Earlier this year, a New York City woman – I’ll call her Mary – tried to leave her abusive husband. She contacted a shelter, but the shelter wouldn’t take pets. Nor would any other shelter in the city. Mary’s son said he couldn’t leave his three cats behind. And so, since Mary couldn’t leave without her son, she stayed outside the shelter system.
Pets do not get much attention in research on domestic violence, but there is reason to believe that situations like Mary’s are amazingly common.
A 2007 summary of available research, published in the journal Violence Against Women, found that in the dozen or so shelters in the country that collect data on the issue, between 18 and 48 percent of women said they had delayed leaving their abusers because it meant leaving their pets. In one study conducted in upstate New York, researchers found that among women who had seen their pets abused, 65 percent had put off seeking help. Presumably, many others with pets never leave home at all.
In 2008, there were only four shelters in the country that accommodated domestic animals. Today there are 73, but that’s still only about three percent of shelters nationwide, and to date, no program in a city as large or dense as New York has allowed women to “co-shelter” directly with their animals. That might be changing. In June, Mary, her children, and their cats became the first participants in a program called People and Animals Living Safely, a six-month pilot conceived by the Urban Resource Institute, a non-profit that runs four shelters in New York City, and the Mayor’s Alliance for NYC’s Animals, a nonprofit coalition of animal rescue groups. Now Mary, kids, and pets live together in a sparsely furnished third-floor apartment in the Urban Resource Institute’s biggest shelter.
The program likely has a side benefit of preventing cruelty to animals. More than 70 percent of pet owners entering domestic-violence shelters report that their batterers threatened, injured, maimed or killed their family pets, according to the American Humane Association.
Douthat doubts the fix Obama announced last week will have much of an impact. As an alternative, he suggests rewriting Obamacare’s regulations “to allow insurers to sell less comprehensive plans on the exchanges”:
What partial deregulation would accomplish … is to allow some of the lower-cost plans the law abolishes to be actually revived and made available on the exchanges as “bronze” options in 2014 and 2015, rather than just temporarily grandfathered for a year or so outside them. And this would have two potential upsides for Obamacare. First, it would ease the rate shock that people with cancelled plans experience when they go shopping for new coverage on the exchanges (and in the process hedge against potential further rate increases in the new few years). And second, it would offer a carrot, in the form of cheaper options than the exchanges currently provide, to lure in some of the uninsured who might otherwise be more inclined than the White House expected to just pay the fine (or dodge it) and continue without coverage. (If you want more people to buy a product from your website, figuring out a way to lower the price is a time-tested method …)
We should expect that catastrophic plans will be about 5% cheaper than bronze plans.
Opening these plans up to the broader market would help a little with sticker shock, but not very much. The insurance consultancy Milliman warns that ACA rules “may make it hard to differentiate” between catastrophic and bronze plans, since the catastrophic plans and bronze plans must both limit out-of-pocket expenses to $6,350 for an individual subscriber.
[Harold] Pollock’s suggestion is to tweak the definition of “essential health benefits” under the Affordable Care Act. In other words, he’d hold down premiums by letting insurers exclude more items from coverage. But it’s not clear what these exclusions could be, and Pollack doesn’t make specific suggestions. The additions that add lots of cost (mental health coverage, prescription drugs, substance abuse treatment) tend to be pretty important components of health care.
We can tinker a little with the comprehensiveness of coverage, both in terms of what services of covered and what fraction of the bills the insurer will pay. But there is no “fix” to the fact that the ACA creates a shadow fiscal transfer by charging higher health insurance premiums to healthy people in order to subsidize coverage for the sick.
Keating details the new change to China’s one-child policy (OCP):
Under the new system, couples will be allowed to have a second baby if either parent is an only child—a significant slice of the population given that the policy has been in place since 1980. This isn’t quite as dramatic a change as it sounds. China has been gradually adding exceptions to the rule for years amid concerns about the country’s aging workforce.
In rural areas, couples were already allowed to have two children. Many other couples were allowed two children if the first was a girl. Different rules also applied to China’s ethnic minorities—about 8 percent of the population. Authorities already claimed that since 2007, the strict one-child policy has applied to less than 40 percent of the population.
