Archives for May 2020

Day 1228 – Laffer versus The World

Saturday May 30, 2020 

155 Days until the election on November 3^rd

235 Days until the Inauguration on January 20, 2021

My conservative friend has asked me what I don’t like about the Laffer Curve and what I would do differently. Let me respond. This will take the better part of several screeds. I will break it up into several sections. I have been asked to state my opinions, not those of others, and I have been told I don’t back up what I say with any sources. So hang on, here goes.

First let’s deal with some sources and background. Let me suggest three books: 

The Fifth Element – Michael Lewis,

Democracy in Chains – Barbra MacLean,

Lost to The West – Lars Brownsworth.

Lewis lays out what he found various people who had worked in positions of responsibility in our government worried about and what they did to make the government better.

MacLean is a historian, who before this book, wrote on the Klan – based on boxes of material she found in a basement of a former Klan person high up in the organization. This book, Democracy Unchained, talks about her discovery of papers of an economist who was supported by the Koch brothers to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars to try and subvert our democracy. In other words, he was being dishonest about his intentions from the get-go because he knew they wouldn’t be popular. What he did through various high sounding logical and patriotic arguments was to make the case that the rich should keep their money and that politicians couldn’t be trusted so the only way to keep power would be to change the constitution of the political entity. Something he was able to achieve in Chile. MacLean also points out that another tenant of his thinking was that the best place to hold power was at the state level because people don’t really pay attention to what a state does and one can use it to influence the Federal government and suppress the local governments.

Lost to The West describes the fall of Constantinople to the Turks and the history that led up to that event. It documents how time and again the rich became powerful and how they then subverted the laws to their advantage. In this case the rich and powerful were the landowners and the church. Every time they took control of the government they changes the tax laws so the big land owners and the church didn’t have to pay taxes. Every time the people who got squeezed. They were the middle class and the poor. The middle class became poor, and the poor took to the hills – literally!

Aside from those resources I would say having a foundational understanding of economics is essential, college level, two semesters: macro and micro. Economists come in many flavors and theories. The dominant economists over the last one hundred years are: Keynes, Friedman, and Samuleson. There are the Austrians whom Ran and Ron Paul like. There is the guy in Democracy Unchained, all of whom whose names I forget at this moment. There are also lots of people who pretend to be economists, but are really pushing a political agenda. More on them later, as we encounter them. The most respected, mainstream, Nobel winning economist of our day is Paul Krugman. His work is often sited and remains pivotal to understanding what is going on in the world economically. Because he writes for The New York Times (and maybe other reasons) right wing conservatives tend to not like him. He also refuses to advance their self serving agenda. If you want more conservative mainstream go with Larry Summers. He has the ability to piss off just about anyone, although he makes some valid points. Finally, if you want to understand how recent policies were enacted and how they affected you and me and the nation I would say Austan Goolsbee would be the guy.

Okay, ready? Have you read Paul’s 27 books? Good let’s go. 

Oh, one more thing – economists like computer geeks tend to keep switching terms and meanings, redefining things and the like, all to keep us confused or perhaps to make a slightly different twist on the same argument. It’s the way technology is by the high priests who practice it. 

Let’s deal with Laffer and call it a screed. Btw I thought it was Lafler – with a “L” after the “F” – ha, I was wrong. That is the first time I’ve been wrong, btw, if you are keeping score.

Okay, Laffer was Reagan’s guy via David Stockman. His well known Laffer Curve was the idea that taxes could be between 0% and 100% and that depending on the amount of taxation the gross revenue of the – in this case the nation ie the Federal government – would vary and that at a certain percentage was the perfect spot to maximize the government revenue. Sounds good, right? Well, it is – in theory. 

However, as economists point out there are assumptions made here that in theory sound good but in practice aren’t true. Mainly, that revenue is continuous as is the taxation function. Neither is true. Ah, the fancy terms! What that means is that they were assuming that by lowering the tax rate from what it was to another number the government would make more money because this would be incentive to work more, to produce more, and thus there would be more to tax and hence the government would make more in taxes. 

