Will Franklin

Bill Powers is the President of the University of Texas at Austin. He individually receives an annual income roughly twelve times the median household income of Texas, not counting six figures of deferred compensation or benefits. He commands a robust team of sharp folks internally at UT and has secured the big guns as outside public relations counsel. There is now an ongoing effort-- a well-orchestrated social media campaign which appears highly inorganic-- to "save" him.

This post aims to 1. provide some context for the UT kerfuffle itself, 2. cast some light on how people and organizations successfully astro-turf social media campaigns, 3. provide reasons why members of the media ought to be a bit more careful in how they report on the online/digital/new media horse race, and 4. offer some thoughts on what comes next.

1. Kerfuffle Context
First, some background on what the heck this "Save Bill Powers" stuff is all about.

There's the very, very macro context, which is basically that the higher education establishment has become sclerotic and out of touch, tuition has skyrocketed well beyond inflation, and the next major economic shock in America could easily be the higher ed bubble bursting. It's an iceberg straight ahead and we're the Titanic, but there's still time to steer the ship into safer waters. If we don't, though, yikes.

This is the startling context for this kerfuffle:

Zooming in a bit further, to Texas, we see that tuition at UT went up 39.88% from Fall 2004 to Fall 2011. We also see a Governor, who happens to be a Texas A&M alumnus (that's UT's primary in-state rival, so there's a built-in suspicion among Longhorns), and who has appointed the entire Board of Regents at The University of Texas system, who has committed to making public higher education in Texas more affordable, accountable, and accessible. Specifically, Governor Perry embraced various specific higher ed reforms over the years, including what are known as the "Seven Breakthrough Solutions" as a starting point for reform. Not surprisingly, the higher ed establishment opposed these reforms. Despite UT-Austin receiving more dollars-- and more dollars per student-- in state funding from the State of Texas than UC-Berkeley gets from California, it seems like the only acceptable higher ed reform to the higher ed establishment is more money.

In the summer of 2011, battle lines were drawn, with the "Texas Coalition for Excellence in Higher Education" (a.k.a. "The Coalition") emerging out of the Burson-Marsteller P.R. shop to support Bill Powers and the higher ed status quo. In October of 2011, Natalie Butler and Keshav Rajagopolan (current and former Student Body Presidents, respectively) launched a "spin-off" group group called Young Texans for Excellence in Higher Education. Various groups formed on the other side (including "Rock the Ivory Tower") devoted to affordability and reform.

The Governor also called for a 4-year tuition freeze for incoming college students (in January of 2009) and a $10,000 college degree in 2011. The $10K degree idea was met with scorn and incredulity from the higher ed establishment, but it's now been adopted in public universities across the state. And the tuition freeze? Well, just this month, the UT Regents approved it for two years (not the four that Perry initially called for). Bill Powers lashed out at the tuition freeze idea online and in an email:

If all of this context (and the above context is certainly just the Cliff's Notes version this story) was the collective geopolitical navigation of the Great Powers in the 1930s, then Paul Burka's apocalyptic, all-caps Texas Monthly blog post was the bombing of Pearl Harbor:

2. How to Astroturf a Social Media Campaign
This is where it gets interesting. While most of the press coverage has focused on the numbers of people who "joined" a Facebook group called "I STAND WITH BILL POWERS," at least one member of the press has hinted that something else might be afoot here. The Texas Tribune's Reeve Hamilton tweeted a note of caution:

While I already suspected that the anonymously sourced, (and still uncorroborated) BurkaBlog post and the apparent organic response to it was all a little too convenient, Reeve Hamilton's tweet further piqued my interest, so I explored it further. Along with some others in the higher ed movement, it quickly became apparent that a handful of really sharp young folks, working with some powerful organizations with ample resources, synthetically engineered what appeared to be a natural groundswell.

Let's take the url registration, just 100 minutes or so after the nuclear BurkaBlog post went live, the savebillpowers.com domain name had been secured:

Okay, that's been known to happen organically, I guess. People just happen to read an unsubstantiated, rumor-mongering blog post at 7:30 pm on a Wednesday night and just happen to buy a domain name that just happens to become the focal point of a public relations campaign, within an hour and a half. And they just happen to buy the domain name anonymously. It just happens all the time.

Meanwhile, the issue positioning, keywords, and instructions went out via Facebook, from Natalie Butler of the "Young Texans":

And at nearly this precise moment, #saveBillPowers began trending in Austin, Texas:

Accompanying the Save Bill Powers Twitter presence was an identically-branded Facebook page, formed at 8:10 pm (just 40 minutes after the BurkaBlog post hit the web):

Even with such robust branding, a matching website, matching twitter, implied institutional backing from President Powers himself, and a catchy slogan, the Burson-Marsteller team has only managed to gather mere hundreds of actual fans:

It can be frustrating to oversee such a meager social media presence, but luckily there is a solution. Ditch the Facebook page. Go with a Facebook group!

