LyrArc Article Gist
The cost of tution for four year colleges has doubled in the U.S. since 1985 even after adjustment for inflation, according to the College Board. Over 3 million households in the U.S. owe more than $50,000 in student loans. Ths is ten times the figure of 300,000 in 1989, and about four times the figure of 794,000 in 2001. Upper middle income families with incomes between $94,000 and $205,000, based on Wall Street Journal analysis of U.S. Federal Reserve data, shows they owed an average of $32,869 in college loans in 2010, up from $26,639 in 2007, after adjusting for inflation. This is affecting the choices parents and students in the middle class are making of colleges, preferring to go to second tier colleges to better manage the costs of tution.

LyrArc Article Gist
New rules by the Government Accounting Standards Board (GASB) and Moody's would show U.S. public pension funds as about 57% funded instead of 75% funded under earlier rules. This will open up an even wider gap in how much they have in the funds and their promises to retirees to about an estimated $2.2 trillion. This puts pressure on state and local governments to either reduce benefits for new hires, have workers increase contributions, or set aside more money from the budget. Local governments face the risk of credit downgrades and higher borrowing costs if no action is taken and finances are worsening. An example is Illinois retired teachers who earn annual pensions of about $46,000 on average, and do not participate in Social Security under state opt-out. Even under old accounting rules this pension fund had $37 billion of assets and $81 in future liabilities. Under the new rules the unfunded liabilities could jump to 83% by one estimate, from over 50%.

LyrArc Article Gist
The Fiscal Survey of States, a report put out by the National Governor's Association, says that Medicaid will become an increasing burden on state budgets as help from the federal government declines. The report points out that state general fund revenue remains $21 billion below 2008 levels, just as the states prepare for less federal help.

LyrArc Article Gist
According to a report from the Southern Education Foundation about 51% of the students from pre-Kindergarden to 12th grade in the U.S. were eligible for the federal program of free and reduced price lunches, using an analysis of 2013 federal data. With the highest proportion of students in poverty concentrated in states in the southern and western U.S.. States all across the south, including Texas, show high concentrations approaching 60-70%, and states in the west such as California show about 50-60%. Midwestern states such as Illinois and Michigan show rates over 50%. The implications of this data are that these children from poor and sometimes chaotic backgrounds trail other children in educational development, are less likely to have educationally enriching activity, and more susceptible to dropping out or never attending college. Kent McGuire, president of the Southern Education Foundation says the map showing this is striking. He points to the disinclination to invest in young people today, compared to the focus on leadership in areas of creating opportunity and upward mobility in the decades of the 50's through the 80's. Michael Rebell of Teachers College at Columbia University, says reaching this point where a majority of public school children are from poor backgrounds has happened sooner, and the trend has accelerated over time. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
People who worked with Romney in the Mormon church describe the experience of Romney who started as an "iron rodder" walking the straight path, and gradually learning of other people's experiences that led to learning and growth and showing a new openness. In contrast to his "47%" remark about people dependent on the government, here he is seen telling another church member Barlow, that what bothers him most and what he has thought a lot about is how to genuinely help the poor in his church. Over the years he learned to compromise with Mormon feminists who sought larger roles in the church and was able to make the progress from being less flexible to being open to other ideas and perceptions. In other situations he allowed unorthodox progressives in the Mormon church to play a part in the organization and teach. The outreach efforts Romney participated in actively included efforts in the inner city and working with immigrants from Haiti, some of whom were illegal immigrants. This is a detailed well researched account from talking to many people active in the church organization and in the church community by Jason Horowitz of the Washington Post. It is one of the rare glimpses of the life of Mitt Romney inside the church. Because of the public perception of Mormonism there is a distance kept with accounts of life in the church, and Romney has shown the same reticence to talk about the church. Seen as a church it is is like other churches, Catholic or Protestant, with the same challenges that face all churches- keeping up the size of the congregation, the poor, immigrants, church organization, raising contributions, getting people to donate hours of work to the church activity. It is one of the ironies of the 2012 presidential campaign that Romney as a member of a Mormon church in a predominantly Catholic and Protestant world has remained reticent about his experiences and how it shaped him. And also remained reticent -till the last months of the campaign with the demands for authenticity growing strident- about how the experiences as governor of the liberal state of Massachusetts had shaped him, this time as the number of Republican politicians in sharply liberal states were a distinct minority in the Republican party. To voters this meant not knowing who he was beyond Bain Capital, the perceptions of which doggedly pursued Romney till the reticence became unbearable in the final weeks of the campaign....

