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nytCorpus.txt
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a grinch steals a bank and fires an angel by nicholas kristof feb 1 2020 to understand how some companies have lost their souls consider what happened after us bank stiffed a customer before christmas
marc eugenio had deposited a 1080 paycheck into his account at us bank
the bank put a hold on most of the sum and he spent many hours in a branch office over two days trying to get access to the money so he could buy presents for his 9yearold daughter and 13yearold son
on christmas eve eugenio found himself parked at a gas station in clackamas ore a portland suburb both his fuel gauge and his bank balance on empty
a bank employee had told him that money would soon show up in his account — perhaps a ruse to get him out of the branch office
for hours eugenio then tried his debit card at the gas pump so he could buy a few gallons and get home to his wife and children
i was stranded he told me
i could have walked home but it would have been five miles in the cold
that's when eugenio found an angel
he telephoned the bank's tollfree number and spoke with emily james a senior officer at a call center in portland
she spent an hour on the phone with eugenio trying to get some money released so he could at least get home
she soon realized that he had been misled and that money wouldn't reach his account any time soon
feeling badly for a customer stuck on christmas eve james offered to drive over from her call center and personally hand him 20
no no no eugenio told her
he couldn't impose
but she suggested she could use her break and she received permission from a supervisor to drive 20 minutes to eugenio
she later recalled that when she arrived she wished him merry christmas and handed him 20 of her own money
twenty dollars wouldn't break me she explained to me and it would enable him to get home to his family
when us bank found out that it had such a generous employee what did it do
it fired her
she broke the rules putting herself and the bank at unnecessary risk us bank said in a statement
the company bars call center workers from meeting customers so it dismissed both her and the manager who had approved her trip
the manager abigail gilbert told me that james's account was essentially correct
james had worked at the bank since 2017 and had received numerous commendations and awards that i examined but the bank paid her no severance
she is single and used her last paycheck to buy sacks of food for her two dogs domino and harley quinn
she is now reduced to selling blood plasma at 25 a visit
i won't let myself be homeless she told me
eugenio is horrified at what happened
i was lied to and treated like dirt by the bank eugenio said and he can't understand why the bank axed the one employee who was helpful
i felt really bad he told me
how could she get fired
us bank's vision statement boasts our employees are empowered to do the right thing
so i tried to ask the company's ceo andrew cecere why the bank fired an employee who with permission rescued a frustrated customer on christmas eve
cecere wouldn't return my calls
david palombi a bank spokesman told me that an internal investigation had concluded that james misled her manager to get permission that james could have found other ways to get money to eugenio that the 20 came from the manager which gilbert confirmed to me and that james previously had disciplinary issues
i found the bank's investigation a whitewash and its explanations to be incoherent meanspirited and contradicted by a series of internal bank messages that i reviewed
the bottom line is this cecere who was paid 141 million in 2018 presides over a company that has smeared a muchdecorated employee who helped a customer and as a result survives by selling blood plasma
i suggest cecere apologize reinstate james and promote her he might also show contrition by selling his own blood plasma and donating the proceeds to a charity of james's choosing
when young americans say in polls that they react more positively to socialism than to capitalism it's because of the hypocrisy of institutions like us bank
i've often noted that companies have enormous capacity to help their communities
but too often they act like american tobacco companies which killed more people than stalin did or pharma companies peddling opioids or mckinsey company advising a business to get more patients on higher doses of opioids or boeing mocking regulators
that's one reason to seek stronger privatesector labor unions at least unions and corporations can then provide some check on each other
one bit of reassurance some chief executives do seem more enlightened than cecere
after the oregonian wrote two excellent articles about james other companies reached out to her saying that she's the kind of caring person they want to attract
no job offers yet she told me but there are a couple of possibilities i'm really excited by
brexit is here
sort of by the editorial board jan 31 2020 finally after 1317 days of confusion rancor and endless votes in parliament it was time for brexit
on wednesday teary members of the european parliament joined hands and sang auld lang syne a clock projected onto 10 downing street counted down the minutes union jacks lined the mall before buckingham palace
a new dawn for europe leaders of the european union wrote in a joint article
this is the moment when the dawn breaks came prime minister boris johnson's echo from across the newly raised dividing line
it was left to the dispassionate bbc to cut short the bathos brexit is far from 'done' the beeb coldly said before listing the many travails still to come most notably the negotiations that now begin with the eu
on the details of britain's future relationship with the continent
mr johnson has promised not to seek an extension of the dec 31 deadline which he could though a less complex trade deal between the eu
and canada took seven years to finish
to discourage other members from exiting the eu
is not likely to cut britain much slack on eu
standards and rules in their trade
britain will now also reach across the atlantic to what president trump has held out as a very big trade deal bigger than we've ever had with the uk which mr johnson has touted as a benefit of quitting the eu
that too could prove a disappointment
a former british ambassador to washington kim darroch — who resigned in july after his derogatory comments about mr trump leaked out — was among those who noted in interviews that mr trump is not given to generous trade concessions least of all in an election year
in the same european parliament session at which ursula von der leyen the president of the eu
commission promised departing british delegates we will always love you and we will never be far aileen mcleod of the scottish national party spoke of scotland's anger over being dragged out of the union and asked that the members leave a light on for scotland where brexit has fueled demands for a new referendum on independence
still the fact was that after 47 years in the eu britain was officially out and there was no going back at least not in the foreseeable future
for many britons the long and bitter debate had been less about economics and politics than about identity
those who fought to leave the eu
fought for what they saw as lost sovereignty often tinged with a sense of lost empire those who fought to stay saw the union as postimperial britain's place in the future joined with the rest of europe in values standards and security
in the end after nearly three years of uncertainty and bitterness voters elected mr johnson out of exhaustion to get it over with not because they had reached agreement
headlines reflected the divide
probrexit tabloids joined in gleeful celebration our time has come proclaimed the sun offering a free giant brexit poster yes we did it
cheered the daily express in what it described as a historic edition free and independent once more after 47 years declared the daily mail over a photograph of the white cliffs of dover
those same cliffs featured on the cover of the guardian a strong advocate of staying in the eu over a crumbling sand castle surmounted by a tiny british flag
the headline small island
trying to reconcile these divergent worldviews will be the main task of coming years as mr johnson appeared to recognize when he declared in a speech to the nation friday evening our job as the government my job is to bring this country together now and take us forward
… this is not an end but a beginning
for the moment what forward meant remained unclear
for at least the coming years not much would change in economic trade and practical terms but many potential battles loomed over the shape of the future relationship with europe america and the rest of the world
perhaps in paraphrasing winston churchill on whether the moment was an end or a beginning mr johnson would have done better to use his predecessor's entire quote that one about a military campaign 78 years ago now this is not the end
it is not even the beginning of the end
but it is perhaps the end of the beginning
china didn't want us to know
now its own files are doing the talking
by adrian zenz nov 24 2019 no more denying no more dodging
the chinese communist party can no longer hide its relentless campaign of mass internment against the ethnic minorities in the northwestern region of xinjiang or claim that the effort is an innocuous educational program
what was already widely known vastly reported and confirmed by firsthand accounts has now been proved beyond doubt by the government's own records — gigabytes of files reams of reports thousands of spreadsheets — some of them classified and highly confidential
last weekend the new york times disclosed and analyzed the contents of a trove of leaked internal chinese government documents that outline specific policies for how to repress xinjiang's predominantly muslim minorities — and reveal that president xi jinping himself set out the foundation for them
this sunday the contents of two more sets of documents — all of which i have reviewed — are being disclosed
among the first batch also leaked is a confidential telegram signed by zhu hailun xinjiang's deputy party secretary which details how local authorities should manage and operate the vocational skills training centers — a euphemism for the internment camps
all translations here are mine
the second set of documents a large cache of files and spreadsheets from local governments reveals the internment campaign's devastating economic and social impact on the families and communities it targets
the telegram — dated nov 5 2017 and addressed to local political and legal affairs bureaus — is marked extremely urgent and bears the secondhighest level of secrecy within china's classifieddocument scheme
it reveals the extent of the security and surveillance measures taken around the camps partly to shield the camps from external scrutiny
the message a directive notes that the work conducted there is strictly confidential and highly sensitive in nature
even staff at the camps are forbidden from aggregating detainee figures
the authorities' attempt to enforce absolute secrecy is confirmed by another document dated november 2018 this one from a local government file in hotan county
it chides officials for not protecting secrets related to the internment campaign well enough
it stipulates that no person is under any circumstances permitted to disseminate information about detention or reeducation via telephone smartphone or the internet and that officials are strictly forbidden from receiving related media interviews or make unauthorized disclosure about the internment campaign
that the chinese authorities so deliberately sought to shield from external scrutiny information about operations at the xinjiang camps suggests that they are only too aware of how incriminating their policies and practices are
i was also able to obtain a massive cache of local government files from within xinjiang
among the most revealing documents are thousands of detailed spreadsheets with the names identification numbers and addresses of tens of thousands of people mostly uighurs and many of them in detention prison or reeducation camps
in yarkand a county of about 800000 people in southwestern xinjiang 96 percent of the population is uighur
six official spreadsheets about six villages dated 2018 show that on average nearly 16 percent of the rural adult population was either interned or in prison
in two villages in kosherik township — which the documents describe as heavily polluted by extremist ideology — nearly 60 percent of all households had one person or more interned
in addition to the extraordinary scale of the internment campaign the files reveal its devastating impact well beyond the camps — deep into the communities and families of xinjiang
the spreadsheets show that the government has primarily targeted middleage men most often the heads of the households and main wageearners
beijing's occasional tours of its socalled model camps often feature attractive young women
in reality people between 30 and 59 were especially likely to be interned according to the spreadsheets
the policy's socioeconomic fallout is dire — and local governments are keeping a meticulous record of it
one spreadsheet from 2017 for one town in yarkand county which listed households with low incomes that might qualify for welfare included a young family with five children between the ages of three and 14
the father had been imprisoned the mother placed in a reeducation camp and the children in effect orphaned
in another hardly unusual case a household's two workingage parents were detained leaving elderly grandparents — including a grandmother described as seriously ill — to care for two toddlers
in a column with the header reason for poverty the relevant spreadsheet offers this explanation lacks labor force and finances
the toddlers' father isn't scheduled to be released until 2030
another spreadsheet from september 2018 shows lists of loan defaulters in pilal township akto county
in 80 percent of the cases where the reason for default was listed as internment most of the borrowed funds were shown to still be in the bank
