Monthly Archives: April 2013

American middle class worried about downward mobility

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A new poll suggests the American middle class is anxious about falling out of the middle class:

That’s the deeply ambivalent message from the latest Allstate/National Journal Heartland Monitor Poll exploring the public’s perception of what it means to be middle class in America today. Fully 56 percent of those surveyed said they believe they will eventually climb to a higher rung on the economic ladder than they occupy now. But even more said they worry about falling into a lower economic class sometime in the next few years. Reaffirming the results in earlier Heartland Monitor polls, most of those surveyed said the middle class today enjoys less opportunity, job security, and disposable income than earlier generations did. And strikingly small percentages of American adults said they consider it “very realistic” that they can meet such basic financial goals as paying for their children’s college, retiring comfortably, or saving “enough money to … deal with a health emergency or job loss.”

In all, the survey suggests that after years of economic turmoil, most families now believe the most valuable–and elusive–possession in American life isn’t any tangible acquisition, such as a house or a car, but rather economic security. Asked to define what it means to be middle class, a solid 54 percent majority of respondents picked “having the ability to keep up with expenses and hold a steady job while not falling behind or taking on too much debt”; a smaller percentage defined it in terms of getting ahead and accumulating savings. “It seems like that class of the people just live from paycheck to paycheck,” said Dale High, a trucker from near Idaho Falls, Idaho, who responded to the poll. “Everything is going up, but wages are staying the same. And people can’t live like that.”

Several quick thoughts:

1. Is this mainly the result of the current economic conditions? In other words, if the American economy rebounded significantly in the next few years, would the middle class again be more optimistic? I’m wondering if this is a temporary anxiety or is this a longer-term insecurity based on a perception that the world and their position within it is more fragile than before.

2. This seems related to research that suggests people feel losses more deeply than equivalent gains. Moving down is much more influential than moving up.

3. How do these perceptions actually line up with economic realities? Here is one indicator:

People who responded to the Allstate/National Journal poll reported a substantial amount of economic churning in their own lives–showing, again, a close balance between upward and downward mobility in American life. Exactly 30 percent of those surveyed reported they had risen from a lower economic class, and 27 percent said they had slipped down from a higher class. Forty-three percent had seen no movement at all…

This fear of losing ground is rooted in the conviction that, in the past few years, downward mobility has become much more common than upward movement. Asked whether more Americans recently had “earned or worked their way into the middle class” or had “fallen out of the middle class because of the economy,” almost eight times as many respondents took the bleaker view.

So how much “economic churning” is acceptable? Where do these ideas that people are falling behind at larger rates coming from – statistics about stagnant median household incomes, anecdotal evidence from family, friends, and neighbors, media coverage, etc.?

4. I wonder if this is also related to American interest in keeping up with others. Critics have argued that American consumption and life in suburbia has been motivated by “keeping up with the Joneses.” Is this still the case when times are tougher – people don’t want to fall behind relative to others around them? There is also some measure of generational comparison in this poll data – perhaps future generations will have it tougher in living in a “decent life.”

Canadian PM says we shouldn’t “commit sociology” and try to explain terrorism

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When asked about a recently uncovered train terrorism plot, the Canadian Prime Minister said we should not “commit sociology”:

Prime Minister Stephen Harper said this is not the time to “commit sociology” when asked about the arrests of two men this week who are accused of conspiring to carry out a terrorist attack on a Via train.

Harper was asked during a news conference with Trinidad and Tobago’s prime minister about concerns with the timing of the arrests. He was also asked about when it’s appropriate to talk about the root causes of involvement with terrorism.

The Conservatives had taken Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau to task when he suggested last week it was important to look at the root causes of the Boston Marathon bombings after offering condolences and support to the victims. They said he was trying to rationalize the bombings or make excuses when the Liberal leader said the bombings happened because someone felt excluded from society.

“I think, though, this is not a time to commit sociology, if I can use an expression,” Harper said. “These things are serious threats, global terrorist attacks, people who have agendas of violence that are deep and abiding threats to all the values our society stands for.