LyrArc Article Gist
Hillary Clinton returns on September 15, 2016, to the campaign trail after 3 days of rest to recover from pneumonia. She chose to speak at the University of North Carolina in Greensboro, with N. Carolina  now considered a state that is winnable, and with a new focus on young people on campuses where she wants to regain her once large lead in the summer. She said that the break had given her time to reflect on what it is she represents. "The campaign trail doesn't really encourage reflection and its important to sit with your thoughts every now and then. It helped me reconnect with what this campaign is all about." Adding that it was about quality health care, financial security, clean water and other critical needs of people.

LyrArc Article Gist
In this interview with Der Spiegel Bernie Sanders reflects on the 2016 election. He says that the Democratic Party missed the fact that many people in the midwest, south and other parts of the country, were worse off after president Obama left than when he came in in 2008. He also says Hillary Clinton relied too heavily on speechwriters and advisers upto the point of  having three speechwriters say why she was running for president. He finds the cuts proposed to healthcare, in the budget, and action on climate change, immoral. He also points out about the investigations that Mr. Mueller is someone everybody respects and that it would be wrong to offer a biased opinion, that Trump supporters would see this in the way that he is picked on when he just came in. He also believes Trump supporters are like other voters and are likely to look at the results, how better off they are under the Trump administration.

LyrArc Article Gist
The Georgetwon University Center on Education and the Workforce 2015 report shows the different college majors, annual wages and lifetime earnings based on Census Bureau data. Engineering comes first, followed by computers. Advanced graduate degrees make a large difference in earnings in health sciences. A lot depends on the standing in the class with top 25% of the class in finance having much higher earnings. A lot also depends on the individual. Employment opportunities may be lacking even if annual wages are high, as in architecture.

LyrArc Article Gist
Krugman points to some striking data in a U.S. Federal Reserve study, showing 47% of Americans do not have the money to meet an unexpected expense of $400 without selling something they own or borrowing. The is the 2nd year of this Federal Reserve study. It shows alarming information about the condition of retirement savings- about 30% of nonelderly Americans say they have no retirement savings or pension, and reported going without some kind of medical care because they could not handle the expense. About 25% say they or a family member experienced financial hardship this year.

LyrArc Article Gist
Adam Nagourney who has covered Governor Jerry Brown of California, describes the Bernie Sanders supporters and the California delegation with many Bernie supporters feeling the loss of their candidate. Jerry Brown says he expects "a convergence around the core issues of this campaign," as the effort to rally people behind Clinton continues.

LyrArc Article Gist
Krugman points out that about 13 million Americans without insurance gained health insurance under the Obama plan. He says if it is turned back 8 million whites without a college degree in that 13 million will lose health insurance. Of these eight million about two out of three voted for Trump, so that 5 million Trump supporters could now lose health insurance even though they are older and have more health conditions. Krugman says this aspect of the election campaign was not covered well in the misinformation and social media information of the 2016 campaign, and the lack of media focus on the important issues in the election. On manufacturing jobs he says most of the jobs lost are not returning, and only token jobs such as at a Carrier plant in the news will take their place.

LyrArc Article Gist
The stark differences in the policy positions of the two major parties in the U.S. seen emerging in the television debates. Trump vocal on immigration calling for large deportations. Sanders and Clinton vocal on the struggles of the middle class and white working class.

LyrArc Article Gist
A Sept 2012 Census Bureau report shows the median income of a typical U.S. family declined or was flat in almost all states in 2011. Median household income declined in Nevada by 6%, in California by 3.8%. In Arizona and Florida incomes declined by 2.9%. For the U.S. median income declined by 1.3% to $50,502 in 2011. Poverty continues to increase, with California showing 335,760 people falling into annual income levels below $23,021 for a family of four in 2011, giving the state a 16.6% poverty rate.

