Are You A One Percenter

[astonas]

Re: Are You A One Percenter

eye did watch it/commented - would agree.
altho i happen to think the private sector's 'surveillance' is the more... uhhh... nefarious - vs the .gov's motivation, which is rightfully aimed as keeping the 'spooks/kooks/kidkillers and assorted whackos' from attempting harm - as he mentioned in the vid about the 'panopticon' and orwell's warning - if they think they might be being watched they a bit less inclined to mess around or try that much harder to be clandestine, which increases their logistix load, which reduces the available resources to launch in the first place ? (pls feel free to critique/correct my thinking on this)

I see things differently; indeed I take exactly the opposite view.

The effect of being watched depends on embracing social norms.

Those who respect the social norms of our society most will feel its limitation, and self-censor the most.

Those who actively seek destruction of those norms will delight in flouting them, and prefer to remain just beyond range of retribution, but still as visible as possible.

The government's stated targets are terrorists advancing a radically different cultural agenda, with radically different social norms. Those undoubtedly fall into the second category. They will take pride in being seen to defy our norms, in full view of a watcher, every time they think they can get away with it.

Why do you think ISIS makes videos?

Those groups the government might be justified in intimidating, only become more inflamed.


No, self-censorship can limit only those who don't really need to be limited.

One can complain about the press letting them, of course, but they're really just the middleman. An occasion, not a cause.

WILL disagree on this in particular, as its become quite clear that the lamerstream media is steering 'the agenda'
and mostly by distracting/diverting attention to all the 'hotbutton social issues' while IGNORING/downplaying whats really been goin on....

Hmm, this one may be worth rethinking, lek. Are you aware that you cited a media report of insufficient SEC oversight, as evidence of insufficient media oversight? That might hint that the problem may not lie where you think.

I too, used to blame the media for insufficiently deep reporting, and it's true that it could always be better. Indeed, if transparency is to help us, it still needs to be, and by a lot! But that isn't the same thing as saying the media is at fault. That it is the cause of the problem.

Not at all.

In fact, I think the fact that this particular red herring is brought up so much on iTulip does a lot of damage to this site. It actually distracts us from having real, meaningful, and productive discussions, by displacing the blame from where it (chiefly) belongs.

Reasoning on who controls the media:

The media actually does compete in a free market.

(With such a strong 1st amendment, it is actually one of the freest markets in the world.)

But the really important thing to remember is that it is, to a large degree, an ADVERTISING market.

This means that the consumer of the content that the media generates is not the customer.

And this, in turn, means that the media does not set the agenda. In fact, it means that they can't. The only parties that COULD set the agenda are (a) the viewers who make up the product being sold, and (b) the advertisers who buy the product.

Note that this is true not because news editors don't wish to set the agenda, but because they are actually incapable of doing so. In the short term, they may have influence. On a single story, they may. Perhaps even for a given month. But not in the end. In the end, we as media consumers get (in aggregate) exactly the media we ask for, and pay for. No more, and no less. That's the problem. It is the consumers (viewers) who would rather be entertained than informed. And it is the customers (advertisers) who would rather we aren't challenged to think critically.

I know the above might seem like a counterintuitive answer, but that's because media is a bit of a counterintuitive industry, since the people who consume their products are not their customers.

I'll break it down in more detail to make my reasoning abundantly clear, and accessible for debate. But I'll also set it aside as a quote, so it's easy to skip for those (probably the vast majority of) readers who think I'm belaboring the obvious, or being even more preachy than usual:

You'll already know most of this, but I'll step through it anyway, because it may help make my reasoning more clear:

The media market is almost entirely for-profit. And profits depend on ratings (or readership, sales, clicks, eyeballs, etc.) Even non-profit media costs are based on the same ratings scales. The whole game is about chasing, courting, and counting media consumers. (Not customers, mind you, consumers.) The attention of these consumers is the product that the media companies sell to their customers (the companies that are buying advertising slots from them.) That's who gives them the money.

Media companies don't sell news to us. They sell our attention to their advertisers.

This means that each media outlet has to serve its segment of the market with whatever that segment will most eagerly consume. Note that word choice. Not lead. Not educate. Not teach. Serve. If a news organization starts to try to tell their consumers to think in a way they don't like, they'll loose the very product they are trying to sell: us. And thus also all the revenues they get for selling us to their customers. And if they start trying to tell us to think about whether consumerism is a good thing at all, they will even more quickly and directly lose their customers.

When it comes to the political sphere, the right is served by different media outlets than the left. Extremists consume different ones than moderates, and so on. The total market is extraordinarily fractionated, and heavily-analyzed statistically by those operating in it. It has to be, since that's how the media justifies their prices to advertisers.

And in this environment, with media companies desperately competing for eyeballs to sell, every single major media outlet claims to be at the "center" of the political spectrum. Each claims to represent the silent majority's view, even when it is perfectly obvious that it is impossible for this to be true for more than one of them (and likely true for none). This is because "News" is supposed to be about objectivity, and even if this lie is perpetrated as much from tradition as it is for sales, it is by now stretched thin to the point of translucency.

So unless a media operation is trying to change its stance to a position it thinks is more popular, or less critical, it always does so at its own mortal peril. No major outlet is even trying to get to the center, except perhaps of their target market segment.

Offending the consumer by telling him he's wrong means taking a financial hit. In general, those media outlets that are still in existence are the ones who (a) know who their customers are, and (b) refrain from challenging them to change their minds about anything.