a particularly depressing example comes from a village in yarkand county
a uighur farmer and head of a family of five was interned in 2017
in october 2016 he had received a loan of 40000 renminbi nearly 5700 to purchase agricultural machinery
the equipment went unused during his detention — no other family member knew how to operate it — and the loan could not be repaid as scheduled
the government directed the family to rent out the equipment and send its oldest child a son to work
the family was then officially marked as having been povertyalleviated by benefiting from policies
in june 2018 after his release the farmer applied for financial assistance so he could repay the loan and related interest
in january 2019 he started to work in the yarkand county textile industrial park earning just 800 rmb about 113 a month
by then the son age 20 had somehow become disabled and was listed on government forms as unable to work
thanks to these new document disclosures we now have hard evidence — and the government's own evidence — that in addition to implementing a vast internment program in xinjiang the chinese communist party is deliberately breaking up families and forcing them into poverty and a form of indentured labor
for all its efforts at secrecy the chinese government can no longer hide the extent and the reach of its campaign of repression in xinjiang
some important elements are still unknown
the total internment figure remains a wellguarded secret
based on the new evidence i have revised my own estimate i think that between 900000 and 18 million people have been detained in xinjiang since the spring of 2017
also missing from the official documents that have surfaced so far are precise records of how the detainees are treated and how exactly the process of reeducation works
about those things however we have witness accounts
the confidential telegram and local files do not mention the use of physical violence — but for one notable exception
the telegram states that people who resist brainwashing must be singled out for assaultstyle reeducation
yet another sinister understatement and it suggests that force and torture may in fact be widely used
in a way though we already know all that we really need to know
the documents that have been disclosed these past few weeks reveal the staggering scale of the repression in xinjiang and its ruinous effects on the region's ethnic communities well beyond the camps themselves
consider this official statistics show that the combined net population growth rates of hotan and kashgar two of the largest uighur regions dropped by about 84 percent between 2015 and 2018
the chinese communist party set out it claimed to transform through education ethnic minorities in xinjiang
in fact it is ripping apart entire communities and subjugating them on a colossal scale
and this at the direction of president xi himself
china's new civil religion by ian johnson dec 21 2019 beijing — in the northern suburbs of this city is a small temple to a chinese folk deity lord guan a famous warrior deified more than a millennium ago
renovated five years ago at the government's expense the temple is used by a group of retirees who run pilgrimages to a holy mountain schoolchildren who come to learn traditional culture and a taoist priest who preaches to wealthy urbanites about the traditional values of ancient china
perched atop a hillock overlooking the sprawling capital the temple is a microcosm of a new civil religion taking shape in china — an effort by the chinese communist party to satisfy chinese people's search for moral guidelines by supplementing the largely irrelevant ideology of communism with a curated version of the past
this new stateguided religiosity is the flip side of the government's harsh policies toward islam and christianity
officials believe these two global faiths are hard to control because of their foreign ties and they have used negotiation or force — diplomacy with the vatican arrests of prominent protestants internment camps for muslims — to try to bring these religions to heel
yet beijing's recent turn to tradition may be even more significant
even though islam and christianity are world religions in china they remain minor with the number of their combined adherents amounting to less than 10 percent of the population
most chinese believe in an amalgam of buddhism taoism confucianism and other traditional values and ideas that still resonate deeply
for this silent majority of hundreds of millions of people the government's newfound support for things like the temple to lord guan is welcome — a feeling that the chinese communist party hopes will bolster its legitimacy especially given the irrelevance today of its founding ideas
the benefits of its move to embrace the past may seem obvious but the shift marks a radical departure not just for a party officially committed to atheism but also from how reformers over the past century have imagined a modern prosperous china
from the 19th century onward china's elites argued that the country's traditions and faiths were a major reason for its decline
reformers in 1898 called for temples to be converted into schools
while the nationalist party under chiang kaishek approved of four religions — buddhism taoism sometimes called daoism christianity and islam — it largely considered traditional chinese beliefs to be superstitions and advocated the destruction of temples
scholars estimate that by the middle of the 20th century half of the temples that existed in china at the end of the 19th century had been destroyed
an 1851 survey of the old city of beijing listed 866 temples today i count just 18
at the end of the 19th century most villages had at least one temple and many had half a dozen vast sections of the chinese countryside now have no temples at all
when the communists took power in 1949 they like the nationalists officially recognized four religions — but then promptly began persecuting them
traditional faiths came under especially harsh treatment with the government banning bedrock traditional practices from worshiping ancestors and local deities to following the advice of geomancy masters and spirit mediums
the three decades of reform that started in the late 1970s loosened controls over society allowing the revival of all religions and many traditions that had been proscribed
despite periodic crackdowns churches and mosques but also temples were rebuilt and clergy trained
although all faiths were supposed to remain under party control religious feeling boomed with the number of believers in china topping 500 million by 2010
xi jinping's rise to power in late 2012 marks a new era the third in the history of the chinese communist party's religious policies
instead of the destruction of the mao years and the relatively laissezfaire approach of the reform period the state has embarked on a form of highly curated revivalism
one part of its approach rests on a deep suspicion of christianity and islam
the party's policy toward islam has been the most draconian
some believers especially uighurs in the northwestern province of xinjiang have been subjected to a policy of forced secularization
this has included sending hundreds of thousands of muslims to reeducation camps compelling restaurants to serve pork and alcohol and forbidding fasting during ramadan
the policy toward christianity is more nuanced
last year beijing struck a deal with the vatican to jointly appoint catholic bishops
the vatican seemed to hope to reverse the decline in the number of catholics in china
but for beijing the measure was a way to tighten control over the catholic clergy — and by extension the church itself
protestantism poses an especially vexing problem for the party
it is arguably china's fastestgrowing religion with an estimated 60 million or more adherents today compared with one million in 1949 including some 20 to 30 million who are thought to worship in unregistered or underground protestant churches
but the faith lacks a unifying structure that would allow for negotiations
and so the government has fired a few shots across the bow closing several of the country's bestknown underground churches
in many ways however the xi administration's embrace of traditional faiths is more radical
since taking office the president has met with buddhist leaders and his government has allowed taoism to flourish
the state recently issued a landmark plan to improve social mores the first such program since 2001
the plan stems from a widespread feeling that china's relentless drive to get ahead economically has created a spiritual vacuum and sometimes justifies breaking rules and trampling civility
many people do not trust one another
the government's blueprint for handling this moral crisis calls for endorsing certain traditional beliefs
the epic paper — it runs to 10000 chinese characters and would be significantly longer translated into english — doesn't mention communist china's founding father mao zedong or his successors and their ideologies focusing instead on mr xi and his efforts to fix social problems like money worship and hedonism
it does invoke communist slogans such as core socialist values but in contrast to the previous such document from 2001 — which made only passing reference to chinese traditions — it calls the past a rich source of morality
the plan orders party officials to promote ancient and worthy sages as well as to deeply expound traditional concepts such as ren'ai benevolence zhengyi righteousness and jianyi zhengwei standing up bravely for the truth
this effort is not an attempt to replace communism with confucianism
yet it is fair to say that for the first time since china's imperial order collapsed in 1911 a central government is embracing the ideas that made up the politicalreligious order that ran china for much of the past 2500 years
why
not only to address china's moral vacuum but also as a populist measure
the country is entering a more uncertain era of slower growth and rising inequality and beijing is draping itself in the mantle of tradition to broaden its appeal
in doing so the government seems to be assuming that traditional chinese values and beliefs are easier to control than foreign religions and that supporting them will outweigh the costs of suppressing islam and christianity
but i have my doubts
during a visit this fall to the lord guan temple i saw a dozen or so people mostly in their 30s and 40s reading works by wang yangming a philosopher born in the late 15th century
on the face of it this was in line with government policy the party has embraced wang for exemplifying an incorruptible spirit and matching words with deeds
but after reading a passage of wang's work the men and women sat around a big wooden table wielding brushes to write out over and over again his most famous phrase zhi xing he yi knowledge and action are one
this knowledge according to wang comes from an inner light a conscience — one that no government no matter how powerful can control
china where state pomp comes with real feeling by ian johnson oct 3 2019 beijing — attending china's national day celebrations over the years has been a bit like listening to different takes of a song with the composer honing the themes and jettisoning the raw bits until the piece sounds just right
that's how i felt at tuesday's celebrations on tiananmen square held to observe the 70th anniversary of the founding of the people's republic of china
i've attended two other ceremonies like this before — for the 35th anniversary in 1984 and the 50th in 1999 — and i knew the basic drill there would be a big military parade followed by floats celebrating the government's accomplishments
but this show felt bigger and brassier than either of those as if the composer had decided to use every instrument in the orchestra and cast subtlety aside
it was slick and sleek but also overpowering and at times bombastic
when i received my invitation government officials told me that i was lucky to attend because it was such a great honor
i nodded politely but only really understood what they meant when i arrived at tiananmen square on tuesday at 6 am we media types were just a few hundred in a sea of loyal members of the chinese communist party ccp
and for many of them it must have felt like one of the biggest events of their lives
it would be easy to write these people off as extras
and 20 years ago the last time i was at such an event the people in attendance were mainly highly trained performers who held aloft placards that spelled out different messages north korea–style
but tuesday's crowd was different
it was made up of university professors scientists administrators bureaucrats and people who had made some sort of contribution to the state
they weren't props but excited participants who expected to remember this day
i noticed that right away when i walked past a raised platform covered with artificial grass that surrounded a big television screen
people were crouching down next to the platform and neatly arranging their letter of invitation paradepicture id and program almost all in the same fashion like sacraments on a church altar
then they would snap a picture aiming their cameras so that china's national symbol the gate of heavenly peace appeared in the background
these were photos designed to be boasted about on social media guess where i was today
yes at tiananmen square
yes at the ceremony
and here is proof
if these were their sacraments and this ceremony was their ritual what then was their belief
that would probably be the message broadcast on the giant screens that surrounded us
before the parade began those screens showed archival footage of the past 70 years presenting a story about how china had been poor and beaten down by outside powers until the communist party saved the country
the mao era wasn't portrayed as foreign journalists and academics often depict it — a series of violent campaigns against imagined enemies of the state and the worst famine in recorded history — but as a period of pioneering glory when china secured its borders for the first time in a century built a heavy industrial base and set the stage for its economic takeoff
