
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/03/richard-dawkins-unreasonable-atheist/255029/ [with embedded video, and comments]
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By TIMOTHY EGAN
March 22, 2012, 9:00 pm
When people complain about liberal overreach they always bring up the nanny state. You know, sorting your garbage to see if a banana peel slipped in with a cellophane wrapper; energy-efficient light bulbs; neutered language in the public square to make sure no one is ever offended.
But all of the above is a mere teardrop in the Amazon compared to what your freedom-hating Republican Party has been doing across the land to restrict individual liberty.
They want the state to follow you into the bedroom, the bathroom and beyond. They think you’re too stupid to know what to do with your own body, too ignorant to understand what your doctors tell you and too lazy to be trusted in a job without being subject to random drug testing. Your body is the government’s business.
Let’s take a tour of the church lady state to date. Our nation may soon turn its lonely eyes to Idaho, where Gov. Butch Otter could have the final say on a bill that would order women to undergo a medically unnecessary and invasive procedure before deciding to end a pregnancy.
This is the latest version of the mandatory ultrasound law, recently enacted by Virginia and Texas. But the Idaho bill, which passed the State Senate on Monday in a one-party Republican state, goes much further, and would subject many women to invasive, trans-vaginal inspections.
Idaho politicians love to go on and on about how government shouldn’t force people to do things that violate their conscience, or common sense. And for the last three years, we’ve heard Republican presidential candidates condemn the abomination of government coming between you and your doctor.
But given a chance to govern without a sanity filter, these same Republicans become Big Brother in a surgical smock.
In Idaho, almost one in five people have no health insurance. Except now the Republican Legislature wants to force you to undergo at least one medical procedure, no matter whether you have health care.
Compounding the lunacy of this reach into your family discussions, the bill’s main sponsor, State Senator Chuck Winder, suggested that rape victims seeking exceptions might be lying about how they got pregnant.
He said women should ask their doctors if their pregnancy was caused by rape or “normal relations in a marriage.” And, yes, I hate to say it, but politicians are that stupid and that mean-spirited in Idaho. Here’s a leader of the State Legislature suggesting that a woman is just too dumb to know whether she was raped or not.
In Texas, Carolyn Jones just went through the punitive end of a horrid law prompted by militant sanctimony. She is a working mother, married, who was anticipating the birth of her second child when she was told of deformities in the fetus. After agonizing, she felt she had no choice but to end the pregnancy. That was the start of her special hell in the Lone Star State.
When she went to an agency that performed abortions, she was told that she must have a sonogram, per the new law, in order to shame her into hearing a heartbeat. “I didn’t want another sonogram when I’d already had two today,” she wrote, in a gripping account in the Texas Observer [ http://www.texasobserver.org/cover-story/the-right-not-to-know ]. “Here was a superfluous layer of torment piled upon an already horrific day.”
Good people can argue the morality of early-stage abortion. But as long as abortion is legal, no woman should have to face Big Government’s medical wand — or gloved fist — for no other reason than some male politicians want to make you feel bad.
The same holds true for new restrictions on personal life in Florida, where Gov. Rick Scott, a Republican, just signed into law random drug testing for state employees. Earlier, he backed a bill requiring anyone in need of state assistance to take a drug test. The latter humiliation is stalled, for now, following a legal challenge by a Navy veteran who was denied help for his 4-year-old son because he refused to take a drug test.
“The law assumes that everyone who needs a little help has a drug problem,” said Luis Lebron, who brought the legal challenge.
Imagine if every politician, or Wall Street recipient of taxpayer money, was required to pee into cup, and to sit through an hourlong lecture on morality, before passing on or receiving a bailout. Yes, imagine — because it’ll never happen.
Did you see the banner behind Rick Santorum’s defeat rally on Tuesday? One word: Freedom. But just a few days earlier, Santorum applauded a preacher in Louisiana who said people who didn’t want to live in a Christian nation should leave the country. Freedom, in Santorum’s world, apparently only applies only to those of one religion.