That idea, that lowering the tax rate would allow the government to make more revenue due to the fact that the revenue base would expand is true to a limited degree, but it is not a giant faucet that the more you turn it the large it gets. That is to say it works to a limited degree, within certain bounds, and outside of those bounds it goes in the toilet. What are those bounds? Ah, Grasshopper, we the all knowing political economists (read Stockman and the like) are/were still working on that.

At this point the question is posed, “Do you support a 90% tax rate?” (Like what was true when Eisenhower was in office?) And “Do think it’s a good idea to limit how much money a person can make?” A cruel twist on the phenomena actually being described. I’ll address both questions here, below.

Ah, wait. You want answers? Screw all those words? Okay, “Yes” and “No.” Happy?  Shall we move on, or would you like some background? Yes? No? Maybe? Welcome to economics 301, the advanced course.

Laffer and his idea has been used throughout the last forty or fifty years to reduce the tax rate on the wealthy. However, the reason for so doing was to increase the revenue flowing to the Federal government. To Reagan’s surprise and Stockman’s chagrin that didn’t happen. In other words, in the 1980s adjusting the tax rate on the very wealthy didn’t have the desired effect. The other part of this economic argument was that by reducing the tax rate on the rich the money would “trickle down” to the rest of us and the economy would grow. That didn’t happen either.

The rich became richer, the Federal government had to borrow more (Reagan did it by taking the money from Social Security. The highway fund had already been looted by previous Republican administrations.) and the middle class and the poor got taxed more. In other words, it wasn’t “trickle-down” but “pissed-on.” 

But the Republicans being the good economic scientists they are thought that they hadn’t tried hard enough, and like Peter Pan restoring life to Tinkerbell, they tried real real hard. Papa Bush tried it. His son W tried it. Paul Ryan tried it. Trump tried it. Funny thing, in every case the rich got richer and the Federal government had to borrow more. We now have the largest gap in wealth between rich and everyone else that we have ever had.

Let’s move on to the idea of “Would I tax people at 90%?” and “Would you limit how much a person can make?” The answers are: “Yes, No, Maybe, and That depends” – just to be clear.

The 90% tax is referring to the idea of what is known as a “Progressive Tax.” That is to say the idea is that the more you make, the more the high end of what you make would get taxed. So am I for taxing everything you make at 90%? No. Am I for taxing some high-end portion of what you make at 90%? That depends.

What a stepped tax system has demonstrated, and you can try this at home right now, is that if you get taxed more on a higher amount of earned income you will try to avoid that higher amount of income. This is the case for a progressive tax.

Let’s try it with an example. Say people who make $25,000 or less get taxed 1%,

$25-50,000 2%,

50-100 – 3%

100-200 – 4%

200-500 – 5%

500 and above 70%.

So if you earned a million dollars the last $500K would be taxed at 70% and the rest would be taxed in declining increments. What would you do, or try to do?

Think about it, what would you do.

I’ll tell you what I’d do. I’d do everything I could to avoid that 70% tax rate.

Hum, how could you do that?

Let’s say you own a business, you have a lot of people working for you, and you have a lot of equipment too. Let’s say it’s a restaurant. You know the whole staff, been with you for years, you like them all. They are like family. 

You are set to make a cool million in taxable income. You can take that last $500K and give $350 of it to the government or you could give everyone a big fat Christmas bonus, buy that new super-duper refrigerator for the place and upgrade the kitchen ovens.

What would you do? Do you really need the $150K that the $500K would net you or is the kitchen upgrade and the bonuses a better way to go? You decide.

What happened in this country when the high end rate was high, the rich folks invested in their companies and maybe even in their people. Anything to avoid the high end tax rate. 

So, would I tax at 90%? I think within a narrow band I would let Mr. Laffer and his curve help me.

Meanwhile, in the news president Trump quoted a Ku Klux Klan racist quote in regard to the black man killed by police in Minneapolis. He said he didn’t know where the quote came from, but regardless, it was true. He also said that about his quote of Mussolini during the campaign. His sons have said it about the racist homophobic stuff they have posted. The only person in that group who seems not to deny where he got it is Stephen Miller. He’s a dyed to the bone friggin’ racist. Of course, his allusions to racist stuff is the kind of thing that can’t be ascribed to anything else.

More econ in the subsequent screeds.

