Money and Computing
The Mask Hypocrisy: How COVID Memos Contradict the White House’s Public Face
While the president and vice president forgo masks at rallies, the White House is quietly encouraging governors to implement mask mandates and, for some, enforce them with fines. In reports issued to governors on Sept. 20, the White House Coronavirus Task Force recommended statewide mask mandates in Iowa, Missouri and Oklahoma. Missouri Gov. Mike Parson is among the Republican governors who have resisted a statewide masking order, despite the White House’s recommendation. “You don’t need government to tell you to wear a dang mask,” Parson said in July at a Missouri Cattlemen’s Association steak fry, according to the Springfield News-Leader. “If you want to wear a dang mask, wear a mask.” Parson and his wife, Teresa, tested positive for COVID-19 last Wednesday. more »
US Presidential Debates: Three Studies Journalists Should Know About (And The Public!)
Kenneth Winneg and Kathleen Hall Jamieson, American Behavioral Scientist, 2017: In this study, University of Pennsylvania researchers look at whether people gained knowledge about policy issues and changed their minds about the candidates after watching televised presidential debates in 2016. What the two scholars learned: While debate watchers gained knowledge about policies, their assessment of candidates’ qualifications did not change. Neither did their opinions of whether individual candidates, if elected, would threaten the well-being of the nation.
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Federal Reserve: Optimism in the Time of COVID; Businesses Seem Much Better Adapted to Remaining Open
Turning now to the labor market, unemployment was still at 8.4 percent in August and the labor force participation rate still down significantly from February. The extraordinary package of fiscal support in the CARES Act (Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act) helped to support household incomes and to offset the effect of the huge job losses in March and April. But the act's unemployment provisions have expired, and most of the businesses that received Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans report that they have exhausted those funds.4 In addition, one area where increased understanding of the disease has, in many places, not led to general changes in practice is in the widespread school closures this fall. Many parents with children will be forced to work less, or not at all, which is going to be a hardship for them and weigh on the economy. So, I agree with Chair Powell that it will take continued support to sustain a robust recovery. more »
Ruth Bader Ginsburg's Partial Remarks at the University of Buffalo, August 26, 2019: "If I am notorious, it is because I had the good fortune to be alive and a lawyer in the late 1960s"
"At a reception some years ago, a college student asked if I could help her with an assignment. She had one question and hoped to compose a paper by asking diverse people to respond. What, she asked, did I think was the largest problem for the 21st century. My mind raced passed privacy concerns in the electronic age, terrorist threats, deadly weapons, fierce partisan divisions in our legislatures and polity. I thought of Thurgood Marshall’s praise of the evolution of our Constitution’s opening words, 'We, the people,' to embrace once excluded, ignored, or undervalued people — people held in human bondage, Native Americans, women, even men who owned no real property. I thought next of our nation’s motto: E Pluribus Unum, of many, one. The challenge is to make or keep our communities places where we can tolerate, even celebrate, our differences, while pulling together for the common good. 'Of many, one' is the main aspiration, I believe; it is my hope for our country and world." more »