Mitt Romney has been decrying the Obama administration’s “assault on freedom.” But those who seem to “hate our freedom” — as George W. Bush called theocrats of another stripe — are the pilgrims with pitchforks in Romney’s own party.
There is one recent exception, and it deserves praise. A few days ago, the New Hampshire Legislature voted overwhelmingly to keep a law that gives people of the same sex the freedom to marry. Legislators decided, in the kind of deliberation that stills the cynic in me, that telling somebody whom they can or cannot marry is the ultimate restriction on personal liberty. If your official state motto is “Live Free or Die,” you ought to act like you believe it. They did.
© 2012 The New York Times Company
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/03/22/the-church-lady-state/ [with comments]
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The Tennessee Monkey Bill
By ANDREW ROSENTHAL
March 23, 2012
The Tennessee Senate approved legislation this week that some are calling a “monkey bill [ http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2012/mar/19/anti-evolution-class-discussions-get-senates-ok/ ]” — after the Scopes Monkey Trial, which also took place in Tennessee. In fairness to the state, it’s not quite that bad.
In the 1925 Monkey Trial [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scopes_Trial ], John Scopes was accused of violating the Butler Act [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butler_Act ], which made it illegal to teach evolution in a public school. (He was found guilty.) The 2012 Monkey Bill [ http://wapp.capitol.tn.gov/apps/billinfo/BillSummaryArchive.aspx?BillNumber=SB0893&ga=107 ], tame by comparison, merely guarantees that teachers will not be disciplined for “critiquing” the “weaknesses” of scientific theories “such as evolution and global warming.” It also requires school administrators to “assist teachers” in finding “effective ways to present the science curriculum as it addresses scientific controversies.”
Tennesseans who are members of the National Academy of Science have said the bill will lead to “unwarranted criticisms of evolution.” The National Association of Biology Teachers concurs. The group sent a letter [ http://ncse.com/news/2012/03/nabt-opposes-tennessees-monkey-bills-007265 ] to Gov. Bill Haslam arguing that “concepts like evolution and climate change should not be misrepresented as controversial or needing of special evaluation.”
The difference between the Butler Act and this new legislation encapsulates the change in the anti-science crowd’s strategy, from outright bans on disseminating factual information to fake controversy and false equivalencies. They’re learned to manufacture doubt and pretend it invalidates scientific consensus. It’s a surprisingly effective tactic.
© 2012 The New York Times Company
http://loyalopposition.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/03/23/the-tennessee-monkey-bill/ [with comments]
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AIBS denounces Tennessee's "monkey bills"
March 16th, 2012
The American Institute of Biological Sciences denounced Tennessee's "monkey bills" — House Bill 368 [ http://wapp.capitol.tn.gov/apps/BillInfo/default.aspx?BillNumber=HB0368 ] and Senate Bill 893 [ http://wapp.capitol.tn.gov/apps/BillInfo/default.aspx?BillNumber=SB0893 ] — as "bad for science, science education, and the future economic health of well being of Tennessee" in letters sent to the leadership of the Tennessee General Assembly [ http://ncse.com/webfm_send/1763 ] (PDF) and to Governor Bill Haslam [ http://ncse.com/webfm_send/1764 ] (PDF).
"It is important to note that there is no scientific controversy about the legitimacy of evolution or global climate change," the letters explained, adding, "These scientific concepts have repeatedly been tested and grown stronger with each evaluation. Any controversy around these concepts is political, not scientific."
The letters concluded, "As the nation struggles to reignite our economy and prepare our children for the jobs of the 21st century, we should be working to strengthen our science education system — not insert non-scientific concepts into the classroom to placate political special interests."
AIBS also issued an action alert [ http://capwiz.com/aibs/issues/alert/?alertid=61102976 ] encouraging people in Tennessee to urge their state representatives and the governor to oppose HB 368 and SB 893. AIBS is a professional society whose approximately 160 member organizations represent the breadth of the biological sciences and have a combined membership of nearly 250,000 scientists and science educators.
