Gay Rights Graphic

May 11, 2012
Posted by Jay Livingston

As the graph in yesterday’s post showed, support for gay marriage  is not uniform across age groups.  There is also wide variation by region and state in the laws on marriage and other matters.
The Guardian had a great graphic on gay rights in the 50 states.  Here’s a screen grab.

(Click on the image for a larger version.  Better, follow the link below to the original.)

For the full interactive version, go to The Guardian (here).  As you mouse across each state, it shows the details in the seven categories.  In the version above, the size of each state’s wedge is proportionate to its population.  But you can switch to an equal size version.

The Guardian has also published an article showing how they developed the graphic.

Which Side of History Are You On?

May 10, 2012
Posted by Jay Livingston

In yesterday’s post (here) on the anti-gay-marriage vote in North Carolina , I said that the tide of history – short-run history at least – was flowing quickly the other way.  Here’s the evidence from the Pew survey. In each age cohort, the percent favoring gay marriage has increase substantially since 2009.

(Click on the chart for a larger, clearer view.)

The young, who will make up more and more of the electorate, are twice as likely as the old to favor gay marriage.  On top of that, acceptance of gay marriage has increased among all age groups. In twenty years, when the youngest of the silent generation who are still alive will be close to ninety, most of the population will look upon these anti-gay efforts the way we now look at those old anti-intermarriage laws – as, depending on your point of view, quaint, puzzling, ignorant, or vicious.

The Pew Website has more charts – animated and interactive - on this topic.

The Lilies of the Street

May 10, 2012
Posted by Jay Livingston

Felix Salmon (here) writes about using “neutrinos to transmit information, at the speed of light, right through the center of the earth.”  He continues:

If this was successfully implemented, price information from Sydney could reach New York in just 40.2 milliseconds, compared to the 84.4 milliseconds it takes to send that information on fibers around the surface of the earth. The difference is more than enough time for traders in New York to make real money arbitraging securities listed in both cities.

I don’t know enough about neutrinos, arbitrage, or Felix Salmon to be sure, but I think he’s being ironic. 

In 2009, we learned that Goldman Sachs was making untold millions by using computerized “high frequency” trading. 

Powerful algorithms — “algos,” in industry parlance — execute millions of orders a second and scan dozens of public and private marketplaces simultaneously. They can spot trends before other investors can blink, changing orders and strategies within milliseconds. (From the New York Times)

That year, Goldman paid its 30,000 employees year-end bonuses that averaged $700,000. That’s the average; many executives and traders took away millions

Those neutrino  arbitrageurs and derivative traders make up a fair chunk of the 1% (or really the half of one percent, according to Scott Winship)  They got rich and stayed rich by moving money around.  At warp speed. The Republicans tell us it would be disastrous and unfair to raise their tax rate from 37% to 39%, even though in reality, thanks to complicated tax laws, many of them pay a rate that’s half of what their office staff pay. Why disastrous and unfair?  Because they are “job creators.” 

Behold these job creators, the lilies of the Street. They manufacture not, they service not, they heal not, teach not, entertain not . . .  yet Solomon in all his glory never had the kind of moolah they have amassed. Goldman’s profits in 2009 were about $13 billion. 

Do we have an estimate of how many jobs they created? 

HT: Dan Hirschman

Tar Heels Do It Again

May 9, 2012
Posted by Jay Livingston

Is North Carolina once again lining up on the wrong side of history?

The citizens of North Carolina voted yesterday to prohibit gay marriage.  It wasn’t the first time North Carolina put marriage in its constitution.*

The text of 1875 constitution says that interracial marriages are “banned forever.”  Not quite. The ban lasted 92 years.  When North Carolina drafted a new constitution in 1971, the US Supreme Court had already declared state intermarriage laws unconstitutional. 

Will it take that long for the Court to take a similar view of laws banning same-sex marriage?  That depends on who appoints the justices.  But I suspect that public opinion will turn much sooner, even in North Carolina.  In 20-30 twenty years, most Americans will look at these laws the way we now look at those 19th-century anti-miscegenation statutes that survived until 1967 – with the binge-drinker’s  morning-after sense of embarrassment.  “Did I really do those things?” – as though the denial of rights to whole categories of people had been unintentional, not really harmful, and in retrospect maybe even kind of amusing. 

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* I found this image at the Think Progress page on Twitter (here).  It can surely now be found in many other places.