2012 music faves III

I listened to British pop group "The Contrast" quite a bit this year, though they didn't release an album in 2012. Picture a more muscular REM and you've got an idea of the sound before even starting the video. I featured "I am an Alien" earlier this year, so I'm posting a 2008 video for the song "Caught in a Trap."

2012 music faves II

Surprise favorite Frankie Rose hooked me with her retro girl-group jangly pop sound. The vocals carry extra pop because it sounds almost like, well, the acoustics for a serious church choir. The whole album is solid, and "Night Swim" is suitably representative.

2012 music faves I

I had two main new music favorites over the past year. One was the supergroup "Flying Colors," featuring guitarist Steve Morse (among others).

The song "Kayla" is one of the highlights of their debut album, and the band did a great job with the song on this live version.

Tax Policy Center: Hey, how about some regressive tax reform?

The Tax Policy Center, a think-tank dedicated to tax issues, is linked to the center-left Brookings Institution.  One of its noteworthy accomplishments from the election season came when it criticized Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney's tax plan, saying that it would require raising taxes on the middle class.

The news media and the Obama campaign used that talking point mercilessly against Romney.

Now, the Tax Policy Center comes forward with its own tax reform plan.  At first blush, the plan calls for raising revenue and boosting the economy with regressive taxation.

At least that's my initial take.  Here's how the authors introduce their plan:

This paper examines the fiscal outlook and tax reform options in the United States.  The major conclusions include:  the United States faces a substantial fiscal shortfall in the medium- and long-term; both spending cuts and tax increases should contribute to the solution; tax increases need not do significant harm to economic growth; and there are sensible ways to both reform tax structure and raise revenues, including tax expenditure reform, the creation of a value-added tax, the creation of a carbon tax, or an increase in the gasoline tax.

The latter three all appear regressive on the face of it.  I'm not yet clear on what the authors mean by "tax expenditure reform."

It strikes me as a tad ironic that the Tax Policy Center plays a key role in producing one of the election's most notable anti-Romney talking points, a talking point that emphasizes Romney's supposed willingness to raise taxes on the middle class, and then publishes a study that apparently recommends tax reform that deliberately broadens the tax base to include the middle class and perhaps the lower class as well.

Note (after further reading of the tax proposal):

The paper eventually explains "tax expenditure" in a way that makes it resemble the reform of tax deductions Romney described during the campaign.  The authors' recommendation for a value-added tax includes the suggestion of a cash payment to all households to cancel the effect of the tax on necessities--strongly reminiscent of the tax "prebate" featured in the Fair Tax proposal.   Bottom line:  This tax reform plan will result in higher taxes on the middle class.

The Kurtz curse

Ordinarily I respect Howard Kurtz's opinion as a media expert.  But his story today on the second presidential debate is a bridge too far.

Kurtz:

By attacking moderator Candy Crowley for inserting herself into the middle of that argument, the Romney camp is diverting attention from the fact that an energized Obama often dictated the terms of the argument and frequently put their man on the defensive.

Kurtz is partly right.  Mr. Obama was energized and largely dictated the terms of the argument.

But what about Crowley's role in allowing the president to dictate the terms of the argument?

1. Crowley interrupted Romney far more often than she did the president
2. Crowley afforded the president substantially more speaking time than Romney
3. Crowley chose the questions the town hall participants would ask, which did much to set the stage for placing Romney on the defensive

It's simply the cherry on top of all this that Crowley in addition blurted out a partisan spur-of-the moment fact check in Mr. Obama's favor.

Yes, Mr. Obama marginally outperformed Romney in the debate.  But the way the cards were stacked against Romney has to be part of the story. 

Shame on Howard Kurtz for trying to minimize that part of the story.

Thanks to Northeast Musings

I appreciate Cynthia Van Doren recognizing on her Northeast Musings blog my new Zebra Fact Check project as well as the AllSides project for getting past the distortions of media bias.  J.D. and I highlighted AllSides (coincidentally?) at the PolitiFact Bias site.

Thanks, Cynthia!


