An interesting program called the Moving to Opportunity Experiment explored what happens when you move poor families in impoverished neighborhoods to more affluent neighborhoods. A little more than twenty years later, Harvard analysts looked in on the children of the MTO experiment. The results were quite fascinating: The Moving to Opportunity (MTO) experiment offered randomly selected […]
Continue reading →The Social Security Administration has been releasing heavily biased and overly optimistic numbers for about fifteen years, according to a new report by Harvard and Dartmouth: According to the report, the SSA’s actuarial projections in the 1980s underestimated revenues and overestimated costs by $27 billion; in the 1990s, that figure was $200 billion. Now, in […]
Continue reading →There’s one term you’re not likely to hear much in this presidential election cycle: middle class. Apparently the term is political kryptonite right now, especially since no one really knows what it means and most Americans don’t identify as middle class anymore: “In the 1960s, ‘middle class’ felt like it fit your lifestyle,” said Felicia […]
Continue reading →It seems like an obvious question: What branch of government is responsible to interpret the Constitution for the other branches? Many people would immediately reply that the Supreme Court has the final say on any constitutional question. Commentators mocked presidential hopeful Ben Carson for saying that the president does not have to enforce any “judicial […]
Continue reading →There has been a lot of talk among GOP hopefuls about the dangers of “career politicians.” Ben Carson and Carly Fiorina are just the most recent to claim that they are more qualified or trustworthy because they are not politicians. This may be similar to the proleptic Heinz ketchup ad campaign which attempted to put a positive […]
Continue reading →Megyn Kelly of Fox News and radio host Richard Fowler had a heated debate about free speech sparked by a controversial “Draw the Prophet Mohammad” contest put on by Pam Gellar. Whew. The whole point of Gellar’s contest was to thumb her nose at jihadists. Fowler said Gellar went too far. Kelly said Fowler was […]
Continue reading →In what could prove to be disastrous for the average Chinese day laborer, factories in the Pearl River Delta have decided to start replacing their human workforces with robots: Robots are to invade factories in the Pearl River Delta as manufacturers gear up their investments in technology to take advantage of government incentives such as […]
Continue reading →Anyone who is actually on the ground trying to find a job knows that the American job market is bleak. But the statistics coming from the Labor Department (with the help of the Census Bureau) are not quite as dismal as reality: This Friday, the Labor Department will announce job growth and the unemployment rate […]
Continue reading →Why exactly do people hate Floyd Mayweather so much? I don’t think it’s just because he’s a braggart, a jerk, and an abuser. The main problem with Floyd Mayweather is that he’s a braggart, a jerk, and an abuser who refuses to lose: It was clear throughout the fight that the crowd was against him. […]
Continue reading →Ben Carson just announced his bid for the Republican Presidential Nomination in 2016 … to quite a mixed response. I’m not sure exactly why so many people, especially in the black community, are so singularly unenthusiastic about Dr. Carson. From the beginning of his public career, he has never pretended to be anything other than […]
Continue reading →