A bit later, two-time Teaching Assistant to Bill Powers Rachel Meyerson founded the "I STAND WITH BILL POWERS" Facebook group:

Immediately after the group was created, Meyerson added two admins to the group:

And they all started adding members to the group.

In order to boost its "groups," Facebook allows individuals to not only invite someone to a group but actually add him or her to it, whether he or she is even interested. Many Facebookers, even young digital natives, aren't engaged enough to even notice they've been added without their permission. And many Facebookers aren't savvy enough to know how to leave a group after they've been "Facejacked." Some people tend to fear leaving the group and insulting their friends who added them. Needless to say, spam-adding folks en masse to Facebook groups they may or may not agree with is not cool, and it's definitely not true digital virality in any organic sense. Indeed, this guy showed how easy it is to add all of your Facebook friends to a group in only about 20 seconds:

That's not a movement. That's a line of code. And even if you don't use a javascript code (some browsers have blocked scripts like that since the video was made) and have to manually click on each of your friends to invite them, you can still spend just minutes to add hundreds or even thousands of people. To quickly get 10,000 people in a group, you really only need a half dozen young people (who tend to have a lot of Facebook "friends") spam-adding their contacts.

Pranksters angry about the loss of personal control even began adding Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg to NAMBLA (North American Man Boy Love Association) groups in protest. It's a problem, and it's bad etiquette at the very least.

Bad etiquette or not, "Facejacking" is how the "I STAND WITH BILL POWERS" group grew and continues to grow. If you go in to the group, click "about," then click to view members by date added, you can find the screenshots below yourself. Scroll down to the beginning (it's kind of an annoying process), and you'll see that nearly everyone was spam-added by just a couple of individuals (these first 120 or so members are in reverse chronological order):

See all of those "added" folks? The overwhelming majority: added, not invited. And all by two individuals.

But surely they just seeded it a bit, and it became an organic, sustaining organism of its own shortly thereafter, right? Not really. Yes, others got in on the spam-adding action, but look at a sample from Friday:

Lots of spam-added folks. Not really much evidence of a true newsworthy movement.

Or the 21 most recent additions:

Again, out of 21 new members, Callie Williams added 1, Shelah Flowers invited 1, Andrew Grant invited 2, Keshav Rajagopolan added 3, and Rachel Meyerson added 14. Rajagopolan and Meyerson alone spam-added 81% of the newest 21 members. In total, 86% of the newest 21 members were spam-added, while 14% were invited.

We've established that the response to this kerfuffle was astro-turfed. So what? People astroturf all the time.

Well, it’s one thing to astro-turf, but it’s another thing to actively lie to the press about it.

3. Why More Skepticism is Needed in Reporting on Social Media

Let's look at Keshav Rajagopolan's statements to the Houston Chronicle.

Did social media explode with support for Bill Powers? According to the Houston Chronicle, yes:

Explosions!

Some relevant points:

Keshav Rajagopalan, who was UT’s student body president in 2008-2009, said he started the Facebook group last night after Burka’s post was published. He said thousands have asked to be part of the group. He worked with Powers closely during his time as student body president, but thinks that many UT students who did not know him personally recognize him as a leader that cares about them.

Wait. We just saw that Rachel Meyerson started the group, and that nearly all the early members were spam-added by other people. Indeed, Rajagopolan was personally responsible for a great deal of the spam adding. "Thousands have asked to be part of the group" is just plain deceitful.

While the spam-adding continued at a fast and furious pace on the "I STAND WITH BILL POWERS" group, there was no activity overnight and into mid-morning on the "Save Bill Powers" page:

Again, a page (rather than a group) doesn't allow you to spam-add. People can be invited, but they can't be added without their permission.

So, the Save Bill Powers page was essentially a ghost town, and essentially the entirety of the social media operation to that point was astro-turfed by a P.R. firm. Jennifer Sarver of said P.R. firm tweeted:

Julie Shussler of the same P.R. firm posted to the group a bit later:

Matt Portillo said it was a piece of cake, and, sure enough, he (and Shussler) spam-added members as well:

Portillo is also an organizer for the Young Texans, which he calls "a subsidiary of kind of a larger group":

That subsidiary stuff sounds so organic, doesn't it?

Meanwhile, the media drumbeat about how amazing this spontaneous social media movement has kept pounding.

Many uncritical headlines and stories were all over the web this past week. To give credit where credit is due, though, an Austin American-Statesman story did join the Tribune's Reeve Hamilton in noting that something wasn't quite right with the numbers:

By 5 p.m. Thursday, a Facebook group called "I Stand With Bill Powers" had more than 9,800 members, although some whose names were listed said in subsequent posts that they had been included by friends without their knowledge and against their wishes.

Bottom line: the widely reported "I stand with Bill Powers" Facebook effort was not an organic display of support. It was, however, publicly held out by the organizers as organic.