©2012 NCSE
http://ncse.com/news/2012/03/aibs-denounces-tennessees-monkey-bills-007258
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Nobelists and the "monkey bills"
March 23rd, 2012
A Tennesseean Nobel laureate in science, Stanley Cohen, already denounced [ http://ncse.com/webfm_send/1759 ] (PDF) Tennessee's "monkey bills" as promising to "miseducate students, harm the state's national reputation, and weaken its efforts to compete in a science-driven global economy." But what would his fellow laureates say? Well, no fewer than seventy-five Nobel laureates in science have endorsed the effort to appeal Louisiana's antievolution law — Louisiana Revised Statutes 17:285.1, which implemented the so-called Louisiana Science Education Act, passed and enacted in 2008.
In a letter to the Louisiana legislature, seventy-four of the laureates urged the repeal of the law, saying [ http://www.repealcreationism.com/397/nobellaureateletter/ ] that it "creates a pathway for creationism and other forms of non-scientific instruction to be taught in public school science classrooms," and reminding the legislature that "{b}ecause science plays such a large role in today's world and because our country's economic future is dependent upon the United States' retaining its competitiveness in science, it is vital that students have a sound education about major scientific concepts and their applications."
But the Tennessee legislation [ http://www.capitol.tn.gov/Bills/107/Amend/SA0901.pdf ] (PDF) is not significantly different from the Louisiana law [ http://www.legis.state.la.us/lss/lss.asp?doc=631000 ]. Both misdescribe evolution, the origins of life, and global warming as scientifically controversial — even though the major national scientific organizations have said that they are not. Both disclaim any intention to promote religion — even though their main lobbyists and their legislative supporters have repeatedly revealed their true motivations. And both purport to help teachers aid their students — even though the main organizations of science teachers in both states have consistently opposed the bills.
The Tennessee House of Representatives is presently scheduled to consider the Senate version of the bill (now officially known as House Bill 368) on March 26, 2012. If the House passes HB 368, it will be sent to the desk of Governor Bill Haslam, who previously indicated that he wanted to discuss the bill with the state board of education, telling [ http://www.tennessean.com/article/20120319/NEWS04/120319011/Gov-Haslam-faces-questions-about-evolution-bill-during-grant-announcement ] the Tennesseean (March 19, 2012), "It is a fair question what the General Assembly's role is ... That's why we have a state board of education." Haslam will have ten days to decide whether to sign the bill, let it pass into law without his signature, or veto it.
©2012 NCSE
http://ncse.com/news/2012/03/nobelists-monkey-bills-007275
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Poll watcher: More Americans spurn faith talk by politicians
By Scott Clement
Posted at 02:48 PM ET, 03/22/2012
Nearly four in 10 Americans say politicians talk too much about religious faith, a sentiment that has spiked in recent years among Democrats and independents, according to a new survey [ http://www.pewforum.org/Politics-and-Elections/more-see-too-much-religious-talk-by-politicians.aspx ] by the Pew Research Center. Republicans also are more apt to say politicians talk too much about faith than in the past, though just one in four feel that way.
In general, Americans continue to think the nation has gone too far in keeping religion and government separate than mixing them together (36 vs. 25 percent), according to a Washington Post-ABC News poll [ http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/behind-the-numbers/post/poll-watcher-more-americans-spurn-faith-talk-by-politicians/2012/03/07/ ] released last week. Those results are comparable to an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll in 1994, though fewer expressed concern that religion and politics were mixing too much. Americans are more wary of religion’s influence on politicians themselves: 63 percent continue to say political leaders should not rely on their religious beliefs in making policy decisions.
Supporters of Republican presidential hopeful Rick Santorum take a very different view on religion’s role in politics in both polls. Nearly six in 10 said the country has gone too far in keeping church and state separate in the Post-ABC poll, while fewer than four in 10 of Mitt Romney’s supporters or the overall public says this. And while 30 percent of all Americans and 24 percent of Romney backers say there’s been “too little” talk of faith and politics in the Pew survey, that surges to 55 percent among Santorum’s supporters.
