International: The lottery of life methodology | The Economist

The Economist Magazine provides a world view on how countries are doing for their citizens …  The report speaks to quality of life and satisfaction providing an index that measures each country’s status, like a report card, on its population.

The USA used to be number 1 in this index as early as 1988.  Today it has fallen to 16th.

This precipitous fall during the last quarter century (1988 to 2012) is a result of the American obsession with taxes, healthcare and education… Not an obsession to fix these things but an incapacity to do so ..

Read the Economist report, it may be an important wakeup call to the 1% who seek more and more while the country cracks and crumbles…

 

“The life satisfaction scores for 2006 on scale of 1 to 10 for 130 countries from the Gallup Poll are related in a multivariate regression to various factors. As many as 11 indicators are statistically significant. Together these indicators explain some 85% of the inter-country variation in life satisfaction scores. The values of the life satisfaction scores that are predicted by our indicators represent a countrys quality of life index. The coefficients in the estimated equation weight automatically the importance of the various factors. We can utilise the estimated equation for 2006 to calculate index values for year in the past and future, allowing for comparison over time as well across …”

via International: The lottery of life methodology | The Economist.

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Saying No to College – NYTimes.com

Family incomes, markets and job prospects have all been crushed by over a decade of economic angst and dreary fiscal outlooks … This is now affecting the opportunity for families to send their kids to college and also dampening the desire of ambitious bright kids to stick it out in college …

The NYTs highlights the “Zuckerberg and Gates” dropout phenomena as the down economy pushes kids out of college early in their pursuit of  entreprenurial success and big bucks!

 

“BENJAMIN GOERING does not look like Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, talk like him or inspire the same controversy. But he does apparently think …”

via Saying No to College – NYTimes.com.

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For richer, for poorer | The Economist

IN 1889, AT the height of America’s first Gilded Age, George Vanderbilt II, grandson of the original railway magnate, set out to build a country estate in the Blue Ridge mountains of North Carolina. He hired the most prominent architect of the time, toured the chateaux of the Loire for inspiration, laid a railway to bring in limestone from Indiana and employed more than …

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Downturn and Legacy of Bush Policies Drive Large Current Deficits — Center on Budget and Policy Priorities

Some lawmakers, pundits, and others continue to say that President George W. Bush’s policies did not drive the projected federal deficits of the coming decade — that, instead, it was the policies of President Obama and Congress in 2009 and 2010.  But, the fact remains:  the economic downturn, President Bush’s tax cuts and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq explain most of the deficit over the next ten years — according to this update of our analysis, which is based on the Congressional Budget Office’s most recent ten-year budget projections (from August) and congressional action since we released the previous version of this analysis in May 2011.  (For a fuller discussion, see the technical note that begins on p. 6.)

The deficit for fiscal year 2009 — which began more than three months before President Obama’s inauguration — was $1.4 trillion and, at 10 percent of Gross …

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National Health Service Corps: Public Sector Choice for Minority Physicians

National Health Service Corps

The full-time National Health Service Corps Loan Repayment Program offers up to $60,000 in tax-free loan repayment for 2 years of service, and up to $140,000 for a total of 5 years of service.

National Health Service Corps scholars commit to serve in the Corps upon completion of their training — 1 year for each year of support (at least 2 years).

The Students to Service Loan Repayment Program provides loan repayment assistance of up to $120,000 to medical students (MD and DO) in their last year of school, in return for a commitment to provide primary health care services in eligible Health Professional Shortage Areas of greatest need for at least 3 years.

The State Loan Repayment Program provides grants to states to operate their own loan repayment programs. Similar to the NHSC Loan Repayment Program, participants in the state programs provide primary health services in Health Professional Shortage Areas in exchange for repayment of their qualifying educational loans.  States are required to match federal grant funds dollar-for-dollar with non-federal funds.