It’s one thing to astro-turf, as that happens sometimes in the public relations field-- it now ought to be clear how easy it is to do that. But it’s another thing to astro-turf and lie and say it was organic, then not only passively allow the media to inaccurately portray it as organic but actively feed that inaccuracy with untrue statements.

As for members of the media, more of them should turn a far more critical eye to claims of social media prowess based on what could very well be pure astro-turf.

4. What's Next?

Moving forward, the higher ed reform movement will continue, and the status quo guardians will continue as well. The UT faculty this week voted to support their boss, although one professor abstained:

English professor Snehal Shingavi was the only member who abstained from voting at the meeting. Shingavi said it was dangerous for the faculty’s support of Powers to be coupled with tuition increases.

“There is an unfortunate narrative in Texas that presents faculty as living off the fat of tuition,” Shingavi said. “It’s important not to connect these two. I abstained from voting because I understood the importance of having a unified vote.”

Meanwhile, the target of most of the negative social media content on the "Save Bill Powers" page(s) and "I STAND WITH BILL POWERS" group, Governor Perry, is not going away quietly on this issue:

"I don't think it's any big secret that I'm for keeping the cost of education down, so my suspicion is that no one in Texas thinks that I'm for tuition growth," Perry said. "It's a good message to send to the citizens of the state that we're not going to just have tuition increasing with no regard for what's happening economically for the citizens of the state."

And, ultimately, that's why this "movement" smelled so fishy from the get-go. You're telling me that students are rallying around the guy who wants to raise their tuition? Yeah, no. It was always a fabricated social media cause via public relations firm. It was well done, no doubt-- a great example of why my alma mater pays them so much to do what they do. But it was never a truly viral or organic cause.

As for Bill Powers, can someone please explain to me what exactly are his accomplishments, or, alternatively, what exactly are his goals, ideas, values, or policies that are worthy of support?

UT Professor Rob Koons bravely asks this very question:

Under President Powers, tuition has climbed over 23% in just 4 years (15% over inflation, as measured by the consumer price index). Average net cost per student (taking into account financial aid) has gone up 33% from 2005 to 2009, from $4534 to $6052 (the System stopped reporting this figure in 2010). In the same period, spending on administrative salary has gone up 86% at the university level, 55% in the College of Liberal Art and 45% in the College of Business, to take two typical examples of the Colleges. Spending on faculty salaries have gone up 21% in the same period (13% over inflation), with no increase in student learning, as measured by the Collegiate Learning Assessment (in which UT ranks in the 23rd percentile of its peer group).

President Powers' hand-picked student 'advisory' panels (whose discussions and votes have not been released to the public, despite the Open Meeting act) have simply rubber-stamped the views of Powers and his allies. For example, two years ago, after key lawmakers (including Senator Ellis) announced that any increase in tuition above 4% would lead to a reconsideration of tuition deregulation, Powers' panel miraculously determined that UT "needed" an increase of exactly 3.95%. Amazing coincidence!

Change in rankings:
US News #44 in 2008, #45 in 2012. A drop of one position, paid for by at least a 33% increase in costs to students!

Four-year graduation rate
2005: 46.4%
2008: 47.7

Six-year graduation rate
2005: 74.8
2008: 77.5

Nursing exam pass rate (UT graduates):
04-05: 97.0
2008: 92 (A drop of 5%)

Engineering exam pass rate:
04-05: 90.2
2008: 89

Exactly what are his accomplishments?

More on that dismal learning percentile figure:

On March 14, Washington Post reporter Daniel de Vise, in his piece "Trying to assess learning gives colleges their own test anxiety," reported that the University of Texas at Austin ranks very low in achievement of student learning. "For learning gains from freshman to senior year," writes de Vise, "UT ranked in the 23rd percentile among like institutions. In other words, 77 percent of universities with similar students performed better." The Post obtained this data through a public records request. The standardized test was conducted by the Collegiate Learning Assessment.

Prof. Richard Arum, a New York University sociologist, "reviewed UT's results at the request of the Post." He found that "seniors have spent four years there, and the scores [on student learning] have not gone up that much."

Ouch.

Again, what are Bill Powers' accomplishments? Somehow vastly higher tuition with academic ranking and performance stagnation doesn't seem like an accomplishment.

That all being said, the faster we can bring this back to a discussion about ideas rather than a quarrel between players, the better. For students. For parents. For alumni. For employers. For taxpayers. For everyone. Right now, the easy fixation is on Rick Perry vs. Bill Powers, but the ideas they are talking about are important. Tuition. Affordability. Accountability. Opportunity. The American Dream. Texas as America's shining state on a hill.

Do we accept the broken status quo, or do we reform our higher education system in Texas?

