#colbert — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #colbert, aggregated by home.social.
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FYI #Colbert Fans...
In about 15 minutes (11:35 / 23:35 EST)
#StephenColbert is a guest on tonight's #JimmyKimmel Live Show (ABC)
Thinking this might a great time to find out what Colbert has been up to and what we might see in the near-future.
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FYI #Colbert Fans...
In about 15 minutes (11:35 / 23:35 EST)
#StephenColbert is a guest on tonight's #JimmyKimmel Live Show (ABC)
Thinking this might a great time to find out what Colbert has been up to and what we might see in the near-future.
-
FYI #Colbert Fans...
In about 15 minutes (11:35 / 23:35 EST)
#StephenColbert is a guest on tonight's #JimmyKimmel Live Show (ABC)
Thinking this might a great time to find out what Colbert has been up to and what we might see in the near-future.
-
FYI #Colbert Fans...
In about 15 minutes (11:35 / 23:35 EST)
#StephenColbert is a guest on tonight's #JimmyKimmel Live Show (ABC)
Thinking this might a great time to find out what Colbert has been up to and what we might see in the near-future.
-
FYI #Colbert Fans...
In about 15 minutes (11:35 / 23:35 EST)
#StephenColbert is a guest on tonight's #JimmyKimmel Live Show (ABC)
Thinking this might a great time to find out what Colbert has been up to and what we might see in the near-future.
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FCC Chairman Brendan Carr accuses James Talarico of running a ‘hoax’ over equal time statute
Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Brendan Carr accused Democratic Texas Senate candidate James Talarico of banking on public…
#NewsBeep #News #Headlines #Brendancarr #broadcasttelevision #colbert #fcc #FederalCommunicationsCommission #JamesTalarico #JimmyKimmel #TexasSenate #UnitedStates #Us #USA #YouTube
https://www.newsbeep.com/732377/ -
Marseille : une agente de crèche agressée à Colbert (2e), l’insécurité inquiète aux abords de l’établissement
L’inquiétude monte au sein des salariés de la crèche municipale de la Buttes des Carmes, marqués par le…
#Marseille #FR #France #Actu #News #Europe #EU #2026 #2e #actu #Actualités #agente #agressée #Colbert #crèche #europe #Faits-divers-Justice #Provence-Alpes-Côted'Azur #Républiquefrançaise #une
https://www.europesays.com/fr/1184724/ -
https://www.europesays.com/fr/1184724/ Marseille : une agente de crèche agressée à Colbert (2e), l’insécurité inquiète aux abords de l’établissement #2026 #2e #actu #Actualités #agente #agressée #Colbert #crèche #EU #europe #FaitsDiversJustice #FR #France #Marseille #News #ProvenceAlpesCôteD'Azur #RépubliqueFrançaise #une
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Here's the #Talarico interview with Jimmy #Kimmel last night, via YouTube (not ABC) -after the FCC threatened the show, as CBS did with #Colbert.
>> Jimmy Kimmel’s Interview with James Talarico That the FCC Doesn’t Want You To See
Seems there is real fear that Texas may go 'woke'! (&/or Christian)
#GQP #TrumpVirus #Texas #elections
#FCC #Carr #censorship #Fascism -
Here's the #Talarico interview with Jimmy #Kimmel last night, via YouTube (not ABC) -after the FCC threatened the show, as CBS did with #Colbert.
>> Jimmy Kimmel’s Interview with James Talarico That the FCC Doesn’t Want You To See
Seems there is real fear that Texas may go 'woke'! (&/or Christian)
#GQP #TrumpVirus #Texas #elections
#FCC #Carr #censorship #Fascism -
Here's the #Talarico interview with Jimmy #Kimmel last night, via YouTube (not ABC) -after the FCC threatened the show, as CBS did with #Colbert.
>> Jimmy Kimmel’s Interview with James Talarico That the FCC Doesn’t Want You To See
Seems there is real fear that Texas may go 'woke'! (&/or Christian)
#GQP #TrumpVirus #Texas #elections
#FCC #Carr #censorship #Fascism -
Here's the #Talarico interview with Jimmy #Kimmel last night, via YouTube (not ABC) -after the FCC threatened the show, as CBS did with #Colbert.
>> Jimmy Kimmel’s Interview with James Talarico That the FCC Doesn’t Want You To See
Seems there is real fear that Texas may go 'woke'! (&/or Christian)
#GQP #TrumpVirus #Texas #elections
#FCC #Carr #censorship #Fascism -
Here's the #Talarico interview with Jimmy #Kimmel last night, via YouTube (not ABC) -after the FCC threatened the show, as CBS did with #Colbert.
