Theresa Jessouroun’s new documentary, “A Queima Roupa” (“Point Blank”) tells the story of the past 20 years of massacres committed by the Rio de Janeiro military police. These chacinas are frequently committed in retribution for a killed police officer and traditionally involve coming into a poor neighborhood and killing random, Afro-Brazilian youth. In the film, Ivan Custódio, a former police officer and member of the “Cavalos Corredores” death squad that orchestrated the notorious chacina in Vigário Geral, tells how police hide most of the bodies, and claims to have killed more than 300 people. The film focuses on Rio de Janeiro, but could have been made anywhere in Brazil. Last month in the city of Belém, after an officer was killed, off-duty cops announced their massacre on Facebook and proceeded to go into a slum and kill an estimated 35 people. As usual, most of the victims were Afro-Brazilian teenagers who had no criminal record and were killed to create a climate of terror in their neighborhood.

As solidarity protests spread around the world over racially motivated police violence in Ferguson and New York, it is important to note that this problem is not limited to the United States (or Mexico). In 2012, approximately 23,100 Afro-Brazilian males between the ages of 15 and 29 were murdered in Brazil, according to Amnesty International.  A large number of these were executions, perpetrated by death squads, militias or vigilantes, three groups that are primarily made up of off duty or former police officers. A 2009 study by economist Daniel Cerqueira [PDF] found that Afro-Brazilians are twice as likely as whites to suffer violence from the police. The ratio of police officers to citizens killed by police this year was 21:1, and the National Public Security Forum estimates that 2,212 people were killed by the police in 2013, but some experts believe the actual numbers may dwarf these estimates.

Alexandre Ciconello, the researcher responsible for Amnesty International Brazil’s “Jovem Negro Vivo” campaign against what many call the genocide of young, Afro-Brazilian males, says, “We don’t know how many people the police kill in Brazil. All we have are estimates. Some states don’t report on the issue or provide very poor information. Some states include homicides committed by police outside of working hours, and others don’t. When you look at a state like Rio de Janeiro, which doesn’t calculate murders committed by off-duty police, this becomes a problem because of the militias.”

In 1999, two economists with a big vision and “a total budget smaller than some other thinktanks' entertainment funds” founded the Center for Economic and Policy Research. And for the past 15 years, CEPR has continued to serve as “a professional thorn in the side of orthodoxy”. That’s according to a 2008 editorial in the Guardiannewspaper titled “In praise of... the Center for Economic and Policy Research”, which also noted that “In a world of Goliaths, CEPR makes a rather effective David” (or Underdog, if you prefer).

The following reports on labor market policy were recently released:

Center for American Progress

We the People: Why Congress and U.S. States Must Pass Comprehensive LGBT Nondiscrimination Protections
Sarah McBride, Laura E. Durso, Hannah Hussey, Sharita Gruberg, and Bishop Gene Robinson

For Women to Lead, They Have to Stay in the Game: Why We Need Public Policy to Level the Playing Field
Judith Warner

Can Public Policy Break the Glass Ceiling? Lessons from Abroad
Dalia Ben-Galim and Amna Silim

I apologize for a bit of a digression here for personal reasons (my wife has chronic Lyme disease), but if you'll bear with me, I think I can make some connections. The immediate prompt for this post is a snide article in Slate by Brian Palmer, warning readers that, "New York is about to change its medical misconduct law to protect quacks."

The "quacks" referred to in the article's sub-headline are doctors who provide long-term antibiotic treatment for people who have chronic Lyme disease. As the article tells us, chronic Lyme does not exist:

"The Infectious Diseases Society of America—the association of scientists and clinicians who study this sort of thing—has repeatedly characterized chronic Lyme disease as 'not based on scientific fact.'"

It's great that Palmer can be so confident of this assertion, but it turns out that the evidence is far weaker than the association of scientists and clinicians who study this sort of thing might lead you to believe. There are actually very few studies that have tried to evaluate the effectiveness of long-term antibiotic treatment of people who believe themselves to be suffering from chronic Lyme.

As explained in an analysis by Brown University researcher Allison DeLong, one of the studies was poorly designed so that it would have been almost impossible for it to have found a significant effect from antibiotic treatment. A second study did find evidence that treatment alleviated symptoms, however this finding was dismissed because the symptoms returned after the treatment stopped. (Effectively this study was testing whether six months of treatment would cure patients, some of whom had years of prior treatment. It really shouldn't have taken too much background in science to know the answer to that one would be no.)