The consequence of this is that on average, the distribution of news media opinions will always have a very strong driving force toward a time-weighted distribution* of the political views of media consumers. The media is not pushing on public opinion, it's being pulled around by it.

If it does anything else, it does so by choosing to give up profits for the sake of ideology. Money can, and in cases does, permit control. But control is not free. Even the media must choose between pleasing advertisers, and exerting whatever influence they do wield, for their own purposes.


* I included the "time-weighting" term to account for people who, for example, might view twice the news. In effect, they get counted twice in the distribution. If they seek out a balance of opinions, they might partially cancel out. If not, they double, etc.

In general, then, the "media opinion" is in fact, nothing more or less than the "popular opinion", but weighted based on media consumption. Consume more media, have more votes.

That's why, when someone complains about the media, they really aren't making a statement about anything external to their own mind. All they are saying is how their personal opinions compare to those of other media consumers (adjusted for advertising pressure). This is generally a pretty meaningless point to make in any discussion, since it is exclusively about a subjective feeling, and even then applicable only to a relative (moving) and manipulated (consumerist) metric.

So the media doesn't lead. If it wants to stay in business, it follows. And not one ocontent creator even tries to chase the overall population (though that's what they claim to represent). Instead each follows its target market segment.

And that's why, when anyone complains that "the media has a bias", or "the media is pushing an agenda" it doesn't make even a bit of sense to believe them. What the media is doing is desperately pandering to their viewers, by telling them that the opinion the viewer already has, is what everyone else has too. That makes the consumer feel good, and lets the media sell those consumers to their customers.

On the fallacy of the "center":

A bias has to be relative to something. In politics, people talk about the "center" as though it is a fixed place. But everyone considers themselves more moderate, and reasonable, than they really are objectively, so they are really taking themselves as a reference point. (That's the basic fallacy that makes people so mad at "the media".)

If they are far enough off center that even they can't deny having a specific agenda, they refer to themselves as "moderates" of the right or left, regardless of whether quotes are definitional or ironic.

And I'll be honest, while I like to think of myself as a centrist, try to be one, and describe myself as one, I have no idea where I actually stand on the spectrum. No one does. Without unbiased, quantitative numbers (which I'm not sure can really exist) I'm not sure there is a way to know where the real center is.

So for example, if someone says "The media has a conservative bias." All they have really told you is the following: "I am more liberal than the average media consumer."

Similarly when someone says "The media has a liberal bias." The only sensible translation is: "I am a conservative, compared to other media consumers."

When someone is deeply convinced of the media bias because it matches their personal experience, I would ask if that isn't better understood as them having surrounded themselves with people who think like them, or having restricted their own media input, so their view of "center" is different from a numerically accurate center of the overall market. That seems more logical, and by Occam's razor, more likely.

On the correct interpretation of remarks disparaging the aggregate media:

There is one other consequence to my perspective on the media, and I hope that you don't take offense that I'm pointing it out. I respect you, Lektrode, but there is one of your habits that I can no longer respect.

If someone says "lame-stream media" I now tend to interpret that as a request for media content to be dumbed down to Sarah Palin levels, free of any shades of gray, nuance, or subtlety. (I believe that it was she that really popularized the term in that light, but please correct me if I'm wrong.)

My reason for thinking this is that I sincerely cannot see a good reason to categorically defame (not criticize, mind you, but categorically defame) the vast bulk of all public opinion. The only (insufficient) reason I can come up with is that one wishes to replace the body of public opinion with a simplistic, but usually false, dichotomy. The term "lame-stream" is simultaneously so all-encompassing (plays off "mainstream" and thus by definition encompasses the majority of public opinion) and so simplistically dismissive (can one get more schoolyard than "lame?) that it is incompatible with any spectrum of public opinion containing even a bit of variety and nuance.

I understand that this isn't the sentiment that you intend to convey as you use the term "lame-stream." But it is nevertheless how I've come to understand the term, as I've re-evaluated my view of who is really in the media driver's seat.

(I should point out, for completeness, that all of the above applies in aggregate, and most especially to large media outlets. There are other arguments that explain how the fine traditions of muckraking journalists and investigative reporting can survive, and the existence of fact-checking services whose credibility depends on neutrality. But these are very small players when it comes to the big-money game of influencing public opinion.)

If you're going to make a case for OVERALL bias of the ENTIRE industry, you're going to have to justify how the bias you are claiming improves the profit for not only one, but EACH of the media players in the field.

That is a case that is very easy to make about the dumbing-down of media (which I think is quite real) as well as about a bias toward consumerism (which is the essential paradigm of most advertising) but is a much harder case to make for a net left-right political bias in media.

After 9-11, the people CHOSE to become sheep, so they could feel like they had a shepherd. They just didn't realize that when you become a sheep, there can be no shepherd.

Only wolves on your side of the border.

and THEN we cant even gettem to focus on that aspect (withOUT a 'triangulation calculation' on how many votes it can buy by NOT ADDRESSING IT) - how in hell does anybody think we'll EVER have 'security' without SECURING THE BORDERS (esp the southern)

So ... my reference to borders was not intended to relate to "border security" at all. It was merely a poetic way of saying that the people preying on Americans are in fact those who we ourselves elevate, that we give them power over us, even ultimate power, when we abdicate our responsibility to think for ourselves.