10/16/2012  Fixed hyperlink/thanks to J.D. for pointing out the problem

Massive changes

My apologies to regular visitors to Sublime Bloviations for the lack of recent updates.

I've been working for some time on a new project intended to let me do the type of work I do best.  I've started "Zebra Fact Check" from scratch with the aim of competing with the best of the mainstream fact checkers.  Right now that's Annenberg Fact Check, no contest.

Because of this new project most of the subject matter I've emphasized at this site will belong elsewhere.  No more "Grading PolitiFact" or "Piquing PolitiFact."  I'll still engage in those activities, though using a somewhat different approach.

And what of "Sublime Bloviations"?

I don't have a fixed plan for this blog's future.  I've covered quite a bit of ground here, and I'm leaning toward keeping it going as a place to occasionally post about things other than facts and fact checking.  Music and theology/philosophy will probably get the most attention.

I'd be honored if my readers here would check out my new site, Zebra Fact Check.

And feel free to also visit PolitiFact Bias.  I'll also continue working on that site, though probably a bit more behind-the-scenes than previously.

Economist Tim Groseclose explains the Laffer Curve

In this Prager University video, economist Tim Groseclose explains the Laffer curve along with the implications of a recently published study.



Hat tip to Calvin Freiburger.

Grading PolitiFact: Missing context doesn't count against Obama's manufacturing jobs claim

 MOSTLY TRUE – The statement is accurate but needs clarification or additional information.
--Principles of PolitiFact and the Truth-O-Meter

The issue:

(clipped from PolitiFact.com)

The fact checkers:

Louis Jacobson:  writer, researcher
Bridget Hall Grumet:  editor


Analysis:

PolitiFact's fact checking on this one is slightly deeper than "President Obama tells the truth, therefore it's true."

PolitiFact doesn't provide much context with this claim.  Real Clear Politics has a transcript, though (bold emphasis added):

We can choose a future where we export more products and outsource fewer jobs. After a decade that was defined by what we bought and borrowed, we're getting back to basics, and doing what America has always done best:  We're making things again.
(APPLAUSE)
I've met workers in Detroit and Toledo who feared they'd never build another American car. And today, they can't build them fast enough, because we reinvented a dying auto industry that's back on top of the world.
(APPLAUSE)
I've worked with business leaders who are bringing jobs back to America, not because our workers make less pay, but because we make better products. Because we work harder and smarter than anyone else.
(APPLAUSE)
I've signed trade agreements that are helping our companies sell more goods to millions of new customers, goods that are stamped with three proud words: Made in America.
(APPLAUSE)
After a decade of decline, this country created over half a million manufacturing jobs in the last two and a half years. And now you have a choice: we can give more tax breaks to corporations that ship jobs overseas, or we can start rewarding companies that open new plants and train new workers and create new jobs here, in the United States of America. We can help big factories and small businesses double their exports, and if we choose this path, we can create a million new manufacturing jobs in the next four years. You can make that happen. You can choose that future.

Mr. Obama made his remarks in drawing a supposed contrast between his leadership, past and future, with that of his Republican opponent in the presidential election ("You can choose that future").  Obama therefore takes credit to some extent for the increase in manufacturing jobs.  PolitiFact, contrary to its supposed policy, does not bother to rate the degree to which the president was responsible.

PolitiFact just grades whether the numbers add up:

The rise in manufacturing jobs that Obama is referring to may be modest compared to the prior decade’s decline, but he has described the numbers carefully. We rate his statement True.

PolitiFact's "True" rating, of course, supposedly means "The statement is accurate and there’s nothing significant missing." 

But significant information was missing from Mr. Obama's claim.  A CNN fact check noted:

(A)s with other statistics cited during the three-day Democratic convention, it's not quite the whole picture. Manufacturing sector employment is still down by about 500,000 since Obama took office and by more than 3.7 million since the start of the recession in December 2007.

"Nothing significant missing"?

