Thursday, January 16

Journalism

One Of America’s Deepest Downturns Was Also Its Shortest After COVID-19 Recession Bailout Bounceback
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Journalism

One Of America’s Deepest Downturns Was Also Its Shortest After COVID-19 Recession Bailout Bounceback

Jay L. Zagorsky, Boston University Thanks to a roaring economy, plunging joblessness and a consumer spending spree, it probably won’t come as a surprise that the COVID-19 recession is officially over. We didn’t know this, formally, however, until July 19, 2021, when a group of America’s top economists determined that the pandemic recession ended two months after it began, making it the shortest downturn on record. As an economist who has written a macroeconomics textbook, I was eagerly waiting to know the official dates. This is in part because I recently asked my Boston University MBA students to make guesses, and we all wanted to know who was closest to the mark. While many of my students ended up nailing it, I was off by a month. But why did it take over a year to learn the recessio...
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Unlike Companies Traded On Wall Street – Trump Organization Indictment Hints At Downsides Of Having No Independent Oversight
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Journalism

Unlike Companies Traded On Wall Street – Trump Organization Indictment Hints At Downsides Of Having No Independent Oversight

Bert Spector, Northeastern University A Manhattan grand jury indicted the Trump Organization and one of its top executives, Chief Financial Officer Allen Weisselberg, reportedly over a failure to pay taxes, according to multiple reports. The indictment is expected to be unsealed on July 1, 2021. I’m a scholar in corporate leadership and governance. While I can’t comment on the specifics of the case, I do know that private companies like the Trump Organization lack the safeguards of public corporations – like outside ownership and independent oversight. Moreover, impulsive decision-making by an individual or small, isolated group of followers, without those safeguards, can and often will lead to disastrous results. That appears to be what the ongoing criminal investigations into the Tru...
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Why The G-7 Effort To End Tax Havens Is Unlikely To Succeed
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Journalism

Why The G-7 Effort To End Tax Havens Is Unlikely To Succeed

Beverly Moran, Vanderbilt University Close your eyes and imagine a tax haven. Does a Caribbean island come to mind? Sand, surf and thousands of post office boxes housing shell corporations? Some tax havens, like the Cayman Islands or Bermuda, fit that description. Many others do not. The key to a tax haven is the taxes, not the tan. Any place that allows a taxpayer – whether an individual or a company – to get a lower tax bill overseas than at home is a tax haven. Thus, depending on the taxpayer’s jurisdiction and business, many places turn out to be tax havens, even the United States. A recent agreement by the Group of Seven wealthy nations seeks to eliminate corporate tax havens by imposing a global 15% minimum corporate tax rate. However, as a tax expert, I find the effort hard to t...
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COVID Lockdowns – Was It Worth It? Why Nobody Will Ever Agree
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HEALTH & WELLNESS, Journalism

COVID Lockdowns – Was It Worth It? Why Nobody Will Ever Agree

James D. Long, University of Washington; Mark A. Smith, University of Washington, and Victor Menaldo, University of Washington As an increasingly vaccinated world emerges from lockdowns, lots of people are talking about whether the fight against the pandemic was too strong or too weak. Some people argue restrictions did not go far enough; others maintain the attempted cures have been worse than the disease. One reason for these conflicting views is that the answer depends on both facts and values. Relevant facts include features of the virus like transmission rates and deaths. Government policies were often guided by scientific findings to reduce the spread of the virus and the resulting illnesses and deaths. Relevant values include health and longevity, but also prosperity, opportunit...
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Astrology: It’s Only Accurate If You Do This
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Journalism

Astrology: It’s Only Accurate If You Do This

The majority of people roll their eyes at the topic of astrology. Here's an example: "I don't believe in astrology. It's a lot of crap. I just think that's another thing you should throw out the window. Mysticism. Cheap. It's amazing that people still hang on to that after all these years." Mick Jagger Well, we don't believe in the type of astrology you've likely been exposed to either, Mick. What Mick and many others don't realize is that astrology is like mathematics; you need to know where and when to use the many different factors and protocols (well beyond the mere Sun sign or horoscopes) for consistent accuracy. Unfortunately, the Age of Reason in the 17th and 18th centuries contributed to the corruption of the ancient science of astrology, as did the commercialization of it start...
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At Catholic Colleges Students Leave With Less Positive Attitudes Toward Gay People Than Their Peers – But That’s Not The Whole Story
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Journalism

At Catholic Colleges Students Leave With Less Positive Attitudes Toward Gay People Than Their Peers – But That’s Not The Whole Story

The Research Brief is a short take about interesting academic work. The big idea Students at Catholic colleges and universities begin their studies with more positive attitudes toward gay, lesbian and bisexual people than their peers at evangelical colleges and universities, our survey found. But that’s no longer the case by the time they graduate. Multidisciplinary research teams at Ohio State University, North Carolina State University and Interfaith Youth Core, a Chicago-based nonprofit, surveyed 3,486 students attending 122 institutions of various types, sizes and affiliations. Our study, the Interfaith Diversity Experiences and Attitudes Longitudinal Survey, polled the students three times over their time in college – in the fall of 2015, the spring of 2016 and the spring of 2019. W...
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Giving Back Money That Doesn’t Belong To You – What Are The Ethics?
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Journalism, MONEY

Giving Back Money That Doesn’t Belong To You – What Are The Ethics?

In Monopoly, a player who draws the card that says “BANK ERROR IN YOUR FAVOR. COLLECT $200” gets to keep the money. But what happens when such a mistake occurs in real life? Kelyn Spadoni, a 911 dispatcher, recently received quite a bit more than the US$80 she was expecting when financial brokerage firm Charles Schwab mistakenly transferred more than $1.2 million to her account, apparently because of a software glitch. When she discovered the extra money, she promptly transferred those funds to her other accounts and bought a new car and house, among other purchases. One could ask whether it was unethical for her to keep the money instead of trying to return it. As a scholar who studies the ethics of debt and finance, I believe the answer is more complex than a simple “yes” or “no.” Y...
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Police Body Cameras Can Invade People’s Privacy But Help Monitor Police
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CULTURE, Journalism, VIDEO REELS

Police Body Cameras Can Invade People’s Privacy But Help Monitor Police

In the course of their work, police officers encounter people who are intoxicated, distressed, injured or abused. The officers routinely ask for key identifying information like addresses, dates of birth and driver’s license numbers, and they frequently enter people’s homes and other private spaces. Police see some difficult scenes; body cameras can record those and make them public. Tony Webster via Flickr, CC BY-SA With the advent of police body cameras, this information is often captured in police video recordings – which some states’ open-records laws make available to the public. Starting in the summer of 2014, as part of research on police adoption of body-worn cameras within two agencies in Washington state, I spent hours riding in patrol vehicles, hanging out at police stations, ...
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The Discomfort We Have Over Hearing Our Voices
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CULTURE, Journalism

The Discomfort We Have Over Hearing Our Voices

As a surgeon who specializes in treating patients with voice problems, I routinely record my patients speaking. For me, these recordings are incredibly valuable. They allow me to track slight changes in their voices from visit to visit, and it helps confirm whether surgery or voice therapy led to improvements. Yet I’m surprised by how difficult these sessions can be for my patients. Many become visibly uncomfortable upon hearing their voice played back to them. “Do I really sound like that?” they wonder, wincing. (Yes, you do.) Some become so unsettled they refuse outright to listen to the recording – much less go over the subtle changes I want to highlight. The discomfort we have over hearing our voices in audio recordings is probably due to a mix of physiology and psychology. For o...
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