Facts Are Stupid Things  9.3.15

I’m not a big Facebook guy. I understand it’s importance to comics and artists when it comes to letting folks know you’re working. I also understand some people just like to announce what they are having for dinner. One thing I know for sure is that Facebook is a horrible place to argue politics.

Case in point: A 1995 study updated in 2013, done at the always biased CATO Institute, which I saw posted today as if it were new news. That study purports to prove that welfare is a better gig than working in more than 30 of our united states.  I immediately got the whiff of suspicion and found a more sobering piece that describes the ways CATO took every possible welfare program and in theory assigned maximum income to all recipients.  In reality, according to this piece by Josh Barro at Business Insider, they didn’t allow for the fact that benefiting from one or several of the programs excludes recipients from benefiting from all the rest.

In short, CATO took liberty with their assumptions and then posted a finding they were looking for.  In so doing, they also helped to keep the public mis-informed in perpetuity and forever.

There’s A New Study That Says Welfare Pays Better Than Work — Here’s Why It’s Total Nonsense

Anecdotally, There are plenty of examples to be found of people abusing the system. But in the aggregate, for the vast majority, welfare is never a better gig than a good job.

As an aside: I think Donald Trump should help by using some of his billions to open a factory in Queens where he can get Americans off of welfare and back to work sewing his Donald J. Trump Collection of shirts and ties. These ties are great. They are fantastic. People are gonna love my ties.

And just because I’m old fashioned and believe in double sourcing as much as possible, here is a second blog I found written by Mike Dunford, who I do not know, but who seems to have done his homework.

No, Cato, Welfare Doesn’t Pay More Than Minimum Wage

Welfare Pays Better than Work,

http://www.cato.org/policy-report/novemberdecember-1995/welfare-pays-better-work

Facts Are Stupid Things  – 8.28.15

Trump says he won’t eat Oreos anymore because Mondelez International, the multi-national conglomerate that bakes those cookies, is closing it’s plant in Chicago and moving it’s 600 jobs to Mexico.

Here’s the problem with Trump’s statement:  It’s just not entirely true and ignores a number of important facts.

Full disclosure: I have happily owned a few shares of Mondelez stock for a few years now.

In short, Mondelez has two baking facilities on the South Side of Chicago  that have been there since the late 1950s.  They are upgrading equipment and cutting the number of productions lines from 9 to 4. They tried to get $42 million in concessions from Chicago to keep the bakery there, because that is what they save if they move those 4 lines to a newer facility in Salinas, Mexico.
Even if they had kept the 4 production lines at that baking facility in Chicago, the upgrade in equipment was going to cost 300 jobs anyway.
Here’s another important fact. Illinois is their international HQ and they still employ a large number of people in all kinds of jobs.  Most importantly, where Trump is concerned, the initial news reports in May indicate that Oreos are not one of the products currently made at that baking facility

So now you deserve some supporting evidence:

In this SF Examiner story, you can read all of Trump’s categorical statements in the lead two paragraphs.
And then buried at the bottom, in italics, the following correction:

*Correction – According to Laurie M. Guzzinati Senior Director, Corporate & Government Affairs North America, Mondelēz Global LLC – Nabisco recently announced a significant investment in a Salinas, Mexico baking plant. The move affects 600 jobs at a bakery near Chicago, though Nabisco says that facility would remain open.

Read it here:
Trump says no more Oreo’s as Nabisco Moves business to Mexico

A second source supporting the same facts is this Sun Times piece:
Read this one:
Mondelez to cut 600 jobs in Chicago

For confirmation of the job cuts that were going to happen anyway, here’s a good one from when the story first ran:
Mondelez seeks job cuts, wants to vacate one of two South Side bakery buildings

And here is a piece from May to give even greater perspective:
Mondelez to cut Chicago jobs, send some work to Mexico

Important notes: Mondelez still employs roughly 13,000 people in the United States and more than 90, 000 more in countries all around the world.  40% of its sales originate in Europe.  Only 20% in the U.S..

So Mondelez didn’t shut down it’s entire plant and move it to Mexico as Trump said.  And according to the one report that offered details, Oreo’s aren’t even made in the baking facility that is being phased out. (That one is subject to further review)

So when it comes to the Donald Trump telling you that the people who make Oreos shut down their plant in Chicago and shipped all it’s jobs down to Mexico you now know that both “baking facilities” remain open, still providing jobs for Americans.  Furthermore, Illinois is Mondelez International’s global headquarters.

Not shutting the plant. Fact.
Not moving all jobs to Mexico. Fact.
Chicago Tribune report lists products baked at facility. Oreos not listed. Fact.
300 jobs were going to be eliminated even if second baking facility got the 4 modernized production lines.  Fact.
Mondelez is overwhelmingly a foreign based operation. Fact.
Illinois is Mondelez International global HQ. Fact.
13,000 still employed by Mondelez in U.S.  Fact.

Go FactEmToDeath.

Addendum: This just in : Don’t Worry Donald Trump, Oreo Cookies Will Still Be Made In The USA

Facts Are Stupid Things  8.22.15

The Debate: An unconfirmed A.P. story told of an early draft of the nuclear agreement between Six Nations and Iran that according to the report would allow the Iranians to “self inspect” this facility.

The Skinny: Based on this unconfirmed report, the media-sphere is full of attacks asking how on earth we would make an agreement that allowed the Iranians to police their own nuclear facilities? The answer, according the the director of the IAEA is that no such condition exists.  It is also important to note that Parchin burned to the ground in 2014.  The exact circumstances surrounding it’s destruction are subject to debate. It is also important ot note that Parchin is not an currently active nuclear research site.

So What Happened?

Well, according to the IAEA big boss:

“I am disturbed by statements suggesting that the IAEA has given responsibility for nuclear inspections to Iran. Such statements misrepresent the way in which we will undertake this important verification work,” IAEA Director-General Yukiya Amano said in an unusually strongly worded statement on Thursday.

Full Text Here: IAEA says report Iran to inspect own military site is ‘misrepresentation’

While Iranians would be involved, as with other agreements the IAEA operates under, that agency would have means of verification. For more on that read here:

http://www.cnn.com/2015/08/1U.S. acknowledges likely Iranian role in nuclear site inspections

For a more in depth look at this issue, read this Max Fisher piece on Vox.com:

The AP’s controversial and badly flawed Iran inspections story, explained

In Short:
When it comes to the allegation that the six nation nuclear agreement allows the Iranians to self inspect their active nuclear research facilities, the stupid facts are: They do not.

On Iranian self inspection: you can now FactEmToDeath.