Is Obama alienating white Catholics?
Nearly twice as many white Catholics say the Obama administration is unfriendly toward religion as said this two years ago, up from 17 to 31 percent and possibly a result of a heated controversy over requiring religiously affiliated employers to cover birth control in their health plans.
Still, more white Catholics continue to say Obama is friendly than unfriendly, and Post-ABC polls find Obama’s approval rating among white Catholics has changed little since the controversy gained steam.
Both the Post-ABC and Pew polls were conducted among random national samples of adults using landline and cell phones.
© 2012 The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/behind-the-numbers/post/poll-watcher-more-americans-spurn-faith-talk-by-politicians/2012/03/07/gIQAFRwzTS_blog.html [with comment]
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IRS Audit Rate Nears 30% for Those Making $10 Million and Up
Mar 22, 2012
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-03-22/irs-boosts-audit-rate-to-almost-30-for-those-making-10-million.html [with comments]
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IRS Chief Says Agency Isn’t Targeting Political Nonprofit Groups
Mar 21, 2012
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-03-21/irs-chief-says-agency-isn-t-targeting-political-nonprofit-groups.html
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Republicans Accuse IRS of Scrutinizing Tea Party Groups
Mar 14, 2012
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-03-14/republicans-accuse-irs-of-scrutinizing-tea-party-groups.html
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The Rich Get Even Richer
By STEVEN RATTNER
Published: March 25, 2012
NEW statistics show an ever-more-startling divergence between the fortunes of the wealthy and everybody else — and the desperate need to address this wrenching problem. Even in a country that sometimes seems inured to income inequality [ http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/i/income/income_inequality/index.html ], these takeaways are truly stunning.
In 2010, as the nation continued to recover from the recession [ http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/r/recession_and_depression/index.html ], a dizzying 93 percent of the additional income created in the country that year, compared to 2009 — $288 billion — went to the top 1 percent of taxpayers, those with at least $352,000 in income. That delivered an average single-year pay increase of 11.6 percent to each of these households.
Still more astonishing was the extent to which the super rich got rich faster than the merely rich. In 2010, 37 percent of these additional earnings went to just the top 0.01 percent, a teaspoon-size collection of about 15,000 households with average incomes of $23.8 million. These fortunate few saw their incomes rise by 21.5 percent.
The bottom 99 percent received a microscopic $80 increase in pay per person in 2010, after adjusting for inflation. The top 1 percent, whose average income is $1,019,089, had an 11.6 percent increase in income.
This new data, derived by the French economists Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez from American tax returns, also suggests that those at the top were more likely to earn than inherit their riches. That’s not completely surprising: the rapid growth of new American industries — from technology to financial services — has increased the need for highly educated and skilled workers. At the same time, old industries like manufacturing are employing fewer blue-collar workers.
The result? Pay for college graduates has risen by 15.7 percent over the past 32 years (after adjustment for inflation) while the income of a worker without a high school diploma has plummeted by 25.7 percent over the same period.
Government has also played a role, particularly the George W. Bush tax cuts, which, among other things, gave the wealthy a 15 percent tax on capital gains and dividends. That’s the provision that caused Warren E. Buffett’s secretary to have a higher tax rate than he does.
As a result, the top 1 percent has done progressively better in each economic recovery of the past two decades. In the Clinton era expansion, 45 percent of the total income gains went to the top 1 percent; in the Bush recovery, the figure was 65 percent; now it is 93 percent.
Just as the causes of the growing inequality are becoming better known, so have the contours of solving the problem: better education and training, a fairer tax system, more aid programs for the disadvantaged to encourage the social mobility needed for them escape the bottom rung, and so on.
Government, of course, can’t fully address some of the challenges, like globalization, but it can help.