According to self-reports by the nearly 10,000 Corps clinicians currently providing care – 13 percent are African American, 10 percent are Hispanic, 7 percent are Asian or Pacific Islander, and 2 percent are American Indian or Alaska Native.

In FY 2012, African American physicians represent 17 percent of the Corps physicians which exceeds their 6.3 percent representation within the national physician workforce. And,

Hispanic physicians represent 16 percent of the Corps physicians, exceeding their 5.5 percent representation in the national physician workforce.

According to self-reports more than half of by the nearly 1,000 Corps scholars in the pipeline are minorities – 26 percent are Hispanic, 19 percent are African American, 12 percent are Asian or Pacific Islander, and 2 percent are American Indian or Alaska Native.

via National Health Service Corps.

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One Jobs Report, Two Different Political Spins : NPR

With a new report showing the nation’s unemployment rate fell to 7.8 percent last month, the Obama administration got good news Friday: Jobs are indeed growing. But, as Republicans noted, the pace remains well …

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Passing the DREAM Act for Our Economy | Center for American Progress

When I immigrated to Florida at age 10, it was the immigrant students who welcomed and befriended me at South Seminole Middle School. Carlos, Isabel, and a few others took English as a Second Language classes with me, while others whose families had immigrated years earlier and were already well on their way to fluency showed us the …

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Obama touts jobs report as he seeks to lift campaign | Reuters

President Barack Obama on Friday hailed a drop in the U.S. jobless rate to the lowest level since he took office, saying the country had “come too far to turn back now,” as he …

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America’s jobs report: A gasp of life | The Economist

ARACK OBAMA’S re-election hopes were dealt a setback by Mitt Romney’s relentless attack on his economic record at Wednesday’s presidential debate. Today, he got a lifeline from an unlikely source: the economy.

In September, the unemployment rate plunged, unexpectedly, to 7.8%, from 8.1% in August. It was the first time it fell below 8% since …

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Jobless Rate Falls to 7.8%, Lowest Level of Obama’s Term – NYTimes.com

The nation’s unemployment rate dropped sharply to 7.8 percent in September, its lowest level since the month President Obama took office, the Labor Department …

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Daily Number: Most See Secure Job as Ticket to Middle Class – Pew Research Center

Americans believe that having a secure job is by far the most important requirement for being in the middle class, easily trumping homeownership and a college education.

Nearly nine-in-ten adults (86%) say a person needs a secure job to be considered part of the middle class, while just 45% say the same about owning a home, 37% about a college education and 28% about financial investments.

Of the five items tested in the survey question, the only other one seen as essential to a middle-class lifestyle by a majority of the public: health insurance. For many Americans, health insurance comes through one’s job. Two-thirds of adults say it’s an essential ticket to a middle-class life.

The public’s view about what it takes to be in the middle class appears to have changed dramatically over the past two decades. In a 1991 nationwide Time/CNN/Yankelovich survey, seven-in-ten respondents said homeownership was essential to being in the middle class, while just one-third said the same about having “a white collar job.” Read more

via Daily Number: Most See Secure Job as Ticket to Middle Class – Pew Research Center.

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A Recovery No Better than the Recession | Pew Social & Demographic Trends

The median income of American households decreased by as much in the two years after the official end of the Great Recession as it did during the recession itself. The latest estimates from the Census Bureau show that the median income for U.S. households in 2011 was $50,054.1 In 2009, the year the Great Recession ended,2 the median income of U.S. households had been $52,195 (in 2011 dollars). Thus, in the two years since the end of the recession, median household income has fallen by 4.1%.

The decrease in household income from 2009 to 2011 almost exactly equaled the decrease in income in the two years of the recession. During the Great Recession, the median U.S. household income (in 2011 dollars) dropped from $54,489 in 2007 to $52,195 in 2009, a loss of 4.2%. By this yardstick, the recovery from the Great Recession is bypassing the nation’s households.

via A Recovery No Better than the Recession | Pew Social & Demographic Trends.

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