raised on this ideology the attendees seemed visibly moved when soldiers carrying the national flag goosestepped from the monument to the people's heroes at the center of the square down to the enormous flagpole
i was unnerved by the background barrage of artillery and the amplified sound of the boots striking the pavement — it felt like an invasion of giants — but many people around me stood solemnly
this wasn't stagemanaged some looked bored others gazed around kids played
but many more looked earnest just like americans do when they stand up hand on heart for the national anthem at a sports event
and i don't think it was just for show that people jumped out of their seats at one of the early high points of the ceremony when president xi jinping appeared standing in an opentop limousine driving out of the gate of heavenly peace
the moment was pure theater with mr xi in a dark traditional suit appearing framed by the vermilion walls of the imperial forbidden city as he set off to inspect the troops
people also oohed and aahed at another signature moment that owed much to peking opera
when mr xi passed the soldiers their heads swiveled as if on sockets their eyes bulging as they followed the nation's most important person
it was a show of the armed forces' unswerving allegiance to the ccp's leader and the audience needed no encouragement to cheer
realizing that some of these emotions are genuine is important because we can't understand china if we think the party only rules through the authoritarian methods that reporters understandably focus on
on my social media feed which includes disgruntled intellectuals but also workingclass practitioners of folk religion it's clear that many buy into the national story created by the ccp
inventing traditions is nothing new nor unique to china
but here these constructs can sometimes feel uneasy because many of them are imported — from soldiers' dress uniforms that seem decades out of date gold braids enormous epaulets rows of medals to soundtracklike music worthy of john williams fanfares kettle drums plenty of brass
i might be nostalgic but the mood 35 years ago felt a bit different
i was a student then and a group of us was bussed down to tiananmen square for the ceremony
we then milled around for most of the day
there was also an orchestrated event but security was minimal and you could still stand right next to the performers as they marched or danced past
some students even jumped into the parade and held up a banner greeting the paramount leader deng xiaoping
china today is more serious about being a superpower
when the spontaneous enthusiasm flagged on tuesday cheerleaders made sure the flags kept waving
and security was so tight that it bordered on paranoia neighborhood parks around town implemented airportstyle security to even enter
but that too was part of the spectacle the message and the vision — of a focused and disciplined state led by the chinese communist party that can put on a spectacle few countries can match
coronavirus and the panic epidemic by ian johnson jan 30 2020 beijing — the absurdity of the situation hit me on wednesday when i was coming home from a local bar at 8 pm
i had ridden my bike a few hours earlier to a park for a walk and then to meet a friend — my first human contact in five days excluding the cashier at the grocery store
but the side gate i'd used to leave the enormous communistera compound was now chained shut
what
a notice in chinese said it was locked to prevent the spread of the new coronavirus
so i headed toward the north entrance
that one is for pedestrians and has two barriers set slightly apart just wide enough to get through on foot
that's ok i thought i can squeeze by with my bike and be home in a few minutes
i rode around the block but when i got to the gate i had to slam on the brakes
someone had taken a dozen rideshare bikes lashed them together with wire and piled them in between the barriers
then for good measure they'd fastened the heap to the posts with more wire making it into some sort of postmodern commentary on our hypermobile society
laughing i rode on to the main entrance
it has a car entrance with a big gate and on either side walkways for pedestrians
one of those was also piled high with rideshare bikes sacrificed for the national good the other was protected by two security guards i'd never seen before
they blocked my way
what do you want
one of them asked
to go home
i live here
have you been to wuhan recently
i just rode back
i'm exhausted
the humor was beyond their pay grade
is anyone in your home from wuhan or has been there recently
i needed to stop fooling around
no i haven't been there in four years
i live alone
no fever
i feel fine
they silently let me through
this felt like the height of foolishness why would the gates be open during the day but locked down at night
do viruses operate like vampires
that's when i realized the guards' effort was just part of a borglike lockdown that the state had put into place with the alacrity of officials in full cya
mode
the next day i was cleaning my apartment no one could enter beijing anymore so my one luxury an houraweek house cleaner was stuck in her village even though the main phase of the lunar new year holiday was over
there was a knock on my door
it was the good people from the apartment management office mrs luo and her assistant
oh mr zhang nice to see you mrs luo the hennahaired manager of lease renewals said addressing me by my chinese name
is there anyone from wuhan in your apartment
no
still not
ok
take a look at this please
she handed me a sheet from the local communist party district committee listing dos and don'ts to follow during the outbreak
do seek help
do listen to the local government
do keep warm
do stay at home
do avoid contact
do wash your hands
don't spit
don't exert yourself too much
don't associate with people who've recently arrived from the infected area around the megacity of wuhan
on the back was a list of all the communist party street committees and their phone numbers
finally after five years of living in this neighborhood and countless failed efforts to register my complaints about illegal construction at night i had some phone numbers
i filed the sheet for future use
the german language has as usual a hyperspecific word for this phenomenon aktionismus literally actionism or action for action's sake
what i was witnessing was aktionismus in the face of a problem that required a sensitive response involving public trust
but since the chinese government cannot elicit either of those things i was seeing the compensatory flailingaround of a state with no other options
instead of having an adult conversation with the population about the virus and putting in place reasonable policies that have been used effectively elsewhere the chinese state has gone into full lockdown mode
this demonstrates one of those truisms from political science authoritarian governments are like people who don't have any fingers but do possess two thumbs
they can take forceful actions but can't finetune the levers of government
actually i'm not being fair
when the chinese communist party has time it can come up with and use sophisticated policies — witness its coopting of traditional faiths to fill a spiritual vacuum in society
but when faced with a crisis the party can't seem to avoid grand gestures building hospitals from scratch in two weeks locking down tens of millions of people banning millions more from traveling to big cities and so on
in some ways a moment like this one is a technocrat's dream when western health care experts say that this sort of lockdown won't work they basically mean it's never been tried on this scale with this kind of uberefficient government
now that it's being tried not just in beijing but also across the country the effects are kind of thrilling to watch
apartment compounds like mine are being fumigated
with what
who cares
people are walking around with loudspeakers blaring out warnings against the virus
villages are closing their gates as if bandits were on the prowl
and going to a restaurant or a bar is almost an act of treason or at best foolish selfishness
the most interesting question is why the party feels the need to carry on like this
i think it knows the people don't trust it in these cases and assume there has been a coverup
hence one of the most popular figures in the crisis zhong nanshan the hero of the 20023 sars outbreak now 83 who is back in action treating patients and warning citizens about the need for hygiene
he has been adopted as the incorruptible official — a familiar trope in chinese history the confucian official who stands tall despite pressures to bend
and so we read endless profiles of dr zhong in chinese social media discussing his family background upbringing successes and apolitical pursuit of sciencebased truth
the clear implication is that he is that rare official capable of such principled conduct
behind all this lies the feeling that most other people in the party can't quite be trusted
this has been reinforced over the past few days by reports that at least eight people who were detained in wuhan in early january on charges of spreading rumors are in fact medical doctors not fearmongering ne'erdowells
this startling fact is now leaking out in online reports that are sometimes but not always being blocked
at some point the government will have to admit to a partial coverup
considering the underlying distrust it's hard for the government to say what many epidemiologists are saying this outbreak is serious but not catastrophic
because if the state leveled with the people it would also have to admit that there is no need for this degree of social control
some 259 people were reported to have died as of saturday evening in a country of nearly 14 billion and there is no indication that we are at the start of a hollywood disasterstyle movie
the government's inability to formulate a measured response will turn this outbreak into a direct successor of the sars epidemic
that hardly was a huge public health disaster — fewer than 800 deaths — yet it has taken on a legendary reputation as a catastrophe of unimaginable proportions one that should never be allowed to recur
but of course a new outbreak has occurred
does this mean that the state will suffer
i don't think so
for despite their mistrust of the system people over all are going along with the lockdown
in private conversations and on chat rooms they say it's impossible not to take drastic action in a country as big as china
in this sense the population has absorbed the government's narrative of chinese exceptionalism running china requires a strong hand and these measures as absurd as they seem are proof that the government is doing a good job — and portend that the party will come out of this as always triumphant
coronavirus spreads and the world pays for china's dictatorship by nicholas kristof jan 29 2020 china's leaders sometimes seem 10 feet tall presiding over a political and economic juggernaut that has founded universities at a rate of one a week and that recently used more cement in three years than the united states did in the entire 20th century
president trump has hailed china's president xi jinping as a brilliant leader and michael bloomberg says xi is not a dictator
but we're now seeing the dangers of xi's authoritarian model for china and the world
the first known coronavirus infection in the city of wuhan presented symptoms beginning on dec 1 and by late december there was alarm in wuhan's medical circles
that would have been the moment for the authorities to act decisively
and act decisively they did — not against the virus but against whistleblowers who were trying to call attention to the public health threat
a doctor who told a wechat group about the virus was disciplined by the communist party and forced to admit wrongdoing
the police reported giving education and criticism to eight frontline doctors for rumormongering about the epidemic instead of punishing these doctors xi should have listened to them
china informed the world health organization of the virus on dec 31 but kept its own citizens in the dark as other countries reported infections even as china pretended that it had confined the outbreak to wuhan chinese joked grimly about a patriotic virus that only struck foreigners
wuhan's mayor said he wasn't authorized to discuss the virus until late this month
in that time people traveled to and from wuhan and didn't take precautions
the government finally ordered a lockdown on jan 23 that effectively quarantined people in wuhan
but by then according to the mayor five million people had already fled the city
partly because the government covered up the epidemic in the early stages hospitals were not able to gather supplies and there are now major shortages of testing kits masks and protective gear
some doctors were reduced to making goggles out of plastic folders
one reason for the early coverup is that xi's china has systematically gutted institutions like journalism social media nongovernmental organizations the legal profession and others that might provide accountability
these institutions were never very robust in china but on and off they were tolerated until xi came along
i conducted a series of experiments on chinese blogs over the years beginning in 2003 and was sometimes surprised by what i could get away with — but no longer
xi has dragged china backward in terms of civil society crushing almost every wisp of freedom and oversight
for the same reason that xi's increasingly authoritarian china bungled the coronavirus outbreak it also mishandled a swine fever virus that since 2018 has devastated china's hog industry and killed almost onequarter of the world's pigs
dictators often make poor decisions because they don't get accurate information when you squelch independent voices you end up getting just flattery and optimism from those around you
senior chinese officials have told me that they are routinely lied to on trips to meet local officials and must dispatch their drivers and secretaries to assess the truth and gauge the real mood
for this or other reasons xi has made a series of mistakes
he mishandled and inflamed the political crisis in hong kong he inadvertently assured the reelection of his nemesis as president of taiwan and he has presided over worsening relations with the united states and many other countries
