Tag: Premium

Esther Breger criticizes ABC’s new medical drama “Black Box,” about a neuroscientist with bipolar disorder, for perpetuating the trend of treating TV heroes’ mental illnesses as superpowers:

Catherine, the medical director of a fancy neurological center known as the Cube, is apparently amazing at her job, and “Black Box” doesn’t hesitate to draw a connection between her genius and her illness: “Catherine has an insight into her patients that no one else has, allowing her to communicate with them on a different level,” according to ABC’s press notes. She’s fabulously empathetic and intuitive, somehow able to see what all the other doctors miss (though her cases should be familiar to anyone who reads Oliver Sacks’s essays). That’s because, the show keeps reminding us, mental illness goes along with greatness. …

The show’s particular absurdities are all its own, but “Black Box” is part of a long line of fictions that treat psychological disorders as a professional asset.

On TNT’s “Perception,” which will soon air a third season, Eric McCormack plays a schizophrenic neuroscience professor who moonlights as an FBI consultant, solving murders with the help of witnesses he hallucinates. “Mind Games,” which lasted five episodes this spring before getting the axe, starred Steve Zahn as a bipolar genius who used to teach psychology and now runs a “problem-solving” business. Benedict Cumberbatch’s Sherlock Holmes coolly calls himself a “high-functioning sociopath,” but Sherlock fans have been offering competing psychological profiles for Arthur Conan Doyle’s character for decades. “Homeland,” at its best, complicated this dynamic, but Claire Danes’s Carrie Mathison was still gifted with a perception that her saner C.I.A. colleagues lacked. She was a superhero, until she was a lovesick lackey.

Because it’s so painfully clumsy and thoughtlessly constructed, “Black Box” distills what’s unsettling in the rest of these shows into something wholly unpleasant.

Alan Sepinwall also pans the show:

Describing the show makes it sound like the sort of thing Jack Donaghy might have scheduled on the “30 Rock” version of NBC: Kelly Reilly plays Catherine Black, a brilliant neurologist who’s known as “the Marco Polo of the brain,” and who has somehow kept secret from all her friends, colleagues, and even her long-term boyfriend Will (David Ajala) that she is bipolar, and subject to abrupt, extreme mood swings from manic to depressive. Her name is Black, she tells us that people in her field call the brain a black box, and she is an expert at curing everyone’s neurological difficulties except her own! And she frequently refuses to take her medication because she fears becoming dull or, worse, “normal,” which leads her to sleep around, perch on hotel balcony railings while drunk and frequently dance to free-form jazz compositions that only she can hear.

In other words, it’s combining what’s become the most annoying aspect of “Homeland” with the most formulaic parts of “House”(*) with that tired old saw that Fienberg has dubbed the Vocational Irony Narrative.

Gobry argues that conservatives ought to agree with Piketty’s proposal to shift the tax burden from income to wealth:

To be a conservative is to want a vibrant, innovative economy. All else equal, presumably, in order to have such an innovative economy, you want to have risk-taking and risk-bearing capital. The problem with the global economy isn’t, per se, that the rich have a lot of money. It’s that the rich have a lot of money and, instead of investing it in rocket ships to the moon and dotcom ventures, almost all of them are instead investing it in government bonds and ultra-safe corporate bonds. With inflation at zero and no wealth tax, investing at 2% for no risk is very attractive. If there is inflation and/or a wealth tax, suddenly you have to seek it out bigger investments.

Looked at it very broadly, the conservative “diagnosis” would say something like this: for the broad middle class, what we usually think of as the components of “the good life”, i.e. housing, a job, affordable healthcare, higher education, and so on, are growing increasingly expensive–and in large part this is because of bad government regulation. This is also true of access to capital. As Piketty says, all else equal, we want to increase wealth mobility and access to capital.

Noting that Americans see Piketty as more left-wing than he sees himself, Yglesias points out that he actually wants to cut most Americans’ taxes:

Piketty’s big point about the United States is that we actually do engage in substantial wealth taxation in this country. We call it property taxes, and they’re primarily paid to state and local governments.

Total receipts amount to about 3 percent of national income. The burden of the tax falls largely on middle-class families, for whom a home is likely to be far and away the most valuable asset that they own. Rich people, of course, own expensive houses (sometimes two or three of them) but also accumulate considerable wealth in the stock market and elsewhere where, unlike homeowners’ equity, it can evade taxation.

Piketty also observes that the current property tax system is curiously innocent of the significance of debt. A homeowner is taxed on the face-value of his house, whether he owns it outright or owes more to the bank than the house is worth. “If you own a house worth $500,000 but you have a mortgage of $490,000 then your net wealth is $10,000,” he explains. “So in my system you would owe no tax.”