The awful persistence of forced abortions, sterilizations and infanticide in China reflect a contradiction in the Chinese system — and in the one-child policy itself. The senior leadership in Beijing may set national policy, such as today’s relaxation of the one-child policy, but it’s local- and provincial-level officials who choose when, whether and how to actually enforce those policies. If those mid-level officials want to do things differently — say, in the above case, by continuing to use forced abortions to control birthrates, even though Beijing banned that years ago — they often do.
This is probably the thing that Americans most misunderstand about China: It may be run by a giant authoritarian bureaucracy, but the system can get really messy. The people at the top have a lot less control over mid-level officials than outsiders often assume. Local officials will sometimes go their own way. So the question for Beijing becomes, How do you steer all those local officials to do what you want? The one-child policy is a study in how that can go wrong.
It’s a huge impairment of human freedom, but it’s also left China with a rapidly aging population and a severe gender imbalance among its younger cohorts. We’ve also learned more broadly that birth rates fall pretty dramatically in basically all societies that feature birth control technology, women with some modicum of autonomy from their male partners, and access to global popular culture. Which is to say that even without population control measures, most developed countries have birth rates below replacement level and most developing countries are rapidly converging.
Bloomberg’s editorial puts the relaxation of the OCP in context:
The rest of the world may celebrate this as the loosening of an odious infringement of liberty. For the Communist Party, the issue never even arises. It seeks only to fine-tune the rules for demographic purposes: China needs more children — but not too many. (The change is listed alongside another technocratic tweak: “Allow doctors to have a license to work in more than one hospital.”) A step forward for human liberty, no doubt — in a system that still doesn’t understand what liberty means.
Mario Palmaro, a traditionalist Catholic who has strongly criticized Pope Francis, is gravely ill. How Palmaro describes an unexpected phone call from Francis, who contacted Palmaro after learning of his illness:
“I was astonished, amazed, above all moved: for me, as a Catholic, that which I was experiencing was one of the most beautiful experiences in my life. But I felt the duty to remind the Pope that I, together with Gnocchi, had expressed specific criticisms regarding his work, while I renewed my total fidelity [to him] as a son of the Church. The Pope almost did not let me finish the sentence, saying that he had understood that those criticisms had been made with love, and how important it had been for him to receive them.” [These words] “comforted me greatly.”
Dreher, who has had his differences with the Pope, reacts:
Theological considerations aside, Pope Francis is a total Catholic mensch. Can we agree on that? I think we can.
The following is one of my favorite quotes, and it applies, to some degree, to this situation:
“The only sign of humility is the love of one’s enemies. When one loves his enemies, he says in effect that they are as worthy of life as he is, that the Kingdom of God does not depend upon the vindication of one’s own cause. When one loves his enemies, he has accepted the fact that he is not the center of the universe. He is willing to admit that the grace of God may be at work, even in his own behalf, in the resistance and rejection he encounters from others. By love of enemies and by this standard alone can the humility of Jesus be measured. The ‘humble of heart’ whom Jesus admires are those whose hearts have no hatred for their opponents.”
(“Free to Be Faithful” by Anthony Padovano, page 16)
Humility, I believe, consists of more than loving those who oppose or hurt us, but this act is an acid test of the virtue. Good for the Pope.
Alyssa calls the Make-A-Wish Foundation’s Batkid event last Friday “a fascinating watermark in America’s obsession with superhero culture, and in our relationships to various aspects of geek culture”:
Miles’ wish offered San Franciscans the opportunity to participate in an act of kindness in person. And the specific nature of Miles’ request gives participants something more than warm fuzzies: it’s an opportunity to participate in a fantasy of their own on a grand scale, or to excuse indulging in a fantasy on the grounds that it’s philanthropic.
The vast expansion of comics and gaming conventions have provided fans of genre fiction with more opportunities to and spaces in which to cosplay, or to dress up as their favorite characters. But there’s an understanding that the convention floor is special space to assume a different identity that you can’t carry with you out of the center, at least not very far. And cosplaying is often relatively stagnant, an opportunity to pose for pictures, and maybe engage in a casual lightsaber duel. As much as individuals might dream of turning into an entire city into a canvas for their dreams of living out their identification with certain characters, it’s almost impossible to imagine having the clout to step into not just the clothes from a piece of fiction you love, but scenarios that could possible happen in the world where it’s set.