To the extent that it relates to physical borders at all, it would actually allude to the opposite of your apparent concern. The true threat is not outside of any border. It is always inside. That's true no matter where the border is, no matter what country you're in, and no matter how impermeable the border is.

It is true not because of the nature of the government. It is true because of the nature of people.

It is a property of government that we need to give up a measure of control to it, so that it may serve our needs. But if we cease being vigilant in supervising it, ANY government, large or small, capitalist or communist, can run amok.

That's why one does not have the option to settle for a government that is only as good as the people in it. Such a system is always inherently flawed.

Instead, we need a system that makes elected officials ACT as good as they possibly can, regardless of how they WANT to act.

Transparency -> accountability -> efficiency. Only then can scope be discussed.

other than those couple Mr A - i'm with ya, 100%

Glad to hear it, lektrode. Always nice to chat. Sorry it got so long, I didn't have time to do any editing, but wanted to get a reply out before everyone lost interest, so there's more stream-of-consciousness babbling than I'd like.

[lektrode]

Re: Are You A One Percenter

astonas, you have summarized powerfully our condition. as i read your words i felt them viscerally, like a punch in the stomach. they are that real, and sorrowfully that accurate. the only thing i would modify is the role of gov't officials - they are just henchmen of the true predators.

+1
Mr A = one of our best commentaters

[lektrode]

Re: Are You A One Percenter

Sorry, I added two lines to my post while you were responding. I think those clarify my view in this regard.

There is no substitute for vigilant oversight of government. There never can be. Power corrupts.

+1
will have to get back later, heading out for a weekend excursion and the other1/2 is barkin at me ;)

[lektrode]

Re: Are You A One Percenter

No, lektrode, I've thought about it, and I really DO mean overnight. The actual elections are needed as much to make sure people are watching as they are to physically replace individual legislators.

The government, in conducting public business, doesn't feel watched.

The people, in conducting private business, do feel watched.

And the behavior of each group is exactly what you would expect from that circumstance. The people are sheep, and the legislators are wolves.

THAT's what we've got backwards.

as per usual, Mr A = Very Astute Obs.

Watch this video by Glenn Greenwald. Then think about it very carefully.

Yes, it is about privacy.

eye did watch it/commented - would agree.
altho i happen to think the private sector's 'surveillance' is the more... uhhh... nefarious - vs the .gov's motivation, which is rightfully aimed as keeping the 'spooks/kooks/kidkillers and assorted whackos' from attempting harm - as he mentioned in the vid about the 'panopticon' and orwell's warning - if they think they might be being watched they a bit less inclined to mess around or try that much harder to be clandestine, which increases their logistix load, which reduces the available resources to launch in the first place ? (pls feel free to critique/correct my thinking on this)

But it is also about the power intrinsic in supervision. Our current system reverses who is in charge in the fundamental relationship between the government and the governed. The rest of our problems follow naturally, perhaps even necessarily, from that error.

would absolutely agree on that one - its also why i maintain that how things are run in the 'Live Free or Die State' represent The Gold Standard of how The US SHOULD be run - as the state leg are basically volunteers (100bux/year, for a single 30day sesh) and BECAUSE *they* are limited by the simple fact that there are no 'broad based' sources of revenue - ie: no sales tax and no income tax (but with fairly high property taxes, dividend tax, etc) this is what keeps the political class in line - they have less in the way of slush funds (or that black hole of accountabilty known as 'general funding') to scatter over the political landscape to curry favour with the usual suspects.

the other aspect of how NH has managed so well for itself over the going-on 400 years is with that quaint old concept of 'town meeting' form of government - coupled with the relatively high property tax - which forces the citizenry to focus with laser-like intensity on virtually every line item of their budgets - as in:

"so.. you want to build a shiny new $100mil school, with a 'whirld class curriculum', give the teachers a nice raise, buy some new firetrucks, put more cops on the beat (never mind in 60k SUV's) ?"

well then - you gotta come to town meeting and RAISE YOUR HAND TO RAISE ***YOUR*** PROPERTY TAXES

and not foist off that responsibility to the political class, who in some states think they're royalty, as they pay themselves 50,60,80 grand a year for a part time - 2or3 month/year - job, thinking they really should be 'fulltimers' - with even MORE fulltime pay and then bitch that they dont enuf have time to accomplish the public's biz in their regular sessions, so call for 'special' sesh's (to pass 'special' legislation? altho that issue i couldnt care less about, as it distracts from the REAL problems, which are mostly economic - and without a healthy economy, how in hell do the 'activist-industrial complexes' think they will EVER get their pet issues addressed 'equitably' = the entire folly of the past 6-8 years)

but/sorry, i digress

That's how Bin Laden won with 9-11.

He did die for it, but he got exactly what he wanted. He knew that his plot could destroy American values, and it has.

It did no less than invert the entire nation.

and the surest proof of that is on display EVERY DAY at EVERY AIRPORT in the US

In fear of terrorist acts, the people gave up their right to not be watched.

And for fear of letting another attack happen on their watch, government redoubled its desire for secrecy, its right to not be watched.

Most of the techniques and rules were already in place (eg. espionage laws, seated filibusters, and anonymous holds). The government just got serious about using them.

wont disagree with any of this.

One can complain about the press letting them, of course, but they're really just the middleman. An occasion, not a cause.