>> Jimmy Kimmel’s Interview with James Talarico That the FCC Doesn’t Want You To See
Seems there is real fear that Texas may go 'woke'! (&/or Christian)
#GQP #TrumpVirus #Texas #elections
#FCC #Carr #censorship #Fascism -
⬆️ #Trump recognizes James #Talarico as a huge threat to Ken #Paxton for #Texas Senate seat.
Watch the Talarico interview on YouTube after #FCC threatened and forced #ABC to push Jimmy #Kimmel's interview with Talarico off the air just like it forced Stephen #Colbert's interview with Talarico off broadcast TV.
The fact that #JamesTalarico is #white, #Christian, young, and photogenic is obviously adding to his threat potential for #Republicans.
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⬆️ #Trump recognizes James #Talarico as a huge threat to Ken #Paxton for #Texas Senate seat.
Watch the Talarico interview on YouTube after #FCC threatened and forced #ABC to push Jimmy #Kimmel's interview with Talarico off the air just like it forced Stephen #Colbert's interview with Talarico off broadcast TV.
The fact that #JamesTalarico is #white, #Christian, young, and photogenic is obviously adding to his threat potential for #Republicans.
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⬆️ #Trump recognizes James #Talarico as a huge threat to Ken #Paxton for #Texas Senate seat.
Watch the Talarico interview on YouTube after #FCC threatened and forced #ABC to push Jimmy #Kimmel's interview with Talarico off the air just like it forced Stephen #Colbert's interview with Talarico off broadcast TV.
The fact that #JamesTalarico is #white, #Christian, young, and photogenic is obviously adding to his threat potential for #Republicans.
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“Anyone who has ever struggled with poverty knows how extremely expensive it is to be poor”*…
We’ve become a nation of credit and debit card users. As of this year, Pew reports, 42% of Americans don’t use cash for purchases in a typical week (up from 24% in 2015); another 46% use a mix of cash and plastic; only 12% use mostly (or entirely) cash. The Federal Reserve reports, unsuprisingly, that cash remains the dominant mode for the elderly and the poor; debit cards, for lower-to-middle-income households.
NBER unpacks one little-understood consequence of this shift…
Every time a consumer swipes a credit card, the merchant pays an interchange fee—typically around 1.9 percent of the transaction value—most of which funds the rewards that cardholders receive. Because merchants generally charge the same prices regardless of how customers pay, consumers who use cash or debit cards effectively help finance the rewards enjoyed by credit card users. In Who Pays for Payments? (NBER Working Paper 35067), Mark L. Egan, Gregor Matvos, Amit Seru, Lulu Wang, and Vincent Yao use novel merchant-level data from Fiserv—one of the largest US merchant acquirers—to measure how the payment system redistributes resources.
The primary dataset contains establishment-level payment data from 2006 to 2022, including total payment values, transaction counts, and interchange fees paid for different card types…
… The researchers’ analysis using these datasets suggests that interchange fees transfer approximately $30 billion annually from cash and debit card users to credit card users. Cash users lose about 96 basis points of purchasing power, and regulated debit card users lose roughly 47 basis points, while basic and premium credit card users gain approximately 48 and 59 basis points, respectively. Because credit card use rises with income, the system generates an estimated $9.2 billion annual transfer from households earning less than $150,000 to those earning more.
Two forces moderate this redistribution. First, the tendency for cash, debit, and credit card users to shop at different merchants limits the overlap necessary for cross-subsidization. Second, where overlap does occur, such as at large grocery stores and gas stations, interchange fees tend to be lower due to sector discounts and negotiated rates. Together, these forces reduce the transfer by approximately 25 percent relative to the transfer that would occur with homogeneous consumers and merchants.
The researchers also examine the redistributive consequences of two specific developments in the payment system. The first is the Durbin Amendment, which capped interchange fees on debit cards issued by large banks. The authors show that one perhaps unintended consequence of the amendment was that it primarily benefited credit card users through lower retail prices at the expense of regulated debit card users, who lost approximately $9.6 billion in rewards and free checking benefits. This was a net transfer from middle-income to higher-income households. The second development is the rise of premium credit cards, which grew from 15 percent of credit card volume in 2006 to 60 percent by 2022. This has also been a regressive development. While premium cardholders gained about $7.9 billion, debit card users—not cash users—bore the largest dollar losses because they shop most frequently alongside premium card users…
The rich getting richer: “Who Ultimately Pays Credit Card Interchange Fees?” from @nber.org.
Pair with Annie Lowrey on another burden– a “time tax”– that falls disportionately on the neediest: “How American Bureaucracy (Literally) Steals Years From Your Life“:
Washington currently estimates that Americans spend 12 billion hours a year filling out government forms, meaning the average person spends six 8-hour workdays filing their taxes, signing up for Medicaid, renewing their driver’s licenses, and applying for government loans. At prevailing wages, this uncompensated labor is worth $430 billion a year. If Washington were to create a Department of Bureaucracy to take on the paperwork it shunts to citizens, the agency would require 5.9 million employees, making it four times the size of the active-duty military. The DOB’s payroll would be larger than that of every other federal department combined.