“I don’t think we want to convey any view to the Canadian public other than our utter condemnation of this kind of violence, contemplation of this violence and our utter determination through our laws and our activities to do everything we can to prevent it and counter it,” Harper said.

This echoes some conversations in recent years:

–George Will warned against committing sociology after the shooting in Aurora, Colorado.

-After the riots in London, some said we should not try to explain why some people would riot (which is a relatively rare event in Western society).

Is this a new conservative talking point?

Just because we want to try to understand why some people commit terrorist acts (and most others do not) does not mean the explanations excuse or condone the actions. It also does not necessarily imply that society is entirely at fault. But, we do know that social forces can affect people even as individuals have some agency. In the end, thinking about causes of terrorism (and rioting) can help us develop ways to stop it in the future.

Spreadsheet errors, austerity, ideology, and social science

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The graduate student who found some spreadsheet errors in an influential anti-austerity paper discusses what happened. Here is part of the conversation about the process of finding this error:

Q. You say, don’t you, that their use of data was faulty?

A. Yes. The terms we used about their data—”selective” and “unconventional”—are appropriate ones. The reasons for the choices they made needed to be given, and there was nowhere where they were.

Q. And how about their claim that your findings support their thesis that growth slows as debt rises?

A. That is not our interpretation of our paper, at all. If you read their paper, it’s interesting how they handle causality. They waffle between strong and weak claims. The weak claim is that it’s just a negative association. If that’s all they claim, then it’s not really relevant for policy. But they also make a strong claim, more in public than in the paper, that there’s causality going from high debt to drops in growth. They haven’t been obvious about that…

Q. Paul Krugman wrote in The New York Times that your work confirms what many economists have long intuitively thought. Was that your intuition?

A. Yes. I just thought it was counterintuitive when I first saw their claim. It wasn’t plausible.

Q. This is more than a spreadsheet error, then?

A. Yes. The Excel error wasn’t the biggest error. It just got everyone talking about this. It was an emperor-has-no-clothes moment.

This would make for a good case study in a methodology class in the social sciences: how much of this is about actual data errors versus different interpretations? You have people who are clearly staking out space on either side of a policy discussion and it is a bit unclear how much does this color their interpretation of “facts”/data. I suspect some time will help sort this out – if the spreadsheet was indeed wrong, shouldn’t this lead to a correction or a retraction?

I do like the fact that the original authors were willing to share their data – this is something that could happen more often in the social sciences and give people the ability to look at the data for themselves.

Texas governor not the only one after Illinois businesses; also Florida, Wisconsin

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The Texas Governor campaigned for Illinois businesses and he spoke earlier this week at a conference. But, he is not alone – other states also want Illinois businesses:

Perry is not the only governor out to siphon commerce this week. Wisconsin’s Scott Walker on Tuesday attended the same Chicago conference, touting his state’s business environment and standing as a bioscience leader. A day earlier, Florida’s Rick Scott sent a “Wish you were here” letter to Illinois business owners, noting that his state is “nipping at the heels of Texas every day” as a place to do business and pointing out that “Illinois’ formula of more taxing and spending ISN’T WORKING.” (Never let it be said Scott is undercapitalized.)…

Perry isn’t just selling Texas in a state weighed down by budget crises and the lack of political will to make the tough choices that solutions will require. He is on a trip financed by a public-private partnership to sell the concepts of lower taxes, less government interference, “a legal system that doesn’t allow for oversuing,” lower workers comp rates…

In this, pitting one state against another is good, Perry argued, in “the same way that it’s good for the White Sox and the Cubbies to compete against each other. If you don’t have competition, you’re not going to get pushed out of your comfort zone. That’s the simplest form I can put it in. I think our Founding Fathers understood that you had these laboratories of innovation and the ones that were good at it would be successful.”

