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TroySchneider: @LizaK My office has both a standing desk and a couch - it's a good combination, half-marathon or no!
@troyschneider - 10 hours 20 min ago
TroySchneider: @LizaK My office has both a standing desk and a couch - it's a good combination, half-marathon or no!
TroySchneider: RT @jkeefe: Join the WNYC Data News Team! Interaction Designer job just posted. Also JavaScripter. Have fun + do journalism. http://t.co ...
@troyschneider - 3 February 2012 - 1:01pm
TroySchneider: RT @jkeefe: Join the WNYC Data News Team! Interaction Designer job just posted. Also JavaScripter. Have fun + do journalism. http://t.co ...
TroySchneider: RT @paufder: Great blogpost by Duke's Kevin Smith, #fairuse ferment" #librarianscode http://t.co/KXSAJ1is
@troyschneider - 3 February 2012 - 9:10am
TroySchneider: RT @paufder: Great blogpost by Duke's Kevin Smith, #fairuse ferment" #librarianscode http://t.co/KXSAJ1is
TroySchneider: RT @Mlsif: NYTimes is crowdscouring the identity of a secret SuperPac donor: http://t.co/K00F15tZ
@troyschneider - 3 February 2012 - 9:03am
TroySchneider: RT @Mlsif: NYTimes is crowdscouring the identity of a secret SuperPac donor: http://t.co/K00F15tZ
TroySchneider: RT @flowingdata: An action plan for data science, a decade ago http://t.co/MI6o7e4x
@troyschneider - 3 February 2012 - 7:30am
TroySchneider: RT @flowingdata: An action plan for data science, a decade ago http://t.co/MI6o7e4x
TroySchneider: . @lxbarth and @djindc - thanks for the big brain dump on @mapbox!
@troyschneider - 3 February 2012 - 1:17am
TroySchneider: . @lxbarth and @djindc - thanks for the big brain dump on @mapbox!
TroySchneider: RT @sween: Maybe more people would believe in climate change if scientists popped out of a hole in the ground.
@troyschneider - 3 February 2012 - 1:07am
TroySchneider: RT @sween: Maybe more people would believe in climate change if scientists popped out of a hole in the ground.
TroySchneider: Smart stuff, as usual, from @johnbattelle: http://t.co/pb0fx3nu "...What Commons Do We Wish For?"
@troyschneider - 2 February 2012 - 9:19pm
TroySchneider: Smart stuff, as usual, from @johnbattelle: http://t.co/pb0fx3nu "...What Commons Do We Wish For?"
TroySchneider: NYC energy use mapped down to the building level! http://t.co/5Dl1T8Yg #dataviz
@troyschneider - 2 February 2012 - 9:05pm
TroySchneider: NYC energy use mapped down to the building level! http://t.co/5Dl1T8Yg #dataviz
8 House GOP Freshman Want Credit For Getting A Cash Advance On Their Master Card To Make A Payment On Their Visa
Capital Gains & Games - 2 February 2012 - 8:00pm
This should eliminate all doubts about how little some members of Congress understand about federal finances.
As Dana Milbank explains in his column from today's The Washington Post, eight House Republican freshman made a grandstanding play this week to get public attention and credit for something that makes no financial sense whatsoever.
First, the eight representatives didn't spend all of the amount they got in 2011 from the House of Representatives to pay for staff and other expenses in their Washington and district offices. They correctly claimed that they saved taxpayers money by doing so.
But second, the representatives then said that they wanted to return the unspent money to the Treasury and designate that the funds be used to reduce the national deb. They clearly felt that they should get big props for doing this.
This is wrong on so many levels that it's hard to know where to start.
The Treasury doesn't give each member a wad of cash to spend; it only pays actual expenses after they're incurred. Fewer expenses mean no spending; no spending means no federal borrowing.
In other words, the deficit and federal borrowing were already lower than they would otherwise have been just because the members of Congress didn't spend all that they were allowed. There is no unspent cash to be returned to the Treasury and there's nothing to designate for debt reduction.