The nation’s paperwork regime frustrates every resident, and particularly lower-income residents who use more government programs and interact more frequently with public officials. The political scientist Elizabeth Cohen has done seminal work exploring time as a potent, if obscure, form of political currency. “The devaluation of a person or group’s political time is a structural obstacle to equality,” she writes. Yet we can’t measure time and effort as easily as we measure dollars, and we don’t even try. The 12-billion-hour estimate is an undercount, and an egregious one…
* James Baldwin (see also Terry Pratchett’s “Boots theory“)
###
As we second-guess secreted subventions, we might spare a thought for Jean-Baptiste Colbert; he died on this date in 1683. A French statesman who served as First Minister of State under the rule of King Louis XIV from 1661 until his death. His lasting impact on the organization of the country’s politics and markets, known as Colbertism, a form of the mercantilism so popular in the Trump Administration today. Colbert also helped craft the Code Noir, a legal instrument that sanctioned an intentionally brutal system of torture and repression to enforce institutional slavery in the French colonial empire and restrict the enterprise of free Black people.
Though Colbert was more competent and less crony-ish than the crew at “work” in D.C. over the last couple of years, his goal of a healthy economy was frustrated by a King whose spending out-ran (and whose favoritism undermined) Colbert’s efforts. In the longer run, many economists suggest that “Colbertism” has contributed to contributed to a lack of adaptability in French industry and a hostility to technological innovation.
#bureaucracy #business #cash #Colbert #Colbertism #creditCardFees #creditCards #culture #debitCards #economics #France #history #JeanBaptisteColbert #mercantilism #politics #redTape #time #timeTax #trade -
“Anyone who has ever struggled with poverty knows how extremely expensive it is to be poor”*…
We’ve become a nation of credit and debit card users. As of this year, Pew reports, 42% of Americans don’t use cash for purchases in a typical week (up from 24% in 2015); another 46% use a mix of cash and plastic; only 12% use mostly (or entirely) cash. The Federal Reserve reports, unsuprisingly, that cash remains the dominant mode for the elderly and the poor; debit cards, for lower-to-middle-income households.
NBER unpacks one little-understood consequence of this shift…
Every time a consumer swipes a credit card, the merchant pays an interchange fee—typically around 1.9 percent of the transaction value—most of which funds the rewards that cardholders receive. Because merchants generally charge the same prices regardless of how customers pay, consumers who use cash or debit cards effectively help finance the rewards enjoyed by credit card users. In Who Pays for Payments? (NBER Working Paper 35067), Mark L. Egan, Gregor Matvos, Amit Seru, Lulu Wang, and Vincent Yao use novel merchant-level data from Fiserv—one of the largest US merchant acquirers—to measure how the payment system redistributes resources.
The primary dataset contains establishment-level payment data from 2006 to 2022, including total payment values, transaction counts, and interchange fees paid for different card types…
… The researchers’ analysis using these datasets suggests that interchange fees transfer approximately $30 billion annually from cash and debit card users to credit card users. Cash users lose about 96 basis points of purchasing power, and regulated debit card users lose roughly 47 basis points, while basic and premium credit card users gain approximately 48 and 59 basis points, respectively. Because credit card use rises with income, the system generates an estimated $9.2 billion annual transfer from households earning less than $150,000 to those earning more.
Two forces moderate this redistribution. First, the tendency for cash, debit, and credit card users to shop at different merchants limits the overlap necessary for cross-subsidization. Second, where overlap does occur, such as at large grocery stores and gas stations, interchange fees tend to be lower due to sector discounts and negotiated rates. Together, these forces reduce the transfer by approximately 25 percent relative to the transfer that would occur with homogeneous consumers and merchants.
The researchers also examine the redistributive consequences of two specific developments in the payment system. The first is the Durbin Amendment, which capped interchange fees on debit cards issued by large banks. The authors show that one perhaps unintended consequence of the amendment was that it primarily benefited credit card users through lower retail prices at the expense of regulated debit card users, who lost approximately $9.6 billion in rewards and free checking benefits. This was a net transfer from middle-income to higher-income households. The second development is the rise of premium credit cards, which grew from 15 percent of credit card volume in 2006 to 60 percent by 2022. This has also been a regressive development. While premium cardholders gained about $7.9 billion, debit card users—not cash users—bore the largest dollar losses because they shop most frequently alongside premium card users…
The rich getting richer: “Who Ultimately Pays Credit Card Interchange Fees?” from @nber.org.
