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A Truly Who Knew Survey

Montana grizzly bears forage in the dusk

We came across a survey covering public support for the Endangered Species Act, including among different demographics, over roughly the last twenty years.

Jeremy Bruskotter and Ramiro Berardo, who teach at Ohio State, and John Bruskotter, at University of Michigan, compiled polls taken over the last twenty years and found support of the Act to be remarkably stable.

As background, visible declines in game species and those taken for millinery use, like the Carolina parakeet whose flocks once darkened the skies, led John Lacey, a Republican representative from Iowa, to introduce the Lacey Act of 1900, the first legislation regulating commercial animal markets. Later came the Migratory Bird Treaty of 1929, between the US and Canada, and others leading up to the broader Endangered Species Act of 1973.

Some animals protected by these acts have recovered, like our iconic bald eagle, bison, manatee and grizzly bear, while others, like the whooping crane, remain endangered with slowly recovering populations. That’s not so shocking: science-based conservation science is often effective and takes time.

What is shocking: the broader Endangered Species Act of 1973, written at Richard Nixon’s request, passed with a 355-4 vote. And the public likes it.

The authors compared  results of the base survey conducted in 1996, and those conducted in 2011, 2014 and 2015 and found them “statistically indistinguishable.” Overall, four in five American support the Act, and one in ten oppose it, while some don’t know what they think. And, while gun control and climate change have become increasingly polarized, the majority of self-identified liberals, 90%, moderates, 77%, and conservatives, 74% support the Act. No surprise that 92% of environmentalists support the Act, as do 73% of hunters, who often partner with ecological conservation groups, but it is stunning that 71% of farmers and ranchers support protecting vulnerable species, as do 69% of property rights advocates, who have been among the most verbal opponents.

Another surprise: Some supporters of the Act have expressed concern that protecting “controversial” animals, like gray wolves, may turn people in wolf territory against the Act, but both trust in the Fish & Wildlife Service, which administers the Act, and opinions about wolves within and without wolf territory are equivalent.

If this all seems odd given the unflagging pressure in Congress to weaken the Act, other research, specifically this study of wolf reintroduction in Scotland, shows that leaders of special interest groups often hold more extreme views than their members.

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Kaiser Foundation on “Limited Empirical Validation”

In their most recent Misinformation Tracking Poll, the Kaiser Family Foundation found that Republican respondents are more likely to believe false claims made by politicians and elected officials about immigrants than are Democrats, followed by Independents. For example, 45% of Republican respondents say it is “definitely true” that immigrants elevate violent crime, as do just 6% of Democrats, and 20% of Independents. Add in those who think it’s “probably true,” and you get to 81% among Republican respondents, 53% among Independents, and 22% among Democrats. Similar, slightly lower, shares are misinformed on immigrants raising unemployment among the US-born, and on relieving labor shortages, with more Democrats believing the latter to be true than Republicans.
But the real shock might be the small shares of those of every political stripe who have not heard the true claim that immigrants pay more into the tax system than they receive in benefits. This has been documented for decades, and by those with very different principles.
Although 80% of American adults have heard the false claims about violent crime, and 69% have heard the true claim about immigrants relieving labor shortages, just 31% have heard the true claim about contributions to the tax system. And here there’s a greater disparity between Democrats and Republicans. Although Democrats are more likely to have heard the true claims about relief of labor shortages, and Republicans more likely to have heard the false claims about crime and unemployment, shares average within five points of each other, in the 90% range. However, thirty-eight percent of surveyed Democrats have heard the claims about tax payments, as have just 23% of Republicans, dropping the share to 61%.
And while, for example, 90% of Democrats believe immigrants surely or probably reduce labor shortages, as do 86% of Independents and 75% of Republicans, 59% of Democrats believe  immigrants pay billions into the tax system every year, as do 40% of Independents, and just 22% of Republicans. Note the highest share on that count is lower than the lowest share who have heard the news on labor shortages.
We might ask the immigrants themselves—a more accurate sixty-five percent correctly believe they pay more in taxes than they receive in benefits, a belief shared by just thirty-six percent of adults overall.
Kaiser also highlights our “muddled middle.”  Fifty-six percent of American adults are unsure if claims about crime are true, with 28% believing they are either probably false or probably true. Margins are tighter among immigrants causing unemployment, 27% probably true, 30% probably false, and on relieving labor shortages, where 44% believe that’s probably true, and 11% probably false.
Thirty-six percent of immigrant adults say former President Donald Trump’s rhetoric has had a negative effect on how they are treated, rising to 45% among Asian immigrants. About three-quarters of immigrants say Vice President Harris’s words have not affected their treatment, with about thirty percent of Asian immigrants believing her words have had a positive effect on their treatment.
A quarter of immigrants believe it will make no difference in their own lives which candidate wins the White House, but 55% believe they will be better off under a Harris presidency, while 19% believe Trump will be more beneficial.
Seventy-three percent of immigrants who identify as Democrats believe immigrants will be better off under Harris, and just under half of those who identify as Republicans believe they will be better off under Trump, a bit of a blow to the concept of enlightened self-interest.
KFF’s President Drew Altman commented on the survey, calling the claims about violent crime the “ultimate example of amplification of misinformation by political figures based on the intentional use of anecdotes.”
He points out that politicians have a long history of using the vulnerability of those who feel left behind to fears about immigration. And that is most visible in the claim that immigrants are “widely committing murder,” through the use of one or two outlier anecdotes, a case of “limited empirical validation,” in social-science lingo.
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S&P buybacks grabbing over half of earnings