WILL disagree on this in particular, as its become quite clear that the lamerstream media is steering 'the agenda'
and mostly by distracting/diverting attention to all the 'hotbutton social issues' while IGNORING/downplaying whats really been goin on....

After 9-11, the people CHOSE to become sheep, so they could feel like they had a shepherd. They just didn't realize that when you become a sheep, there can be no shepherd.

Only wolves on your side of the border.

and THEN we cant even gettem to focus on that aspect (withOUT a 'triangulation calculation' on how many votes it can buy by NOT ADDRESSING IT) - how in hell does anybody think we'll EVER have 'security' without SECURING THE BORDERS (esp the southern)


other than those couple Mr A - i'm with ya, 100%

[astonas]

Re: Are You A One Percenter

Sorry, I added two lines to my post while you were responding. I think those clarify my view in this regard.

There is no substitute for vigilant oversight of government. There never can be. Power corrupts.

[jk]

Re: Are You A One Percenter

No, lektrode, I've thought about it, and I really DO mean overnight. The actual elections are needed as much to make sure people are watching as they are to physically replace individual legislators.

The government, in conducting public business, doesn't feel watched.

The people, in conducting private business, do feel watched.

And the behavior of each group is exactly what you would expect from that circumstance. The people are sheep, and the legislators are wolves.

THAT's what we've got backwards.

Watch this video by Glenn Greenwald. Then think about it very carefully.

Yes, it is about privacy.

But it is also about the power intrinsic in supervision. Our current system reverses who is in charge in the fundamental relationship between the government and the governed. The rest of our problems follow naturally, perhaps even necessarily, from that error.

That's how Bin Laden won with 9-11.

He did die for it, but he got exactly what he wanted. He knew that his plot could destroy American values, and it has.


It did no less than invert the entire nation.


In fear of terrorist acts, the people gave up their right to not be watched.

And for fear of letting another attack happen on their watch, government redoubled its desire for secrecy, its right to not be watched.

Most of the techniques and rules were already in place (eg. espionage laws, seated filibusters, and anonymous holds). The government just got serious about using them.

One can complain about the press letting them, of course, but they're really just the middleman. An occasion, not a cause.

After 9-11, the people CHOSE to become sheep, so they could feel like they had a shepherd. They just didn't realize that when you become a sheep, there can be no shepherd.

Only wolves on your side of the border.

astonas, you have summarized powerfully our condition. as i read your words i felt them viscerally, like a punch in the stomach. they are that real, and sorrowfully that accurate. the only thing i would modify is the role of gov't officials - they are just henchmen of the true predators.

[astonas]

Re: Are You A One Percenter

+1
maybe not overnight, but surely within an election cycle/2.

No, lektrode, I've thought about it, and I really DO mean overnight. The actual elections are needed as much to make sure people are watching as they are to physically replace individual legislators.

The government, in conducting public business, doesn't feel watched.

The people, in conducting private business, do feel watched.

And the behavior of each group is exactly what you would expect from that circumstance. The people are sheep, and the legislators are wolves.

THAT's what we've got backwards.

Watch this video by Glenn Greenwald. Then think about it very carefully.

Yes, it is about privacy.

But it is also about the power intrinsic in supervision. Our current system reverses who is in charge in the fundamental relationship between the government and the governed. The rest of our problems follow naturally, perhaps even necessarily, from that error.

That's how Bin Laden won with 9-11.

He did die for it, but he got exactly what he wanted. He knew that his plot could destroy American values, and it has.


It did no less than invert the entire nation.


In fear of terrorist acts, the people gave up their right to not be watched.

And for fear of letting another attack happen on their watch, government redoubled its desire for secrecy, its right to not be watched.

Most of the techniques and rules were already in place (eg. espionage laws, seated filibusters, and anonymous holds). The government just got serious about using them.

One can complain about the press letting them, of course, but they're really just the middleman. An occasion, not a cause.

After 9-11, the people CHOSE to become sheep, so they could feel like they had a shepherd. They just didn't realize that when you become a sheep, there can be no shepherd.

Only wolves on your side of the border.

And before we begin to hope that an election can replace wolves with shepherds, remember why a shepherd's job exists:

To fleece sheep, and ultimately, make mutton.

[astonas]

Re: Are You A One Percenter

+1
maybe not overnight, but surely within an election cycle/2

and eye appreciate the effort you have put into this discussion - both of you, but esp the full-unabridged replies by Mr A, as it goes a long ways to help us 'non rocket scientists' to understand what the issues are.

always a pleasure Mr A.

Thanks lek,

And your contributions, especially your enthusiasm and passion, are appreciated as well! There's going to be a lot of motivation needed in this country if change is ever going to come about. It's nice to see that represented here.

[lektrode]

Re: Are You A One Percenter

.....my point was really that such a monstrosity is the only way anything, well-intentioned or not, beneficial or not, can pass today. You could take a hypothetical "perfect" bill, run it through the process, and get an equal monstrosity. THAT is what has to change.

Voters need to prioritize transparency. Insist that all lawmaking is done in public. Demand an end to rules that permit unaccountable actions in congress: No more anonymous committee holds. No more anonymous ANYTHING. The technology now exists to record every edit of a bill, tagged by its editor, on a website, wikipedia-style, as it evolves from its original submission.

We should be demanding THAT. If a clause is too toxic to be claimed publicly by even one senator or congressperson, it simply shouldn't be in the bill.