Pair with Annie Lowrey on another burden– a “time tax”– that falls disportionately on the neediest: “How American Bureaucracy (Literally) Steals Years From Your Life“:
Washington currently estimates that Americans spend 12 billion hours a year filling out government forms, meaning the average person spends six 8-hour workdays filing their taxes, signing up for Medicaid, renewing their driver’s licenses, and applying for government loans. At prevailing wages, this uncompensated labor is worth $430 billion a year. If Washington were to create a Department of Bureaucracy to take on the paperwork it shunts to citizens, the agency would require 5.9 million employees, making it four times the size of the active-duty military. The DOB’s payroll would be larger than that of every other federal department combined.
The nation’s paperwork regime frustrates every resident, and particularly lower-income residents who use more government programs and interact more frequently with public officials. The political scientist Elizabeth Cohen has done seminal work exploring time as a potent, if obscure, form of political currency. “The devaluation of a person or group’s political time is a structural obstacle to equality,” she writes. Yet we can’t measure time and effort as easily as we measure dollars, and we don’t even try. The 12-billion-hour estimate is an undercount, and an egregious one…
* James Baldwin (see also Terry Pratchett’s “Boots theory“)
###
As we second-guess secreted subventions, we might spare a thought for Jean-Baptiste Colbert; he died on this date in 1683. A French statesman who served as First Minister of State under the rule of King Louis XIV from 1661 until his death. His lasting impact on the organization of the country’s politics and markets, known as Colbertism, a form of the mercantilism so popular in the Trump Administration today. Colbert also helped craft the Code Noir, a legal instrument that sanctioned an intentionally brutal system of torture and repression to enforce institutional slavery in the French colonial empire and restrict the enterprise of free Black people.
Though Colbert was more competent and less crony-ish than the crew at “work” in D.C. over the last couple of years, his goal of a healthy economy was frustrated by a King whose spending out-ran (and whose favoritism undermined) Colbert’s efforts. In the longer run, many economists suggest that “Colbertism” has contributed to contributed to a lack of adaptability in French industry and a hostility to technological innovation.
#bureaucracy #business #cash #Colbert #Colbertism #creditCardFees #creditCards #culture #debitCards #economics #France #history #JeanBaptisteColbert #mercantilism #politics #redTape #time #timeTax #trade -
“Anyone who has ever struggled with poverty knows how extremely expensive it is to be poor”*…
We’ve become a nation of credit and debit card users. As of this year, Pew reports, 42% of Americans don’t use cash for purchases in a typical week (up from 24% in 2015); another 46% use a mix of cash and plastic; only 12% use mostly (or entirely) cash. The Federal Reserve reports, unsuprisingly, that cash remains the dominant mode for the elderly and the poor; debit cards, for lower-to-middle-income households.
NBER unpacks one little-understood consequence of this shift…
Every time a consumer swipes a credit card, the merchant pays an interchange fee—typically around 1.9 percent of the transaction value—most of which funds the rewards that cardholders receive. Because merchants generally charge the same prices regardless of how customers pay, consumers who use cash or debit cards effectively help finance the rewards enjoyed by credit card users. In Who Pays for Payments? (NBER Working Paper 35067), Mark L. Egan, Gregor Matvos, Amit Seru, Lulu Wang, and Vincent Yao use novel merchant-level data from Fiserv—one of the largest US merchant acquirers—to measure how the payment system redistributes resources.
The primary dataset contains establishment-level payment data from 2006 to 2022, including total payment values, transaction counts, and interchange fees paid for different card types…
… The researchers’ analysis using these datasets suggests that interchange fees transfer approximately $30 billion annually from cash and debit card users to credit card users. Cash users lose about 96 basis points of purchasing power, and regulated debit card users lose roughly 47 basis points, while basic and premium credit card users gain approximately 48 and 59 basis points, respectively. Because credit card use rises with income, the system generates an estimated $9.2 billion annual transfer from households earning less than $150,000 to those earning more.
Two forces moderate this redistribution. First, the tendency for cash, debit, and credit card users to shop at different merchants limits the overlap necessary for cross-subsidization. Second, where overlap does occur, such as at large grocery stores and gas stations, interchange fees tend to be lower due to sector discounts and negotiated rates. Together, these forces reduce the transfer by approximately 25 percent relative to the transfer that would occur with homogeneous consumers and merchants.
The researchers also examine the redistributive consequences of two specific developments in the payment system. The first is the Durbin Amendment, which capped interchange fees on debit cards issued by large banks. The authors show that one perhaps unintended consequence of the amendment was that it primarily benefited credit card users through lower retail prices at the expense of regulated debit card users, who lost approximately $9.6 billion in rewards and free checking benefits. This was a net transfer from middle-income to higher-income households. The second development is the rise of premium credit cards, which grew from 15 percent of credit card volume in 2006 to 60 percent by 2022. This has also been a regressive development. While premium cardholders gained about $7.9 billion, debit card users—not cash users—bore the largest dollar losses because they shop most frequently alongside premium card users…
The rich getting richer: “Who Ultimately Pays Credit Card Interchange Fees?” from @nber.org.