Perry ignores one area of competition present in the Chicago area: between cities and suburbs. There have been numerous discussions in recent years about the tax breaks offered in different communities (here is an example in Hoffman Estates) or Chicago attracting headquarters and businesses back to the city and whether this harms the suburbs. Granted, all of these communities have to deal with the issues and regulations of the State of Illinois. But, it appears a number of businesses have still found places they like including in the Loop, Schaumburg, Northbrook, Deerfield, Naperville, Oak Brook, and other places. Between these localities, businesses can look for favorable settings and take advantages of the peculiarities of each place.

There was also one issue that highlighted a possible problem in Texas that may have been highlighted by a recent tragedy:

Take a good look at how close the fertilizer factory that blew up last week was to a middle school and nursing home in West, Texas, and decide for yourself whether you endorse Texas’ stance on zoning (“We respect local control,” Perry said) or think the state should intervene. Laissez faire isn’t always the way to go.

I assumed Illinois provided for local control over zoning as well…though I’m not sure what happens when it comes to potentially dangerous fertilizer plants.

Painting the church of Walmart

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Lots of “normal” activities take place at Walmart so why not spiritual matters as well? Artist Brenden O’Connell has taken up the subject:

For the past decade, O’Connell has been snapping photographs inside dozens of Wal-Marts. The images have served as inspiration for an ongoing series of paintings of everyday life — much of which involves shopping, which O’Connell calls “that great contemporary pastime.”

“Wal-Mart was an obvious place” to look for inspiration, he tells The Salt. “It’s sort of the house that holds all American brands.”…

Wal-Mart stores, he notes, are “probably one of the most trafficked interior spaces in the world.” In the tall, open, cathedral-like ceilings of Wal-Mart’s big-box stores, he sees parallels to church interiors of old.

“There is something in us that aspires to some kind of transcendence,” he told me back in February. “And as we’ve culturally turned from religious things, we’ve turned our transcendence to acquisition and satisfying desires.”

In conversation, O’Connell comes across as thoughtful and urbane. He’s well aware that, as a company, Wal-Mart can be polarizing. But “regardless of your feelings about it,” he told me back then, “it just is. It’s like an irrevocable reality that’s part of our experience.”

On the occasions that we go to church and then Walmart afterward, I have joked that we are visiting America’s two kinds of churches. This may not be too far from reality considering the number of shoppers at Walmart, its yearly sales, and the power of its brand. But, it is really that surprising that a retail store could be the contemporary version of a spiritual space when our country is so devoted to consumption and shopping?

Facebook to build $1.5 billion data center in…Iowa

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In looking at the geographic dispersion of major data or server centers, it looks like Iowa is pretty popular:

Facebook is building a 1.4-million-square-foot data center on the outskirts of Des Moines, Iowa, according to a local report.

With a price tag estimated at $1.5 billion, the massive facility would join the data centers Facebook has already built in Prineville, Oregon and Forest City, North Carolina, as well as a third under construction in Luleå, Sweden…

Like Oregon and North Carolina, Iowa has become a hotbed for internet data centers. Google runs a facility in Council Bluffs, Iowa, while Microsoft operates a data center in West Des Moines. Facebook’s facility is set for Altoona, a small town north-east of Des Moines.

Companies such as Facebook are attracted to such places in part because local governments provide tax breaks for these enormous computing facilities. According to local reports, Facebook has asked for additional tax credits for using wind power to help the new facility.

It appears tax breaks win again. But, the Des Moines Register also noted some other enticing features of the area:

Iowa has been competing fiercely with Nebraska for the data center, code named Catapult…

City officials and leaders of the companies say Altoona is prime real estate for data farms because it meets all of their primary needs:

• Access to an extensive interstate fiber optic cable system, already installed within the city and running along Interstate Highway 80.

• Proximity to adequate power and water utilities. (A large MidAmerican substation is less than half a mile from the 200-acre site.)

• Open and affordable land with low natural disaster risks. (Coastal cities often face the threat of hurricanes and earthquakes.)

• Transportation access near the crossroads of interstate highways 80 and 35 and U.S. Highway 65.

