Sorry, New Orleans: The Super Bowl Won’t Bring A Major Boost To Your Economy

New Orleans is gearing up to host Super Bowl XLVII, the National Football League’s annual championship that will pit the Baltimore Ravens against the San Francisco 49ers on Sunday, February 3. The city and its businesses are predicting an economic boom that will result in the ultimate comeback for a city that was decimated by Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

Officials expect 150,000 people to descend on the city for the Super Bowl, and economic impact studies estimate that the game will bring $434 million to the city’s economy. Hosting three mega sporting events — the 2012 NCAA men’s Final Four and this year’s Super Bowl and women’s Final Four — will boost the city’s economy by more than $1 billion, according to an estimate from the International Business Times. And business leaders and lawmakers think the media exposure involved with hosting the big game will push the boom to immeasurable levels.

Those estimates, though, are likely fool’s gold, according to an assortment of academic research into the actual economic impact of Super Bowls and other major sporting events. When professors Victor Matheson and Robert Baade studied the economic impact of Super Bowls from 1973 to 1997, they found that the games boosted city economies by about $30 million, “roughly one-tenth the figures touted by the NFL” and an even smaller fraction of what New Orleans officials predict. A later Baade and Matheson study found that the economic impact of a Super Bowl is “on average one-quarter or less the magnitude of the most recent NFL estimates.”

Similarly, a 1999 paper from professor Philip Porter found that the Super Bowl had virtually no effect on a city’s economy. Research on other events New Orleans has hosted, including the men’s Final Four, is similar. When Baade and Matheson studied Final Fours, they found that the events tend “not to translate into any measurable benefits to the host cities.”

There are multiple reasons the estimates are often overstated. Impact estimates usually take into account how much money will be spent in the city during an event like the Super Bowl without examining how much potential spending will be lost because people don’t visit or leave the city to avoid the crowd — that is, the impact studies account for gross spending, but not net spending. And the estimates rarely include the additional cost of putting on the event, further distorting the disparity between gross and net spending figures.

Another factor is the possibility of leakages, whereby money spent doesn’t remain in the local economy. Much of the spent money will be at hotels, which often raise prices three-fold for events like the Super Bowl. But as Matheson notes in one study, those price increases don’t translate into three-fold increases for hotel employees, so much of the increased spending never makes it back into the local economy. And many Super Bowl services are outsourced to outside contractors, who don’t return all of their earnings back to the local economy either.

But even if the Super Bowl creates activity to match the most generous estimates, that wouldn’t be nearly as big a deal as it seems. Total economic activity for the New Orleans metro area totaled $80.3 billion in 2011, meaning a $434 million boost would amount to about 0.5 percent of the city’s yearly economic activity.

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Rubio Places Limits On Immigration Reform When Speaking To Conservatives

GOP Sen. Marco Rubio (FL) agrees that Congress needs to pass immigration reform and has given numerous media interviews outlining his proposal to offer legal status to immigrants here illegally. “We just have to get this thing done for once and for all,” Rubio told the New York Times.

The potential 2016 presidential candidate has been meeting with conservative lawmakers to build support for his proposal. But in selling the plan to right-wing voters, Rubio places strict pre-conditions to providing legal status to undocumented immigrants and significantly downplays the component. On Wednesday, for instance, Rubio reiterated to conservative radio host and reform opponent Mark Levin that Congress must adopt stronger immigration enforcement — including border security — before offering work permits to undocumented immigrants:

LEVIN: I want to make it clear. You want operational security of the border, and you want enforcement in the workplace of existing law.

RUBIO: Let me tell you the problem with that. In the past, people say that, but then what happens is they go ahead and do the process of legalization, but they don’t do the security. One of the things is…the security component is a trigger. In essence, none of that other stuff with regard to getting in line and applying, none of that happens until we’ve been able to certify that indeed the workplace security thing is place, the visa tracking is in place, and there’s some level of significant operational control at the border.

While the Obama administration also has offered stronger checks to verify a worker’s citizenship or legal status, Rubio’s suggestion that the border needs to be more secure before immigration reform can be implemented is ridiculous. The U.S. spent $18 billion on immigration enforcement in the 2012 fiscal year, which is more than every other federal law enforcement agency combined, according to a report from the Migration Policy Institute. A record number of people continue to be deported under Obama, and net undocumented migration is at or below zero.

Instead of wanting to focus more money and resources on the border, it is time for Rubio and Congress to consider a permanent fix to the nation’s immigration system, including a pathway to earned citizenship for the 11 million undocumented immigrants living here.

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Fly proves buzzkill for Obama at White House event

Call it President Obama versus the fly, Part 2. 

Only this time, the fly won. 

When Obama appeared in the East Room for a personnel announcement on Thursday, a fly landed right smack in the middle of his forehead, taking some attention away from his photo-op and drawing the clicks of the photographers in the room. 

Obama paused to take a few swats at the fly. 

"This guy is bothering me here," he said, as the fly circled him and then seemingly flew away for less presidential pastures. 

It wasn't Obama's first run in with a pesky pest. He paused during a 2009 interview with CNBC to take a whack at another fly, using his right hand to kill a fly that landed on his left hand. 

"Now where were we?" he asked, before proudly adding, "That was pretty impressive. I got the sucker." 

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Lousiana Governor Changes His Mind, Won’t Eliminate End-Of-Life Care For The Poor And Disabled

In a victory for disabled, terminally ill, and poor Louisianans, Gov. Bobby Jindal (R-LA) has reversed course and decided not to go through with his plan to eliminate hospice care benefits for low-income residents through the state’s Medicaid program, the Associated Press reports.