the coronavirus has already reached the xinjiang region in the far west of china and one risk is that it will spread in the internment camps where china is confining about one million muslims with poor sanitation and limited health care
viruses are challenges for any country and it's only fair to note that china does a better job protecting its people from measles than the us does
it's a credit to china's system that a baby born in beijing today has a longer life expectancy than a baby born in washington dc more broadly the united states which has several impoverished counties with lower life expectancy than cambodia or bangladesh is in no position to lecture anyone about health
but with a dose of humility let's get over any misplaced admiration some americans have for xi's authoritarian model
the chinese social contract has been that citizens will not get ballots but will live steadily better lives yet china's economy is now as weak as it has been in three decades — and the coronavirus will sap growth further
xi is not living up to his end of the bargain and this is seen in the anger emerging on chinese social media despite the best efforts of censors
i don't know if xi is in political trouble for his misrule but he should be
he's a preening dictator and with this outbreak some citizens are paying a price
cuomo's bad medicine on medicaid by the editorial board jan 31 2020 for years new york state has operated one of the most generous medicaid programs in the country a point of pride in a state with a long tradition of investing in the social safety net
the program provides health care and other services to more than six million people largely lowincome new yorkers and the costs are shared between the state and federal government
but profligate spending has sent costs spiraling in recent years
the medicaid program has become a driving force behind a 61 billion hole in new york's budget next year and a brewing political battle over what to do about it
though medicaid costs are rising across the united states in new york — among the country's largest programs and long one of its most expensive — spending has surged
from 2015 to 2019 annual spending grew by an average of 6 percent according to a report last year by the empire center for public policy a conservative nonprofit research organization
that's roughly double the rate of growth in the previous several years even as enrollment remained flat
health care and budget experts have said a variety of factors are behind the trend including an increase in demand for personal care programs that provide nonmedical services to disabled new yorkers a minimumwage increase and financial assistance that the state has provided to struggling hospitals
new york's share of its 75 billion annual medicaid bill is now about 30 billion and growing imposing an increasingly untenable burden on state and local budgets
the federal government pays the rest
the good news is that gov
andrew cuomo who is in charge of administering the federal program has moved to rein in costs
the bad news is that he has said localities will have to pay for increases in local medicaid spending above 3 percent
that's unfair and unrealistic
local governments in new york already pay more mandated medicaid costs than local governments in any other state a dynamic that's been in place since the program began in the 1960s
that's not unusual in new york where albany relies on new york city's tax base to fund the bulk of state services from education to commuter rails
in 2018 local governments in new york sent 76 billion to albany for the program according to a 2018 report from the citizens budget commission
in fulton county in upstate new york for instance the local medicaid bill for 2016 amounted to more than 15 percent of the county budget
in new york city the annual medicaid tab is roughly 5 billion or nearly 5 percent of the city's budget
if the spending increases continue and the state forces local governments to pay for them the de blasio administration estimates the city would owe an additional 11 billion next year
the state says the figure would be much lower
mr cuomo has called on local governments to reduce costs
that's fine new york city and counties across the state which oversee enrollment should work to root out any fraud or abuse and ensure that those who sign up for the program are eligible and truly in need
they are the ontheground administrator
we respond to them mr cuomo said in a phone call wednesday
really though local governments have limited say over how the program is run
most of that responsibility rests with the state
when it comes to reducing medicaid costs that's where the focus should remain
the most promising effort so far is mr cuomo's medicaid redesign team a working group assigned to find 25 billion in savings this year preserving benefits while slashing waste
the governor used a similar task force to successfully carry out costsaving medicaid reforms nearly a decade ago aided by the affordable care act
the new group will be led by the same two men michael dowling the president and ceo
of northwell health and by dennis rivera the former head of 1199 seiu the powerhouse health care union
they are set to make their recommendations ahead of the april 1 budget deadline
it will be up to mr cuomo to ensure the public good is top of mind
the redesign group should issue a thorough report presenting its findings to the public and the legislature
right now it's not clear they plan to do so and that's a problem
while not perfect the approach is far better than simply forking over more and more taxpayer dollars and sticking local governments with an evergrowing tab as the state has been doing
to get new york's medicaid program back on track the group will need to take a hard look at spending on nonmedical services like cooking and bathing for homebound new yorkers
according to the empire center new york's medicaid spending on such personal services was the highest in the country
that may be because of a program that has expanded in recent years in which medicaid pays nonmedical providers like family members to care for clients
in 2016 personal spending in new york accounted for 40 percent of national medicaid spending for the category overall up from 23 percent in 2011 the empire center said
complicating matters is a political dynamic friendly to the health care industry
in 2018 for example the greater new york hospital association gave more than 1 million in political contributions to the state's democratic party
not long afterward the state increased medicaid reimbursement rates for the first time since 2008 costing the state an estimated 140 million per year
mr cuomo has denied that donations influence his policy decisions and cuomo administration officials said at the time that the increase was necessary and simply long overdue
health care experts disagree and say hospital revenue had already been on the rise
new york's medicaid bill is out of control
the first order of business is to understand more about why and to be honest with the public about what needs to be done about it
democrats' baffling 2020 mess by frank bruni dec 7 2019 kamala harris folded her tent and on that patch of ground many flimsy theories bloomed
disappointed democrats groused that you obviously had to be rich to compete in the 2020 race — because she was gone while two billionaires remained — and pointed to the potentially allwhite undiverse lineup at the party's next debate as proof that the qualifying criteria put too much of a premium on fundraising
but harris had made the cut for that debate
and she entered the presidential sweepstakes with a higher net worth 6 million according to forbes than bernie sanders 25 million amy klobuchar 2 million or pete buttigieg 100000 who are still in the hunt and are among the six contenders slated to be sparring onstage on dec 19
what's more sanders and another of the six elizabeth warren have raised buckets of money without courting plutocrats
many democrats blamed the media for harris's demise
they have a point inasmuch as some news organizations never had the kind of romance with her that they did with buttigieg and beto o'rourke two white men
i noted as much in a column last may pointing to o'rourke's placement on the cover of vanity fair and buttigieg's on the cover of time
but the media fell quickly out of love with o'rourke and is picking buttigieg apart for his lack of support among africanamericans and his past employment as a mckinsey consultant
and harris was hardly ignored her initial campaign rally in oakland calif in january was covered live in its entirety on msnbc and cnn
that same month rachel maddow of msnbc told her in a facetoface interview i think there is a good chance that you are going to win the nomination
and after the democratic debate in june when harris stirringly confronted joe biden about his past opposition to federally mandated busing to integrate schools she received a bonanza of media attention and rapturous reviews
i get that this democratic primary isn't playing out as anyone predicted or in remote accordance with the party's image of itself and with its priorities
none of the top four candidates — biden warren buttigieg and sanders — is a person of color three of them are 70 or older and the billionaires tom steyer and mike bloomberg are dipping into their personal fortunes in their efforts to gain ground
for a party that celebrates diversity pitches itself to underdogs and prides itself on being futureminded and youthoriented that's a freaky baffling turn of events
but some of the conclusions being drawn and complaints being raised don't fully hold water
take the fears about the nomination being purchased
without question running for office is too expensive
that dynamic can definitely favor candidates with lucrative connections
and candidates are forced — unless they're steyer or bloomberg — to devote ludicrous and possibly corrupting sums of time to political panhandling
but at least at present neither steyer nor bloomberg is exactly barreling toward victory
and while cory booker drew a connection between harris's departure and a process warped by wealth the link is tenuous
booker whose campaign presses on despite his failure to qualify for the december debate said of harris's withdrawal voters did not determine her destiny
actually they kind of did
they're the ones who are or aren't excited enough about a candidacy to donate money and keep it alive
they're the ones responding to pollsters and by flagging their preferences determining which candidates take on the air of plausibility that often generates the next round of donations
i keep seeing on twitter and facebook laments about harris's fate from democrats who chose to support candidates other than her
well she couldn't succeed on generalized ambient good will
i also keep seeing and hearing statements along the lines that the party should be ashamed of the way things are turning out that the party failed
while an official party entity the democratic national committee indeed set criteria for the debates — which had to have some criteria — there's otherwise no committee of elders or secret cabal that decrees which candidates prosper and which don't
besides which as eric levitz observed in new york magazine harris boasted the enthusiastic support of hillary's donor network and supporters warm relations with obamaworld and the sympathies of a broad range of democratic lawmakers in the nation's largest state and beyond
levitz added that when harris ended her campaign on tuesday she trailed only biden in the website fivethirtyeight's tally of important endorsements that booker has more such endorsements than sanders who is far ahead of him and that klobuchar has more than buttigieg whom she distantly trails
so if the party is fellow democratic politicians of note it's hardly driving the direction of this contest
we in the media aren't driving it either though there's constant carping along those lines
we've always been fundamentally responsive bestowing coverage based on established interest and we're more responsive than ever in this digitized age of sophisticated realtime measures of precisely what our audience does and doesn't turn to
we give you a tide of warren in part because you thrilled to the earlier trickle
we serve you oodles of buttigieg because we've noticed your appetite for it
another questionable assessment of this primary is that electability is crowding out candidates who don't fit some safe profile
yes many democratic voters tell pollsters that choosing the candidate most likely to beat trump is their top concern
yes there's evidence that such an impulse is leading some voters away from candidates of color
but if electability emphatically ruled the day wouldn't at least one of the three current or former governors already gone from the race — john hickenlooper of colorado steve bullock of montana and jay inslee of washington — have fared better
governors are frequently touted as the best candidates and they account for four of the past seven presidents
if electability ruled the day would biden's stiffest competition be coming from a 78yearold democratic socialist who recently had a heart attack and just placed first in a california poll a 70yearold former ivy league law professor whom trump delights in calling pocahontas and the 37yearold gay mayor of a small indiana city
there's a lot to this primary that's more complicated than meets the eye a lot that explodes assumptions
according to the polling so far voters aren't drawn to candidates whose demographic profiles overlap with theirs
biden's support from black democrats in a national quinnipiac poll late last month was more than eight times what harris's or booker's was
he and sanders do exponentially better among latinos than juli�n castro does
sanders not buttigieg has the advantage among democrats under the age of 35
and many gay democrats have rejected buttigieg as inadequately progressive and even insufficiently gay
so if identity group electability media bias and personal wealth aren't the secrets to success what are