What would happen if Iowa were to pull these tax breaks? What about having an educated workforce – it looks like Des Moines has a decent share of the “creative class” as measured by Richard Florida.

It would be interesting to put this is a larger Midwestern context. Would these tech companies consider the Chicago area, with or without the tax breaks? How about Ann Arbor or Madison? Are other places even competing for data centers – and if not, why not?

Fathers still play catch with their sons? What about football, video games?

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I recently saw a review of the new Jackie Robinson bio-pic 42 that suggested American fathers still bond with their sons by playing baseball. My first thought: do fathers still do this on a large scale? Here is why I think this may be an outdated sentiment.

Baseball is no longer the most popular sport in the United States. Even with the large number of kids who play baseball or Little League, baseball’s peak has long passed with the NFL taking over the sports lead. The NFL released its 2013 schedule last week and ESPN was breathless for a while looking at the most tantalizing games that have yet to be played. Baseball is no longer the “all-American sport” and surely this must trickle down to the activities of kids and fathers. While it does have the same nostalgic pitch, what about playing catch with a football in the backyard? (This may be impacted today and in the future because of fears of concussions.) Moving in a different direction, as has the racial composition of baseball players, what about kicking around a soccer ball in the backyard?

Here is another possibility for how fathers and sons might now be interacting in the United States: by playing video games together. The generation who grew up with video games has reached adulthood and these video games habits don’t simply disappear. What if fathers and sons don’t play sports together as much as play Madden? What if they enjoy a good session of Call of Duty? This may not be happening on a large scale yet but I imagine this would grow in the future.

All that said, I want to see some data about how exactly fathers are bonding with their kids in 2013. Appeals to playing catch in the backyard might just be nostalgia for a bygone era.

Book review revives battle between Chicago and New York City

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A recent piece in the The New York Times Book Review reignited the debate between Chicago and New York:

Rachel Shteir, writing in the New York Times Book Review, took aim this week at both the city of Chicago and the people who defend and promote it. “Boosterism has been perfected here because the reality is too painful to look at,” Shteir postulates, while reviewing (mostly unfavorably) a handful of new books about the city for Sunday’s cover.

Fortunately, we don’t have to wait for the angry letters to be printed in the next Book Review. The counter-manifestos are already here! In the past few days, it seems, everyone from Gary to Milwaukee has read Shteir’s “Chicago Manuals” piece, resulting in a groundswell of angry rebuttals. (Even New York City reached out: New York deputy mayor Howard Wolfson tweeted that he was “mystified by the offensive, mean spirited & inaccurate attack on Chicago… a great city deserves better.”)…

But, Shteir digresses, she has a bone to pick with Chicago that’s bigger than any book review. She singles out Chicago’s early 20th century optimism, which nearly every Northern and Midwestern city shared (Burnham and co. also made grandiose predictions for New Haven, among other cities), and also its destructive urbanism of the mid-century, which, again, was hardly particular to the Windy City. She groups some real issues—last year’s shameful murder rate—with some not-so-serious problems, like the continual failures of the Cubs. She implies that Chicago is going the way of Detroit, when in fact the city’s population has been more or less stable for the past 20 years. Her praise, and there is some, seems deliberately facetious: “Thanks to global warming, the winters have softened.”

But her central beef with Chicago is how resolutely proud everyone seems to be of the city, despite its issues. It’s the opposite of New York, where everyone complains about everything all the time. In Chicago, per Shteir, the city’s unshakeable sense of greatness is wildly incongruous with its problems, a willful blindness that has become something of a civic calling card.

This sounds like a battle of urban “personalities”: a more critical viewpoint of New Yorkers versus a more optimistic Midwestern view in Chicago. Both cities have very real problems to face even as they are both major global cities.

But, it is not surprising to see this battle flare up again. Chicago is somewhat skittish about its position vis a vis other major cities, Chicago already lost its status as “Second City” to Los Angeles, and recently fell behind the population of Toronto, and New York is the clear lead city in the United States (if not the world). These “personalities” may be affected by these relative statuses: New Yorkers can afford to be critical because they are already at the top while Chicago is competing with other cities and has a long history of boosterism (including its early booster efforts in the late 1800s that were aided by some transplanted New Yorkers).