Trivia Tidbit of the Day: Part 956 -- Jobs-

Today's disappointing BLS job figures continued to mask the real employment situation in the country. While the official numbers showed 115,000 new jobs and an unemployment rate at 8.1%, Jim Pethokoukis notes that the unemployment rate would be 11.1% if United States labor force had remained the same size as when Obama took office.

But not all states are created equal. Texas, over the past decade, has outpaced the nation in both total jobs and private sector jobs.

All jobs, including government jobs:

click image for larger version

Texas added 1.32 million jobs during the 10-year span, far and away the biggest increase in raw numbers. New York finished a distant second with its addition of 335,900 jobs, roughly one-quarter the size of Texas' upswing.

Texas looks even better if you just include private-sector jobs:

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Moreover, five of the top six cities for private post-recession employment gains are in Texas.

Texas is also now number one for construction jobs. Texas leads the brand-new list of best states for business:

Between June 2009—which marked the official end of the recession—and July 2011, the number of jobs increased in the state by 328,000. Nationally, the job growth in that time period was 697,000 according to figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. This translates to Texas jobs making up 47 percent of the national net job creation.

And three Texas cities are among America's top 4 fastest growing (4 in the top 9).

Oh, and on Forbes' new list of the top twenty most polluted cities in America, all five of the worst five are in California. And of the worst twenty, how many were in Texas? Zero.

We have all of these economic policy laboratories and experiments in our history and present, showing us what works and what doesn't. There's North Korea and South Korea. East Germany and West Germany. Hong Kong and the rest of China. California and Texas. Freer markets, limited government, and lower levels of taxation produce more prosperity, better environmental outcomes, and a better life for everyone.

So, knowing this, how do far-left Democrats like Barack Obama ever receive any votes from anyone, ever?

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Previous Trivia Tidbit: Education Bonk.

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Across the nation, state governments are facing tough choices. Barack Obama's unnecessarily prolonged economic downturn has caused anticipated state budget revenues-- projected in good times-- to vanish. Adding to the misery: most states spent one-time stimulus dollars on recurring expenses in 2009, creating new baselines of spending far above where they would have been without such fleeting federal, ahem, benevolence. Meanwhile, old and new federal mandates have piled on expenses that states must now cover on their own. See Medicaid for a great example of a vast federal program gone haywire and weighing down budgets in mostly-domed buildings around the country.

Texas has fared better than almost every other state throughout this Great Recession, and it has undoubtedly fared better than any other large state. But Texas faces an ugly budget situation in the 2013 just like every other state, and we'll keep facing and increasingly challenging budget situation in 2015, 2017, and beyond, without fundamental reform.

Part of that reform means that Texas will either get Congress and the next President to fix Medicaid, or be left with no other possible choice but to withdraw from the program entirely. Since 1991, Texas Medicaid expenditures have risen 537%, going from 14% of the state budget to 25% of the state budget in 2011 (.pdf). In just two to three more decades, Medicaid will consume a majority of the Texas budget. The whole thing is just unsustainable, and the trends are only getting uglier each year.

This week, Governor Perry announced a conservative budget plan that will bind legislators to:

* Practice truth in budgeting.
* Support a Constitutional limit of spending to the growth of population and inflation.
* Oppose any new taxes or tax increases, and make the small business tax exemption permanent.
* Preserve a strong Rainy Day Fund.
* Cut unnecessary and duplicative government programs and agencies.

Think of these principles as a sort of Texas-based Taxpayer Protection Pledge from Americans for Tax Reform. It will help conservatives win in the upcoming primaries by sorting the signers from the RINOs. It will help reveal the true colors of candidates, especially in a lot of these new open seat districts.

All conservative voters should demand that their legislators sign Governor Perry's Texas Budget Compact before the May 29th Texas primary. If they haven't yet signed it, what's the excuse?

Already, the pledge is separating the wheat from the chaff. Steadfast conservatives like Ken Paxton and Wayne Christian were among the first to sign it. The list of legislative signers is growing each day. And great new faces like Dr. Troy Bonin in the new and open Texas House District 3 just outside of Houston embraced the pledge enthusiastically. Bonin's two opponents, for now at least, are missing in action on this pledge.

The next Texas legislature will have an abundance of new faces to deal with the abundance of serious issues. We should demand that our legislative candidates not only sign the Governor's pledge but campaign openly on these issues in the primary. In order for Texas to remain "America's America" or "America's last best hope" or "America's shining state on a hill," getting our budget house in order is not a platitude or a talking point, it is an absolutely non-negotiable moral imperative.

So, has your legislator signed on to the Texas Budget Compact? If not, you might want to look elsewhere for your next State Representative.

Trivia Tidbit of the Day: Part 955 -- Education-

A fascinatingly scary and depressing set of stats on American education:

Via: OnlineEducation.net

We need more Bobby Jindals in this country, meaningfully shaking things up.

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Previous Trivia Tidbit: Texas driving America's exports.