i think we're learning yet again that there's no tidy trusty formula
but broad name recognition among engaged voters — which biden sanders and to a lesser extent warren all had at the outset — is an enormous asset
so are a sales pitch and brand like buttigieg's that are distinct from any other contender's
finally there's political acumen
there's raw talent
the last democratic president barack obama had plenty of it
the next democratic president will too
devin nunes is danielle steel by frank bruni nov 15 2019 i came to your house with a gun
at least imagine i did
i tied you to a chair took a step back and repeatedly fired
but my arm twitched every bullet missed
meanwhile you slipped your knots and fled
by the reasoning of representative jim jordan i did absolutely nothing wrong
you're alive
not a drop of blood on you
an unconsummated crime is no crime at all or so jordan one of the republican party's more rococo philosophers argued on wednesday in defense of president trump
ukraine got its military aid trump did not get his investigation of the bidens
to jordan that's proof of innocence
to a normal person that's proof of incompetence which doesn't exonerate the president but should definitely reassure us
trump's an autocrat all right but the silver lining is that he's an inept one
all strongmen should be this weak
and all of us should have the mental limberness and ethical elasticity that jordan and his troupe possess
they're the cirque du soleil of c'est la vie
i've never seen anything like the republican effort to defend trump which charts the frontiers of creativity explores the outer limits of audacity mutates like the monsters in the alien movies and restores my faith in american ingenuity
my faith in washington too
i long feared that politics had stopped attracting the country's top talent but some of our finest storytellers are working in the united states capitol
john grisham has nothing on jordan
danielle steel can't hold a candle to devin nunes
nunes was among the first republicans to pipe up on day 1 of the impeachment inquiry's public hearings held by the house intelligence committee and it wasn't just his narrative ambition that mesmerized me
it was his bold descent into his thesaurus a sort of semantic spelunking
the hearings he said marked the pitiful finale and spectacular implosion of the russia hoax
they amounted to a scorchedearth war against president trump that was horrifically onesided and preposterous
this lowrent ukrainian sequel had already involved a closeddoor audition process in a cultlike atmosphere in the basement of the capitol
cultlike no less
that's a more fitting description of republicans' obeisance to the president and laundering of his wrongdoing but then one hallmark of trump and his sycophants is the projection of their own flaws onto their adversaries
nunes's best bit on wednesday and then again on friday was his portrayal of trump's democratic detractors as amateur pornographers intent on finding nude pictures of the president
i'm fairly confident that no one is intent on finding nude photographs of the president
but at this point it wouldn't surprise me if trump himself tweeted one out
would that be any crazier than what he did on friday as marie yovanovitch the former ambassador to ukraine testified
there she was a pained stoic state department amalgam of erin brockovich and norma rae and trump used his twitter account to call her an international wrecking ball singlehandedly responsible for the mess that is mogadishu
one of her posts before ukraine was somalia
this accomplished nothing in the way of silencing her but raised the prospect of witness intimidation being added to any articles of impeachment
clearly the republican response to this impeachment inquiry isn't some elegant strategy
it's an epic snit
its leitmotif is hypocrisy
nunes opened friday's hearing by lamenting all the important government business that was on hold because democrats preferred to torture trump
i somehow missed his pleas that lawmakers keep their eyes on the ball and devote themselves to practical problemsolving when the president stirred up one culture war after another just to change the topic of a given news cycle or hear a rally audience's roar
but along comes the impeachment inquiry and suddenly house republicans are stymied stewards of levelheaded government
they're dismissing wednesday's and friday's hearings held in public as pure theater
but they complained about the closeddoor testimony beforehand
they're shrugging off the accounts of william taylor george kent and others as hearsay
but the white house has decreed that such firsthand witnesses as mick mulvaney not cooperate
one moment mulvaney publicly acknowledges the shakedown of ukraine's president insists that it's how foreign policy is done and tells the media to get over it
the next he tells the media that they're reprehensible fabulists for reporting exactly what he said
one moment republicans completely ignore trump's infamous july 25 phone call and claim that there's no direct evidence of his bullying and — yes nancy pelosi is right — his bribery
the next they acknowledge the call sigh over trump's behavior but say that it's hardly impeachable
in fairness that's only slightly more confusing to me than the democrats' perspective on the call a definitive piece of evidence that they may be inadvertently downgrading
usually a process like the one that they've been engaged in over the last seven weeks is about finding a smoking gun
this process began with the smoking gun and the farther the democrats travel from it — eight witnesses this coming week
— the more they risk implying that it wasn't enough
but for curious behavior republicans have them easily beat and their conduct during the impeachment inquiry is the culmination and apotheosis of their conduct since trump wrapped up the republican presidential nomination an utter sellout of principle and a pure embrace of fiction to pacify an emotional infant and keep him from spitting up on them
during wednesday's hearing republicans again suggested — while maintaining straight faces — that trump's foremost concern was corruption in ukraine
steve castor the republicans' chief counsel also gave one of the president's most convenient and thus favorite conspiracy theories a fresh whirl positing that perhaps american intelligence officials had it all wrong and ukraine not russia hacked democratic emails in 2016 and otherwise interfered in the election
how would this make trump's demand that ukrainians smear joe biden in return for millions of dollars of alreadyauthorized aid ok
it wouldn't — but what a juicy distraction
and what a perfect gateway for castor's attempt to get taylor to testify that trump legitimately believed that ukrainians were in castor's words out to get him
try to follow along
not only does incompetence equal innocence but also paranoia is exculpatory
same goes for the relative dastardliness of a deed which becomes innocuous if it's not maximally obnoxious
that's my takeaway from when castor referring to rudy giuliani's shenanigans asked taylor this irregular channel of diplomacy it's not as outlandish as it could be — is that correct
clarence darrow move over
another genius of jurisprudence demands space in the history books
all that wednesday's hearing lacked was lindsey graham
yes i know he serves in the senate and the hearing took place in the house
but he's the standardbearer for trumpcoddling contortionism the reigning king of the kinds of contradictions that were on display
presaging jordan's approach at the hearing graham a week and a half ago shrugged off the impeachment inquiry by calling trump's policy toward ukraine so incoherent that the president and his minions seem to be incapable of forming a quid pro quo
he said at one point that he'd be open to any evidence that backed up such a quid pro quo but then more recently he announced that he wouldn't and couldn't be bothered to follow the testimony because he'd already made up his mind
as billy binion of reason magazine noted graham has bemoaned the democrats' lack of transparency only to shield his eyes once the curtain was lifted
maybe graham will storm the hearing room yet an effigy of hunter biden in tow
that would match the dignity of what we've seen from republicans so far
did i just get yanged
by bari weiss jan 30 2020 it was new year's eve and i had decided to spend it with andrew yang
a selfdescribed asian man who's good at math mr yang had raised an impressive 165 million in the fourth quarter of 2019 for his presidential campaign
despite being newly flush the campaign didn't hold its shindig in a napa valley wine cave or at gramercy tavern but in a florescentlit room above a bar in nashua nh
the party looked like nothing so much as a high school dance if you had banned the bullies
there was a modest buffet of meatballs spanakopita ritz crackers and cheddar cheese
the dj a boomer with trousers that badly need hemming could have been your chemistry teacher bouncing to cardi b
now a few days away from the iowa caucus mr yang has outlasted more than a dozen candidates including three senators and two governors
he came in first among democrats in the iowa youth straw poll on tuesday
next week he'll be back on the debate stage
he remains a very long shot national polls have him consistently in the second tier right next to amy klobuchar
still conventional wisdom would say that andrew yang should be nowhere this close to the american presidency
i went to new hampshire because i wanted to understand how a political rookie with what seemed like little going for him beyond a signature proposal of free money and relentlessly cheerful online fans had gotten this far
what does the url candidate's campaign look like irl
that night the yang gang as the candidate's fans proudly call themselves was a happy crowd of gamers asians former goth girls burning man enthusiasts scifi geeks students coders and stoners
when mr yang dropped a lord of the rings joke — it's like the eye of sauron is closing in
he said of his momentum in the race — they erupted in laughter
hardcore yang voters are not cool
and that is exactly their and his appeal
among the partygoers on new year's eve were jackie and dave farrell former bernie sanders supporters who own a deli in caldwell nj mr farrell wore a handmade knitted beanie stitched with the words yang math vote and 2020 ms farrell had a pink yang gang baseball hat over her blue hair and a copy of the candidate's best seller the war on normal people in her purse
they fell in love inside an online role playing game called hobowars
it's hard to imagine anyone at a joe biden event with that kind of meetcute
he actually sold me a guild ms farrell told me
it's sort of like a gang
like a yang gang
talk to anyone in the yang gang for a few minutes and they'll inevitably tell you how they got yanged
the story almost always begins with a younger person telling an older person to google andrew yang
which is exactly what happened with the farrells
in august a 23yearold employee in the deli approached ms farrell to ask whom she was supporting
i was like 'bernie i guess
i supported him in 2016' she recalled
and he goes 'why haven't you googled andrew yang yet
so she did
i literally stayed up till 4 am that night watching videos
have you ever been the target of a twitter mob
it's about as pleasant as a brazilian wax in slow motion
the one thing that brings a small measure of comfort when you are in the digital cross hairs is the following assertion the internet is not real life
it is true at least for the time being that a horde of pixels cannot transform itself into a horde of people
but the lie that there is a bright line between the online world and the real one has been well and truly debunked
just ask any middleschool girl shamed for an instagram post or any adult fired because of a bad tweet or any democrat hoping to oust donald trump and become the 46th president of the united states
bernie sanders may be fueled by his zealous fans on social media but of all the democrats running for president the web means the most to andrew yang
without it his candidacy simply wouldn't exist
it's a classic underdog story a political unknown ignored by the mainstream media sidestepping the pundits who had considered him a punchline
in the early days there weren't many people in cable news clamoring to have me on their shows he told me over bubble tea on a recent afternoon in his manhattan campaign headquarters
and so you seek out people who can reach lots of americans
those people were the ones with podcasts
what launched us was sam harris said mr yang of his june 2018 appearance on mr harris's show making sense
it put him on the map i was invited to speak at the wing ding in iowa — a major democratic fundraising event — because one of the people there was a sam harris fan
mr harris introduced him to joe rogan a mixed martial arts color commentator who hosts one of the most popular podcasts in the country
disclosure i've also appeared on his show
joe rogan was the game changer mr yang said
we raised tens of thousands of dollars a day for awhile there and a million bucks in a week
but it isn't simply that mr yang cleverly used new platforms to his advantage
sure the podcasts gave him a big boost but lots of politicians have used new media to expand their reach franklin roosevelt commandeered the radio team obama mastered the email blast president trump tears up twitter
mr yang's outsize success shows that the people who insist that rachel maddow has more influence over the american electorate than mr rogan are lying to themselves about where cultural power in america is actually located
what mr yang understands is that the old rules no longer apply — and that flouting those rules is an energizing strategy
but while donald trump burned the whole house down andrew yang is dunking on the system with a big smile
that's how he gets onstage at a democratic debate points out the ridiculousness of the artifice — we're up here with makeup on our faces and our rehearsed attack lines playing roles in this reality tv show — and walks away with one of the most talkedabout moments of the night despite having had the least talking time