Pair with Annie Lowrey on another burden– a “time tax”– that falls disportionately on the neediest: “How American Bureaucracy (Literally) Steals Years From Your Life“:
Washington currently estimates that Americans spend 12 billion hours a year filling out government forms, meaning the average person spends six 8-hour workdays filing their taxes, signing up for Medicaid, renewing their driver’s licenses, and applying for government loans. At prevailing wages, this uncompensated labor is worth $430 billion a year. If Washington were to create a Department of Bureaucracy to take on the paperwork it shunts to citizens, the agency would require 5.9 million employees, making it four times the size of the active-duty military. The DOB’s payroll would be larger than that of every other federal department combined.
The nation’s paperwork regime frustrates every resident, and particularly lower-income residents who use more government programs and interact more frequently with public officials. The political scientist Elizabeth Cohen has done seminal work exploring time as a potent, if obscure, form of political currency. “The devaluation of a person or group’s political time is a structural obstacle to equality,” she writes. Yet we can’t measure time and effort as easily as we measure dollars, and we don’t even try. The 12-billion-hour estimate is an undercount, and an egregious one…
* James Baldwin (see also Terry Pratchett’s “Boots theory“)
###
As we second-guess secreted subventions, we might spare a thought for Jean-Baptiste Colbert; he died on this date in 1683. A French statesman who served as First Minister of State under the rule of King Louis XIV from 1661 until his death. His lasting impact on the organization of the country’s politics and markets, known as Colbertism, a form of the mercantilism so popular in the Trump Administration today. Colbert also helped craft the Code Noir, a legal instrument that sanctioned an intentionally brutal system of torture and repression to enforce institutional slavery in the French colonial empire and restrict the enterprise of free Black people.
Though Colbert was more competent and less crony-ish than the crew at “work” in D.C. over the last couple of years, his goal of a healthy economy was frustrated by a King whose spending out-ran (and whose favoritism undermined) Colbert’s efforts. In the longer run, many economists suggest that “Colbertism” has contributed to contributed to a lack of adaptability in French industry and a hostility to technological innovation.
#bureaucracy #business #cash #Colbert #Colbertism #creditCardFees #creditCards #culture #debitCards #economics #France #history #JeanBaptisteColbert #mercantilism #politics #redTape #time #timeTax #trade -
“Anyone who has ever struggled with poverty knows how extremely expensive it is to be poor”*…
We’ve become a nation of credit and debit card users. As of this year, Pew reports, 42% of Americans don’t use cash for purchases in a typical week (up from 24% in 2015); another 46% use a mix of cash and plastic; only 12% use mostly (or entirely) cash. The Federal Reserve reports, unsuprisingly, that cash remains the dominant mode for the elderly and the poor; debit cards, for lower-to-middle-income households.
NBER unpacks one little-understood consequence of this shift…
Every time a consumer swipes a credit card, the merchant pays an interchange fee—typically around 1.9 percent of the transaction value—most of which funds the rewards that cardholders receive. Because merchants generally charge the same prices regardless of how customers pay, consumers who use cash or debit cards effectively help finance the rewards enjoyed by credit card users. In Who Pays for Payments? (NBER Working Paper 35067), Mark L. Egan, Gregor Matvos, Amit Seru, Lulu Wang, and Vincent Yao use novel merchant-level data from Fiserv—one of the largest US merchant acquirers—to measure how the payment system redistributes resources.
The primary dataset contains establishment-level payment data from 2006 to 2022, including total payment values, transaction counts, and interchange fees paid for different card types…
… The researchers’ analysis using these datasets suggests that interchange fees transfer approximately $30 billion annually from cash and debit card users to credit card users. Cash users lose about 96 basis points of purchasing power, and regulated debit card users lose roughly 47 basis points, while basic and premium credit card users gain approximately 48 and 59 basis points, respectively. Because credit card use rises with income, the system generates an estimated $9.2 billion annual transfer from households earning less than $150,000 to those earning more.
Two forces moderate this redistribution. First, the tendency for cash, debit, and credit card users to shop at different merchants limits the overlap necessary for cross-subsidization. Second, where overlap does occur, such as at large grocery stores and gas stations, interchange fees tend to be lower due to sector discounts and negotiated rates. Together, these forces reduce the transfer by approximately 25 percent relative to the transfer that would occur with homogeneous consumers and merchants.