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Trivia Tidbit of the Day: Part 954 -- Texas Boosting America's Exports-

In January of 2010, during his State of the Union address, Barack Obama famously committed America to doubling exports by 2015. It's an ambitious goal at first blush, but when you consider that he made the promise at the $143.6 billion per month level (not long after the trough of the most recent recession) doubling from that depressed point was not such a long shot. Just returning to pre-recession export levels ($165.9 billion per month) got us 15% of the way there. At present, we're about 25% of the way toward doubling exports (we're now at $178.7 billion per month).

So, really, how are we going to get there? How do we get to $287 billion in exports per month? With Chevy Volts and Solyndras and shutting down private investment in major infrastructure projects? No. Obviously not.

We may get there in spite of Barack Obama, but if America does double its exports by 2015, Texas will be disproportionately responsible:

On a percentage basis, Texas exported more of its home-produced goods that the United States as a whole. Nearly 19 percent of Texas' economic output was exported in 2011, while the United States exported just 9.8 percent of its total output.

With roughly 8% of the nation's population, Texas exports nearly 12% of the nation's goods and services.

Indeed, Texas is the number one exporting state, now going on a decade straight. With 12 million fewer people, Texas exports 56.8% more than California.

California! Think about that. California has Silicon Valley, Hollywood, and abundant produce and wine. California has natural deep water ports up and down its coast. California is closer to booming markets in Asia and Australia than any other state but Hawaii. California is as close to most of Latin America as any other state, including Texas. California has vast fossil fuel reserves off shore and under the ground. California should easily be America's top exporting state, and second place shouldn't even be close.

Yet, it's Texas-- not California-- winning the export battle. Texas added almost an entire Michigan worth of exports in 2011 alone.

America's manufacturing renewal is happening in states like Texas. America's jobs renewal is happening in states like Texas. So, of course America's export renewal is being driven by Texas.

Texas, with 8% of America's population, accounted for more than 16% of America's export gains in 2011. In dollar terms, that was a $42.9 billion increase in Texas in 2011, out of a $265 billion total increase in the United States as a whole.

Another way to look at it is to examine the relationship between population and exports.

This is what I call the American Export Power Index, or AEPI (click image for larger version):

Basically, you take a state's share of the nation's exports and bump that up against a state's share of the nation's population.

Here it is in table format:

So, seriously, how are we going to double our national exports by 2015?

One easy way: Obama's administration could stop targeting Texas for punishment.

And, rather than attempting to forcibly reshape America in California's image, instead respect the Tenth Amendment and allow the smart states to compete and strive toward being more like Texas (like Oklahoma is now doing with its income tax). The states that initially think they want to be more like California may temporarily get left behind, but as long as the rest of us don't subsidize and/or bail out failing liberal states, competition and people voting with their feet will eventually force even the most recalcitrant lefty states to reform.

We know what works. There's a blueprint. It's called Texas. Indeed, Talmadge Heflin of the Texas Public Policy Foundation notes:

Since June 2009, Texas’ economy, now the 14th-largest in the world, has added 357,400 jobs, almost triple the number of jobs produced by California, the state that has produced the second-most jobs since June 2009. Impressively, this means that Texas is responsible for nearly one of every four jobs created in the nation since the NBER declared the recession over.

And every day that this left-wing President tries to force the failed California/Illinois/Michigan blueprint on the entire nation is a day he is robbing our children and grandchildren of prosperity and economic security.

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Previous Trivia Tidbit: America needs more spectrum.

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From time to time, I post original submissions from guest bloggers on a variety of topics I care about. Even with sweeping tort reform in Texas in recent years, many of our small businesses remain at the mercy of liberal trial lawyer jackpot justice schemes.

The following is an original guest post from fellow Texan Chip Hough, a board member of Citizens Against Lawsuit of Abuse of Central Texas:

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Not so long ago, the Texas court system was drowning in asbestos personal injury lawsuits, seriously threatening access to our courts, harming our business climate and posing a real obstacle for those who were truly harmed by asbestos and deserved their day in court.

Seven years ago Texas lawmakers took steps to rein in these burgeoning lawsuits by establishing medical criteria for filing asbestos and silica cases, giving priority to sick people and heading off the common practice of questionable mass filings of claims.

These smart, balanced and science-based reforms received bipartisan, unanimous support in both the Texas House and Texas Senate.

Unfortunately, greed and questionable practices of some trial lawyers necessitate further action on this issue. The House Committee on Judiciary and Civil Jurisprudence is looking at the issue during this year’s legislative interim. At Citizens Against Lawsuit Abuse (CALA), it’s our hope that these lawmakers will fully consider the practical, financial and legal ramifications of “double dipping” and quickly move end these abusive lawsuits next session.

Two scoops is better than one for ice cream, but it’s not something we should allow in our court system.

