As Josh mentioned, Salon has started a new feature called The Numerologist. They describe it thusly:
The Numerologist is a Salon feature exploring the intersection between numbers and politics, wherein political experts use statistical information to shed new light on timely topics.
Josh, Andy, and I will be contributing occasionally, as will some other political scientists, I think. So watch that space.
My first contribution centers on the graph above. The post is here.
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Just a thought, but wouldn’t it be nice to see how people would react to an interactive little game about balancing the budget? Just a little display with sliders to see how people of different ideological leanings would combine tax cuts and budget cuts in order to hit zero.
Guess I should have googled before commenting: http://marketplace.publicradio.org/features/budget_hero/
The 2008 NES data that this chart reflect were mislabeled. Corrected data, which are available in a separate file on the NES website, show very different numbers. (Eg, the original data show 50% of respondents want to increase foreign aid spending compared with 12% for the corrected data.)
that webtool is AWESOME. i will be spending at least one entire class period playing with that (i mean, beyond the one i just did by myself).
monkey with expenditures all you want, and nothing changes. repeal the bush tax cuts and the problem goes away (well, gets kicked down the road by about 40 years) with one click.
thanks, robG.
The “monkeys” are running our country and are doing so due to a classic reason: THEY HAVE and CONTROL MOST OF THE MONEY! So, you could rightly call them the Money Monkeys. More to the point, they are the Corporate Elite / Top-One-Percent-ers in income. It’s shocking that so many Americans can’t seem to figure out that its the Corporate Elite who have savaged our country’s economy and, by doing that, are destroying the Middle-class. EXAMPLE: Who moved all of those U.S. jobs to China, Mexico, India, etc.? It certainly wasn’t the average American. It certainly was the owners of Big Business. Who owns Big Media in America? Corporate Elite. Who owns Big Oil? Corporate Elite. Who owns the companies called Defense Contractors? Corporate Elite. Who benefits (and their kids don’t get killed or wounded!) from wars? Corporate Elite. Who owns the Banks, credit card issuers, mortgage companies, investment companies? Corporate Elite. Who buys off Congress? Corporate Elite. WHO OWNS AND RUNS AMERICA? Corporate Elite. Who promotes the political positions of the Corporate Elite? Televangelists! Propaganda mouthpieces on FOX (fake) News! Who owns and operates the Republican Party? Corporate Elite. AND, who has bought off a bunch of Democrats? Corporate Elite! Who puts Right-Wing / Pro-Big Business judges on the U.S. Supreme Court? Corporate Elite. Who puts Right-Wing / Pro-Business judges on the federal bench? (for life!) Corporate Elite. Bottom line: The U.S. is headed back towards the country it was, circa 1900—NO MIDDLE-CLASS and owned and operated by the Corporate Elite.
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