155 Days until the election on November 3^rd

235 Days until the Inauguration on January 20, 2021

PS Apple? Anyone?

Day 1227 – Notes From a Friend

Friday May 29, 2020 

156 Days until the election on November 3^rd

236 Days until the Inauguration on January 20, 2021

I use the title from Tony Robbins’ book (not Anthony here – Tony. Okay? Same guy, less formal.) mainly because I just read the book and it’s really helpful, but in my twisted way I thought it “nice.”

I have a friend. She tells people that she has extreme political views. Her stuff kept showing up on my Facebook feed. Typically, it’s a meme with a big glaring headline. She posts it usually with the note: “To read later.”

I have read many of her posts. I don’t know if she ever goes back and reads what she posts or if she looks up in other sources to see if what she is posting is true.

I doubt it. That s to say: I doubt she goes back and reads what she posts, and I doubt she looks up elsewhere to see if what she has posted is factually accurate. 

The problem I have with her posts is the headline is never accurate in that it never reflects the intention or real story. The headlines are typically carefully worded so as to not be wrong, but certainly not be accurate of what has gone on.

Most recently the meme posted was concerning The Speaker of The House. It said she wouldn’t allow the House to remote vote, yet was fine with mail-in voting.

Sounds hypocritical right? Yeah. But that wasn’t the actual story.

Pelosi was asked why not allow remote voting and she said it seemed the way the Constitution was written it wouldn’t be allowed. She said she thought the validity of such a vote was “vague.” She had asked others to look into it in more depth, as in “perhaps there is a way around it” (the quotes and sense is mine, not hers.)

I had earlier taken a month out to read whatever “To Read Later” posts my friend put up, and I pointed out time and again that what she put up was inaccurate and suggested she take them down. This ended in her writing, “You’ve said this before.”

And that’s pretty much how this last round went. There seem to be three people who always comment on these situations. The sister of an old grammar school buddy who holds similar beliefs to my friend. Her comment is never directly leveled at me but is indirectly ascribed. This last round it was “There’s a lot of anger out there.”

Then there’s a woman whom I don’t know that takes up a similar cudgel as my friend and chimes in with “You’ve said this before.”

Okay, I’ve said it before. What you are putting up is untrue and dishonest, for the love of God take it down and stop embarrassing yourself!

(You’ve said this before. … But not in that way … Why don’t YOU tell me what you believe and stop quoting others? (Wait? What? I tell you what I, unlike you, know the situation to be. I try to stay away from beliefs.) )

The other thing I get hit with is that I never back up what I say, which I find interesting because as far as I know I always do. At worst, I point out what the article sited really says or what the facts are that aren’t stated and can be found by a simple Google search.

Then there’s one more person who likes to jump in and ask my friend “who is this asshole?” and he throws in words like liptard, etc. 

He most recently pointed out why we shouldn’t allow mail in voting. Here is what he stated:

 so republican ballots are the same color as democratic ballots but the have a hidden isotope in the paper that the.scanner detects and counts as a Democratic vote. Yes it can happen. So you have millions of votes counted incorrectly. Yes it happens.

I have asked for examples. Haven’t heard back yet.

My friend likes to reply to her buds that I’m a liberal ask as such …

She then asks me to comment on a whole host of things: abortion, gun rights, etc. And poses the questions that many on the right think important (“So you think it’s okay for a person that declares themself to be female to compete in women’s sports?”, “Are you for the killing of babies when they are X weeks along?”, “So, It’s okay with you to let males walk into a women’s bathroom as long as they’ve declared themselves to be a woman?” etc.)

My brain is not big enough to do my screeds and answer her stuff. I either have to “Say yes to one, and let the other one ride”* or I have to think of something clever.

*Quick, what’s the song? What’s the group? Who is singing? 

I have decided, for now, to try and answer her questions, criticism of my earlier replies, in my screeds.

As I’ve thought about many of the issues she has raised it finally occurred to me, “What are her goals?” By that, what would she do? What does she ultimately wish for the country (the world) to be?

I don’t know what they are. So I’ll ask here. She can respond in a private email.

To be fair then I would have to state my goals.

They are – To Make the World a Better Place.

That I realize is very lofty and can be interpreted many different ways, and perhaps, just perhaps might be open to gigantic broadsides from her buddies so let me be more specific.