Double dipping in asbestos-related personal injury lawsuits is a practice that allows trial lawyers to double their recovery and lawyer fees by filing lawsuits in court, waiting until those suits are settled and then filing another claim against the asbestos compensation bankruptcy trusts. Simply put, double dipping allows personal injury lawyers to enrich themselves at the expense of asbestos victims.

By closing the asbestos loophole in Texas law, asbestos claimants themselves – individuals suffering from mesothelioma often with little time left to live –actually stand to gain the most. Such a change would allow these harmed individuals and their families access to compensation faster than the present system allows and stop the double payouts to plaintiff’s lawyers looking to game the system.

The other change that must be made is to give judges the authority to dismiss dormant asbestos and silica cases pending in Texas courts, especially those cases that do not meet the medical criteria for trial.

This reform would protect the rights of pending plaintiffs while ensuring that invalid cases don’t place an undue burden on businesses that would have to carry these dormant lawsuits as contingent liabilities on their financial filings. Further, judges already have this authority in all other types of lawsuits. They should have the same authority over asbestos cases.

Reforms to close the loopholes in asbestos and silica personal injury litigation would further strengthen the original reforms passed in 2005 and provide Texans with legitimate asbestos and silica claims better, faster access to the courts and to the compensation they deserve.

Sadly, we know well-funded personal injury trial lawyers – you’ve seen them fishing for clients with their mesothelioma ads on television – have fought and will continue to fight these smart reforms with all their might.

They managed to derail a similar reform effort last session. Greed is a great motivator, and mesothelioma lawsuits can be extremely lucrative. Let’s hope state leaders take action to provide protection and swift compensation to those truly harmed as well as maintain the good health of our state’s court system.

Chip Hough is president of Basic Industries, a Texas-based company that provides industrial and commercial maintenance and construction services. Hough is also a board member of the Citizens Against Lawsuit Abuse of Central Texas.

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Today, March 2nd, is Texas Independence Day, and on this day, Texans get to feeling a bit feisty:

One day, Texas will probably have to liberate its former territory. I just wanted to be ahead of the curve on that, in terms of vending high quality merchandise.

But seriously, did you know that Texas only needed about seven weeks from its Declaration of Independence to defeat Santa Anna at the Battle of San Jacinto?

Trivia Tidbit of the Day: Part 953 -- Democrats Like California, Republicans Like Texas-

So, first off, I can't say that I am a huge fan of left-leaning, North Carolina-based PPP polls, especially their polling inside of Texas. But I found this to be fairly interesting-- and extremely revealing.

Basically, Democrats across the country hate Texas and love California. Republicans, meanwhile, hate California and love Texas.

Democrats:

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Republicans:

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Fascinating. There are two dominant models for governance in America today. The California model of high taxation, bloated government, forced unionization, enviro-luddite regulation, higher unemployment, and intense domestic out-migration of individuals and businesses, versus the Texas model of low taxes, streamlined government, right-to-work labor laws, balanced environmental regulation, abundant job creation, and robust domestic in-migration.

Despite having 12 million fewer people, Texas exports 56.8% more than California.

There's a model that works and one that doesn't. We have the evidence in front of us. Yet, Democrats refuse to acknowledge it.

Hat tip to John Egan on this one: "Nationwide poll: Democrats hate Texas; Republicans love it."

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Previous Trivia Tidbit: America needs more spectrum.

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It has been another year and a half or so since the last Heidi update here, so I figured it was time for another round of photos.

These are all Instagram photos, taken with an iPhone 4:

Heidi in the car, from May 2011:

Super Heidi, from June 2011:

Heidi jumping into a pool, July 2011:

Heidi Noir, from January 2012:

Heidi at the park, January 2012:

The chase, February 2012:

And Heidi is now a photographer, herself:

Trivia Tidbit of the Day: Part 952 -- Jobs, Jobs, Jobs-

A company that didn't exist eight years ago now practically rules the world.

Facebook now employs 3,000+ people directly in more than a dozen U.S. cities (and indirectly supports many multiples more who have staked out careers related to Facebook). Facebook has 845 million monthly active users, and sees 483 million daily active users interact with their respective social networks on its turf.

The rise of Facebook coincided with the the proliferation of high speed internet in American homes (you need speed to download all of those pictures of your friends), cheaper data storage (hosting all of those photos), and the coming of age of a new generation of digital natives with digital cameras.

So, what's next?

A lot of things. But, as smart phones proliferate, it's undeniable that mobile will be the next frontier.

Indeed, Deloitte predicts an explosion of what it calls the "app economy" over the next few years:

There is almost no limit to what could be for the app economy.

Except that there is a limit.

A recent Cisco report predicted that mobile data traffic will grow sixteenfold between 2011 and 2016, eventually totaling 1.74 exabytes of data per month, a rate equivalent to 4.8 trillion text messages a second. An FCC technical paper released in October 2010 in support of the commission’s National Broadband Plan projected that, without additional spectrum, mobile services would have a "spectrum deficit" of 90 MHz by 2013 and 275 MHz by 2014, which would affect services.

