GOP Govs At Nixonesque Approval Ratings

United States President Richard Nixon spent about ten months with approval ratings under 30% before he resigned with the prospect of impeachment awaiting him. He never fell below the low 20s in approval rating.

A Survey USA poll released today, reveals that three sitting Republican Governors have approval ratings in that territory, and one more is merely in President Bush approval ratings territory. All four states are states that voted for Bush in 2004. One, Murkowski from Alaska, is running again and has a primary today. The other two at the bottom are leaving office when their terms expire in early 2007. The fourth doesn't have an election until 2008.

Taft

At the very bottom is Republican Ohio Governor Bob Taft. He has 17% who approve of his performance and 79% who disapprove. He was even convicted of a crime during office and hasn't resigned. Taft's approval ratings have been in the high teens and low twenties, sub-Nixonesque levels, since, at least, May of last year. His low with Survey USA was 14% in February of this year.

According to Wikipedia:

In the wake of convictions for ethics violations (see "Criminal charges", below), Gov. Taft's approval rating bottomed out at 6.5%, according to a late November, 2005 poll by Zogby, giving him quite possibly the lowest polled approval rating ever by a United States politician.[2] A Survey USA poll that same month gave Taft a rating of 18%. . . . A late-2005 article in Time Magazine named him as one of the three worst governors in the country.

Taft is term limited, so the seat is an open seat in which the Democratic Party candidate is currently favored in the polls.

Murkowski

Then comes Republican Alaska Governor Frank Murkowski. Voters in the Republican primary today will decide if he should have another chance to run for Governor. If he wins, the seat will be very competitive for a Democratic candidate, and if he loses, it will be an effectively open seat, which gives a Democratic contender, at least, a realistic chance.

He has 19% who approve and 76% who disapprove. This is a new low for him, although he hasn't had even 35% approval ratings since, at least, May of 2005. He is also deep in Nixon's approval ratings territory. He was elected Governor in 2002, after many years in the U.S. Senate. I'm not familiar with Alaska politics, but according to Wikipedia:

Many residents are angry over a recently purchased jet using a state line of credit with Key Bank, which was legal but did not require legislative approval. Earlier disapproval was related to his elimination of the state longevity bonus paid annually to senior citizen residents of Alaska. However, it was eliminated at a time when the state was facing a budget deficit. Murkowski's use of the jet over cheaper commercial air travel has caused controversy among citizens as well as legislators and the matter of business that he attends to - and the possible use of the jet for personal business[1]. Senator Kim Elton publishes a newsletter detailing each time the jet is used, the cost, and the price of a first class commercial ticket the same day to the same destination.

Governor Murkowski is currently running for re-election. The unpopular governor faces stiff opposition from former Wasilla Mayor Sarah Palin and Fairbanks businessman John Binkley. Most polls have indicated that Murkowski will have a difficult time surviving the Republican primary election on August 22, 2006.

His daughter Lisa Murkowski, whom he appointed to the U.S. Senate in 2002, after which she won re-election in 2004, is surely hoping that the stink of her father's scandals will be forgotten when she faces re-election in 2010. She currently has a middling 55% approve, 39% disapprove rating.

Fletcher

Then comes Republican Kentucky Governor Ernie Fletcher. He has 24% who approve and 73% who disapprove, a new low. He pardoned many of his senior staff members after they were indicted in connection with corruption charges. The only reason he isn't facing charges himself is that a court held that a sitting Governor is immune from prosecution for the duration of his term of offie. He is not running again in 2006, so the race is an open seat.

Daniels

By comparison, the next worst approval rating, that of Republican Governor of Indiana Mitch Daniels of whom 34% approve and 54% disapprove (in the same ballpark as President Bush), looks positively wonderful, even if it does mark a return to negative net approval ratings. His next election is in 2008.

America's Third World Economy

Daily Kos diarist 7November amidst a larger argument about the estate tax throws in an interesting tidbit about where the United States ranks of the Gini index, a widely accepted measure of income inequality.