But Scott Sumner thinks we should measure inequality not by income or wealth, but rather by consumption:

[T]here are plenty of billionaires who splurge on things like 500-foot yachts. Now we are getting somewhere! The labor and materials that went into constructing that yacht could have produced 10,000 cars for average people. That sort of inequality is real. That’s what we (should) mean by “economic inequality.” That’s the way all of us economists were taught, but 99% of us seem to have forgotten what we learned about consumption. Consumption is what you should tax. Of course when we tried to do that a bunch of Democratic politicians who have apparently never heard of Bastiat said the luxury tax was a bad idea because it cost jobs in the yacht making industry. (I’m not joking.) Nor are they willing to cut back on intellectual property protections for companies like Disney.

Capital in the Twenty-First Century is available here.

Razib Khan asks why discussions of resegregation focus on the South:

The South has a particular history with race, and that is an important history. But the continuous focus on this region of the country is I think driven in part by the reality that the cultural elites, often white progressives, are not keen on shining a light on the segregation which they themselves have passively accepted in their own lives.

In fact the worst segregation of blacks and whites is in major urban areas of the Great Lakes. According to the Census the most segregated cities are Detroit, Milwaukie, New York, Newark, and Chicago. But for some reason there are fewer exposes on how upper middle class, usually white, couples in major “Blue America” urban areas flee racially diverse public schools for the suburbs or private schools. The reasons for these actions are defensible in my opinion, but one should probably admit that these are likely the major causes of resegregation in the South as well.

To further his argument, Khan cites Reihan Salam’s recent piece on interracial dating. Reihan argues that intermarriage is an important social good:

There are good reasons to question the moral appropriateness of strong same-race preferences and their close cousin, in-group favoritism.

In The American Non-Dilemma, Nancy DiTomaso argues that persistent racial inequality in the United States is not solely or even primarily a reflection of racism and discrimination. Rather, it reflects the fact that whites tend to help other whites without ever discriminating against or behaving cruelly toward blacks and other nonwhites. As long as whites tend to dominate prestigious occupations, and as long as they control access to valuable social resources like access to good schools, the fact that whites, like all people, will do more to help family, friends, and acquaintances than strangers will tend to entrench racial inequality, provided that white people choose to associate primarily with other whites. DiTomaso observes that while Americans place very high value on the idea of equal opportunity, virtually all of us seek “unequal opportunity” in our own lives by leveraging our intimate relationships to achieve our goals, including our professional goals. Yet most of us don’t see the help of family and friends as an unfair leg up. This kind of “opportunity hoarding” is accepted as par for the course.

We could make an effort to eliminate in-group favoritism, but such an effort would inevitably fail, as in-group favoritism is a powerful human impulse. A more sensible course of action would be to do our part to expand the boundaries of the in-group.

Khan adds:

What if in fact most racial inequality is a function of social-cultural racism, rather than institutional racism?

Recent Dish on resegregation here and here.

Buffalo Bills cheerleaders won't perform after suit alleging unpaid work, sexual harassment http://t.co/Msg25KvG1G pic.twitter.com/rZPiGfgCU1

— Palm Beach Post (@pbpost) April 25, 2014

Emily Shire lists the grievances of the former Buffalo Bills cheerleaders who are suing the franchise for minimum wage violations and a host of other indignities:

[T]he alleged exploitation was more than just unpaid labor. The Buffalo Jills allege that Stejon [Productions Corp]  and Citadel [Communications Co.] essentially ran a racket, forcing the women to buy calendars and other Bills-related items out of pocket and then sell them on their own time. They even imposed damages if they failed to sell their quotas, according to the suit. Each woman was required to buy 50 to 75 Buffalo Jills swimsuit calendars at $10 each and sell them. If she did not sell them, she was left in the red and “subject to further penalties at the discretion of defendants.” The same went for Jills golf tournament tickets and gift baskets, which could cost each woman $590. Other out-of-pocket expenses included travel and hotel accommodations for the events they had to attend and $650 in uniform costs, the suit says.

That’s not all. From exposure to sexual harassment to menstrual hygiene instructions, the alleged physical appearance rules paint a deeply disturbing picture of archaic, invasive, and manipulative requirements. According to the lawsuit, the Buffalo Jills were given a list of 17 rules governing “general hygiene and body maintenance.” They included “how to properly wash ’intimate areas’ and how often to change tampons.”