I'd guess that bill complexity would drop dramatically, overnight.

+1
maybe not overnight, but surely within an election cycle/2

and eye appreciate the effort you have put into this discussion - both of you, but esp the full-unabridged replies by Mr A, as it goes a long ways to help us 'non rocket scientists' to understand what the issues are.

always a pleasure Mr A.

[astonas]

Re: Are You A One Percenter

I don't claim that it does make sense to increase inequality or that current inequality motivates better than in past years.

It appears that we are reaching the point of the conversation where meaningful common ground is more plentiful! I would say that it follows from the above statements that we also agree that IF government must have an impact on inequality, then all else being equal, it should at this point be favoring lower inequality, rather than higher inequality. Do we agree on that?

I'm not clear enough on what you mean to answer. There's several ways to define "favoring lower inequality". For instance:

1. If you make more, you pay more in taxes. This is accomplished by a flat tax rate, e.g. everyone pays 30% of their income as tax.
2. If you make more your tax rate goes up. This is accomplished by increasing tax brackets or I think what you mention below as sort of a continuously rising tax rate.
3. If you make more, you get taxed until you make the same.
4. You're taxed based on wealth so that everyone is pushed towards having the same net wealth.

If you're asking whether the government should keep moving towards number 4 until inequality is declining year over year, my answer is no.

I really was just making sure that we agree that reducing inequality is, in general, not a bad thing for our country. It seemed like we were, but I wanted to double-check. If you had very strongly resisted that, even in principle, the whole conversation would have to go to a far more fundamental level (ethics and morality, etc.) so I was just making sure we could move on to the more productive part of the conversation.

You are right, though, that the generalities are easier to agree on, and the details do matter.

You've continued on to the question of remedy, where we may find disagreement, though I suspect not too much.

I had in mind something like 2. We currently have a system that is nominally progressive, and that appears to be broadly accepted. I don't know anyone that is proposing 3. or 4, as those appear extreme to me. I'm certainly not advocating them here. 1. (flat tax) has been proposed by presidential candidates in various forms, but my assessment of that is since fractional discretionary income rises with earnings, a flat tax is on balance regressive. (The person who is sitting at the poverty line legitimately has less ability to pay a given percentage than a well-paid CEO, and also benefits much less from the public goods infrastructure that taxes fund, and those facts should be taken into account.) This seems pretty well-established, and not too controversial at this point.

I'd mostly advocate radically simplifying taxation, not altering the existing tenets of progressive taxation itself. I do think that extending them, as dcarrigg suggested, to be self-consistent in application across all incomes makes a lot of sense, though.

Essentially, I'm saying that a simplified progressive tax structure, with all the loopholes, credits, and deductions removed, will also be more progressive (i.e., provide a greater driving force for reducing inequality). I was hoping that you agree that this would be a positive step, and was seeking concurrence before moving on.

If a non-progressive (flat-tax) system is enacted instead, that inherently favors increasing inequality, which I believe we have just agreed is not beneficial going forward from this point.

Assuming varying levels of income, doesn't any system which fails to tax everyone to a point where they make an equal income inherently favor increasing inequality?

Maybe we need to precisely define what is meant by "increasing inequality".

Of course, you are right. My concern is principally the concentration of wealth into the hands of the top 0.1% and 0.01% of the population. The oft-cited problem is that these have access to sufficient resources to passively (by exploiting relatively unknown loopholes their clever attorneys and accountants can find) and actively (by lobbying to create more such loopholes) in some cases completely avoid taxes on their income.

It is these mechanisms that encourage increasing concentration of the nation's wealth, and these that I suggest targeting.

A vastly simpler system, with either capped deductions or none at all, could eliminate a large portion of this, very quickly. It would not require a complicated piece of legislation, and might even eliminate a huge portion of the tax code (in the case where deductions are eliminated, rather than just capped).

My point is that if the goal of government is not to make people happy, then choosing a metric to measure how happy people are is not an appropriate measure of success of its policies. Obviously, there is probably a correlation of happiness to commonly accepted government roles such as national security and preventing theft and murder. However, there's probably also a correlation to GDP.

Agreed. I'll just clarify again for the record that I wasn't really trying to advocate any specific alternative metric, only pointing out that GDP is an arbitrary metric (we used to use GNP, for example) and one that uses money as the sole input to a definition of success.

Perhaps some people do hold this to be the supreme purpose of government, but I haven't met many that feel that way. In my assessment, GDP serves as a tool to distract people from the fact that the government is doing more for some (investors), than for others (income-earners).

It does so by treating all economic activity, whether created by personal spending, business investment, or government spending, as equivalents that may simply be added together to into a single number. And it also does so by treating some improvements in efficiency as a net negative, rather than a positive. There are other problems as well, but you know that your metric has a problem when a hurricane's devastation is a "boost" to GDP because of the expense of rebuilding afterward. If that's a numerically valid way to "improve" the economy, something's wrong.

The primary question has to be: what is the proper role of government. Then we should ask: how can we measure its success.

Again, this wasn't really the core of my point, but if a discussion of governmental priorities is where you'd like the conversation to go, I'm happy to follow along and see where it takes us:

The proper role of government is probably one of the most genuine sources of disagreement among various political perspectives.

I'm very close to agreeing with you here. I think the rhetoric about government's purpose causes a lot of apparent disagreements between political perspectives.