To make the world a better place requires of me and others to help, not just myself but others. The way to measure if the world is becoming a better place would be to look at various measurable outputs that address questions of climate, poverty, resource usage, and freedom. This requires one state their philosophy. I believe in the idea that a rising tide lifts all boats and therefore strive to look for answers to problems that help many people not a few. The alternative philosophy is what I call “Rugged Individualism” or “I got mine; you get yours.” The alternative philosophy, however you want to state it, makes claims that if you didn’t succeed it’s your fault and you should live with the consequences. Okay, that’s fine, then what do you do if someone ends up near the end of their life with no money and not able to afford to see a doctor? What do you, as an individual or as a nation, do? Ignore them?

This is illustrated in Tip O’Neil’s book “Speaker of the House.” At the time George Bush was President. A member of his staff had a personal problem in his family. I forget the exact situation, I think it had something to do with the man’s wife and a health issue that was going to be very expensive. George felt sorry for the man and they passed the hat. Nice gesture, thought Tip, but he was reminded that Bush had vetoed legislation that would have given the same kind of aid and comfort to many in a similar situation just the week before. Pass the hat is rugged individualism. Passing legislation to address the issue in general is floating all boats on a rising tide. 

Tomorrow I’ll address the Lafler Curve.

Now for the answer to the quiz from yesterday. What did you guess? Paddle? Good one. We had an oar and half a mile to go. Could have done that. I guess. But if you’re Billy Hood, you reach in your pocket, take out your cell phone and make a call, 

In a few minutes another motorized canoe was headed our way, and towed us. 

PS “You want a piece of me? Come on” The one claw crab takes on the world.

Day 1226 – Another Milestone!

Thursday May 28, 2020 

157 Days until the election on November 3^rd

237 Days until the Inauguration on January 20, 2021

ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND DEAD

Least we forget. How did we get here?

Quotes are Trump’s ascribed and accredited in a Washington Post article, listed here:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/politics/trump-coronavirus-statements/

ps Their graphics are much better than my photos.

I apologize to those of you who think The Washington Post is some left wing Fake News media outlet, I would have preferred to get these numbers from Fox News or PragerU to satisfy your sense of whatever you want to call it, (smugness?) However, such media outlets don’t report these facts, but instead report alternative facts.

Jan. 22

“We have it totally under control. It’s one person coming in from China, and we have it under control. It’s going to be just fine.”

1 case, 0 dead

ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND DEAD

Feb. 10

“Looks like by April, you know, in theory, when it gets a little warmer, it miraculously goes away.”

12 cases, 0 dead

ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND DEAD

Feb. 24

“The Coronavirus is very much under control in the USA. … Stock Market starting to look very good to me!”

35 cases, 0 dead

ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND DEAD

March 4

“Some people will have this at a very light level and won’t even go to a doctor or hospital, and they’ll get better. There are many people like that.”

153 cases, 11 dead

ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND DEAD

March 9

“The Fake News Media and their partner, the Democrat Party, is doing everything within its semi-considerable power … to inflame the CoronaVirus situation.”

605 cases, 22 dead

ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND DEAD

March 10

“We’re prepared, and we’re doing a great job with it. And it will go away. Just stay calm. It will go away.”

959 cases, 28 dead

ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND DEAD

March 17

“I felt it was a pandemic long before it was called a pandemic.”

6,421 cases, 108 dead

ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND DEAD

March 18

“I always treated the Chinese Virus very seriously, and have done a very good job from the beginning, including my very early decision to close the ‘borders’ from China – against the wishes of almost all.”

7,786 cases, 118 dead

ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND DEAD

March 23

“America will again, and soon, be open for business — very soon — a lot sooner than three or four months that somebody was suggesting. … We cannot let the cure be worse than the problem itself.”

33,746 cases, 427 dead

ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND DEAD

March 26

“I don’t believe you need 40,000 or 30,000 ventilators. You know, you go into major hospitals sometimes they’ll have two ventilators, and now all of a sudden they’re saying, ‘Can we order 30,000 ventilators?’”

88,836 cases, 1,209 dead

ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND DEAD

March 29

“Nothing would be worse than declaring victory before the victory is won.”