LyrArc Article Gist
This report in the Economist magazine says views in the Trump base of support in rural areas and among white working class voters are likely to persist for some time. One reason given is that many of these people live in isolation and little contact with the more educated urban voters in America. Another factor cited here is that only a fifth of voters follow politics closely, and of these voters only a small fraction have a good grasp of the positions of the two major parties. Most people follow the instincts and thinking of the groups they are with. As a result many of the issues covered in the media such as climate change and U.S. withdrawal from the Paris agreement, the Comey firing and the Mueller investigation into Russian meddling in the election, president Trump's Twitter comments, are not having much impact on the president's ratings among his support base at this early stage of the Trump presidency. Yet it is too early to tell only 6 months into the Trump term in office. After 8 years of president Obama's two terms in office voters who feel left out are not likely to change their views in so short a time. Republican voters as distinct from the core Trump base voter are also unlikely to change their views after 8 years of Democratic party administration. By staying close to traditional Republican party positions president Trump is likely to continue to have the support of the lifelong Republican party voters unless things change. Can a centrist position emerge after voter fatigue with excessive partisan opinion, as voters seek to make America a more quieter place and a consensus on working together to lift all boats emerges. This could be expected as time passes.   ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Seib points out why the current political landscape with the popularity of Trump and Sanders reflects demographic, economc and social changes in America compared to when Geroge H.W. Bush won the election in 1988 and Bill Clinton won in 1992. The Republican party is more populist, with older Americans, more Southern and conservative, making it harder for Jeb Bush or Wall Street backed candidates. The Democratic Party more liberal, more popular on both the east and west coast of the U.S., with younger Americans, diverse demographic groups, making it harder for Hillary Clinton as an establishment candidate. A Journal/NBC poll of Oct. 2015 shows 28% of Republicans describing their views as very conservative, and 26% of Democrats saying they are very liberal. Yet there is another aspect that will show up once the primaries are over. And this is the steady group of somewhat conservative and moderate combined in the Republican Party of 64%, and the steady group of somewhat liberal and moderate in the Democratic Party of 62% in the 2015 Journal/NBC poll. The moderates are up from 26% in the above 1990 poll to 31% in the 2015 poll for the Republican Party, and from 26% to 33% in the Democratic Party. So that one sees about a quarter of people polled in each party pushing for fringe views and a countervailing trend for moderate or close to moderate views with about two thirds support in the 2015 Journal/NBC poll for each party....

LyrArc Article Gist
The State Budget Crisis Task Force is co-chaired by former Fed chairman Paul Volcker and Richard Ravitch, a former lieutenant governor of New York. The Report of the Task Force says rising pension expenses and healthcare costs for public sector employees and Medicaid costs are severely reducing the ability of states in the U.S. to fund essential infrastructure improvements, education for low income students and other services. The report said there were six major threats to the fiscal situation of states- including Medicaid spending, underfunding of retirement, "budgetary gimmicks" to address the short term needs, and uncertain tax revenues. Ravitch told a news conderence: "It will be a hell of a lot more expensive to deal with theses problems in five or ten years than to deal with them now." The report focussed on California, New York, New Jersey, Illinois, Virginia and Texas. It was funded by the foundation of Blackstone Group co-founder Peter Peterson, and George Soros's Open Society Foundation....

LyrArc Article Gist
A Wall Street editorial on the problems identified in the budgets and finances of U.S. states identified by the State Budget Crisis Task Force co-chaired by Volcker and Ravitch. This includes Medicaid costs, underfunded pensions, and budget gimmicks that understate the true extent of problems.

LyrArc Article Gist
Obama's comments during a visit to Greece about the challenges facing multiracial and multicultural societies such as the U.S. and the people left behind through globalization. He says "we are going to have to guard against a rise in a crude sort of nationalism or ethnic identity or tribalism that is built around an "us" and a "them."  Obama also referred to a global elite "that seems to live by a different set of rules, such as being able to avoid taxes," which he said "fuels a feeling that globalization only benefits those at the top," and leads to a push back from people who feel they are losing control over their future." The problem for workers is that fewer and fewer workers are needed in todays advanced automated factories and manufacturing moves across borders leading to anxiety. The president may have realized the extent of the damage only in the closing days of the campaign in 2016, because of his support for trade agreements without talking in this manner about the lives of workers.  ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Jenna Wortham asks the question do tech companies have undue influence in Washington especially when they are pursuing their own ecosystem expansion, citing an example from Facebook app Free Basics. There is another question that comes with the election campaigns of Sanders, Trump and Clinton, and issues of upward mobility. With this issue raised also by Janet Yellen of the U.S. Federal Reserve of the loss of intergenerational mobility in the U.S. at a conference in Oct. 2014. This question is whether the tech world in California can be sensitive to the problems of cities depending on manufacturing in the midwest and the eastern U.S. that are recovering from deep recession, because the environments are so different. Working in the tech world in California is so different from the rest of the country, almost a different way of life. It also has deep political implications, because the priorities are different. Sometimes as with the TPP trade agreement they may conflict- this includes an industry such as the auto industry that also is incorporating technology at an accelerating pace and which has employed many times more people than does the tech industry in California, and in many states. This leads to president Obama's support for the TPP trade agreement, an agreement which analysis by some experts shows is more beneficial to the tech industry in California than to the auto industry in the midwestern states. The NYT's Krugman says overall for the U.S. it is marginally helpful as most of the gains in free trade are already behind us. See Lyrarc using search terms-Trans Pacific Trade Agreement, Trans Pacific Partnership. Yet it remains a mystery why president Obama has made it a part of his legacy, when Hillary Clinton realizing the issues in this election has clearly stated she will not support it. It has other implications as well, as it has given rise to demagogic rhetoric in this election, where other issues far more significant such as the condition of western democracy are at stake. ...