his appeal is a powerful reminder that the animating political conflict of our era may not be left versus right but establishment versus insurgency
the yang campaign prides itself on the heterodoxy of its supporters
i poll 18 percent among college republicans mr yang told me
i've got a higher appeal among independents libertarians and even some disaffected trump voters than joe biden by the numbers than bernie sanders by the numbers
one of his campaign slogans is not left
not right
forward
the writer wesley yang has suggested that the inbetween nature of asianamericans — the way they are often regarded neither as white nor as people of color — allows them to say and do things that white liberals are now afraid to say and do which is to stand up for certain fundamental values
when you consider mr yang's positions on some of the touchiest aspects of the culture war and imagine his views coming out of the mouth of a michael bennet or a pete buttigieg you can easily see the truth of this insight
for instance he's glad that america has become less of a monoculture
when he was a kid he says his own efforts to be american included things like joining the wrestling team he was terrible at the sport
but he added i think there's a middle ground where you can't just say america is nothing and everybody run off and do your own thing
it's important he said to have a common cultural context and even — and this will be very controversial — a common language of expression
i spoke to some of his many asianamerican supporters and this resonated with them
michael chen a 19yearold drexel student at one of the new hampshire town hall events said he appreciated that mr yang whose immigrant father grew up in a house with a dirt floor on a peanut farm is not running on his identity you can be asianamerican you can be black american you can be latinoamerican but the common denominator is american
that's who he is
mr chen was there with his dad jack
the elder mr chen calls himself a yang junkie but insists being asian has little to do with it
what animates him is the practicality of mr yang's solutions
mr yang believes in talking to people he disagrees with
in april he appeared on the ben shapiro show a nogo zone for those who buy into the new politics of contamination — that to sit next to a conservative like mr shapiro is to tacitly endorse his ideas
thinking that i'm going to catch ideas from someone seems ludicrous to me he said
soon after the comedian shane gillis was hired by saturday night live it was revealed that he had used racial slurs on podcasts including describing mr yang with an antisemitic and racist epithet
mr yang tweeted that he didn't think mr gillis should be fired writing we would benefit from being more forgiving rather than punitive
the show didn't follow mr yang's advice
i asked mr yang who ran one of the top test prep programs in the country before it was bought by kaplan about his views on affirmative action
is harvard doing to asians in the 21st century what it did to jews in the 20th
harvard's gonna harvard he said
he told me that he himself was rejected from the school — he wound up at brown — though he was amply qualified
but if you have any kind of perspective he said you realize that my life and my humanity depends on more than whether some institution decides to stamp my hand
arguing for higher representation of an already overrepresented group — at least according to population standards — would not be my first bone to pick he said
instead he asked why harvard a university with a 40 billion endowment is opening locations in shanghai but not ohio or michigan
the real question he said is are you trying to advance our society or are you trying to advance global moneyed interests
on new year's eve it occurred to me that despite living in new york which prides itself on being the most cosmopolitan city in the world i had not been in a room with such a politically diverse group of people since donald trump was elected president
if there is a typical yang voter it is a former bernie sanders supporter who feels that mr yang understands the challenges of the 21st century better than a 78yearold socialist without a single app on his phone
mr yang supported mr sanders in 2016 before voting for hillary clinton in the general election i'm procivilization he said
he understands why young voters are drawn to mr sanders
if you're a young person you look up and say 'what have i experienced from this capitalist system' corporate abuse crashes bailouts greed record levels of college debt
but he insists the best actor to improve people's lives is not our government it's us
bernie's saying 'let's stick it to the billionaires and all will be well' he said
i'm saying 'we need to rewrite the code we need to rewrite the software' at a campaign stop in manchester nh i spoke with sunny payne a 23yearold yang supporter who'd come in from bangor me and uses the pronoun they
while i think bernie sanders is an amazing person they said he's has had the exact same policy stances for literally decades
amberly mccabe and martin raucher both 29 are also former sanders supporters
they drove 25 hours from st petersburg fla
they made sure not to cut anyone off on the highway ms mccabe said because there's a yang bumper sticker on their car and we have to represent
mr raucher is a disabled veteran and ms mccabe is an artist they met through their passion spinning fire
it wasn't possible to twirl lit torches inside the party room so ms mccabe had fashioned the next best thing a handmade lightup yang sign
with yang i'm all about the ideas the policies she said above all his proposal for a universal basic income of 1000 a month
i need an oil change said mr raucher when i asked how they'd spend it
and my roof is leaking
just across the dance floor were elasa and russell peterson two former trump voters who changed their registration — and moved states — to support mr yang's candidacy
everyone i know is the brokefolk vote said mr peterson
they are among them
until recently they worked at a north carolina olive garden
i got to where i hated breadsticks said ms
peterson
donald trump stands up there and says 'hey we got to build the wall because the immigrants are coming over here and they're stealing our jobs' and you know what
because we're all broke we're all like 'it's immigrants
yeah
let's build the wall' mr peterson said
but then you hear andrew yang talk and he's like 'you know what
it's not immigrants
it's automation' you go into walmart you don't see immigrants
you see selfserve checkouts
it's like a light bulb goes off
like 'wow this makes sense' it made so much sense that they moved in with ms peterson's sister in vermont 10 minutes from the new hampshire border so they could volunteer fulltime for the campaign and promote him on their youtube channel
everybody in our family has been yanged
and they were all trumpers mr peterson said
at a town hall event attended by some 300 people on new year's day the first question — so onbrand i almost assumed it was a plant — was about the metric system so mr make americans think harder can we count on president yang to support the blessings of the metric system
the crowd laughed
amazingly mr yang came back with a thoughtful answer about how the metric system is safer not least because it is more accurate for microdosing baby medicine
to hear andrew yang talk is to understand why it is possible for people like the petersons to support him unlike the president he never demonizes other americans
the differences between us are pretty trivial compared to the things we share in common
and that's a fundamental message of the campaign ablebodied special needs white black old young rural urban we're all going to get run over by this automation freight train he said
we need to human up and stop focusing on relatively trivial distinctions
the villain is not donald trump but a market rigged for big tech and against normal americans
in mr yang's framing of the 2016 election mrs clinton lost not because of the electoral college or russian bots but because she fundamentally misunderstood the crisis facing america
donald trump said he was going to make america great again
and what did hillary clinton say in response
america is already great mr yang said
that message did not work because the pain in our country is real
in other words donald trump is the wrong answer to the right question
mr yang believes he is the right one
at each one of the four campaign stops i went to he asked the crowd why president trump won
the audience called out answers the media
russia
racism
hillary
facebook
twitter
james comey
no said mr yang
it's because we blasted away four million manufacturing jobs through automation in states like ohio michigan pennsylvania missouri and iowa
what happened to manufacturing is coming to retail restaurants and even accounting and the law mr yang insists
while mr sanders suggests a federal government job guarantee and joe biden suggests turning coal miners into coders mr yang says that work as we have known it is over
if we don't change anything i asked him where will be 50 years from now
bestcase scenario
we will see inequality at a staggering scale that right now most americans would find unthinkable
and in the worst case
the collapse of the government in its current form political break up and societal dysfunction that results in mass riots and violence
it's impressive that for the most part his good humor softens the bleak message he is conveying
it's a vision of the future — one disputed as hysterical by many observers — that makes president trump's american carnage address look almost rosy by comparison
i caught up with sunny payne this week
hearing mr yang in person lit the fire under me they said as they drove around anderson sc after a day spent doorknocking for him
they'd just spent a week in iowa before realizing that i wanted to spread the message to black voters and communities of color and i realized the best place for me to do that was in south carolina
they said they kept hearing the same story from voters i can't care about climate change because i need to put food on the table
i have three jobs
i barely sleep
to these people sunny payne said 1000 a month would be lifechanging
that's the reason that the comedian dave chappelle has endorsed mr yang
the wealth disparity between me and my neighbors is immense it's heartbreaking said mr chappelle who lives in ohio but appeared alongside mr yang on the campaign trail this week
if you know a third of the people up the street can't buy groceries then you start to feel an imperative concern he said
this is without irony or a punch line i'm just telling you — this guy's got some great ideas you should check it out
so have i been yanged
i don't know if a universal basic income is the best solution to the problem of inequality
i'm not particularly passionate about lowering the voting age to 16 or requiring police officers to get purple belts in jujitsu
i worry about whether someone with zero foreign policy experience can be the commander in chief
but as bernie sanders sells class rage joe biden promises normalcy and elizabeth warren pushes a social progressivism so perfectly doctrinaire it seems tailored for five kids at oberlin andrew yang's iconoclasm and optimism are refreshing
if getting yanged means that i believe that this curious campaign is a cause for that rarest thing in current american politics — hope — and that mr yang is modeling how to harness the populist energy that otherwise threatens to tear us apart then count me yanggang
america's public restrooms are kind of great now by farhad manjoo dec 11 2019 in the past few years something amazing has been quietly happening across the land
public restrooms in america — long a flash point of exclusion by race gender class and ability — have gotten much much better
thanks to an increasingly effective campaign by a range of activists america's public bathrooms are now cleaner more plentiful more private and more accessible and inclusive than ever
in many places they're even great
this is a story about identity politics advocacy design and architecture
it is also a story still in motion with progress yet to unfold and many people still shut out
there is still much controversy surrounding our bathrooms who gets to use them and how
but it's important to recognize progress as it's happening
and if you travel across america now it's undeniable that how we go keeps getting better
how do i know
at the risk of tmi i happen to be an expert on bathrooms
twenty years ago when i was a senior in college i was diagnosed with a condition called achalasia a rare sometimes genetic swallowing disorder that i was actually quite familiar with because when i was a kid my mother had it too
it began as a blinding burning bolt of pain in the middle of my chest after eating
imagine heartburn after you've eaten something spicy but amped up to 11 as if the thing you'd eaten was a chain saw doused in ghost peppers
the pain would abate after a few minutes but it would come back again and again usually after i'd eaten a big meal
then it began to hurt during big meals then during every meal and soon anytime i'd try to swallow anything
for many people the condition is curable through surgery but for me that longago flash of pain turned out to be only the beginning of an allconsuming chronic and often embarrassing disability
over the last two decades though i've undergone dozens of invasive procedures and tests taken a panoply of pills and had various parts of my digestive system removed or surgically rebuilt my symptoms have only gotten more intense and more — how to put this delicately
— expansive
swallowing food is now an arduous enough task that i have to get much of my nutrition through liquid as kanye once rapped i drink a boost for breakfast an ensure for dessert
but it's no longer just eating that's a pain it's what happens after too
from the nave to the chops my swallowing problem has spawned a grossout comedy's worth of gi
complications
the ugly upshot is this at least once every day and sometimes many times i have to run to the restroom on a moment's notice and what happens to me there is best experienced alone in blissful unembarrassed solitude
i tell you all this in order to establish my bona fides i know public bathrooms