121,478 cases, 2,026 dead

ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND DEAD

…

May 27 As we passed the 100,000 dead mark, president Trump said nothing.

Instead the assistant press secretary issued a White House statement:

“President Trump’s prayers for comfort and strength are with all of those grieving the loss of a loved one or friend as a result of this unprecedented plague, and his message to this great Nation remains one of resilience, hope and optimism.”

ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND DEAD

May 28 The president issued a tweet:

“To all of the families & friends of those who have passed, I want to extend my heartfelt sympathy & love for everything that these great people stood for & represent. God be with you!,”

ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND DEAD

157 Days until the election on November 3^rd

237 Days until the Inauguration on January 20, 2021

PS “On a boat, on a river …”*

*Actually, in the middle of a lake when the engine conks out and the starter pull cord breaks. What to do? Swim? Not a good idea, this part of the world (Guatemala) has animals that would eat you.

What to do? The man holding the broken chord is none other than Billy Hood. You may not know him, but if you’ve watched any of the “Survivor Guatemala” you’ve seen his handiwork. In the next screed, I’ll tell you how Billy solved the problem. (So exciting!)**

** That is, if I don’t forget.

Day 1224 – Social Distancing – Smocial Distancing

Tuesday May 26, 2020 

159 Days until the election on November 3^rd

239 Days until the Inauguration on January 20, 2021

What are these people thinking?

I got my first piece of spam infection email from Russia today. The campaign is now officially on! (Hot flaming tip! You can hover over the address in the email and the real sender’s address will appear. If that address ends in “.ru” it came from Russia!!!)

Back to the main thread …

Last night I saw pictures of people in a giant pool where they could stand around tables and I guess drink and talk. There were lots of people. Every spot was taken. Around the pool was crowded. There was a sign on the wall saying “Practice Social Distancing.”

I’m guessing most of these people can read, but critical thinking is not part of the quiver of intellectual gifts (maybe? I don’t know.) 

Is it really worth your life to stand in a pool where someone is going to be too lazy to get out to go to the bathroom to talk to people you don’t really know?

I don’t get it.

Then there are my right wing friends who are cranking up the conspiracy hoax blame Obama inaccurate headline stuff. 

My favorite so far is the one of Obama eating a snow-cone. He’s wearing black and has sunglasses on. To make it look more menacing they threw a dark shading over the whole thing. The caption says something about how this former president criticized the current one and that has never been done before. Yeah. Right. (And the current president criticizing the past president? What about that? How many times before you have to say, “Enuf.”)

It got so bad over Memorial Day that I even went to the trouble to google a few of the outrageous or purposely misleading headlines and replied. “28 million mail-in ballots went missing” – Uh no, not every mail-in ballot was returned would be more accurate. I guess that’s why many states send out applications now first, eh? Oh that’s right. Our pres criticized a democratic state for doing that. Well, no, not exactly. He was misinformed and said the state sent out ballots. The Secretary of the State of Michigan responded – twice – to correct the president and to point out that four or five Republican states do exactly the same thing.

This brings me to the critiquing of Nancy Pelosi because she didn’t allow the House to remotely vote. Oh shocking. The nerve. (“Jane, you ignorant slut.”) Oh wait, neither did Kevin McCarthy or Mitch McConnell. I guess  the person doing the headline decided not to mention that. But hey let’s do a little mind experiment shall we? Let’s say Nancy Pelosi allows remote voting and let’s say a vote goes through that my right wing misleading headline posting friends don’t like. 

What are the chances that the next headline post will be something about the Speaker of the House willfully ignoring the Constitution? I mean there is that bit in the Constitution that says how a vote must take place and that people must be present in the chamber. All Pelosi did was to opine that a remote vote was vague Constitutionally. OMG! Get out the fat f*cks with their AR-15s.

And speaking of those gentlemen. When are they going to be arrested for battery?

I am so sick and tired of some idiot walking around with a weapon that could wipe out the crowd in five seconds. It’s stupid. 

It’s like the kid who pointed an uncapped paint ball gun at me at point blank range and said, “Don’t worry it’s not loaded.” (“Listen, you little turd, I don’t want my eye or my life dependent on your word.”) 