I've found that when you actually talk about specific things that people want their government to do or not do, you get most people agreeing with 95%+ of the list. When they are able to get beyond hyperbole and irrational extrapolations, the nuts and bolts of what people want aren't wildly different.

But that last few percent gets magnified by black-and-white rhetoric until it is an unsurmountable pile of "principles" that stands between parties, and makes compromise impossible. The list of things everyone would agree on is vastly longer, and more fundamental: we all need to work together to have a trustworthy legal system, safe roads, a secure homeland, potable water, safe food, etc. But discussion can get caught in a trap of rhetoric about purpose, so that the few differences hold hostage the many agreements.

So if you will entertain for a bit a humble request that we keep the discussion about pragmatic, rather than idealogical, goals, we could probably have a productive conversation about what the proper role of government is.

For example: "Freedom" in the generic sense is not a pragmatic (eg. actionable) goal. "Freedom from threat of violence" might be, since it can be acted on by the creation of certain laws, the establishment of a police force, military, legal system, etc.

I suspect that if we listed generic values, everyone will value very a similar list of things, and immediately start to fight mightily about how to prioritize those.

But if you break it down into actionable goals, those same people may still have differences of opinion on funding priorities, but the rancor will tend to give way to compromise.

It'll be a very long slog to plod through such details, but I'm game to try if you really want to.

I just want to point out that it's refreshing to not have you immediately start fighting the total anarchist straw man that is brought out so often on itulip.

I likewise appreciate your eschewing similar arguments.

I think, however, that Reductio ad absurdum isn't just a problem here on iTulip. It is endemic in our entire political process, and is in my opinion the natural outgrowth of any two-party, winner-take-all, system. If you can make the other side look foolish, that is easier than providing evidence for your own, and unfortunately also more effective.

Perhaps one key to polite political conversation is to not worry about whether government is good or bad, but to focus on the fact that whether we like it or not, it is necessary? Once that is the frame of the discussion, one can think more clearly about what steps can improve it from our current starting point, without waving the red flags of "government controls everything, and messes it all up" or "less government is the first step toward anarchic chaos".

My personal philosophy is that if one should focus on on making government better, meaning more efficient and transparent (/accountable) then its size will be driven toward the "right" size through successive elections, of its own accord. Voters of any party don't like waste and corruption; if they can see it, they will respond appropriately. The hard part is creating transparency. (Say goodbye, for example, to anonymous committee holds in the legislature.) An electoral system CAN work, even if the flavor we have here doesn't at this point. It is certainly done much better elsewhere.

Obviously, I don't think we should be forced to reduce our legislation to a "four legs good, two legs bad" level of simplification. However, there is a direct connection between how much legislation exists and how simple it is to understand.

The tax code is nearly 4 million words. How could you possibly write a tax code that was simple and clear yet required 4,000,000 words to explain? It's not possible.

I would have to categorize us as being in "violent agreement" on the need for simplicity and understandability. But that is a very different thing from wanting to reduce the scope of government.

So I will continue to maintain that the difference between prioritizing "less" vs. "simpler" taxation is vast, because of how those words are interpreted in the halls of power. "Less" gets translated to "lower." How many times have we all seen campaign adds that say of someone: "voted to increase taxes XX times!"? For all we know from the add, every one of those might have been a vote to close a ridiculous loophole. But that's not how it plays on TV, and so that's not what an elected official gets to worry about. If we don't let them know that simplicity, transparency, and clarity matter more to us as voters, they certainly aren't going to come to that conclusion on their own.

You probably overestimate my level of trust and appreciation for the FDA and EPA.

Perhaps. But I really am requesting neither a high level of trust, nor great appreciation. I'm merely asking for an acknowledgment that their roles represent needed functions. That's a pretty low bar. Again, I've never said government is good. I'm just saying that it is necessary. Do we, or do we not, want to be ruled only by "caveat emptor?" If not, then the question should be "how can we best go about filling that need?" I'm not invoking the null straw man, mind you. I'm merely pointing out that to avoid it requires that one stick to pragmatic questions.

Well, that depends on how you define a serious group. I'm fairly certain that my local laws require a level 2 food license to sell lemonade. If your point is that authorities often look the other way, I agree. Failing to enforce the laws because they are silly doesn't equal good governance in my opinion. In fact it just opens the door to corruption as the cops can just decide to harass whoever they want.

I've been giving this "Lemonade Stand" thought experiment some consideration, and I'm not sure it is quite so simply encapsulated. Here's why:

If you carve out an exemption for lemonade stands, not only does it violate my intuitive instinct toward simplicity and uniform treatment, and increase the complexity of the regulation, it also creates a loophole based on the wording. Is it only temporary stands? Then food carts might be able to drive through that loophole too. Is it child-operated stands? Perhaps some clever entrepreneur might find a way to use kids to resell his products as independent operators. And so on. There will always be an unintended consequence to any rule, no matter how simple.

At the end of the day, there HAS to be discretion. That is, after all, the entire reason for existence of courts, to interpret laws, and especially decide whether a given set of circumstances was the intended target when a law was written. That isn't "failing" to enforce the law because it's silly. That's using judgement in which circumstances were intended to be covered by a given law. Both police, and judges, are called upon to exercise that judgement, every day. And yes, it is possible that it opens the door to corruption. But how many lemonade-stand shakedowns have you heard of?