The U.S. has high income inequality as measured by the Gini index.

Out of 124 countries, the U.S. ranks 92nd most equal (meaning it has more income inequality than most countries) with a 46.6 Gini index. This has increased significantly since 1970:

Gini coefficients for the United States at various times, according to the US Census Bureau:

1970: 0.394
1980: 0.403
1990: 0.428
2000: 0.462 [1]

[1] Note that the calculation of the index for the United States was changed in 1992, resulting in an upwards shift of about 0.02 in the coefficient.

Thus, on a comparable basis with prior years, the Gini coefficient for the U.S. in 2000 was about .442, rather than 0.462. In contrast, France, for example, has become a much more equal society in the same time period. The Gini index the U.S. had in 1970 would rank as #67 today, instead of the actually current ranking of #92.

Japan is second most equal. All of the other countries in the top 15 for equality are European (including the former Soviet Union), although there are a few exceptions in the top quarter (i.e. the top 31 countries). South Korea is #26, because, like Japan, it has a modern economy. Mongolia is #22, partially because of its former status as a Soviet satellite and partially due to likely oddities in the data that don't fully reflect the inequality in its society.

Rwanda (#16) (the tenth income percentile is around $7,500 per year), Ethiopia (#20) (the tenth income percentile is around $5,400 per year) and Bangladesh (#27) (the tenth income percentile is around $13,600 per year) make the list presumably because even the well to do are struggling in those countries.

Not all Western economies are in the top quarter, but almost all are in the top half (i.e. through #61). France is #34, Canada is #36, Switzerland in #37, Australia is #46, Greece is #48, Israel is #49, Ireland is #50, the U.K. is #51, Italy is #52, and New Zealand is #53.

The only reasonably developed countries outside the top half are Portugal at #65, Singapore is #77 (a particularly notable ranking in light of the fact that there is almost no privately owned residential real estate in Singapore -- everyone rents), and Hong Kong (ranked as a country despite being part of China for this purpose) at #83.

Who is in the American peer group, at the low end of the third quartile and in the bottom quartile?

82 Thailand 43.2
83 Hong Kong 43.4
84 Ecuador 43.7
85 Uruguay 44.6
86 Cameroon 44.6
87 Cote d'Ivoire 44.6
88 People's Republic of China (mainland only) 44.7
89 Bolivia 44.7
90 Philippines 46.1
91 Costa Rica 46.5
92 United States 46.6
93 Guinea-Bissau 47
94 Dominican Republic 47.4
95 Madagascar 47.5
96 The Gambia 47.5
97 Burkina Faso 48.2
98 Venezula 49.1
99 Malaysia 49.2
100 Peru 49.8
101 Malawi 50.3
102 Mali 50.5
. . .
109 Mexico 54.6
. . .
116 South Africa 57.8
117 Brazil 59.3
. . .
124 Namibia 70.7

Are the rankings hiding a lot of bunched together Gini index scores? Judge for yourself. The most equal, Denmark, has a Gini index of 24.7, Spain which is the last country in the top quartile is at 32.5, Armenia which rounds out the second quarter is at 37.9, Guinea-Bisseau which rounds out the third quarter is at 47. Namibia is worst at 70.7.

Limitations of Gini Index Data

The Gini index probably overrates income inequality in the United States relative to other countries as shown by two different measures discussed below where the U.S. ranks #79 and #77 respectively, as compared to #92 for the Gini index. Some likely factors (from the Wikipedia article for the Gini index) behind this disparity include:

The Gini coefficient measured for a large geographically diverse country will generally result in a much higher coefficient than each of its regions has individually. . . .

The meaning of the Gini coefficient decreases as the data become less accurate. . . .