By the end of the year, deadlines built into several pieces of complex legislation will force a gridlocked Congress’s hand. Most significantly, all of the Bush tax cuts [ http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/t/taxation/bush_tax_cuts/index.html ] will expire. If Congress does not act, tax rates will return to the higher, pre-2000, Clinton-era levels. In addition, $1.2 trillion of automatic spending cuts that were set in motion by the failure of the last attempt at a deficit reduction deal will take effect.
So far, the prospects for progress are at best worrisome, at worst terrifying. Earlier this week, House Republicans unveiled an unsavory stew of highly regressive tax cuts, large but unspecified reductions in discretionary spending (a category that importantly includes education, infrastructure and research and development), and an evisceration of programs devoted to lifting those at the bottom, including unemployment insurance, food stamps, earned income tax credits and many more.
Policies of this sort would exacerbate the very problem of income inequality that most needs fixing. Next week’s package from House Democrats will almost certainly be more appealing. And to his credit, President Obama has spoken eloquently about the need to address this problem. But with Democrats in the minority in the House and an election looming, passage is unlikely.
The only way to redress the income imbalance is by implementing policies that are oriented toward reversing the forces that caused it. That means letting the Bush tax cuts expire for the wealthy and adding money to some of the programs that House Republicans seek to cut. Allowing this disparity to continue is both bad economic policy and bad social policy. We owe those at the bottom a fairer shot at moving up.
Steven Rattner [ http://stevenrattner.com/ ] is a contributing writer for Op-Ed and a longtime Wall Street executive.
*
Related News
Economic Scene: Inequality Undermines Democracy (March 21, 2012)
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/21/business/economy/tolerance-for-income-gap-may-be-ebbing-economic-scene.html
*
© 2012 The New York Times Company
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/26/opinion/the-rich-get-even-richer.html
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Why the Rich Are Getting Richer
American Politics and the Second Gilded Age
January/February 2011
http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/67046/robert-c-lieberman/why-the-rich-are-getting-richer [ http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/67046/robert-c-lieberman/why-the-rich-are-getting-richer?page=show ]
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The Best Nanny Money Can Buy
Illustrations by Jillian Tamaki
By ADAM DAVIDSON
Published: March 20, 2012
It took Zenaide Muneton 20 seconds to convince me that she was the perfect nanny. Short and dark-haired, she has a goofy, beaming smile and knows how to make everything fun for a little kid. Time to brush your teeth? She shakes her hands and does a pantomimed teeth-brushing dance. Bath time? She pumps her arms up and down in a going-to-the-tub march. After I told her I’d love to hire her, she smiled and thanked me.
Then we both laughed, because there is no way I could possibly afford her. As one of New York City’s elite nannies, Muneton commanded around $180,000 a year — plus a Christmas bonus and a $3,000-a-month apartment on Central Park West. I should be her nanny.
I began researching this bizarre microeconomy shortly after my wife and I started looking for someone to watch our son for a few hours a week. We met with several candidates, all of whom had good references and seemed fine with him. Still, we weren’t sure how to judge them. Should we hire the one who seemed to be the most fun? The most experienced? A native English speaker or someone who could speak a foreign language to him? Someone with a college degree? A master’s?
We had no idea. But I began to wonder if price conveyed any important information about the nanny market. All the candidates we spoke with charged about $15 to $18 per hour, which, though standard in our Brooklyn neighborhood, seemed like a bargain when I learned that some nannies charge considerably more than double that rate. Would my son suffer with a midmarket nanny?
This fear led me to the Pavillion Agency, which specializes in finding domestic workers for New York City’s wealthy. Pavillion introduced me to Muneton, 49, who grew up in “a very poor family” in São Paulo. In 1990, she befriended a young American woman who had relocated to Brazil. When Muneton invited her to her family’s home, the woman saw her natural ease with children and suggested that she move to America and become a nanny. Within a few months, Muneton was caring for the children of a rich family in South Carolina for only $100 a week.
