Our View: Ranked-choice test run makes electoral history in Maine →

One big problem with most voting systems in the US is everyone feels like they have to vote Rebublican or Democrat, because everyone thinks everyone else (who votes) will pick R or D, because our ballots are all-or-nothing: You pick one person. You might not like them the most! But you can pick only one, so it's a game of balancing who we think will be the best, versus who we think has any chance of winning, given everyone else is worried about electing the person they hate. So we get one of two candidates no-one likes much.

This is stupid; does anyone like this system? So Maine's trying a ranked-choice ballot, where you can actually pick the person you want and not "waste" your vote! Put the person you want at the top; if they get the fewest votes, they're eliminated, but then your vote goes to your number two pick instead of being thrown out! (Repeat this cycle until there's a clear winner.) Everyone's voice is heard; everyone's preferences are taken into account. In fact, everyone's actual preferences are now known (another problem with our current system: we have no clue what people actually prefer!)

Now if only we could pass this everywhere...

Maine voters Tuesday became the first in the country to use ranked-choice voting in a statewide election, and despite predictions to the contrary, there was no widespread confusion or chaos.
Instead, ranked-choice voting and the related people’s veto on the fate of ranked-choice itself appeared to boost interest in the June election, which in turn showed that the voting system worked much the way supporters said it would.
...
According to the Secretary of State’s Office, the ballots will be brought to Augusta starting Thursday, and the tabulation process will begin. In the next round, the candidate who received the fewest first-place votes will be dropped. Everyone who voted for that candidate will have their second-place choices counted instead, and that process will continue until a candidate has received more than half the votes.
What will be left is a nominee who appeals broadly to the electorate – a candidate who received not only first-place votes but a lot of second- and third-place selections as well. A passionate minority won’t be able to hijack a campaign featuring a large field like before, leaving the majority unhappy but stuck with the selection. No longer do we have to spend valuable time arguing over spoilers instead of debating the issues.

Beware the ‘mother of all credit bubbles’ →

As the accompanying chart indicates, over the past decade, net issuance of public stock — new issues minus buybacks — has been a negative $3 trillion. This reduction in the supply of public shares in American companies, coupled with an increased global demand for them, goes a long way toward explaining why stocks are now priced at 25 times earnings, well above their historical average.
The most significant and troubling aspect of this buyback boom, however, is that despite record corporate profits and cash flow, at least a third of the shares are being repurchased with borrowed money, bringing the corporate debt to an all-time high, not only in an absolute sense but also in relation to profits, assets and the overall size of the economy.
It used to be that issuing bonds was the most common way for corporations to borrow money. A decade ago, in 2008, there was $2.8 trillion in outstanding bonds from U.S. corporations. Today, it’s $5.3 trillion, after the record $1.7 trillion of new bonds issued last year, according to Dealogic, and $500 billion more issued this year. 
In recent years, at least half of those new bonds have been either “junk” bonds, the riskiest, or BBB, the lowest rating for “investment-grade” bonds. And investor demand for riskier bonds has largely been driven by the growth of bond ETFs — or exchange traded funds — securities that trade like stocks but are really just pools of different corporate bonds. ETFs have made it easier for individual investors to participate in the corporate bond market. A decade ago, about $15 billion worth of bond ETFs were being traded. Today, that market has grown to $300 billion.

Recession Indicators Flash Nothing Very Definitive →

Stuff to keep an eye on:

...Taken together, the tea leaves generally point in the same direction -- there's potential trouble ahead. Falling term spreads, low credit spreads, rising oil prices and rising interest rates could point to a recession in late 2019 or 2020 -- just in time for the next presidential election, which depending on your perspective is either great or worrying.
Of course, given the difficulty of predicting recessions, that forecast must be regarded as a highly uncertain one.

Use it or lose it: Occasional Ohio voters may be shut out in November →

We already don't vote often enough. We shouldn't be making it any harder. We should have automatic registration at birth, and states should check registration every time we have contact with a state agency (like DMV).

Instead, the doors are wide open for skewing the system toward the party in power, through "common sense" rules (often selectively enforced, on top of their direct effects).

6 Things You’re Recycling Wrong →

Some good tips for the recycling conscious. This one I've been bad about, since every town's different, and I have to locate rules (which change) myself:

After China banned used plastics this year, many municipalities in the United States no longer accept plastics numbered 3 to 7, which can include things like yogurt cups, butter tubs and vegetable oil bottles. Look at the bottom of a container for a number inside a triangle to see what type it is.

Your Recycling Gets Recycled, Right? Maybe, or Maybe Not →

We should build more recycling capacity, and educate people on proper recycling practices.

In the past, the municipalities would have shipped much of their used paper, plastics and other scrap materials to China for processing. But as part of a broad antipollution campaign, China announced last summer that it no longer wanted to import “foreign garbage.” Since Jan. 1 it has banned imports of various types of plastic and paper, and tightened standards for materials it does accept.
While some waste managers already send their recyclable materials to be processed domestically, or are shipping more to other countries, others have been unable to find a substitute for the Chinese market. “All of a sudden, material being collected on the street doesn’t have a place to go,” said Pete Keller, vice president of recycling and sustainability at Republic Services, one of the largest waste managers in the country.

A Brief History of America’s Appetite for Macaroni and Cheese →

Macaroni and cheese has been served as long as there has been a United States of America, but in a 20th-century economy driven by convenience packaging and industrialization, it was elevated to an ideal American food: Pasta and processed cheese are very cheap to make and easy to ship and store, and they certainly fill up a belly. It’s no wonder a hot gooey Velveeta mac and cheese tastes like a winner to so many Americans, even those attending a fancy contest in San Francisco.
I have a collection of quotes I post above my computer for writing inspiration and as a reminder to examine my own historical assumptions. One is from Miller from the Charlotte Observer on November 15, 2017: “They [older black people interviewed by Miller for his book] were convinced mac & cheese was something white people stole from us. I thought they were kidding, but they were like, ‘No, it’s like rock ‘n’ roll—we started that.’ They were serious.”
This is the conundrum and beauty of mac and cheese. It is one person’s survival food, another person’s staple main course, and yet another person’s food of culture and celebration. Divided, as America is, along class and race lines, when you bring up mac and cheese you have to be careful or you may be talking about a different mac and cheese altogether.
The one thing that does seem to unify people who eat macaroni and cheese is that everyone views it as “comfort food”: Whichever form of mac and cheese people grew up with, it provides them with something visceral that they want to recreate as adults...