in my travels over the years i have assembled in my head a veritable michelin guide of private peaceful places to go
so trust me when i tell you that in the last few years better public bathrooms have started to pop up everywhere
again and again in big cities and small in red states and blue in airports hotels shopping malls theaters stadiums offices and a range of other public venues i've been saved by a bounty of better loos
more restrooms are now explicitly inclusive and accessible designed for people who are physically disabled are gender nonconforming are traveling with children or are otherwise in need of special accommodation
for instance paruresis and parcopresis phobias that inhibit people from urinating or defecating in public restrooms are real debilitating conditions that affect tens of millions of people
one innovation that has been of particular use to me is the lockable singleoccupancy allgender restroom
a decade ago in most public places it was nigh impossible to find a private place to do your business
today these oneperson stalls are a rising trend across the country especially at airports and other large public facilities
in some places they're labeled all gender restrooms in others they're called family bathrooms in yet others signs welcome everyone with broad language like all persons may use this restroom
whatever you call them they're a haven in a world marked by chaos and disorder
over the last few years when nature called suddenly and panic set in i've had the fortune of finding a clean private place at among other locations the guggenheim in new york the getty center in los angeles the mall of america a dozen airports at least and so so many starbucks
of course things still aren't perfect
i am a member of a racial minority but i'm a cisgender person of means and social privilege
it's likely that a lot of people still find it hard to find clean private restrooms in much of the land
still the restroom situation in america is much better than it used to be and i've noticed so much better than in many other parts of the world
on a trip to britain and france with my kids last year i was surprised at how difficult it was to find a clean private bathroom when there was one you often had to pay to use it
i've seen some very nice bathrooms in dubai but only in places that cater to the wealthy
in south africa and india
forget about it
america has less and less to be proud of these days our life expectancies are falling our infrastructure is crumbling and our politics are in the toilet
but look at our toilets
while there's no official metric on this sort of thing in my estimation american toilets are now likely among the top in the world
japan's loos are said to be very nice if we can't be no
1 it's possible we're at least you know no
2
if it's true that our toilets are getting better it's worth asking why
in a word activists
in the last few years a range of advocates fighting on behalf of transgender people the disabled homeless people and others have mounted a variety of legal and public advocacy campaigns aimed at making bathrooms more accessible
these have sometimes sparked backlash and controversy like the 2016 law in north carolina that rolled back genderinclusive restrooms
at the supreme court this fall justices considering a case about gay and transgender rights couldn't stop themselves from considering everything through the lens of the loo
despite the political controversy on the ground in facilities all over the country the moral arc of the bathroom is bending toward inclusion
at starbucks after a viral incident last year in which two black men who had asked to use the restroom were arrested at a philadelphia location the restrooms are now open to everyone even people who haven't purchased anything
cities are now spending money to create more public restrooms
and earlier this year stalled an organization of designers and activists who push for restroomrelated social justice mounted a successful campaign to get the international plumbing code — which sets standards for bathrooms — to adopt new language supporting allgender restrooms
inclusive design has been a hot new term among architects and product designers the idea broadly is that when you create products and spaces that are accommodating of a broad range of human capacity they end up being much more useful to everyone in unexpected ways
advocates of inclusive design point to some canonical examples sidewalk ramps were put in place for people with wheelchairs but they turned out to be handy for parents with strollers too
some of the technology in the smartphone's touchscreen was invented as a way to help people with disabilities like carpal tunnel syndrome
typewriters and keyboards were first created to help the blind
restrooms are following a similar path
it's not just obviously disabled and gendernonconforming people who need a private more accessible restroom
everyone now and again can do with a nicer place to go to the bathroom
in america at long last we're getting that
thank you social justice warriors
elizabeth warren throws down the gauntlet by elisabeth rosenthal nov 4 2019 laying the table for the next democratic debate elizabeth warren has issued a plan that explains how she would fund what she calls medicare for all
she had studiously avoided saying whether it would raise taxes for the middle class and in her proposal she says repeatedly it will not
it will instead be financed by a mix of wealth taxes employer transfers of money they currently spend on health care and reductions of the many inefficiencies in our current byzantine system — among other initiatives
but now all the candidates need to tell us more of those details about their health care strategies
it's time for the candidates to stop talking slogans and start talking sense — or dollars and cents — so that voters can know what they mean and choose among them
medicare for all medicare for all who want it a public option improving the affordable care act — those are 30000foot concepts that depending on the details could work or not and be popular or not
the candidates including ms warren also need to say more about what they'll do right now in one poll 40 percent of americans said they had skipped a recommended test or treatment and 32 percent said they had skipped a medicine because of cost
supporters of medicare for all want to tie their future to the popularity of the medicare program
but ms warren and bernie sanders are offering up americans a supercharged version of the current government insurance for those over 65
it promises to eliminate copayments for prescription drugs
under current medicare many patients contribute thousands of dollars annually
it includes dental and longterm care — a huge expense that is conspicuously missing from current medicare
that ambition would make a health care plan vastly more expensive
the national health systems of britain and canada both single payer systems like the medicare for all proposal do not offer comprehensive longterm care coverage
canada's doesn't include coverage for prescription drugs out of the hospital
is the financing ms warren proposes going to be adequate to support the expanded goals
economists disagree
but in releasing her proposal she has thrown down the gauntlet before the other candidates — who support medicare for all who want it or some other type of public option — to be a whole lot clearer about what they mean
joe biden kamala harris pete buttigieg et al
does your public option — a government insurance policy that anyone may buy — resemble mr sanders's enhanced medicare or current medicare or medicaid which is far more bare bones
voters need to know
there's another obvious reason the candidates have been so close lipped on specifics to calculate how to pay for any of the plans the candidates have to say how they intend to bring down prices — for hospital stays drugs procedures devices doctors' visits surgeries
americans often pay two to 10 times what patients pay for these items in other developed countries
those prices will have to come down to make any plan viable without breaking the bank
to really assess any plan we'll need that kind of information
ms warren has courageously stepped into that fraught territory with numbers that have very likely sent shock waves through the health care industry
for example to make her financing proposal work she suggests paying most hospitals on average 110 percent of current medicare rates
she suggests americans should pay no more for drugs than 110 percent of the average international market price
that may be eminently reasonable but is it achievable
when montana negotiated rates directly with hospitals for its state employees it settled on a deal in which the state agreed to pay an average of 234 percent of medicare rates
and it still saved money
setting lower prices is going to bring out strong opposition
remember patient or taxpayer savings mean loss of income for one of america's most profitable industries whose lobbyists spent more than half a billion dollars last year and which is flush with dark money to distribute in congress
to get the aca
passed president barack obama gave up on a number of pricelowering ideas to get buyin from the health care industry and its friends in congress
these included jettisoning the idea of a public option and allowing medicare to negotiate drug prices
the republicans — whose plans have been largely proclamations of better cheaper health care without any strategy — will be quick to label any of the democratic plans as a government takeover of health care or socialism
remember patient or taxpayer savings mean loss of income for the united states' most robust sector in the postrecession economy
in many postmanufacturing cities like pittsburgh and cleveland a single hospital system is the biggest employer
in boston hospitals and hospital corporations make up the top six employers
minnesota and massachusetts have done well with drug and device manufacturing
and let's not start on insurers whose lucrative health business would largely disappear
any plan to rein in the united states' bloated 35 trillion health care system will be slow going requiring not just a footnoted blueprint but also the taming of many opposing forces
it took years for canada to move from a marketbased system to government run health
it endured lengthy debates and doctors' strikes
ms warren calls her proposal a longterm plan
but voters want to know how we get from here to anywhere else
in polls their top health care issue is affordability — emphasis on now
they need concrete proposals as well as longterm vision
in the next debate how about talking about hr
3 a bill in congress to curb prescription drug prices
that plan would allow the health and human services secretary to negotiate a maximum price that could be charged to medicare for insulin and some of the most expensive medicines in the united states based on the prices paid for those drugs in other countries
days before the last democratic debate the congressional budget office said it would save 345 billion over a sixyear period 202329
if the bill were to move to the senate how would the frontrunners vote
what do they have to say about that
four key things you should know about health care by ezekiel j emanuel and victor r fuchs sept 12 2019 health care so far perhaps the biggest issue in the democratic primary is also the most complicated issue facing government and the public
unfortunately the debate is filled with persistent misconceptions from the role insurance company profits play in health care costs to who is actually paying for workers' health coverage
clarifying four fundamental health care fallacies could make it easier for voters to square some of the democratic proposals — and their critiques — with reality fallacy no
1 employers pay for employees' health insurance
employers write checks that cover most health insurance premiums for employees and their dependents
but as the princeton health economist uwe reinhardt once explained employersponsored insurance is like a pickpocket taking money out of your wallet at a bar and buying you a drink
you appreciate the cocktail until you realize you paid for it yourself
with health coverage employers write the check to the insurer but employees bear the cost of the premium — the entire premium not just the portion listed as their contribution on their pay stub
the premium money that goes to the insurance company is cash that employers would otherwise deposit in employees' accounts like the rest of their salary
the fallacy is in thinking an employer's contribution comes out of profits
in fact higher health insurance premiums mean lower wages for workers
since 1999 health insurance premiums have increased 147 percent and employer profits have increased 148 percent
but in that time average wages have hardly moved increasing just 7 percent
clearly workers' wages not corporate profits have been paying for higher health insurance premiums
health care costs are one — though not the only — reason wages have stagnated over the last few decades
with health insurance costs rising faster than growth in the economy more labor costs go to benefits like health insurance and less to takehome pay
yet the belief that employees don't pay for their own health insurance is widespread
one reason is that individuals cannot be sure what causes their wages to change or remain stagnant for decades
another reason is that employers want americans to believe that they pay for their workers' health insurance
still another reason is that there are those who profit from the employmentbased system drug companies device manufacturers specialty physicians and highincome individuals
they all want you to believe companies are being magnanimous in giving you insurance
who else benefits from the belief in this fallacy
opponents of national health insurance
fallacy no
2 medicare for all is unaffordable
the key to evaluating the cost of medicare for all is to distinguish between increasing spending on health care and shifting expenditures from private insurance to the federal government
true medicare for all would increase federal health care spending
but that is not the same as increasing total health care spending which was over 35 trillion last year