Miles’ request to Make-A-Wish provides an exceptionally rare opportunity not just for him to dress up as Bat Kid and liberate Lou Seal, the San Francisco Giants’ mascot, from the clutches of The Penguin, but for people who aren’t ill to jump in on the game.
Obamacare is a fact— a malfunctioning fact, like so much of the rest of the American healthcare system, yet a fact all the same. Its beneficiaries are rapidly coalescing into a vested interest, as the pharmaceutical companies and hospital insurance corporations and other providers are vested interests. Policy cannot realistically be made by dismissing such interests. They have gained something they will think is worth protecting. They will have the votes to protect it. If reform is needed, and it is, they will have to be offered something better.
Paul Howard and Yevgeniy Feyman recommend Republicans “make Obamacare a Trojan horse for conservative health-care reform”:
Based on data available for about 85 percent of exchange plans, about 77 percent have deductibles of more than $1,250 and qualify under Internal Revenue Service rules for a health savings account. For a 27-year-old purchasing coverage, the median HSA-eligible plan costs about $238 a month and typically comes with a deductible of about $3,600. The median plan without a high deductible, however, costs almost 30 percent more ($310) for a 27-year-old, though it has a significantly lower deductible (about $600).
Over the course of a year, the choice of an HSA plan can lead to significant savings. Here’s why: The typical 20-something with insurance spends a median of $770 annually on health care (excluding premiums and over-the-counter drugs). Opting for an HSA-eligible plan costing $238 a month ($2,856 a year), the median 20-something ends up spending $3,626 in one year on health care ($770 plus $2,856). However, with a traditional plan, total spending jumps to $4,320 in one year ($600 in out-of-pocket spending plus $3,720 in premiums). In other words, the HSA plan holder comes out about 20 percent ($694) ahead. That savings can then be funneled into an HSA or other spending.
“The gay responsibility agenda has been a hard slog—harder, ironically, than the gay rights agenda. The anti-gay lobby was more alarmed by strong, independent homosexuals than with weak, victimized ones. Over time, though, the responsibility agenda has done for gays what Israel has done for Jews. It has retired the stereotype of weakness. The country has responded by seeing us in a new and more positive light: one in which oppressed-minority status makes less sense by the day,” – Jon Rauch in a piece on his indifference to the passage of ENDA.
With support for the ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) crumbling ahead of local elections due next month, [President Nicolás] Maduro decreed on November 8th that as part of an “economic war” with unscrupulous businessmen, prices of electrical appliances were to be cut to their level of a month earlier. For good measure he had a couple of dozen shopowners and managers arrested for “usury.” Shops were besieged by bargain hunters. In the country’s third city, Valencia, looters ransacked an outlet belonging to the Daka electricals chain. Even members of the national guard, deployed along with partisan militiamen to keep order, were filmed loading looted goods onto pickup trucks. Several days later people were still queuing in their dozens and even hundreds, in the hope of picking up a discounted television or fridge.
Jonathan Watts and Virginia Lopez report that the army has occupied electronics stories accused of “profiteering” and that more than 100 “bourgeois” businesspeople have been arrested for alleged price-gouging. As Juan Nagel notes, “the use of cheap appliances to shore up political support is nothing new in Venezuela”:
Last year, [then-president Hugo] Chávez handed out more than a million Chinese appliances to his supporters as a way of convincing them to vote for him. I witnessed one of these acts, in which unsuspecting citizens were gifted free washing machines, courtesy of Comandante Chávez. The ailing Chávez coasted to a 10-point victory at the polls in October.
But Maduro does not have the deep pockets that Chávez had a year ago. The new president faces a mayoral election a month from now, yet Venezuela’s reserves are low, and oil prices are dropping. The budget deficit is enormous, and with inflation running at more than 50 percent a year, the government is finding it hard to make ends meet. Faced with this reality, Maduro has decided that if he can’t give away appliances, he will give away someone else’s.
Since Maduro took over from Chávez, Venezuela’s economic woes have worsened. Although the country is oil rich, with the world’s largest deposits, other industries have collapsed as a result of price controls, government mismanagement and land appropriation. Once a major producer of agricultural commodities, Venezuela has to import most of its food. Even though malnutrition has fallen as a result of subsidized food programs, it has become hard for many people to secure basic necessities because dollars are in short supply.