The only way the eight first-term Republican House members could have done what they said they wanted to do was first to have gotten the Treasury to borrow more so that they could then use the borrowed funds to borrow less.
And it gets more ridiculous. The Treasury would have had to borrow the funds and pay them to the members of Congress personally (I'm pretty sure that's against the law, but never mind). The members then would have had to return the funds they were not allowed to have back to the Treasury and ask that they be used to lower the debt.
In other words, the members of Congress who were trying to play the role of budget super heroes were really nothing more than financial illiterates. They were doing the Washington equivalent of being proud of paying down a balance on one credit card by getting a cash advance on another...and increasing that car's balance in the process.
If you're shaking your head at the stupidity of this situation...congratulations: You understand it better than at least eight members of the U.S. House of Representatives.
For the record, the eight anything-but-financial-geniuses are Jeff Landry (R-LA), Tim Huelskamp (R-KS), Joe Walsh (R-IL), Jeff Duncan (R-SC), Kevin Yoder (R-KS), Raul Labrador (R-ID), Steve Southerland (R-FL), ad Mick Mulvaney (R-SC).
I doubt they're embarrassed, but they really should be.
TroySchneider: Zut alors! What will they say about @MapBox? “@evgenymorozov: French Court Calls Free Google Maps Unfair Competition http://t.co/ecL6weDJ”
@troyschneider - 2 February 2012 - 7:49pm
TroySchneider: Zut alors! What will they say about @MapBox? “@evgenymorozov: French Court Calls Free Google Maps Unfair Competition http://t.co/ecL6weDJ”
TroySchneider: RT @lxbarth: Legislative Data & Transparency kicking off, I've been told u can find a link to the live stream somewhere here http://t.co ...
@troyschneider - 2 February 2012 - 9:49am
TroySchneider: RT @lxbarth: Legislative Data & Transparency kicking off, I've been told u can find a link to the live stream somewhere here http://t.co ...
TroySchneider: RT @CGAP: Happening now - webcast of launch event for Central American #remittances price comparison price tool http://t.co/VEjTkrEy @ID ...
@troyschneider - 2 February 2012 - 9:44am
TroySchneider: RT @CGAP: Happening now - webcast of launch event for Central American #remittances price comparison price tool http://t.co/VEjTkrEy @ID ...
TroySchneider: . @evgenymorozov Showoff!
@troyschneider - 1 February 2012 - 7:41pm
TroySchneider: . @evgenymorozov Showoff!
TroySchneider: RT @NewAmericaNYC: Standing room only for @rmack Consent of the Networked. So many people love the Internet! #nanyc
@troyschneider - 1 February 2012 - 7:37pm
TroySchneider: RT @NewAmericaNYC: Standing room only for @rmack Consent of the Networked. So many people love the Internet! #nanyc
TroySchneider: RT @IndSector: D.C. Data Dive - Who Wants In? Join the #ISNGen Fellows for an upcoming Data Dive. Deadline 2/3. http://t.co/hkjQ3oWI #no ...
@troyschneider - 1 February 2012 - 7:30pm
TroySchneider: RT @IndSector: D.C. Data Dive - Who Wants In? Join the #ISNGen Fellows for an upcoming Data Dive. Deadline 2/3. http://t.co/hkjQ3oWI #no ...
TroySchneider: RT @civic_io: [New Blog Post] Open Data Needs Champions. http://t.co/IkAr6csm #opendata #civichacking #transit
@troyschneider - 1 February 2012 - 5:16pm
TroySchneider: RT @civic_io: [New Blog Post] Open Data Needs Champions. http://t.co/IkAr6csm #opendata #civichacking #transit
TroySchneider: RT @jjeff: Lullabot cranking out responsive designs! Yesterday: Grammys http://t.co/BtgCAT2D. Today: Safari Books http://t.co/0FFIJa3s # ...