The researchers also examine the redistributive consequences of two specific developments in the payment system. The first is the Durbin Amendment, which capped interchange fees on debit cards issued by large banks. The authors show that one perhaps unintended consequence of the amendment was that it primarily benefited credit card users through lower retail prices at the expense of regulated debit card users, who lost approximately $9.6 billion in rewards and free checking benefits. This was a net transfer from middle-income to higher-income households. The second development is the rise of premium credit cards, which grew from 15 percent of credit card volume in 2006 to 60 percent by 2022. This has also been a regressive development. While premium cardholders gained about $7.9 billion, debit card users—not cash users—bore the largest dollar losses because they shop most frequently alongside premium card users…
The rich getting richer: “Who Ultimately Pays Credit Card Interchange Fees?” from @nber.org.
Pair with Annie Lowrey on another burden– a “time tax”– that falls disportionately on the neediest: “How American Bureaucracy (Literally) Steals Years From Your Life“:
Washington currently estimates that Americans spend 12 billion hours a year filling out government forms, meaning the average person spends six 8-hour workdays filing their taxes, signing up for Medicaid, renewing their driver’s licenses, and applying for government loans. At prevailing wages, this uncompensated labor is worth $430 billion a year. If Washington were to create a Department of Bureaucracy to take on the paperwork it shunts to citizens, the agency would require 5.9 million employees, making it four times the size of the active-duty military. The DOB’s payroll would be larger than that of every other federal department combined.
The nation’s paperwork regime frustrates every resident, and particularly lower-income residents who use more government programs and interact more frequently with public officials. The political scientist Elizabeth Cohen has done seminal work exploring time as a potent, if obscure, form of political currency. “The devaluation of a person or group’s political time is a structural obstacle to equality,” she writes. Yet we can’t measure time and effort as easily as we measure dollars, and we don’t even try. The 12-billion-hour estimate is an undercount, and an egregious one…
* James Baldwin (see also Terry Pratchett’s “Boots theory“)
###
As we second-guess secreted subventions, we might spare a thought for Jean-Baptiste Colbert; he died on this date in 1683. A French statesman who served as First Minister of State under the rule of King Louis XIV from 1661 until his death. His lasting impact on the organization of the country’s politics and markets, known as Colbertism, a form of the mercantilism so popular in the Trump Administration today. Colbert also helped craft the Code Noir, a legal instrument that sanctioned an intentionally brutal system of torture and repression to enforce institutional slavery in the French colonial empire and restrict the enterprise of free Black people.
Though Colbert was more competent and less crony-ish than the crew at “work” in D.C. over the last couple of years, his goal of a healthy economy was frustrated by a King whose spending out-ran (and whose favoritism undermined) Colbert’s efforts. In the longer run, many economists suggest that “Colbertism” has contributed to contributed to a lack of adaptability in French industry and a hostility to technological innovation.
#bureaucracy #business #cash #Colbert #Colbertism #creditCardFees #creditCards #culture #debitCards #economics #France #history #JeanBaptisteColbert #mercantilism #politics #redTape #time #timeTax #trade -
“Anyone who has ever struggled with poverty knows how extremely expensive it is to be poor”*…
We’ve become a nation of credit and debit card users. As of this year, Pew reports, 42% of Americans don’t use cash for purchases in a typical week (up from 24% in 2015); another 46% use a mix of cash and plastic; only 12% use mostly (or entirely) cash. The Federal Reserve reports, unsuprisingly, that cash remains the dominant mode for the elderly and the poor; debit cards, for lower-to-middle-income households.
NBER unpacks one little-understood consequence of this shift…
Every time a consumer swipes a credit card, the merchant pays an interchange fee—typically around 1.9 percent of the transaction value—most of which funds the rewards that cardholders receive. Because merchants generally charge the same prices regardless of how customers pay, consumers who use cash or debit cards effectively help finance the rewards enjoyed by credit card users. In Who Pays for Payments? (NBER Working Paper 35067), Mark L. Egan, Gregor Matvos, Amit Seru, Lulu Wang, and Vincent Yao use novel merchant-level data from Fiserv—one of the largest US merchant acquirers—to measure how the payment system redistributes resources.
The primary dataset contains establishment-level payment data from 2006 to 2022, including total payment values, transaction counts, and interchange fees paid for different card types…
… The researchers’ analysis using these datasets suggests that interchange fees transfer approximately $30 billion annually from cash and debit card users to credit card users. Cash users lose about 96 basis points of purchasing power, and regulated debit card users lose roughly 47 basis points, while basic and premium credit card users gain approximately 48 and 59 basis points, respectively. Because credit card use rises with income, the system generates an estimated $9.2 billion annual transfer from households earning less than $150,000 to those earning more.
Two forces moderate this redistribution. First, the tendency for cash, debit, and credit card users to shop at different merchants limits the overlap necessary for cross-subsidization. Second, where overlap does occur, such as at large grocery stores and gas stations, interchange fees tend to be lower due to sector discounts and negotiated rates. Together, these forces reduce the transfer by approximately 25 percent relative to the transfer that would occur with homogeneous consumers and merchants.