Economies with similar incomes and Gini coefficients can still have very different income distributions. This is because the Lorenz curves can have different shapes and yet still yield the same Gini coefficient. As an extreme example, an economy where half the households have no income, and the other half share income equally has a Gini coefficient of ½; but an economy with complete income equality, except for one wealthy household that has half the total income, also has a Gini coefficient of ½.

It is claimed that the Gini coefficient is more sensitive to the income of the middle classes than to that of the extremes. . . .

[T]he Gini coefficient is influenced by the granularity of the measurements. For example, five 20% quantiles (low granularity) will yield a lower Gini coefficient than twenty 5% quantiles (high granularity) taken from the same distribution.

The U.S. is more geographically large and diverse than many of the countries to which it is compared. For example, even if the South, the Northeast, the Midwest, and West were individually had high levels of income equality, the regional variation between incomes in the South and those in the Northeast, for example, would contribute to a higher Gini index for the United States.

The very top of the U.S. income distribution has a particularly large share of total U.S. income, even though the bottom 96% or so, have income distributions more equal than other countries with Gini indexes similar to the United States.

The U.S. also has very fine grained and accurate data available, something probably not true in the outlier countries identified below.

Also, most concern about income inequality is related to concerns about the poor (who may suffer needlessly for want of affordable social programs) and the rich (who may be exploiting the system for their own unjustified benefit), not to the extent of modest differences in the middle.

90-10 ratios

There are other ways than the Gini index to judge income inequality. One crude measure compares the ratio of the 90th percentile of income to the 10th percentile of income. In the United States this ratio is 15.9 to 1 which ranks #79 in the world out of 124 countries ranked by this measure.

A few countries with higher Gini indexes than the U.S. have higher income equality than the U.S. by this measure (with Gini index ranking in parenthesis). Mongolia (#22) has a ratio of 17.8 to 1. Burundi (#39) has a ratio of 19.3 to 1. Singapore (#77) has a 17.7 to 1 ratio. Iran (#79) has a 17.2 ratio.

All the countries ranked #83 to #124 by Gini index above, have a higher ratio than the United States, except Cameroon which has a 15.7 ratio. Still a ranking by this ratio leaves the United States in the middle of the third quartile in any case.

80-20 ratio

A similar measure compares the ratio of incomes for those at the 80th percentile of income to those at the 20th percentile of income. In the United States this ratio is 8.4 which ranks #77 by this measure.

This also shuffles results compared to the Gini index. Mongolia (#22) with a 9.1 ratio, Burundi (#39) with a 9.5 ratio, Singapore (#77) with 9.7 ratio, and Iran (#79) with a 9.7 ratio, are again outliers that fall below the United States by this measure. So does every country ranked #81 or lower by Gini index, except Thailand (#82)which has an 8.3 ratio.

Peer Comparison By Ratio Measures

By income ratio measures (90-10 and 80-20) on which the United States ranks 15.9 and 8.4 respectively, Japan has the least income inequality. Its 90-10 ratio is 4.5, and its 80-20 ratio is 3.4. Namibia remains worst in the world by these measures as well with a 90-10 ratio of 128.8 and and 80-20 ratio of 56.1.

Some of the other notable ratios are set forth below (after their Gini index ranks).