Noting that the Jills’ lawsuit comes on the heels of similar actions by the Oakland Raiderettes and Cincinnati Ben-Gals, Amanda Hess asks why these women’s poor pay and exploitation are only just now coming into the spotlight:

Professional cheerleaders have always presented a dilemma for the traditional feminist movement. On the one hand, feminism is committed to fighting for fair pay for women in all areas where they are discriminated against because of their gender. On the other hand, this particular kind of labor—one where women, not men, are enlisted to jiggle their assets at the local golf tournament—suggests another kind of gendered exploitation, and one that’s hard for some feminists to rush to defend. (Headlines about the recent spate of cheerleader lawsuits may focus on the scandalous details, but looking sexy for men is a feature of the job, not a bug.) Lately, it seems the feminist movement has caught up to the cause; it’s no longer particularly controversial to stand up for the legal rights of the women who perform work that nevertheless fails to reflect the ideal, gender-equitable society.

Back in January, Billy Haisley also covered the mistreatment of cheerleaders. He spoke with a former Ravens cheerleader:

For cheerleaders, the real money comes from appearances. It’s still not all that great. If the appearance is for charity, the team will charge $175 per cheerleader per hour; otherwise, it’s $300 per hour. Of that money, our tipster explains, each cheerleader takes home around $50 an hour. Sounds good, but in an average season, a cheerleader will make only 30 or so appearances, and many of those don’t pay at all. For certain charity events, like those set up in the NFL’s or the team’s own name, cheerleaders are expected to attend without compensation, and rules require them to attend charity events at least twice monthly, depending on availability.

After investigating the role of terrorism in civil wars in Africa, Jakana Thomas comes away with the sobering conclusion that it’s often a successful tactic:

The popular adage that governments “do not negotiate with terrorists” appears to be untrue, at least in civil war. In a new study published in the American Journal of Political Science, I find that governments embroiled in domestic conflicts in Africa between 1989 and 2010 are more likely to hold negotiations with rebel groups when they engage in more acts of terrorism. Rebels are also likely to gain more concessions from their governments when they execute more terror attacks. …

Instead of asking whether terrorism is effective, we should be concentrating on when and for what purpose is terrorism effective, especially since the empirical record shows that terrorism has both hurt and helped the causes of violent organizations that have employed the tactic. Very little extant research, however, helps us understand this variation.

Reed Wood, co-author of a similar study, makes related points:

Attacks on civilians, we argue, hurt the state more than the rebels — even where the rebels are the ones committing most of the violence. In part, this occurs because maintaining order is central to the state’s victory whereas disorder, instability, and the erosion of state control directly benefit insurgents. When insurgents rely on civilian victimization, they impose significant costs on the state and send credible signals about their willingness to continue fighting a long, costly, and brutal war. The effect is that governments are increasingly likely to make concessions to violent groups, thus permitting the group to attain some of its political goals.

A reader writes:

Hopefully numbers like the price of the hep-C drug will remind us that when it comes to pharmaceuticals, the US is basically subsidizing the rest of the world (and I’m talking to you, countries with nationalized healthcare that negotiate much lower prices than the US).  This is just foreign aid, in another guise, whether it goes to Sweden, France or Egypt.  When we hear about the “efficiencies” and prices of other healthcare systems, let’s remember that part of the reason is coming right out of our pockets.

Another elaborates:

American citizens bear the costs (taxes, military, rule of law, patent system, education of scientists, etc.) of supporting the environment which makes possible the innovation these drug companies achieve.  Then our reward for our collective largesse is that we as consumers get to pay more, by an order of magnitude, for the same drugs than consumers in other countries.  How is that fair?

Another adds:

“For patients with a strain that is more difficult to treat, the regiment is 24 weeks. That comes in at $168,000.” Or $1,680 in Egypt – wouldn’t it be more cost effective for insurers to send US patients to “rehab” in Egypt?  That price difference is enough that building a residential clinic from scratch, and flying all of the patients first class to Cairo, is likely to be more cost effective than treating them here.  There is something economically perverse about that.

Update from a reader:

To the reader who suggested sending US patients to rehab in Egypt to take advantage of lower drug costs: It won’t work for the same reason we can’t all take advantage of lower costs of more run-of-the-mill drugs in Canada. It’s not as if Canada has a cornucopia drug supply. Canadian pharmacies buy the stuff from U.S. manufacturers. If the purchasing behavior of a large portion of the U.S. customer base migrated to another country, the drug companies would know, and they would adjust their pricing or their shipping policies.

Medical tourism can work for the individual when there is incentive for individuals to participate (ie, the cost is out of pocket. My daughter had excellent emergency dental work done while studying in Ghana, good enough and cheap enough that if I needed major work done on my mouth, I might consider a long vacation to Accra -because I don’t have dental insurance.) But it is problematic for an institution as large as an insurance company, and it certainly can’t work for a nation.

I echoed this point a few months ago. Garry Wills nails it:

I fear that the president declared a premature victory for the Affordable Care Act when he said that its initial goals were met, it was time to move on to other matters, and the idea of repealing it is no longer feasible. He made the mistake of thinking that facts matter when a cult is involved. Obamacare is now, for many, haloed with hate, to be fought against with all one’s life. Retaining certitude about its essential evil is a matter of self-respect, honor for one’s allies in the cause, and loathing for one’s opponents. It is a religious commitment.