When Muneton started working through Pavillion in 2002, however, she increased her salary to $85,000 a year. As she gathered sterling recommendations, she began increasing her pay. Eventually she worked for some of the country’s wealthiest people, whom she accompanied on private jets to many of the world’s most exclusive resorts. Today, she says, “there are no more poor people in my family.” Muneton bought a nice house for her mother, a condo for her sister and a taxi cab each for two of her brothers. She also owns a beach house in Brazil, a penthouse in Miami and two properties (a six-unit building and a duplex) in Los Angeles.
How does a nanny earn more than the average pediatrician? The simple answer is hard work — plus a strange seller’s market that follows a couple of quirky economic principles. A typical high-priced nanny effectively signs her (and they are almost always women) life over to the family she works for. According to Cliff Greenhouse, Pavillion’s president, that kind of commitment is essentially built into the price. Many clients are paying for the privilege of not having to worry about their child’s care, which means never worrying if their nanny has plans. Which, of course, she can’t, pretty much ever.
And, alas, it seems that there just aren’t enough “good” nannies, always on call, to go around. Especially since a wealthy family’s demands can be pretty specific. According to Pavillion’s vice president, Seth Norman Greenberg, a nanny increases her market value if she speaks fluent French (or, increasingly, Mandarin); can cook a four-course meal (and, occasionally, macrobiotic dishes); and ride, wash and groom a horse. Greenberg has also known families to prize nannies who can steer a 32-foot boat, help manage an art collection or, in one case, drive a Zamboni to clean a private ice rink.
And then there’s social climbing. “A lot of families, especially new money, are really concerned about their children getting close to other very affluent children,” Greenhouse says. “How do they do that? They find a superstar nanny who already has lots of contacts, lots of other nanny friends who work with other high profile families.” There are the intangibles too. “I’m working with a phenomenal Caribbean nanny right now,” Greenhouse says. “She is drop-dead beautiful. Her presentation is such that you’re proud to have her by your children’s side at the most high-profile events.”
My wife and I don’t care about any of that stuff. But it’s hard not to wonder if the nannies who make twice as much an hour as the ones we’re considering are also twice as good. Nannies can be evaluated in the same way as what economists call “experience goods” — like wine, whose value can only be determined after experiencing it. When it comes to experience goods, price can be useful to reject anything below a certain minimum. After all, a $3 bottle of wine or a $5-an-hour nanny are pretty sketchy.
But price is useless — or worse, misleading — in differentiating among the adequate. I’ve often assumed that a $40 bottle of wine is twice as good as a $20 bottle even though the American Association of Wine Economists has essentially proved that the price of wine has almost no bearing on enjoyment. When nonconnoisseurs buy an expensive bottle, they’re acting like new parents hiring a nanny: they’re basically paying for a false sense of assurance. Or hoping to impress somebody.
Actually, nanny prices might be even more misleading than the wine market. They also bear resemblance to “credence goods,” an economic term for something — whether a jar of vitamins or an auto tuneup — whose true value can never quite be determined. You’re more likely to overpay for a credence good in the hope that a higher cost increases the likelihood of a benefit.
So if economics can’t fairly convey the price of a nanny, what does? Jeanne Brooks-Gunn, a director at Columbia University’s National Center for Children and Families, reassured me that academics know, roughly, nothing about how nannies impact children. There has not been any sort of serious study on nanny quality, she says, because it would be nearly impossible to get permission from nannies (often paid under the table) or their employers. Also, most child-development research is dedicated to at-risk children, and the kids of people with the resources to hire nannies don’t typically qualify.
Brooks-Gunn did, however, have some advice for what can make a good nanny. The single-most important characteristic is the extent to which a nanny is responsive to the child’s mood and interests. Brooks-Gunn said that when she chose a nanny, she simply handed her son to every candidate she interviewed and chose the one who responded most sensitively.
After our talk, I spoke with one of her graduate students, Erin Bumgarner, who moonlights as a part-time nanny for around $17 an hour — the same amount that Park Slope parents pay to immigrant nannies with no college education. I couldn’t think of any other field in which people with such disparate educational backgrounds could make the same amount. But Bumgarner told me it makes sense. She is willing to work for only parents she likes — she already quit one well-paying job for this reason — and who allow her to focus on her school work. The value of that is also built into the price. Even if it costs her a Central Park West apartment.