1 Denmark 8.1/4.3
2 Japan 4.5/3.4
3 Sweden 6.2/4
4 Belgium 7.8/4.5
5 Czech Republic 5.2/3.5
6 Norway 6.1/3.5
10 Finland 5.6/3.8
14 Germany 6.9/4.3
18 Ukraine 6.4/4.3
19 Austria 7.6/4.7
24 Netherlands 9.2/5.1
25 Russia 7.1/4.8
26 South Korea 7.8/4.7
31 Spain 9/5.4
32 India 7.3/4.9
34 France 9.1/5.6
36 Canada 10.1/5.8
37 Switerland 9.9/5.8
42 Poland 8.6/5.5
46 Australia 12.5/7
48 Greece 10/6.2
49 Israel 11.7/6.4
50 Ireland 9.7/6.1
51 U.K. 13.8/7.2
52 Italy 11.6/6.5
53 New Zealand 12.5/6.8
65 Portugal 15/8
70 Turkey 13.3/7.7
73 Cambodia 11.6/6.9
74 Turkmenistan
75 Ghana 14.1/8.4
76 Senegal 12.8/7.5
77 Singapore 17.7/9.7
78 Kenya 13.6/8.2
79 Iran 17.2/9.7
81 Nicaragua 15.5/8.8
82 Thailand 13.4/8.3
83 Hong Kong 17.8/9.7
88 China 18.4/10.7
90 Phillipines 16.5/9.7
92 United States 15.9/8.4
99 Malaysia 22.1/12.4
104 Nigeria 24.9/12.8
109 Mexico 45/19.3
112 Zimababwe 22/12
116 South Africa 33.1/17.9
117 Brazil 68/26.4

Conclusion

The bottom line is that the United States, by any measure, has level of income inequality associated with a developing country, not that of a mature industrialized economy.

Lassiez-faire economists who argue that income inequality is a necessary component of economic success for a nation as a whole are simply wrong in the face of the empirical facts. Highly productive societies tend to have low levels of income inequality, while most societies that struggle to provide for themselves either have high levels of income inequality, or near universal gross impoverishment.

What Makes Us Human?

Scientists appear to have located one of the key genes that produces a greater human mental capacity than that of other primates. The gene involved in brain function known as HAR1 has changed nine times as much in the time period since humans and chimps had a common ancestor about 6 million years ago, than it has for the entire period of evolutionary advancement from fork in the tree of life between chickens to chimps, perhaps ten or more times as long ago.

It is one of 49 out of 35,000 genes where humans and chimpanzees are significantly different.

GIs Screwed By Lenders

Predatory lending is a problem for U.S. soldiers, according to a 92 page report from the Department of Defense.

MOND Dead?

Recent observations of lensing effects in a collision of two galaxies, at least at first glance, seem to strongly favor dark matter, over a modified gravity theory (background from a 2006 article for lay science enthusiasts here). One of the key papers making this argument is this one.

The gist of the argument against a modified gravity theory is that in this system, unlike almost all other observed systems, the apparent center of the dark matter in the system determined by lensing effects, is separated in space from the center of the regular matter observed. The regular matter is particularly bright, because the collision of two galaxies is heating it up and illuminating it. But, the dark matter appears not to have interacted significantly with the regular matter, and hence the dark matter appears to have cruised through the collision which excited the regular matter. This is illustrated in an image on the second page of the paper.

This is a problem for a modified gravity theory, because in a modified gravity theory, the gravitational effect predicted by General Relativity and Newton's Theory of Gravity, and the modifications (usually as a non-lineral function of distance or some function of gravitational force magnitude) should be centered around the same point.

The directness of the evidence in this collision case, and the relative lack of model dependence involved make it more persausive an argument for dark matter over modified gravity than other recent arguments based on predictions of the cosmic microwave background radiation spectrum.

I'm not entirely satisfied that interference patterns in a modified gravity model couldn't product the observed result, because, while this possibility is briefly considered in the paper above, the analysis isn't very rigorous, creative or searching. Also, it has long been known that some aspect of galactic clusters have not been adequately modeled by MOND even in isolation. Even with a MOND assumption, they seem to have further significant dark matter. So, it isn't that surprising that the theory also doesn't do well with collisions of galactic clusters.

But, I suspect that we will see some papers from MOND supporters addressing the claims in papers like this one, either affirming them or questioning them, with a better analysis of the key issues, in the near future, in the path already established by this one. It also implies that there may be a problem with using straight general relativity theory to produce your lensing based matter distribution, and then checking for a fit to MOND gravity theories only later. But, so far, no one has shown that a MOND theory can produce the observed result either.

This doesn't mean, of coure, that we have a firm understanding of what dark matter is, or how it is distributed.