Smartphones like the iPhone and Android use 24 times more data than traditional “feature phones,” and tablet computers like the Apple iPad consume 122 times more data than feature phones.

Big data is the new name of the game. We are at the front end of an explosion of folks using their mobile devices to consume and produce almost unimaginable volumes of data.

And, while demand for spectrum is practically infinite, spectrum itself is finite. So what's the answer?

Rob Pegoraro sums it up:

Something crazy just happened in Washington: A complicated exchange of billions of Communications towerdollars’ worth of spectrum, affecting telecom services that millions of Americans rely on, has been arranged without major objections from any of the involved parties.

The spectrum swap in question will see an unknown expanse of the airwaves–potentially more than were handed over after the digital-TV transition–go from local TV stations to wireless carriers. Broadcasters that give up those frequencies will then get a cut of the proceeds collected from auctioning them off to the carriers.

Wild, right? How rare is this headline, from Gary Shapiro at Forbes: "Congress Gets It..." Congress gets it? Seriously, that never happens. Well, this particular Congress did "get it" at that particular moment, at least.

As James Glassman, also at Forbes, put it, "Auction the Spectrum, Grow the Economy."

As an entrepreneur and political professional, I can say without a doubt that faster and more ubiquitous mobile data would allow me to actually do what I can only now conceptualize theoretically.

Right now, our mobile devices have been coasting along at a plateau. They're limited by the limitations on the spectrum. The next leap forward for our phones will require a leap forward in access to spectrum. And the next leap forward in mobile technology very well may lead to the next leap forward in the "app economy."

While the approval of this voluntary auction of spectrum has thus far gone off without much controversy (for good reason), there are opponents gathering, using the lexicon of the Occupy movement (1% this, 1% that), to suggest that allowing broadcasters to voluntarily re-purpose some of their vast and underutilized spectrum for an actual productive use in the wireless industry is somehow akin to Native Americans selling Manhattan for $24.

Watch. Assuming the FCC doesn't botch the implementation of this thing, we'll soon see wireless providers offering faster, cheaper, better, more reliable data plans. And phones and app makers will respond. And that is a very good thing.

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Previous Trivia Tidbit: Since the beginning of Barack Obama's administration, Rick Perry's Texas has added more jobs than all other states combined.

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Trivia Tidbit of the Day: Part 951 -- Jobs, Jobs, Jobs-

Barack Obama's jobs record on job growth is pretty miserable, and people generally understand that fact, even if they don't know the specific numbers. Under Obama's tenure, the nation as a whole has netted job losses of 1,987,800. Texas, meanwhile, has added 105,100 jobs since Obama was sworn in. The other 49 states combined plus Washington, D.C. (excluding Texas) lost 2,180,800 jobs under Obama. Among the handful of states that have added jobs in the Obama era, Texas has added 62.56% of the 168,000 net new jobs.

Here's a graph of this latest data, from the Bureau of Labor Statistics:

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Well, you might say, that's just under 3 years. Data can be skewed over such a short period of time.

Okay. Rick Perry has been Governor for 11 years. Let's take a gander at his job creation record compared to the rest of the nation over that full time in office.

Bam:

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As you might expect, it's a little lower than the three year range, but it's still nearly half of all jobs. This in a state with about 8% of the nation's population. Nearly as many new jobs as all other positive job growth states combined. Under Rick Perry, Texas has added 1,091,400 jobs. The rest of the nation combined has lost 2,082,100 jobs.

Flashback: data through the end of October 2011, just last month.

Meanwhile, BizJournals.com just noted that over the past decade, there are only five cities among the largest 100 in America to regain jobs lost during the recession. Four of them are in Texas. And San Antonio has nearly at its all-time peak, as well:

You can sort these tables in all kinds of ways, but notice which cities top the list. Five Texas cities, Pittsburgh, and Washington, D.C.

Rick Perry helped guide Texas to greatness, even in this economic situation we're in today. He can do the same for the nation. 2012 will be a jobs election. Rick Perry is America's jobs Governor. It's time for Rick Perry.

If you'd like to learn more about Rick Perry, you can sign up for the Perry Almanac, a daily email with the latest campaign news and facts (like the facts in this post).

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Previous Trivia Tidbit: Texas Job Growth Still Dominating.

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Trivia Tidbit of the Day: Part 950 -- Jobs, Jobs, Jobs-

Some facts about Texas job growth over the past year (.pdf):

Texas added 20,800 jobs in November, bringing the total for the past year to 226,000 jobs. The private sector fared better, adding 22,700 jobs last month and 289,900 over the past year. Texas has experienced 19 consecutive months of positive job growth. And, unlike the national labor force, which is shrinking as people give up and drop out (which ultimately makes the national unemployment rate look better than it actually is), Texas continued to grow its labor force. Even the manufacturing sector added 3,900 jobs last month, bringing the total to 25,200 for the year.