The third study actually did find statistically significant evidence that treatment improved patients' outcomes by its main measure, a survey on fatigue. However it dismissed this finding because the researchers decided that the blind nature of the study had been compromised. When surveyed after the fact, 70 percent of the control group wrongly guessed that they had been treated. However two-thirds of the treatment group somehow recognized that they were being treated. Therefore the researchers decided that they could not accept the results, since the people in the treatment group knew they were being treated.

I'm not making this up. You can find the study here. It was published in a major medical journal and its negative findings are routinely cited by doctors arguing that chronic Lyme disease does not exist and long-term antibiotic treatment is pointless. (If you haven't figured it out yet, the study found exactly what you would want in the comparison between the control and the treatment group. The same percent of people in each group thought they were being treating. This means that the blind nature of the study was not compromised.) 

At a ceremony yesterday afternoon, an advisory committee handed their report over to Haitian President Michel Martelly, requesting the removal of Prime Minister Laurent Lamothe among other actions aimed at resolving Haiti’s electoral crisis. Jacqueline Charles reports for the Miami Herald:

The 10-page report, penned by an 11-member presidential commission, sets a timetable for Lamothe’s resignation. It also recommends replacing the head of the country’s Supreme Court and members of the body charged with organizing long-delayed elections. Dozens who have been arbitrarily arrested and deemed by human rights groups to be political prisoners should be released, the report said.

The Herald released a copy of the report they had received, which is available here (PDF). The Haitian government and international community, mainly the United States and United Nations, have long blamed the electoral delay on opposition from the so-called “Group of Six” senators. With parliamentary terms set to expire January 12 and no solution to the electoral crisis, it appears as though the positions of both the government and international community are softening; however it might not be enough.

The advisory commission was created by President Martelly following a week of increasingly large demonstrations throughout Haiti, calling on the president and prime minister to resign and for the holding of elections. Martelly is expected to make a decision on the recommendations by the end of the week. The moves come as the U.S. has taken on an even more visible role in trying to break the electoral impasse.  

Just months after the U.S. ambassador to the U.N., Samantha Power, had laid the blame squarely on Haiti’s opposition for the delays, current U.S. Ambassador to Haiti Pamela White met with some opposition political parties on December 2 (although reportedly not Famni Lavalas, a party that has consistently won all of the elections that it's been allowed to participate in).  In a statement after the meeting, the U.S. embassy said that White was “extremely impressed with their analysis of the current political situation, dedication to Haiti's future and willingness to truly negotiate for the betterment of their country.” An opposition leader, Jean André Victor, told the press after the meeting with White: “We told Mrs White in no uncertain terms that the current crisis is one of Haiti's making, and it is up to Haiti to find a solution.”

But U.S. diplomatic efforts continue. Haitian newspaper Le Nouvelliste reported last night that Thomas Shannon, an advisor to Secretary of State John Kerry, arrived in Haiti yesterday and will be holding meetings with various political players in the country. A visit from Kerry himself has yet to be confirmed but has been widely expected in the coming days.

December 2014, Alexander Main

Thomas Edsall has as interesting piece this morning discussing the changing plight of working class whites in the United States and their increasing estrangement from the Democratic Party. He gets much of the story right. Certainly they can no longer be assured of a comfortable middle class existence. And, if they do manage to get middle class jobs, they certainly cannot guarantee that their children will be as lucky.

However some of the argument is misplaced. Edsall notes the sharp growth in single mothers among women without college degrees. He then refers to research showing worse outcomes for children of single parents, implying that the problems for children stem from the increasing ability of parents to get divorced. This does not follow.

To take the simplest story, imagine a world in which no one is allowed to get divorced. Some children grow up in happy families with two committed parents. These children are likely on average to do well in life. On the other hand, some children grow up in dysfunctional families where parents regularly fight and a father may be abusive, alcoholic, or have other serious issues. These children will probably on average do less well in life.

Now suppose we allow couples to divorce. Presumably the happy couples stay together and the unhappy ones get divorced. If we compare outcomes of the children we would likely find that the children raised by two parents do better than the children raised by single mothers. However, it would be wrong to conclude that the problems for the children of single mothers stemmed from the fact that they are divorced, it would stem from the fact that they had been in bad relationships.

Given that divorce and single parents are a reality, the obvious policy response is to ensure that children get the education and support they need regardless of their family background. Good public child care, access to pre-K education, and affordable college education seem like obvious policy responses to these circumstances, along with laws that guarantee family friendly workplaces (e.g. paid sick days and paid family leave). These are policies that the Democrats have typically advocated.