Okay so here’s my plan to wipe out the virus in one simple easy move. Are you ready?

Everybody stay at home for two weeks. 

I think as soon as Joe gets in he should announce that you’ve got a week to get all the toilet paper you need for two weeks stay at home then Boom, the hammer comes down.

Today or tomorrow we will pass the one hundred thousand dead mark and five or six days later we will pass the mark of more dead than we lost in WWI.

In other news Rolling Stone did a piece on the four men to blame for the pandemic in the U.S. I was surprise Jared wasn’t on the list. 

However, the guy who runs the CDC I didn’t know much about. Turns out he’s aligned with the Christian right and is a believer in HIV is god’s punishment for being gay crowd, etc. No wonder the CDC has lost some of its luster.

Who are the four? Trump, Azar, Redfield (the CDC guy), and I think Pence. They managed time and time again to dismiss, ignore, and not do anything. The best defense they have in some cases is that they were and are dramatically unqualified to work in these areas. That is – they didn’t know what they were doing or even how to do it. They still don’t.

Take for instance the testing fiasco. South Korea immediately teamed with their biotech private industry and got test kits out. We did not. Why? Those at the top didn’t really know how to do it, nor did they “believe” it necessary, or they thought the CDC could pull it out. This ignored many crucial points, none more important that even if the test worked perfectly the CDC didn’t have the capacity to process the number of tests the country was going to need. 

Instead of unleashing the biotech industry here, these four men sidelined and hobbled our private sector.  A failure of leadership and basic understanding coupled with a muddled disregard for truth led to this state of affairs.

Moving on, we watched the Amy Schumer show about her husband trying to teach her to cook while quarantined. I like him. I found Amy kind of annoying or something. However, her husband mentioned and defined terms and taught some good straight forward techniques. For instance, I didn’t really know what macerating meant. I kind of did, but he told me.

Also, Vivian Howard’s new series on PBS “Somewhere South” is wonderful. It’s calming as opposed to most cooking shows that are competitions against each other and the clock. She takes time to learn, to talk to others, to show technique, to eat – highly recommend. We watch a lot of cooking shows – btw.

Speaking of cooking shows, let’s talk about porn – like food porn, and cooking show porn and archaeology porn shows. 

I think Shelby and I have kind of drawn up respective lines that we realize we will not cross or let the other person be dragged across.

She will watch “The British Baking Show” or “Worst Cooks In America” when I am not in the room. By and large, not a rule but a realization that, well, how many times do I need to see someone bite into a giant cake and say, “it’s a little bit dry”?

And I will not force her to watch “Unearthed,” “Secrets of the Pyramids,” or “Destination Unknown.” 

We come together on “Top Chef,” “The Voice,” “Rachel,” “Songland,” and miscellaneous other shows. But when “Chopped” or “Guy’s Grocery Wars” or “The Top Ten Most Mysterious … on Earth” or “Abandoned” we each respect the other’s need not to have to watch.

Another thing, it seems everyone wants to hold a Zoom meeting on Wednesday at 4, 5, or 6. What’s up with that? There are other days, other times. Please pick one of six other days. Thank you.

Did you hear? Trump has decided to take his job seriously and listen to others who know what they are doing? Ha ha – just kidding.

Given how fat he appeared on the clips of him swinging a golf club I’m kind of surprised he was able to swing the club. I think he should challenge Kim Jung Un to a match. Whoever loses has to give up their nuclear weapons. Fortunately, Donnie wouldn’t have to play Kim’s old man, You know he got five holes in one on one round of golf? It’s in a museum in North Korea. It’s true. (True that it’s in a museum in North Korea.) Hey, and don’t worry about our losing the match. Donald, like Kim, wouldn’t keep his word.

I think it would be fun to have the match televised and coming from North Korea. “Ladies and Gentlemen, Mr, Un is taking out an eight iron to try to get out of the tall grass where he shanked the ball …”

“We are sorry for the interruption Bob Kostas just had a bag put over his head and was hauled out of the booth…”

“Our glorious leader just scored another hole-in-one!”

Go team.

159 Days until the election on November 3^rd

239 Days until the Inauguration on January 20, 2021

PS The Gathering Storm