Don’t settle for “McMansion” style wood molding

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McMansions are often critiqued for their big features but their style may also trickle down to smaller features like wood moldings:

THE UNSUNG HEROES of traditional home interiors, wood moldings are key pieces in the jigsaw puzzle that is a complex room. Originally made from marble or plaster, they’ve been part of the classical-decorating toolbox since ancient times. But although everyone from the Germans to the Greeks had the know-how to wield the crowns and ogees of their day, it took the much-copied French to elevate the light-and-shadow effects of moldings to new and singular heights.

According to Michael Simon, a New York-based interior designer and expert in French architecture and decorative arts, ever since the first appearance of boiserie (or carved wood paneling) in 14th-century French churches, “the country’s carved moldings achieved subtleties and nuances unseen in neighboring countries.” This mastery continued through the 17th century, by which point the craft had “trickled down to the nobles and the bourgeoisie.” France’s gift for molding is still admired today…

4. Consider going vintage: To avoid the McMansion effect that can result from using stock, injection or plastic molding, comb estate sales and shops that specialize in antique variations. Note, however, that most reclaimed moldings were bespoke-crafted for a specific home. You’ll likely need to recruit a millworking shop to make them fit your interiors’ needs.

So a good home requires antique wood molding? How many people today really have that?

The key here seems to be that McMansions on the whole are viewed as fake. The styles and designs they try to imitate simply can’t work because these styles can’t be purchased from Home Depot. To be authentic, the home owner needs to have a proper sense of style as well as the acumen and money to find the correct pieces of wood molding. Sure, it probably is a lot more work (or at least money) but it helps lead to a more “real” home set apart from mass produced tract homes.

Rahm Emanuel fires back at Texas Governor Rick Perry

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Texas Governor Rick Perry tried to entice Illinois businesses to Texas with recent radio spots but Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel fired back yesterday:

Emanuel made pointed reference to a campaign gaffe Perry committed while running for president. At a Republican debate late in 2011, Perry said he had plans to eliminate three federal departments, but could remember only two.

Asked about Perry’s visit at a Monday news conference, Emanuel used the opportunity to tout Chicago’s infrastructure improvements and wealth of well-educated residents thanks to its universities, both of which he said were lacking in Texas.

He pointed to the 14 major businesses that have moved their headquarters to Chicago during his administration, and also drew attention to Texas’ drought.

“In the City of Chicago, we don’t have to measure our showers like they do in Texas,” said Emanuel, a Democrat who served as President Barack Obama’s chief of staff…

After a similar effort earlier this year in California, that state’s governor, Jerry Brown, called Perry’s $26,000 ad buy there “not a burp…it’s barely a fart.”

“If they want to get in the game, let them spend $25 million on radio and television,” said Brown, according to the Sacramento Bee.  “Then I’ll take them seriously.”

Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn lashed back at Perry last week, telling reporters “We don’t need any advice from Gov. Perry.”

If Perry’s main goal was to draw the fire of Democratic leaders, he seems to have succeeded. I’ve seen some experts suggest ads like those Perry was in do little to attract businesses. At the same time, they might help insert Texas into conversations in a way that often don’t happen in the Chicago area.

It is interesting to note Emanuel’s defense: Chicago has well-educated residents and well-regarded colleges (the University of Chicago and Northwestern are a pretty good pair), has plenty of corporate headquarters, has spent on infrastructure, and don’t have droughts (but apparently does have flooding). Is this the best case for Chicago? I could imagine adding Chicago’s standing as a global city, transportation advantages, central location in the United States, continued leadership in commodity trading, beautiful parks along Lake Michigan, tourism, and well-developed metropolitan region.

By the way, it is fair to compare a state to a city or region? Sure, Chicago may be the center of Illinois life but there still is the rest of the state that may take exception (and vote with Perry to boot).