The Jindal Administration’s reversal comes in the wake of public outrage and candlelight vigils over a budget “austerity” proposal that one hospice care provider equated to “throwing away poor people.” If enacted, Jindal’s plan would have thrown as many as 5,000 terminally ill and disabled Americans receiving hospice care benefits off of public insurance rolls, raising health care costs by forcing sick patients into expensive emergency room care while saving the state a meager $8 million in 2014.

Instead, the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals will continue funding the benefits through federal grant money, giving sick, low-income Louisianans some much-needed peace of mind. “The good Lord took care of us today, so we got a fix,” said state Sen. Fred Mills, a Breaux Bridge Republican who vice chairs the Louisiana state Senate Health and Welfare Committee.

But while the Jindal Administration’s decision today is an uncontested victory for Americans at risk of falling through the safety net, Louisiana’s poor are not out of harm’s way just yet. Jindal has proposed one of the country’s most regressive tax proposals, and has slated massive budget cuts to public education and health care program funding.

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POLL: Growing Plurality Of Minnesotans Support Marriage Equality

Gov. Mark Dayton (D-MN)

A new PPP poll of Minnesotans shows a plurality now supports marriage equality, by a 47 to 45 margin. Fully 75 percent of Minnesotans (including 65 percent of Republicans) back at least allowing civil unions. PPP estimates that given the trend and the age demographics, a majority Minnesotans will likely support marriage equality by the next election.

In November, Minnesotans defeated a marriage inequality constitutional amendment, proposed by the then-Republican majorities in the state’s House and Senate, by a 51-47 margin. At the same time, voters elected new Democratic Farm Labor (Minnesota’s Democratic Party) majorities in both chambers.

Armed with the popular mandate from November’s elections, supporters of marriage equality plan to push a bill to grant same-sex couples the right to marry in Minnesota in the next few months. Gov. Mark Dayton (D) has pledged to sign the bill if it reaches his desk.

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STUDY: Americans Just Can’t Afford Mental Health Treatment

The U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMSHA) has just released its annual report on drug use and mental health disorders in America, and its findings confirm: Americans cannot afford the cost of their mental health treatment — even if they have insurance.

The report estimates that 45.6 million American adults suffered from Any Mental Illness (AMI) in 2011, comprising 19.6 percent of the adult population. Of that 45.6 million, a meager 38.2 percent received any sort of mental health services — and this graph breaks down why:

While 15 percent of Americans suffering from AMI cited inadequate insurance coverage as their main obstacle to seeking care, a staggering 50 percent said that mental treatment costs are simply too high. And that number includes both insured and uninsured Americans, illustrating how expensive out-of-pocket costs for mental health care are relative to the available coverage.

The data also highlights the damage done by the cultural stigma associated with such care. Over 37 percent of Americans who should have received treatment didn’t believe that they needed any or that treatment wouldn’t help — a dangerous assumption that is likely to exacerbate mental illness — and an additional 35 percent were afraid of negative social consequences or being institutionalized.

That last statistic should weigh heavily on lawmakers’ minds as they craft comprehensive gun safety legislation that also addresses mental health services. Mental health professionals have already expressed concerns that New York’s sweeping new gun laws may end up reinforcing stigmas about mental health care and dissuade Americans from seeking the care they need.

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Watson buys women's health company Uteron Pharma

PARSIPPANY, N.J. -- Drugmaker Watson Pharmaceuticals Inc. said Wednesday that it has completed a deal to expand its women's health business, buying Belgian drug developer Uteron Pharma SA for $150 million in up-front cash.

Watson, which makes generic, brand-name and biosimilar medicines, said Uteron could receive up to $155 million more in future milestone payments, depending on whether products it is testing are approved for sale.

Uteron, based in Liège, Belgium, is a spinoff of the University of Liège. It has several female healthcare products in development.

Those include a contraceptive device, a next-generation birth control pill containing the natural hormone estrogen and tests to increase the success rate of in-vitro fertilization. That's a technique to help infertile couples by combining an egg and sperm in a laboratory dish and then transferring the resulting embryo into the woman's uterus.

Uteron's first product could be an intrauterine device called Levosert, for long-term contraception and treating heavy menstrual bleeding. The device is awaiting approval in several European Union countries and could go on sale there this year. It's in late-stage testing for the U.S. market, where it could be launched in 2014 if approved.

Watson, based in Parsippany, N.J., has the rights to market Levosert in Western Europe and, in partnership with two other companies, in the U.S. and some Eastern European countries.

Another Uteron product, Diafert, a test kit for determining the quality of a woman's eggs for in-vitro fertilization, could increase the success rate for implanting embryos. That could help couples achieve a pregnancy with fewer cycles of costly in-vitro fertilization.

Watson, which is the world's third-largest maker of generic prescription drugs, said Diafert is expected to receive approval in the European Union in the second half of this year and launch after that. It could be approved in the U.S. in 2014. Watson has exclusive global marketing rights to Diafert.

Uteron has another product in mid-stage patient testing, Estelle birth control pills. They contain a new natural estrogen called estetrol believed to be safer than other oral contraceptives. Estelle could be launched worldwide in 2018.

In addition, Uteron has potential products in early development, including Colvir, a treatment for vaginal infections.

In afternoon trading Watson shares rose 43 cents as $85.69.

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