instead medicare for all would move money from one column private health insurance spending to another federal health spending it does not automatically increase total costs
a recent study by the mercatus center at george mason university — a freemarket center generally hostile to government programs — estimates that for the 10 years between 2022 and 2031 the total national health costs for senator bernie sanders's medicare for all plan would actually be 501 trillion
that would be 2 trillion less than if we let the system operate as it currently does
however mercatus researchers doubt that the sanders's plan would ultimately save trillions because they believe congress would have to increase medicare rates paid to hospitals and physicians to get the legislation enacted
they may be right — or wrong
but that is a different argument — a prediction about the politics of enacting laws — than that medicare for all would inherently increase total health care spending
we have our doubts about medicare for all
but unaffordability is not a reason to oppose it
whether it's our current arrangement or a future medicare for all the per capita cost of our health care system already far exceeds that of any other industrialized country — including those with singlepayer systems
when you hear a health care price tag in the trillions know that the existing system has already brought us there
fallacy no
3 insurance companies' profits drive health care costs
in the second democratic presidential debate senator bernie sanders declared that the health care industry makes 100 billion in profits
he once railed against the insurance company anthem for denying a claim while noting that it reported fourthquarter profits for 2017 had increased by 234 percent to 12 billion
many americans believe that profits have no place in health care
they see forprofit health insurance like buying and selling kidneys and livers for transplantation as what the nobel prize winner alvin roth termed a repugnant industry — something that should not be exchanged in the market
that is an important moral stand but it makes no difference to the claim that eliminating forprofit insurers will reduce high health care costs
the fact is we could eliminate those profits and it would hardly matter to the cost of health care
you would not notice it in your premiums
for the eight largest forprofit health insurance companies in 2016 their cumulative revenue amounted to nearly 4522 billion and profits were 221 billion for a profit margin of about 5 percent
by contrast technology companies banks and major drug companies generally make more than 20 percent profit
true 221 billion is a lot of money — but it is 06 percent of health spending
and last year alone health care costs increased over 130 billion — six times insurance company profits
health care spending would not be significantly cheaper if all insurance companies' profits were zero
there are far more savings to be had in other efforts — by cutting unnecessary patient services for example or by making physicians and hospitals more efficient — to deliver the same care at a lower cost
fallacy no
4 price transparency can bring down health care costs
hospitals will be required to publish prices that reflect what people pay for services said president trump when he signed his executive order on health care price transparency
prices will come down by numbers that you wouldn't believe
the cost of health care will go way way down
there is no doubt that prices for medical procedures can range widely even within the same city or state
for instance mris of the spine can vary threefold in massachusetts and mammograms fivefold in san francisco
conservatives argue that informing patients of prices for tests and treatments will induce them to shop for lowercost services saving them insurers and the country money
in theory the beauty of price transparency is that neither the government nor insurers impose cost controls the invisible hand of the market does it all
yet demonstrations of price transparency have been tried many times in many places and in reality it has not reduced the cost of care
one recent study by harvard medical school researchers involved hundreds of thousands of employees and used a website telling them what they would pay outofpocket if they chose particular physicians and hospitals
the result no savings
a followup study using another set of employers and another price transparency tool found the same result no savings
since 2007 new hampshire has had a state website nh health cost that allows patients to select a medical procedure insurer and zip code and then get a list of prices for the procedure from various providers
the most promising study of nh health cost suggests a few million dollars in savings per year
that works out to be about 5 per new hampshire resident
the fact is price transparency will not make health care costs go way way down
health insurance insulates the patient from price
over 80 percent of the cost of medical care is paid by private and public insurance
patients have little incentive to seek out the cheapest provider
when pricing websites exist few patients use them
even in the most favorable studies when offered a price transparency tool only 12 percent of patients took advantage of it usually it's less than 4 percent of patients
furthermore price considerations are useful for choosing only about 40 percent of procedures — routine services like colonoscopies mri
scans and laboratory tests
most of the expensive services — think heart catheterizations cancer chemotherapy and organ transplants — are not the kind of thing you decide based on price
finally in health care americans usually put relationships ahead of money
once patients find a physician they trust and a hospital they like they tend to stick with them even if there is a lowercost alternative nearby
american health care is complex and any simplistic solution is likely to be based on a fallacy
but that doesn't mean there is nothing we can do
there are solutions — they just don't make for bumper sticker phrases like medicare for all or eliminate forprofit insurers or price transparency
george soros mark zuckerberg should not be in control of facebook by george soros jan 31 2020 at a dinner last week in davos switzerland i was asked if i thought facebook was behaving more responsibly today than it did during the 2016 presidential election
not at all i answered
facebook helped trump to get elected and i am afraid that it will do the same in 2020
i explained that there is a longstanding law — section 230 of the communications decency act — that protects social media platforms from legal liability for defamation and similar claims
facebook can post deliberately misleading or false statements by candidates for public office and others and take no responsibility for them
i went on to say that there appears to be an informal mutual assistance operation or agreement developing between trump and facebook in which facebook will help president trump to get reelected and mr trump will in turn defend facebook against attacks from regulators and the media
this is just plain wrong a facebook spokesman told business insider
i disagree
i believe that mr trump and facebook's chief executive mark zuckerberg realize that their interests are aligned — the president's in winning elections mr zuckerberg's in making money
let's look at the evidence in 2016 facebook provided the trump campaign with embedded staff who helped to optimize its advertising program
hillary clinton's campaign was also approached but it declined to embed a facebook team in her campaign's operations
brad parscale the digital director of mr trump's 2016 campaign and now his campaign manager for 2020 said that facebook helped mr trump and gave him the edge
this seems to have marked the beginning of a special relationship
more recently direct contact between the two men has raised serious questions
mr zuckerberg met with mr trump in the oval office on sept 19 2019
we don't know what was said
but from an interview on the sidelines at the world economic forum on jan 22 we do know what mr trump said about the meeting mr zuckerberg told me that i'm no
1 in the world in facebook
mr trump apparently had no problem with facebook's decision not to factcheck political ads
i'd rather have him just do whatever he is going to do mr trump said of mr zuckerberg
he's done a hell of a job when you think of it
the president's 2016 campaign mounted a robust datacentric communications effort and has continued to build on that program over the past few years using facebook as a key part of their strategy
facebook's decision not to require factchecking for political candidates' advertising in 2020 has flung open the door for false manipulated extreme and incendiary statements
such content is rewarded with prime placement and promotion if it meets facebookdesigned algorithmic standards for popularity and engagement
what's more facebook's design tends to obscure the sources of inflammatory and false content and fails to adequately punish those who spread false information
nor does the company effectively warn those who are exposed to lies
i expressed my fear that with facebook's help mr trump will win the 2020 election
the recent hiring of a rightwing figure to help manage its news tab has reinforced those fears
in my comments in davos i also pointed out that facebook has been used to cause worse damage in other countries than the united states
in myanmar for example military personnel used facebook to help incite the public against the rohingya who were targeted in a military assault of incredible cruelty including murder rape and the burning of entire villages around 700000 rohingya fled to bangladesh
the international court of justice in the hague is currently deliberating whether these atrocities qualify as genocide
but within the last year facebook has introduced new features on its mobile app that actually intensify the fire of incendiary political attacks — making them easier and quicker to propagate
the system is costfree to the poster and revenuegenerating for facebook
good for facebook bad for democracy
the responsible approach is selfevident
facebook is a publisher not just a neutral moderator or platform
it should be held accountable for the content that appears on its site
speaking at a cocktail party in davos on jan 22 facebook's chief operating officer sheryl sandberg repeated the worn silicon valley clich� that facebook is trying to make the world a better place
but facebook should be judged by what it does not what it says
i repeat and reaffirm my accusation against facebook under the leadership of mr zuckerberg and ms sandberg
they follow only one guiding principle maximize profits irrespective of the consequences
one way or another they should not be left in control of facebook
give joe biden his due by frank bruni dec 20 2019 pete buttigieg and elizabeth warren are the shiny objects
joe biden just may be the keepsake that endures
the other two went at it on thursday night quarreling over the meaning and morality of a wine cave in an exchange that distilled the democratic primary's broader tension between pragmatism and purity compromise and idealism
biden was careful not to be drawn too far into it and during other stretches of the debate stood back
why wouldn't he
for all the worry because he sometimes stutters for all the concern because he occasionally sputters for all his corny locutions malarkey and reflexive conversation fillers here's the deal the former vice president has almost consistently maintained a lead over his democratic rivals in national polls since he announced his candidacy last april
he has recently gained ground in iowa the state that votes first meaning that he may avoid what had been looking like a candidacyimperiling embarrassment there
he has survived salvos from critics and messes of his own that were supposed to halt or at least hobble him the attention to his crossingtheline physicality with women the flipflop about public funding of abortions the backandforth with kamala harris about busing the moment at the fifth democratic primary debate when he seemed to forget either that she was in the senate or that she was black
all of that supposedly made him look weak
but none of that appreciably weakened him
and at the latest debate he performed better than before — which may not be saying a lot but is saying something
he still can't speak in a straight line instead zigging and zagging if he were a car his tires would constantly scrape the curb and his hubcaps would probably pop off
but they stayed on this time around
biden 77 seemed more relaxed and confident and he radiated his trademark warmth
it's difficult not to like him
and it's time to give him his due
so many of us haven't and i'm as guilty as anyone
in past columns i urged him not to run — citing his unsuccessful previous presidential bids his age his eccentricities and his outright flaws — and doubted his ability to go the distance
i joined other pundits and political analysts in treating biden's frontrunner status as fictive or inevitably fleeting and as the bequest of simple name recognition
we decreed that other contenders — harris for an instant warren and buttigieg for longer even bernie sanders of late — had momentum
biden had vestigial good will which we regarded as a less flashy and flimsier commodity
when we examined biden we saw warning signs
look at that light schedule
check out those anemic fundraising numbers
sure many democratic voters deemed him the most electable alternative at a juncture when snatching back the white house mattered infinitely more to them than any romance with a figure fresher and more inspiring than he is
but would they stick
and could he last
so far so good — or rather so biden which in thursday night's debate meant a quizzical reference to winston churchill some endearingly loose banter with sanders and an overarching aura of sheer goodnaturedness
when one of the moderators tim alberta of politico brought up the subject of age biden said look i'm running because i've been around
all my experience
with experience hopefully comes judgment and a little bit of wisdom