The irrelevance of evidence in the face of sacred causes explains the dogged denial of global warming, the deep belief that the Obama Administration was responsible for the killing of Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens in Benghazi and that Obama is not a legitimate American. To go back farther, it explains the claims that FDR arranged for the attack on Pearl Harbor and gave much of the world away to Stalin at Yalta (an idea Joe Scarborough is still clinging to). Repealing Obamacare will eventually go the way of repealing the New Deal. But the opposition will never fade entirely away—and it may well be strong enough in this year’s elections to determine the outcome. It is something people are willing to sacrifice for and feel noble about. Creeds are not built up out of facts. They are what make people reject all evidence that guns are more the cause of crime than the cure for it. The best preservative for unreason is to make a religion of it.

Jaime Fuller lays out the goals of Obama’s four-country Asia trip, which began yesterday in Japan:

For this trip, this renewed effort at pivoting will focus on two policies in particular — finishing up the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a 12-country free-trade agreement that has been in the works for five years, and an agreement with the Philippines giving U.S. ships and planes more access to bases there than they’ve had since 1992. In 1991, the country asked the United States to leave Clark Air Base and the Subic Bay naval facility. The military isn’t planning to establish a permanent base again; it is just instituting rotating deployments and stocking up supplies in case of a disaster — a plan similar to one recently instituted with Australia.

Obama will also be talking to Japan about plans to revamp its military. International decisions made at the end of World War II have left Japan with a small military, but the country’s new conservative prime minister, Shinzo Abe, has made revitalizing Japan’s defense and armed forces a priority. The United States likely sees Japan’s morphing role in the region — and growing tensions between Japan and China — as an important aspect of any changes to its role there. Obama’s trip to Tokyo in 2009 was the first presidential trip to Japan since 1996.

Fred Kaplan notes that the visit has been overshadowed by events in Ukraine:

This week’s trip was planned as a makeup session of sorts. Obama’s main goals were, first, to allay the allies’ concerns about America’s commitment to their security in the face of an expansive Chinese navy and, second, to complete a trade treaty, the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which has been central to Obama’s vision of a rebalanced foreign policy.

But, once again, life has gotten in the way.

The spotlight has turned, improbably, to Ukraine. Not only has Russian President Vladimir Putin’s land grab riveted everyone’s attention, it also threatens to upend the whole concept of the pivot, at least for a while. The concept, as Obama initially laid it out, rested on three premises: a desire to get out of the Middle East’s quagmire-wars; a view of Asia-Pacific as the emerging center of dynamic growth; and an almost unspoken assumption (it seemed so obvious at the time) that Europe needed no special minding, that the era of crises on the continent had passed. The first premise is still laudable, the second still persuasive, but the third … well, clearly, the map of Europe is no longer so stable.

Fuller follows up with a refresher on the TPP and why everyone hates it:

As the Financial Times sums up the debate, “But what, precisely, is the Trans-Pacific Partnership? To some, it is the ‘gold standard’ of trade deals. They argue that the 12-member club of aspiring free-trade purists led by the US can jump-start the stalled multilateral Doha round, which the World Trade Organisation initiated in 2001 to break down global trade barriers. To opponents, the TPP is a ‘giant corporate power grab’ that would endanger food safety, access to medicines and national sovereignty.”

The TPP is very large and broad. Think of it like an omnibus bill in Congress, where a bunch of the treaty’s drafters get to toss in pork to keep their constituencies happy. No one is completely happy when an omnibus bill is passed. Same deal here. The TPP covers so many different industries, that few people remain who aren’t worried about what the final treaty may contain. Many of the complaints leveled against the Trans-Pacific Partnership are the same that were made against NAFTA 20 years ago.

Richard Stubbs blames the impasse over the deal on competing American and Asian versions of capitalism:

[O]f all the obvious divisions among the 12 TPP participants it is the clash of capitalisms that is the most difficult to overcome. The Anglo-American participants, especially the US, firmly believe in a market-led approach to economic growth. The Asian partners – notably Japan, Malaysia, Singapore and Vietnam – however, achieved much of their remarkable economic success by relying on a state-guided approach to economic development. These competing visions of how to advance economic growth affect nearly every one of the many issues that need to be negotiated – tariff elimination, reductions in non-tariff barriers, investment safeguards, protecting intellectual property rights and so on.

Clearly the leaders of the Asian partners hoped that by joining the TPP negotiations they would gain access to the US market and force their own economies into further economic liberalisation without arousing too much opposition. But they have become trapped between the rigidity of the US negotiating position and increasing resentment at home as the details of the secret negotiations have been made available.