*
The Nanny 1%
“Over the last 10, 15 years, there has been a big change in how people view their household staff,” says Seth Norman Greenberg, vice president of the Pavillion Agency. Here are some demands on supernannies.
Domestic Life
A nanny can increase her marketability if she can help manage an art collection, draft correspondence, wash and fold 50 linens a day and help set up philanthropic events. Bonus points if she can do it all in Mandarin.
Travel
Elite nannies should be comfortable flying privately and in helicopters.
Sports
In addition to the generic stuff like skiing and snorkeling, some wealthy families request a nanny to steer a boat, groom a horse, operate a Zamboni or use a firearm to scare off a bear (at the country house).
*
Adam Davidson is the co-founder of NPR's "Planet Money," a podcast [ http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/npr-planet-money-podcast/id290783428 ], blog [ http://www.npr.org/money ] and radio series heard on “Morning Edition,” “All Things Considered” and “This American Life.”
© 2012 The New York Times Company
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/25/magazine/the-best-nanny-money-can-buy.html [ http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/25/magazine/the-best-nanny-money-can-buy.html?pagewanted=all ] [with comments]
=====
The House's IPAB mistake
Mar 23, 2012
http://maddowblog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/03/23/10827026-the-houses-ipab-mistake [with comments]
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'Obamacare' and the rationing myth
March 22, 2012
http://opinion.latimes.com/opinionla/2012/03/obamacare-ipab-the-ryan-plan-and-medicare-rationing.html [with comments]
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California seeks limits on small-business self-insurance trend
Critics say health insurers offering new type of self-insurance for firms with as few as 25 workers are gaming the system and may undermine a key goal of the federal Affordable Care Act.
March 23, 2012
Sensing a fresh threat to state and federal healthcare reforms, California insurance officials are seeking new limits on a controversial form of health coverage insurers are selling to small employers.
At issue is a new type of self-insurance for small businesses with as few as 25 workers.
Critics said insurers such asCigna Corp.are using these new plans to game the system and cherry-pick companies with healthier workers. They said this could undermine a key goal of the federal Affordable Care Act to lower premiums by pooling together more healthy and sick Americans into insurance exchanges. Premiums could continue to escalate without a diverse pool of consumers. That prospect has federal health officials weighing action against this practice as well.
[...]
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-small-business-insure-20120323,0,4149546.story [with comments]
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10 lesser known effects of health care reform law
March 26, 2012
http://www.cnn.com/2012/03/26/health/health-reform-fun-facts/index.html [with comments]
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Lashing at healthcare law, Santorum says only 'creator' can grant rights
http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-pn-lashing-at-healthcare-santorum-says-only-creator-can-grant-rights-20120326,0,1045853.story [with comments]
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Santorum lashes out at reporters; Romney spokesman calls him 'unhinged'
03/26/2012
http://www.mercurynews.com/presidentelect/ci_20257457/santorum-lashes-out-at-reporters-romney-spokesman-calls [with embedded video of Santorum cussin' at the NYT reporter, and comments]
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Atheists, others gather at Reason Rally
Atheists, nontheists, secularists and others who believe in reason, not God, gather on the Mall for the first Reason Rally, seeking to defuse distrust of their views. Despite intermittent rain, several thousand people gathered on the lawn across from the National Museum of American History to hear a roster of speakers.
View Photo Gallery — ?http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/nonbelievers-rally-in-dc-for-recognition-respect/2012/03/24/gIQALPBkYS_gallery.html
By Lori Aratani, Published: March 23, 2012 | Updated: Saturday, March 24, 2012 12:11 PM
It was, one speaker said, their coming-out moment.
Atheists, non-theists, secularists and others who say they believe in reason, not God, gathered Saturday on the Mall for the first Reason Rally [ http://reasonrally.org/ ], where they pledged to stand up for their beliefs in a society that they say sometimes views them with skepticism and distrust.
