https://daily.jstor.org/story-invention-potato-chip-myth/

More than 150 years later Crum’s delicacy has gone on to even greater fame; today, Americans consume about 1.5 billion pounds of potato chips every year.

* * *

That’s the oft-repeated story about the invention of the potato chip. It’s a good one, an origin story that crosses cultural and economic boundaries for a snack food that does the same. Except for one small thing: That’s not what happened.

http://theconversation.com/inequality-is-getting-worse-but-fewer-people-than-ever-are-aware-of-it-76642

The data show a surprising pattern: The more unequal a society, the less likely its citizens are to notice. Paradoxically, citizens in some of the most unequal countries think theirs is the paragon of meritocracy.

http://theconversation.com/public-goods-made-america-great-and-can-do-so-again-74421

The formal definition of a public good is that it’s something that is nonexcludable and nonrivalrous. That’s a fancy way of saying that everyone can take advantage of it and that one person’s use doesn’t reduce its availability to others.

Setting aside for a moment natural public goods, the ones provided by the government have been on the decline. U.S. public capital investment, net of depreciation, fell to just 0.4 percent of GDP in 2014 from 1.7 percent in 2007 and about 3 percent in the 1960s.

http://theconversation.com/the-myth-of-the-college-dropout-75760

While it’s true there are successful college dropouts, statistically speaking, they are not the norm

https://daily.jstor.org/why-cant-we-end-spam-ask-an-economist/

If we follow Rao and Reiley, and assume an average transaction value of $50, then $438,000 represents 8,760 transactions — which, with a conversion rate of 0.00001%, reflects the results of something like 8.7 billion emails. It sounds like a lot of email, but if Krebs’ information is correct, it only take a week for Levashov to generate that kind of volume.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/18/magazine/when-rising-seas-transform-risk-into-certainty.html?smid=fb-nytimes&smtyp=cur

"While FEMA does pay to elevate risky houses, it struggles to keep up with demand: Wetlands Watch compared the number of people on the FEMA waiting list in Norfolk with the number of houses raised in a year, and concluded that it would take 188 years to complete them all. By then, of course, waters would be far higher."

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/science-isnt-broken/#part4

The scientific method is the most rigorous path to knowledge, but it’s also messy and tough. Science deserves respect exactly because it is difficult — not because it gets everything correct on the first try. The uncertainty inherent in science doesn’t mean that we can’t use it to make important policies or decisions. It just means that we should remain cautious and adopt a mindset that’s open to changing course if new data arises. We should make the best decisions we can with the current evidence and take care not to lose sight of its strength and degree of certainty. It’s no accident that every good paper includes the phrase “more study is needed” — there is always more to learn.

http://federalnewsradio.com/workforce/2017/04/fear-real-congress-could-enact-trump-level-budget-cuts/

A majority of federal employees who took a Federal News Radio survey said they believe Congress will make good on President Donald Trump’s proposed civilian agency cuts for fiscal 2018. And while the looming threat of cuts has put a damper on workforce morale, most respondents plan to stay on-the-job at their federal outposts.

http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/04/04/what-does-the-federal-government-spend-your-tax-dollars-on-social-insurance-programs-mostly/When thinking about federal spending, it’s worth remembering that, as former Treasury official Peter Fisher once said, the federal government is basically “a gigantic insurance company,” albeit one with “a sideline business in national defense and homeland security.” In fiscal year 2016, which ended this past Sept. 30, the federal government spent just under $4 trillion, and about $2.7 trillion – more than two-thirds of the total – went for various kinds of social insurance (Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare, unemployment compensation, veterans benefits and the like). Another $604 billion, or 15.3% of total spending, went for national defense; net interest payments on government debt was about $240 billion, or 6.1%. Education aid and related social services were about $114 billion, or less than 3% of all federal spending. Everything else – crop subsidies, space travel, highway repairs, national parks, foreign aid and much, much more – accounted for the remaining 6%.