Since Chavez’s death, this house of cards has begun to collapse, and the black market exchange rate between the bolivar (VEF) and the U.S. dollar (USD) tells the tale. Since Chavez’s death on March 5, 2013, the bolivar has lost 62.36 percent of its value on the black market, as shown in the chart below. …
This, in turn has brought about very high inflation in Venezuela. The government has responded by imposing ever tougher price controls to suppress the inflation. But those policies have failed, resulting in shortages of critical goods, such as toilet paper, without addressing the root cause of Venezuela’s inflation woes.
The Maduro government has responded to this problem with the very same tactics employed by other regimes with troubled currencies. Yes, from Mugabe’sZimbabwe to North Korea today, the playbook is simple, if misguided: deny and deceive.
Jay Ulfelder ran some numbers and found that “chief executives in democracies are about as likely to lose their jobs during a hyperinflationary episode as they are to hang on to them, while autocrats face more favorable odds of political survival of roughly 3:1.” In autocracies, the length of the episode also plays a role. So what does that mean for Maduro?
I consider Venezuela’s political regime to be authoritarian, so f I only had these statistics to go by, I would say that Maduro will probably survive the episode, but the chances that he’ll get run out of office will increase the longer the hyperinflation lasts. I’m not an economist, so my best guess at how long Venezuela might suffer under hyperinflation is the average duration from Hanke’s list. That’s a little shy of two years, which would give Maduro odds of about 4:1 to of weathering that storm.
Of course, those statistics aren’t all the information we’ve got. Other things being equal, authoritarian regimes with leaders in their first five years in office – like Venezuela right now – are about three times as likely to transition to democracy as ones with guys who’ve been around for longer, and democratic transitions almost always entail a change at the top. We also know that Maduro so far has been a “boring and muddled” politician, and that there are some doubts about the loyalty he can expect from the military and from other Chavista elites. Putting all of those things together, I’d say that Maduro’s presidency probably won’t last the six years he won in the April 2013 election.
Noam Scheiber defends his piece on Warren regardless:
I can’t help thinking many pundits missed the point when, in response to my recent story about Elizabeth Warren (“Hillary’s Nightmare”), they ticked off all the reasons Hillary Clinton would crush Warren in a potential primary matchup. It’s not that I disagree. In the piece, I describe how a Warren-Clinton primary might play out before concluding that “Warren would probably lose.” It’s just that I don’t think this is an especially interesting discussion. Most overwhelming favorites go on to win the race they’re running. The difference is that, in presidential primaries, how the frontrunner wins matters almost as much as whether they do.
Do they have to adopt an entirely new political persona (see Romney, Mitt)? Do they have to make big ideological or policy concessions? Do they have to replace one set of advisers with another? Do they have to break with a key constituency or embrace an entirely new one? This “how” tells us a lot about the party and where it’s headed. And it’s here where Warren’s influence is potentially enormous.
Weigel doesn’t let Scheiber entirely off the hook:
This was what I disagreed with. It’s one thing to say that a candidate can do more damage to a front-runner than any of us think. Those reporters tailing around Eugene McCarthy in 1968 got a hell of a story, even though McCarthy did lose New Hampshire. Sure. But as Nate Silver’s pointed out for years, leaving a lot of embarrassed pundits groaning in the corner, there are demographics and data points and factors that complicate Narratives but tell you who will actually win an election. It’s just ridiculous to point out that Warren might have an advantage in the New Hampshire primary without acknowledging that, when John Kerry was tested against Clinton in 2005, he got 40-plus points closer to the front-runner than Warren does now.
In another response to Scheiber’s piece, Hertzberg notes “the remarkable shallowness of the Democratic bench”:
Whether or not [Clinton] chooses to run, the supply of plausible alternatives is shockingly thin. The Republicans have an ample roster of men (and only men) who are readily imaginable as nominees, even if thinking about some of them as Presidents (step forward, Ted Cruz) requires contemplating about the unthinkable. On the other side, there’s Joe Biden, our septuagenarian Vice-President. There’s Andrew Cuomo—another legacy case. After that, the list drops off rather sharply. Martin O’Malley, governor of Maryland? Sherrod Brown, senator from Ohio? Alec Baldwin? Who else?
The Dish 