The other set of policies for the white working class that the Democrats could (and sometimes have) advocate have to do with full employment. As Jared Bernstein and I argued in our book, Getting Back to Full Employment (download is free), full employment disproportionately benefits those at the middle and bottom of the wage distribution. The only period in the last four decades where these workers enjoyed sustained real wage gains was in the period of low unemployment from 1996 to 2000. Barring other changes in the economy, we will have to return to unemployment rates below 5.0 percent before most workers will again see substantial real wage gains.

There are three policies that the Democrats can push to again get the unemployment rate down to these low levels. The first involves additional government spending which would boost demand, growth, and employment. Unfortunately, superstitions about budget deficits makes this unlikely in the foreseeable future.

Dean Baker
PBS NewsHour, December 8, 2014

Sorry, I usually find Matt's stuff interesting, but I couldn't resist the cheap shot. Anyhow, Matt seems to have gotten himself stuck in the mud of a silly debate between Obama haters and Obama apologists.

The haters are saying that all the jobs created under the Obama administration are part-time jobs -- pointing out that full-time employment is still below the pre-recession peak. Meanwhile the apologists are pointing out that most of the jobs created under Obama have been full-time jobs. With the wisdom of someone other than Solomon, Matt pronounces them both right.

Okay, let's step back for a moment and deal with two separate issues. The first is overall employment. We saw a huge fall in employment that began before Obama stepped into the White House and continued for his three months in office. Since that point the economy has gained back more jobs than it initially lost. However since part-time employment (both voluntary and involuntary, a distinction to which we return momentarily) is well above pre-recession levels, full-time employment is still below its pre-recession level.

How should this appear on the Obama scorecard? Well, it's pretty damn silly to blame Obama for the downturn. He walked into an economic disaster that was not of his doing. We can argue that the recovery should have been more robust. I know the Republicans blame Obamacare, taxes, regulations and the Redskins' defense, but none of these explanations can pass the laugh test.

The more obvious explanation, which some of us did say at the time, is that the stimulus was not large enough to fill the hole in demand created by the collapse of the housing bubble. There is a question as to whether Obama could have gotten more stimulus through Congress, either at the time or in subsequent efforts, but the main problem was congressional opposition, not the actions of President Obama.

Last week, the Aspen Institute hosted a discussion on “the future of work in the sharing economy,” which focused on company platforms that facilitate the exchange of property, space, or labor. I consider myself fairly well acquainted with all three sides of this economy, especially when it comes to labor, so I wanted to weigh in here.

Over the years, I have worked a variety of odd jobs to help pay for school and living expenses, such as giving swimming lessons, babysitting, tutoring, and working as a family assistant, where my responsibilities have covered everything from dogwalking, buying groceries, paying bills, to researching preschool admissions processes. Most of these jobs were on-demand, made to accommodate both my schedule and those of my customers/clients. This does not even include my “regular” employment history of working as a university resident assistant, research fellow, lifeguard, security guard, and in various internships. I still laugh when I remember bonding with one of my roommates over always being “on the hustle” (the legal variety, of course). In the months since my graduation, I have also been an avid adopter of Craigslist, having found my apartment, bike, most of my furniture, and even kitchen supplies on the platform.

Andrew Biggs had a column in the Wall Street Journal last week complaining that public pension funds were taking excessive risk by having 70 percent to 80 percent of their holdings in risky assets, such as stocks and various alternative investment vehicles. In a few cases, holdings of risky assets apparently cross 80 percent. Biggs argues that this is far too high and that underfunded pension plans are now taking big gambles in the hope of closing their funding gap.

Bigg's basic argument stems largely from an inappropriate comparison of pension investment patterns to individual investment. Biggs tells readers:

"Many individuals follow a rough '100 minus your age' rule to determine how much risk to take with their retirement savings. A 25-year-old might put 75% of his savings in stocks or other risky assets, the remaining 25% in bonds and other safer investments. A 45-year-old would hold 55% in stocks, and a 65-year-old 35%. Individuals take this risk knowing that the end balance of their IRA or 401(k) account will vary with market returns.

"Now consider the California Public Employees’ Retirement System (Calpers), the largest U.S. public plan and a trendsetter for others. The typical participant is around age 62, so a '100 minus age' rule would recommend that Calpers hold about 38% risky assets."

The logic of an individual following this rule is that some point individuals will retire and basically be dependent on their savings and Social Security for all their income. Retirement is usually a pretty sharp break. If the stock market happens to be down at that point, they will be in trouble if they hold lots ot stock, especially if their intention had been to buy an annuity to support themselves in retirement. They will be forced to sell their stock at a depressed value since they won't have the option to wait for the price to recover.