If anything, it is possible that we try to put too many exceptions directly into laws, and thereby leave too little discretion to a realm where common sense may still be applied to a given case.

So yes, there is a slight hazard by having a law, and leaving every last exemption unitemized. But that is inherently unavoidable, and perhaps even highly desirable. And if someone does try to strictly enforce code on a lemonade stand, then in theory, it should happen only once. (After that, a court case would establish a case history of the exception, which could be looked up and cited by subsequent "violators".)

This may actually be a non-problem.

I agree, but the devil is in the details. Are the tiers 50% of income? 75%? 95%? I don't think the government should be the primary beneficiary of a person's income. That's just my personal philosophical belief. I do like the idea of getting rid of deductions. Why not just one deduction of the first $20,000 or so?

The details will of course have to be decided with public debate. But these days there isn't even that when it comes to higher tiers. In the meantime, I have my own favorite alternative approach, below (it'll never be implemented, but I can dream):

As another aside, I also think one could go a step further by using a formula to calculate taxes that doesn't have tiers at all, but a simple algebraic expression that provides smooth and monotonic (rather than stepwise) tax bill from 0 at $0 to (upper limit)% at $infinity, asymptotically approached. Every dollar of income, no matter where it falls, gets taxed at an infinitesimally higher rate than the previous one. You'd have a one-step tax form (plug income into equation, get tax due as the result), and nearly no ability to tweak it to give preference to anyone, without everyone being immediately aware of it. It might have a handful of constants that define its shape and inflection points, but they would all be understandable with no more than basic algebra.

I like that idea. It sounds...simple.

Well, thank you! It's simple enough that I'm sure it must have been mentioned in dozens of places before, so I won't take presume to take credit for anything other than stating it here.

But if you think about it, you could take any asymptotic function [wild guess to start with, [arctan(x)], define a multiplier that gives you the maximum tax rate [A arctan(x)], another constant to define the location of the inflection point [A arctan(bx)], and then (maybe) an x-offset to define a minimum income it applies to: [A arctan(bx-c)]. Multiply that by your total income (all sources), and you've got your tax due. If the government has to raise revenues, they'll have to explain which number is changing, how much, and why that one.

420px-Arctangent_Arccotangent.svg.png

And if arctan doesn't seem fair to you, maybe another shape does. There's no shortage of simple expressions.

With a total of one shape and three numbers to argue about, who is going to be able to tweak it to provide a specific advantage? Who is going to be unable to understand when it moves, or how it's been changed?

Just one more twist on the age old economic fallacy. Frederic Bastiat is rolling in his grave.

http://bastiat.org/en/twisatwins.html

It is easy to suck up a huge amount of taxpayer's money and manage to do some good for some people.

Of course it is. But my point was really that such a monstrosity is the only way anything, well-intentioned or not, beneficial or not, can pass today. You could take a hypothetical "perfect" bill, run it through the process, and get an equal monstrosity. THAT is what has to change.

I agree that the process is terrible. I have no idea how to fix it at this point.

Voters need to prioritize transparency. Insist that all lawmaking is done in public. Demand an end to rules that permit unaccountable actions in congress: No more anonymous committee holds. No more anonymous ANYTHING. The technology now exists to record every edit of a bill, tagged by its editor, on a website, wikipedia-style, as it evolves from its original submission.

We should be demanding THAT. If a clause is too toxic to be claimed publicly by even one senator or congressperson, it simply shouldn't be in the bill.


I'd guess that bill complexity would drop dramatically, overnight.

[DSpencer]

Re: Are You A One Percenter

It appears that we are reaching the point of the conversation where meaningful common ground is more plentiful! I would say that it follows from the above statements that we also agree that IF government must have an impact on inequality, then all else being equal, it should at this point be favoring lower inequality, rather than higher inequality. Do we agree on that?

I'm not clear enough on what you mean to answer. There's several ways to define "favoring lower inequality". For instance:

1. If you make more, you pay more in taxes. This is accomplished by a flat tax rate, e.g. everyone pays 30% of their income as tax.
2. If you make more your tax rate goes up. This is accomplished by increasing tax brackets or I think what you mention below as sort of a continuously rising tax rate.
3. If you make more, you get taxed until you make the same.
4. You're taxed based on wealth so that everyone is pushed towards having the same net wealth.

If you're asking whether the government should keep moving towards number 4 until inequality is declining year over year, my answer is no.

If a non-progressive (flat-tax) system is enacted instead, that inherently favors increasing inequality, which I believe we have just agreed is not beneficial going forward from this point.

Assuming varying levels of income, doesn't any system which fails to tax everyone to a point where they make an equal income inherently favor increasing inequality?

Maybe we need to precisely define what is meant by "increasing inequality".

And remember, this isn't the government telling the people to try to be rich, or telling its people to choose to be happy instead. This is how the government is measuring the success or failure of its own policies.

My point is that if the goal of government is not to make people happy, then choosing a metric to measure how happy people are is not an appropriate measure of success of its policies. Obviously, there is probably a correlation of happiness to commonly accepted government roles such as national security and preventing theft and murder. However, there's probably also a correlation to GDP.

The primary question has to be: what is the proper role of government. Then we should ask: how can we measure its success.

The proper role of government is probably one of the most genuine sources of disagreement among various political perspectives.