“God is a myth,” said Dave Silverman [ http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/guest-voices/post/why-we-need-a-reason-rally/2012/03/19/gIQAp9zEOS_blog.html ], president of American Atheists. “Closet atheists, you are not alone.”
Despite intermittent rain, several thousand people gathered on the lawn across from the National Museum of American History to hear a roster of speakers that included comedians, activists and the first openly atheistic member of Congress — Rep. Pete Stark (D-Calif.).
“We’re here,” the crowd yelled in a chant led by Fred Dewords [ http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/guest-voices/post/the-great-atheist-coming-out/2012/03/20/gIQAFciuPS_blog.html ], national director of the United Coalition of Reason [ http://unitedcor.org/national/page/home ]. “We’re godless — get used to it.”
Organizers said the aim of the rally was twofold: to unite individuals with similar beliefs and to show the American public that the number of people who don’t believe in God is large and growing.
“We have the numbers to be taken seriously,” said Paul Fidalgo, spokesman for the Center for Inquiry, which promotes scientific method and reasoning and was one of the organizations sponsoring the rally. “We’re not just a tiny fringe group.”
According to the American Religious Identification Survey in 2008 [ http://commons.trincoll.edu/aris/ ], the number of people who claim no specific religious belief was 34 million, 15 percent of the U.S. adult population. A survey by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life conducted in 2008 yielded similar numbers.
Saturday’s attendees included a mix of young and old, white, black, Hispanic and Asian. Inside the exhibitor tent, they could speak with representatives of groups ranging from the Society for Humanistic Judaism [ http://www.shj.org/ ], a group that embraces the secular roots of Jews, the Hispanic American Freethinkers [ http://hafree.org/ ] and Recovering from Religion [ http://recoveringfromreligion.org/ ], a group whose goal is to help people leave their religion.
A small number of counterprotesters stood at the fringes of the rally, holding signs that said, among other things, “Jesus forgives sin” and “Fear God.” Some of them engaged in heated debate with non-believers. One woman, a Reason Rally attendee, approached a group of counterprotesters with a sign on which she’d written, “So many Christians, so few lions.”
Catherine Williams, 13, of Leesburg came to the rally with her mother, Lisa, and brother Nathaniel. She said she attends a small conservative private school where she is the only student who is openly an atheist. Sometimes, she said, it can be uncomfortable because many of her classmates are vocal about their religious beliefs. When talk in the classroom focuses on religion, students turn and look at her for her reaction, she said.
“Coming here makes me feel less alone,” she said, a sentiment echoed by many in Saturday’s crowd.
Dustin Taylor, 21, a student at SUNY Cortland [ http://www2.cortland.edu/home/ ], attracted some attention with his T-shirt, which said: “Free drinks to the person who can prove God exists.”
The student, who plans to become a science teacher, said he wants to ensure that his future students have a strong grounding in science. Too often, he said, people believe something simply because it’s what they’ve been told.
Taylor, along with classmates Erica Deretz and Nick Gardner, recently formed the Secular Student Alliance on the SUNY Cortland campus. The three were in the District for the rally and to take part in the American Atheists National Convention [ http://atheists.org/events/2012_National_Convention ], meeting Sunday and Monday in Bethesda.
Deretz carried a poster with the slogan, “Let’s have a moment of science.”
Matthew Zemo, 29, of Brooklyn said atheists have been too nice for too long. He said he hopes the rally will encourage people to step up and speak out.
“This gathering is long overdue,” he said. “This is just the beginning.”
© 2012 The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/atheists-others-to-gather-at-reason-rally/2012/03/23/gIQAvqY2WS_story.html [with comments]
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Richard Dawkins, Unreasonable Atheist?
Mar 26 2012
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/03/richard-dawkins-unreasonable-atheist/255029/ [with embedded video, and comments]
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"Eternal vigilance is the price of Liberty."
from John Philpot Curran, Speech
upon the Right of Election, 1790
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