@troyschneider - 1 February 2012 - 12:54pm
TroySchneider: RT @jjeff: Lullabot cranking out responsive designs! Yesterday: Grammys http://t.co/BtgCAT2D. Today: Safari Books http://t.co/0FFIJa3s # ...
Dollar Coin Supporters Trying To Sell Us The Brooklyn Bridge
Capital Gains & Games - 1 February 2012 - 5:45am
For some reason the dollar coin keeps coming up.
A press release in my inbox yesterday announced that Senators Tom Harkin (D-IA) and John McCain (R-AZ) had introduced the "Currency Optimization, Innovation and National Savings (COINS) Act" that would create yet another dollar coin. This is the Senate version of a bill introduced in the House last year.
As I've posted several times before (here, here, and here) I know from very very personal experience with the Golden Dollar in 2000 that, as far as the budget is concerned, a dollar coin is a good idea for the federal government.
I also know, however, it's been impossible to eliminate the bill so that the dollar coins that have been created have been a supplement to rather than a substitute for the greenback. That completely changes the transaction: Instead of producing savings, the dollar coins that have been minted have ended up costing taxpayers more rather than less. The real beneficiaries have been the suppliers of the raw materials for the coins and the armored carriers that delivered them to banks and retailers.
Think of it this way. Suppose there was a old bridge that cost the government a great deal to maintain every year and someone determined that replacing the bridge with one that was more efficient made a great deal of budget sense. It clearly was going to cost more in the first few years to build the new bridge than to maintain the old one, but the new one was going to save money over the next three decades compared to what it would cost to keep the old one in place.
But there's a problem: Drivers like the old bridge and aren't going to use the new one because it's located 3 miles further down the road. They also don't like the design of the new bridge and have trouble getting there because the access points are difficult to maneuver.
As a result, traffic on the old bridge only decreases slightly and the government still has to pay to maintain it while it also pays for the new bridge. The result is more rather than less spending. That makes the new bridge a good deal for the companies and workers that build it and the steel and concrete manufacturers that provide the raw materials. But it's a terrible deal for taxpayers.
I'm sure you see where this is going. The savings can be guaranteed if the old bridge is torn down. That, in fact, is what the newly introduced COINS act would do: it would mandate that the dollar bill be eliminated.
But that doesn't take into account the politics of the situation. The bill is very popular (some consumers feel incredible loyalty to it and think of using a coin as the equivalent of cheating on a spouse), and retailers don't like them because they are more expensive to have delivered than bills.
Vending machine owners whose machines don't already accept dollar coins don't like them because it costs a good deal of money to make the conversion (It was $50 per machine in 2000; that's undoubtedly $75 or more now).
Banks don't like new dollar coins because they still have large inventories of Susan B. Anthony dollars -- maybe the most unpopular coin is U.S. history -- and can't get get consumers to take them.
And lets not forget the companies that manufacture the paper and ink for the bills that want to keep selling that to the government.
So the likelihood that the dollar bill will be phased out is small to nonexistent. That means that the transition to a dollar coin in the U.S. will not produce the budget savings its supporters claim.
It also means that the supporters are just trying to sell us a bridge.
The Real Story About The Obama Pentagon Changes
Capital Gains & Games - 1 February 2012 - 5:27am
Here are two easy-and-quick-to-read pieces on the magnitude of the military spending changes Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta actually announced last week. The simple answer according to two people who know is that the reductions are less than the headlines indicated.
First, over at the Will and the Wallet, CG&G alum Gordon Adams did this very nice post about how what Panetta announced is "promising" in the sense that it shows there is finally the start of a meaningful shift in DOD strategy that could lead to significant savings. But Gordon says the proposal is also "dangerous" because the plans leaves "the long term budget trajectory...unrealistically high" and will leave Pentagon planners with the notion that they'll have more to spend in the future than will be the case.
Over at his own blog GoozNews, Merrill Goozner did this excellent post that talks about the numbers and the politics of the military budget changes Panetta announced. His conclusion: there's much less in what was announced than the White House wants you to believe.