There is a real growth in manufacturing owing largely to exports.  But a Brookings Institution report offers scant evidence that the reasons Mr. Obama gives provide the explanation for the increase.  Brookings does credit Mr. Obama's free trade agreements with Panama, Columbia and South Korea for helping to stimulate foreign trade.  But Brookings and the president omit mentioning that the negotiation of the free trade agreements preceded Mr. Obama's presidency and also fail to mention the subsequent delay in finalizing the deals.

Politico:

The United States and South Korea had originally signed the FTA back in June 2007. The one with Columbia had been signed in November 2006 while the Panama FTA was signed in July 2007.

Maybe if those agreements had passed through the Democrat-controlled Congress in 2008 it might have lessened the effects of the recession and accelerated the recovery of American manufacturing.

PolitiFact's fact check, consisting of eight short paragraphs and a total of three reference sources, doesn't show much effort at reaching the truth.  It acknowledges parts of the story omitted by Mr. Obama yet fails to figure the lack of context in when making its final ruling.  The ruling claims Mr. Obama "describes the numbers carefully" but shows no evidence that the president mentioned the relevant caveats.

It resembles a rubber stamp more than a fact check.


The grades:

Louis Jacobson:  F
Bridget Hall Grumet:  F

No "A" for effort.


Afters:

Readers might register surprise at what counts as a manufactured export.

(click image for enlarged view)

Update Sept. 10, 2012:

Sometimes the transcript doesn't do justice to the original.  With the live speech, Mr. Obama apparently ad-libbed on the text of his speech.  Rather than the three proud words "Made in America" he said something a bit different:




Hat tip to Power Line.

Grading PolitiFact (Texas): All out of "out of context" where Romney's concerned

HALF TRUE – The statement is partially accurate but leaves out important details or takes things out of context.
--Principles of PolitiFact and the Truth-O-Meter

The issue:

(clipped from PolitiFact.com)

The fact checkers:

W. Gardner Selby:  writer, researcher
John Bridges:  editor


Analysis:

I've tipped off that the key aspect to this fact check concerns whether Mitt Romney's statement was taken out of context.  Let's track PolitiFact's treatment of that aspect of this fact check.

PolitiFact:

"Mitt Romney, quite simply, doesn’t get it," the San Antonio mayor (Julián Castro) said in his Sept. 4, 2012, keynote at the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, N.C. "A  few months ago, he visited a university in Ohio and gave the students there a little entrepreneurial advice. ‘Start a business,’ he said. "But how? ‘Borrow money if you have to from your parents.’

That's the Julián Castro version of the context.  Romney was giving the students "a little entrepreneurial advice."

PolitiFact appears to accept the accuracy of Castro's version of the context at face value with its phrasing, in the very next paragraph, of the question of the fact check would answer:

Did Castro accurately recap Romney’s student advice?

PolitiFact might consider a different angle on that question:  Was Romney giving entrepreneurial advice to the students at Ohio's Otterbein University?

With both questions in mind, watch the video.



In context, Romney was talking about the historical climate for American entrepreneurship. He didn't tell the students to borrow money from the parents. He painted a general picture of ways entrepreneurs chase their dreams, and he gave borrowing money from parents as one example. Notably, the line segued to the example of Jimmy John, who founded a nationally popular sandwich chain using startup money borrowed from his father.

Castro gets the words right, but both Castro and PolitiFact get the context wrong. PolitiFact's conclusion doesn't fly as a result:

Castro told his fellow Democrats that Romney urged students at an Ohio university that if they have to, they should borrow money from their parents to start a business. Romney, in fact, said that. Castro’s claim rates True.

By PolitiFact's statement of principles, Castro's claim is "Half True" at best.


The grades:

W. Gardner Selby:  F
John Bridges:  F

PolitiFact stayed on the same page with Castro as he took Romney's statement out of context.  Castro attempted to make Romney seem out of touch and distant with the supposed suggestion of borrowing money to start a business.  But Romney was correct that borrowing money from parents is one way Americans historically chase their entrepreneurial dreams.  Plus the comment served as an apparently deliberate introduction to the Jimmy John anecdote.

Fact checkers should emphasize such contextual elements, not bury them.