The researchers also examine the redistributive consequences of two specific developments in the payment system. The first is the Durbin Amendment, which capped interchange fees on debit cards issued by large banks. The authors show that one perhaps unintended consequence of the amendment was that it primarily benefited credit card users through lower retail prices at the expense of regulated debit card users, who lost approximately $9.6 billion in rewards and free checking benefits. This was a net transfer from middle-income to higher-income households. The second development is the rise of premium credit cards, which grew from 15 percent of credit card volume in 2006 to 60 percent by 2022. This has also been a regressive development. While premium cardholders gained about $7.9 billion, debit card users—not cash users—bore the largest dollar losses because they shop most frequently alongside premium card users…
The rich getting richer: “Who Ultimately Pays Credit Card Interchange Fees?” from @nber.org.
Pair with Annie Lowrey on another burden– a “time tax”– that falls disportionately on the neediest: “How American Bureaucracy (Literally) Steals Years From Your Life“:
Washington currently estimates that Americans spend 12 billion hours a year filling out government forms, meaning the average person spends six 8-hour workdays filing their taxes, signing up for Medicaid, renewing their driver’s licenses, and applying for government loans. At prevailing wages, this uncompensated labor is worth $430 billion a year. If Washington were to create a Department of Bureaucracy to take on the paperwork it shunts to citizens, the agency would require 5.9 million employees, making it four times the size of the active-duty military. The DOB’s payroll would be larger than that of every other federal department combined.
The nation’s paperwork regime frustrates every resident, and particularly lower-income residents who use more government programs and interact more frequently with public officials. The political scientist Elizabeth Cohen has done seminal work exploring time as a potent, if obscure, form of political currency. “The devaluation of a person or group’s political time is a structural obstacle to equality,” she writes. Yet we can’t measure time and effort as easily as we measure dollars, and we don’t even try. The 12-billion-hour estimate is an undercount, and an egregious one…
* James Baldwin (see also Terry Pratchett’s “Boots theory“)
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As we second-guess secreted subventions, we might spare a thought for Jean-Baptiste Colbert; he died on this date in 1683. A French statesman who served as First Minister of State under the rule of King Louis XIV from 1661 until his death. His lasting impact on the organization of the country’s politics and markets, known as Colbertism, a form of the mercantilism so popular in the Trump Administration today. Colbert also helped craft the Code Noir, a legal instrument that sanctioned an intentionally brutal system of torture and repression to enforce institutional slavery in the French colonial empire and restrict the enterprise of free Black people.
Though Colbert was more competent and less crony-ish than the crew at “work” in D.C. over the last couple of years, his goal of a healthy economy was frustrated by a King whose spending out-ran (and whose favoritism undermined) Colbert’s efforts. In the longer run, many economists suggest that “Colbertism” has contributed to contributed to a lack of adaptability in French industry and a hostility to technological innovation.
#bureaucracy #business #cash #Colbert #Colbertism #creditCardFees #creditCards #culture #debitCards #economics #France #history #JeanBaptisteColbert #mercantilism #politics #redTape #time #timeTax #trade -
Stephen Colbert wins an anti-censorship award after CBS ends 'The Late Show'
#news #politics #uspol #uspolitics #GOPCult #trump #corruption #maga #censorship #colbert #thelateshow
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Stephen Colbert wins an anti-censorship award after CBS ends 'The Late Show'
#news #politics #uspol #uspolitics #GOPCult #trump #corruption #maga #censorship #colbert #thelateshow
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Stephen Colbert wins an anti-censorship award after CBS ends 'The Late Show'
#news #politics #uspol #uspolitics #GOPCult #trump #corruption #maga #censorship #colbert #thelateshow
-
Stephen Colbert wins an anti-censorship award after CBS ends 'The Late Show'
#news #politics #uspol #uspolitics #GOPCult #trump #corruption #maga #censorship #colbert #thelateshow
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Stephen Colbert wins an anti-censorship award after CBS ends 'The Late Show'
Stephen Colbert has received an “anti-censorship” award from the Before Columbus Foundation. The foundation, based in Oakland, California, champions diversity in U.S. literature and culture.
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Stephen Colbert wins an anti-censorship award after CBS ends 'The Late Show'
Stephen Colbert has received an “anti-censorship” award from the Before Columbus Foundation. The foundation, based in Oakland, California, champions diversity in U.S. literature and culture.