Of course, in addition, Texas cities also make up two of the top four for manufacturing jobs. Plus, five of the top twenty least miserable cities. And four of the top five and nine of the top twenty-five cities for job growth. Moreover, Texas is overperforming on job growth:

There were 23 under-performing states and 27 over-performing states (plus Washington, DC). The over-performers had 1,781,984 more jobs than expected, and the under-performers had 1,781,984 fewer jobs than expected.
Texas' more-than-expected 880,586 jobs account for 49.4% of the entire national over-performance.

Rick. Perry. 2012.

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Previous Trivia Tidbit: Dallas Versus Detroit.

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Trivia Tidbit of the Day: Part 949 -- Jobs, People, Income-

Two Texas metro areas, Houston and Dallas, lead the nation in new jobs over the past year:

The largest over-the-year employment increase occurred in Houston-Sugar Land-Baytown, Texas (+79,500), followed by Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, Texas (+48,800).

What makes certain cities win and other cities lose?

Cato knows:

In 1980, Austin, Texas, and Syracuse, New York, were roughly the same size. The Austin metro area had a population of about 590,000, and the Syracuse metro area had about 643,000 residents. By 2007, Austin’s population had increased by more than 1 million while Syracuse’s population had been stagnant. That same disparity exists when one examines the growth of employment and real personal income. Another disparity between the two areas is the tax burden. State and local taxes accounted for nearly 13 percent of personal income in Syracuse but only about 9 percent in Austin.

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Check out Dallas versus Detroit, Austin versus Syracuse, San Antonio versus Buffalo, and McAllen (TX) versus El Centro (CA).

You can also find the Cato study here.

A good visual of Dallas versus Detroit:

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Between 1980 and 2007, jobs and income grew dramatically in Dallas, while you can see what happened in Detroit.

In 1980, Dallas and Detroit were similarly sized cities. By 2007, Dallas had grown dramatically, while Detroit actually lost population:

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Go read the whole Cato study, and then try to tell me that policies don't matter.

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Previous Trivia Tidbit: Texas' Truly Amazing Job Numbers.

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Trivia Tidbit of the Day: Part 948 -- Jobs, Jobs, Jobs-

This year (2011) so far, Texas is more than doubling the rest of the nation, in terms of job growth:

...through October 2011, year-to-date annualized Texas job growth was 2.1 percent, compared with a U.S. rate of 1.2 percent. Without the Texas gains, U.S. employment would have expanded 1.0 percent.

Let's look at some other time periods.

DECEMBER 2000-

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Since Perry became Texas Governor in December of 2000, Texas has added 1,078,600 net new jobs, while the other forty-nine states have lost 2,190,100 net jobs (1,111,500 lost net lost jobs, nationally). Looking at only the job-adding states over that time, 2,392,900 new jobs were created. 1,078,600 is 45.08% of 2,392,900.

In other words, since Perry has been Governor, Texas has added more than 45% of the entire nation's net new jobs among job-adding states. Keep in mind that Texas has about 8.1% of the nation's population. You could also say that Texas, during Rick Perry's tenure as Governor, has added more jobs than the other 49 states combined.

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OCTOBER 2006-
Now, let's look at the past half-decade. Five years, from October 2006 to October 2011. Over that time, Texas has added 463,800 jobs. The nation as a whole lost 4,790,600 jobs. Remove Texas, and the rest of the nation lost 5,254,400 jobs over the past five years. Looking at just the job-adding states over the past five years, those ten states plus DC added 676,400 total net new jobs.

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So, over the past half decade, Texas added 68.57% of all new jobs in America, among states with job gains. Texas also-- obviously-- added more new jobs than all other 49 states combined over this five year time frame.

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JANUARY 2009-

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Since Obama has been in office, Texas has added 92,300 net new jobs. The nation has lost 2,108,600 jobs, and the nation minus Texas has lost even more-- 2,200,900 jobs. The nation's job-adding states have added 155,200 net new jobs over that time.

In other words, under Barack Obama's time in office, Rick Perry's Texas has added more new jobs than the other 49 states combined, and Texas is home to 59.47% of all the new jobs among job-adding states in America.

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There's also the official beginning of the most recent recession (began December 2007 and officially ended June 2009).

DECEMBER 2007-

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Texas added 58.38% of the nation's new jobs among job-adding states since the beginning of the recession. Plus, more jobs than all other 49 states combined.

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These are all net, non-farm, seasonally-adjusted jobs in these comparisons. Public and private sector jobs are both included. The data has been culled from the Labor Department's Bureau of Labor Statistics.

OCTOBER 2010-
Over the past year, Texas has added tons of private sector jobs while shedding government jobs:

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A lot of ways to slice this. And when you look at only private sector jobs, Texas fares even better, relative to the rest of the nation.

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Previous Trivia Tidbit: Domestic Migration.

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