S&P’s Howard Silverblatt is out with a preliminary reading on 2024Q1’s stock buybacks. In a phrase, they were big, if not quite the biggest.

Buybacks for S&P 500 stocks totaled $237 billion in the quarter, up 8% from the previous quarter and 9% from a year earlier. At an annualized rate, that equaled 3.4% of GDP, up from 2.9% last year and above the 3.1% average since 2005. Firms devoted over half their operating earnings—51.4% to be precise—to purchasing their own shares, slightly below the average since 2012. The buyback sum equaled a third of nonresidential fixed investment.

Call us old-fashioned, but maybe a larger share of earnings should be devoted to capital spending. Note how much lower the share devoted to buybacks were in the late 1990s, a time of high investment and rapid productivity growth.

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Noting that consumers access a range of sources for information about the economy—discussions with friends, their own experiences, and what they read or hear—Dr. Joanne Hsu, who directs the University of Michigan’s survey of consumers—recently broke out the sources that go into the “news heard” component of the survey. Apparently prompted by that fact that consumers reporting that they had heard bad news about inflation was “much higher,” in 2022 than it was during the “objectively worse” inflation periods of the 1970s, her team asked respondents open-ended questions about news sources from January through April.

NBUnfavorable news about prices hit just 20% in the 1970s, and topped out at 35% in 2022. 

Top sources, all over 30%, were mainstream news, general/other news, and general/other internet, followed by discussions with friends, family and co-workers, about 20%. Business news was mentioned by about 18% of respondents, and partisan sources by about 15%. Social media followed at about 13%, and just 10% of consumers mentioned the stock market, or their own experiences as sources.

Consumers who rely on their own and friends’ experiences have the lowest favorability ratings, which Hsu points out may well be because they are the most vulnerable, with fewer holding college degrees, and lowest median incomes. Those who read mainstream or business news, or follow the stock market, have highest levels of educational attainment and median incomes, and report most favorably on what they read. Those who rely on what Hsu calls the “catch-all” categories are close to the average, which she believes is because the sources are diverse.

But if you break out Democrats, Independents and Republicans, all hell breaks loose. Half of Democratic respondents, 27% of Independents, and just 16% of Republicans follow the mainstream news. Although shares by party for those who follow general sources and the internet are within the same range, those are the most common sources among Republicans, 38% and 37%. About 20% of Republicans follow partisan sources, as do 15% of Democrats. As you might guess, Independents are least likely to follow such news.

Although hearing more upbeat news is tied with higher sentiment, Hsu suggests the need for follow-up research on whether that is the product of bias confirmation. In any case, assessing partisan sources is associated with lower net favorability of news heard, and lower sentiment, among Republicans, and higher levels among Democrats. Among Democrats who mention partisan sources, net favorability of news heard is 143, and sentiment 110, among Republicans who mention partisan sources, net assessment is 31, and sentiment, 53. Democratic assessment and sentiment falls among those with no mention of partisan sources, 123 and 99, and rises among Republicans, 47 and 65.

AllSides Media Bias Chart: Read it and weep.

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A Letter to the Past

Professors Lusina Grigoryan, of York University, and Madalina Vlasceanu, of New York University, recently led a study on what works and what doesn’t in order to alter behaviors affecting climate change. The study included 60,000 participants in 63 countries, and 11 strategies, including gloom and doom, stressing the scientific consensus, and writing a letter from the future.

The large team was “quite surprised” to discover that 86% of the participants believe climate change to be a “serious issue,” that needs to be addressed, with 70% supporting “systemic/collective action,” something you might not think from reading the headlines.

That aside, the regional results were as skewed as you might guess. For example, stressing the 99% consensus among climate experts lifted support for climate-friendly policies by 9% in Romania, but lowered it by 5% in Canada.

A gloom and doom bombardment produced a 12% increase, the largest change, in the share of social-media enthusiasts willing to post pro-environmental messages, which seems to go with the territory, and may be part of the problem: Do those posts really do much?

Overall, the most effective strategy was devised by Grigoryan, lifting support for green policies by 9% overall, with a range of 10% in the US and in Brazil to very modest declines in the UAE, Serbia and India. Grigoryan asked participants to imagine their future selves writing a letter to a child close to them today, outlining what they would have done differently.

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