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Cinnamon Shitler: “Stephen Colbert's firing from CBS was the 'Beginning of the End' for untalented, nasty, highly overpaid, not funny, and very poorly rated Late Night Television Hosts"
Everyone else:
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Cinnamon Shitler: “Stephen Colbert's firing from CBS was the 'Beginning of the End' for untalented, nasty, highly overpaid, not funny, and very poorly rated Late Night Television Hosts"
Everyone else:
-
Cinnamon Shitler: “Stephen Colbert's firing from CBS was the 'Beginning of the End' for untalented, nasty, highly overpaid, not funny, and very poorly rated Late Night Television Hosts"
Everyone else:
-
Cinnamon Shitler: “Stephen Colbert's firing from CBS was the 'Beginning of the End' for untalented, nasty, highly overpaid, not funny, and very poorly rated Late Night Television Hosts"
Everyone else:
-
Cinnamon Shitler: “Stephen Colbert's firing from CBS was the 'Beginning of the End' for untalented, nasty, highly overpaid, not funny, and very poorly rated Late Night Television Hosts"
Everyone else:
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@jhy001 I haven’t watched any tv onf on CBS since the last #Colbert episode and I won’t, either.
I’m good at boycotting & am satisfied with all the thousands of dollars not give to Walmart, amazon, hobby lobby….. #fuckthefascists -
@jhy001 I haven’t watched any tv onf on CBS since the last #Colbert episode and I won’t, either.
I’m good at boycotting & am satisfied with all the thousands of dollars not give to Walmart, amazon, hobby lobby….. #fuckthefascists -
@jhy001 I haven’t watched any tv onf on CBS since the last #Colbert episode and I won’t, either.
I’m good at boycotting & am satisfied with all the thousands of dollars not give to Walmart, amazon, hobby lobby….. #fuckthefascists -
@jhy001 I haven’t watched any tv onf on CBS since the last #Colbert episode and I won’t, either.
I’m good at boycotting & am satisfied with all the thousands of dollars not give to Walmart, amazon, hobby lobby….. #fuckthefascists -
@jhy001 I haven’t watched any tv onf on CBS since the last #Colbert episode and I won’t, either.
I’m good at boycotting & am satisfied with all the thousands of dollars not give to Walmart, amazon, hobby lobby….. #fuckthefascists -
#ThisWasNews one year ago:
Stephen Colbert’s ‘Late Show’ is canceled by CBS and will end May 2026.
See what else was news. Reply to comment publicly or say 'remind me in 30 days'
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#ThisWasNews one year ago:
Stephen Colbert’s ‘Late Show’ is canceled by CBS and will end May 2026.
See what else was news. Reply to comment publicly or say 'remind me in 30 days'
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I’m in #Colbert withdrawal!
I need a fix!! So much crap- so little words!! Doesn’t help that Kimmel’s on vacation. -
I’m in #Colbert withdrawal!
I need a fix!! So much crap- so little words!! Doesn’t help that Kimmel’s on vacation. -
I’m in #Colbert withdrawal!
I need a fix!! So much crap- so little words!! Doesn’t help that Kimmel’s on vacation. -
I’m in #Colbert withdrawal!
I need a fix!! So much crap- so little words!! Doesn’t help that Kimmel’s on vacation. -
I’m in #Colbert withdrawal!
I need a fix!! So much crap- so little words!! Doesn’t help that Kimmel’s on vacation. -
#Colbert shows up at Obama Library opening in tan suit. 🤣
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#Colbert shows up at Obama Library opening in tan suit. 🤣
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#Colbert shows up at Obama Library opening in tan suit. 🤣
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#Colbert shows up at Obama Library opening in tan suit. 🤣
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#Colbert shows up at Obama Library opening in tan suit. 🤣
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#RawAmerica host #BritishChris reacts to #CBS' LARGE bill after #Colbert playing #Peanuts COPYRIGHTED music on his last episode. All of the SETTLEMENT is going to his favorite charity, #WorldCentralKitchen, and even the Peanuts rights' owners thought it was a clever prank!! youtu.be/S8YxLwJyX58?...
Colbert Gets EPIC REVENGE on M... -
#RawAmerica host #BritishChris reacts to #CBS' LARGE bill after #Colbert playing #Peanuts COPYRIGHTED music on his last episode. All of the SETTLEMENT is going to his favorite charity, #WorldCentralKitchen, and even the Peanuts rights' owners thought it was a clever prank!! youtu.be/S8YxLwJyX58?...
Colbert Gets EPIC REVENGE on M... -
#RawAmerica host #BritishChris reacts to #CBS' LARGE bill after #Colbert playing #Peanuts COPYRIGHTED music on his last episode. All of the SETTLEMENT is going to his favorite charity, #WorldCentralKitchen, and even the Peanuts rights' owners thought it was a clever prank!! youtu.be/S8YxLwJyX58?...
Colbert Gets EPIC REVENGE on M... -
#RawAmerica host #BritishChris reacts to #CBS' LARGE bill after #Colbert playing #Peanuts COPYRIGHTED music on his last episode. All of the SETTLEMENT is going to his favorite charity, #WorldCentralKitchen, and even the Peanuts rights' owners thought it was a clever prank!!
youtu.be/S8YxLwJyX58?...
Colbert Gets EPIC REVENGE on M...