But again, this is a FALSE dichotomy. The only way to not be cheated is to deny the dichotomy itself. Some taxes must exist, to fund activities that only government can perform. Some regulations must exist, to prevent the crassest of might-is-right exploitation. But at the same time, it cannot be assumed [as (b) does] that the intent of the legislation is noble. Given this, the challenge is to find out how to force government to act WITHOUT corruption. Saying corruption will always be there, so we can't regulate or tax simply isn't one of the choices. Not really.

I just want to point out that it's refreshing to not have you immediately start fighting the total anarchist straw man that is brought out so often on itulip.

Right, so the challenge is to apply pressure for simpler legislation or better legislation, not necessarily less or more legislation.

Again, this is an argument for simpler and clearer legislation, but not an argument for fewer pieces of legislation. And while the laws themselves are often hard to read, there is at least some investigative journalism that goes on, that gives us a range of secondary opinions to evaluate. Imperfect, yes, but hardly nonexistent. And I certainly agree that much legislation today is NOT fair. The answer is not to pass no legislation, but to shine light on it, and demand it be more fair. In a word, transparency.

While there will always be different interpretations, that hardly means there should be no laws. Again, this is an argument for simpler, clearer laws, but not less laws.

Obviously, I don't think we should be forced to reduce our legislation to a "four legs good, two legs bad" level of simplification. However, there is a direct connection between how much legislation exists and how simple it is to understand.

The tax code is nearly 4 million words. How could you possibly write a tax code that was simple and clear yet required 4,000,000 words to explain? It's not possible.

But giving up and demanding reduced regulation (without prejudice to quality) is throwing the baby out with the bath water. Do you really want to live in a world where medicine requires less data for FDA approval, and there must be additional, unnecessary, risk every time you get sick? And in a world where that sickness happens more frequently because emission regulations, and the safety of drinking water is relaxed, and food safety is less stringently monitored?

You probably overestimate my level of trust and appreciation for the FDA and EPA.

I don't know anyone who thinks lemonade stands are a dire threat, and need regulation. I do vaguely remember an article about an overly enthusiastic cop who tried to do so, but he was later chastised for his error. Similarly the overzealous employee of a fast-food restaurant that insisted a baby be wearing shoes to be in the food-service area. Are you sure you're not (unintentionally, I'm sure) inserting a straw man here? Does any serious group claim this needs regulation?

Well, that depends on how you define a serious group. I'm fairly certain that my local laws require a level 2 food license to sell lemonade. If your point is that authorities often look the other way, I agree. Failing to enforce the laws because they are silly doesn't equal good governance in my opinion. In fact it just opens the door to corruption as the cops can just decide to harass whoever they want.

Like I said at the beginning, I think we're finding some common ground. I think a simplified tax code makes a great deal of sense (so, fewer taxes). I think fairer taxes could be arranged at the same time by including dcarrigg's suggestion of adding tax tiers above the present level. And one would probably wind up with somewhat reduced nominal tax rates as well, if one eliminated the concept of deductions from the tax code, or even reduced its impact, and kept total revenue constant.

I agree, but the devil is in the details. Are the tiers 50% of income? 75%? 95%? I don't think the government should be the primary beneficiary of a person's income. That's just my personal philosophical belief. I do like the idea of getting rid of deductions. Why not just one deduction of the first $20,000 or so?

As another aside, I also think one could go a step further by using a formula to calculate taxes that doesn't have tiers at all, but a simple algebraic expression that provides smooth and monotonic (rather than stepwise) tax bill from 0 at $0 to (upper limit)% at $infinity, asymptotically approached. Every dollar of income, no matter where it falls, gets taxed at an infinitesimally higher rate than the previous one. You'd have a one-step tax form (plug income into equation, get tax due as the result), and nearly no ability to tweak it to give preference to anyone, without everyone being immediately aware of it. It might have a handful of constants that define its shape and inflection points, but they would all be understandable with no more than basic algebra.

I like that idea. It sounds...simple.

Is that really needed to declare an unwillingness to follow the simplistic party line, on either side? Yes, it was a bad bill, based on the metric of simplicity, which we agree should be more important than it is. But that was the only way to get it passed. In fairness, it did also do some good for those who were previously not able to get insurance.

Just one more twist on the age old economic fallacy. Frederic Bastiat is rolling in his grave.

http://bastiat.org/en/twisatwins.html

It is easy to suck up a huge amount of taxpayer's money and manage to do some good for some people.

The bigger problem isn't any one bill, from any one party, but the process that requires any bill from either side to be similarly corrupted in order to pass. Complaining about a bill that's already passed may be entirely valid, but still not productive. Fixing the process might yet be productive. I'm encouraging a focus on that. And I think we agree:

I agree that the process is terrible. I have no idea how to fix it at this point.

[lektrode]

Re: Are You A One Percenter

This sounds too much like a Luddite solution to the problem


POLITICS & IDEAS
Countering Tech’s Damaging Effect on Jobs

Standard conservative and liberal answers aren’t enough to address the big changes under way.

what all of em seem to gloss over or outright ignore is the 800lb gorilla in all of this:

the fact that manufacturing in the US has been gutted over this same period - and without MANUFACTURING JOBS, there is no hope that the 'service economy' is going to make up for it - mostly because near all of the tech toys, i-everything has done a simply wonderful job of creating jobs EVERYWHERE BUT HERE?

we absolutely must stoke a resurgence of US mfg or all the 'education' initiatives will amount to nothing more than 'doing each others laundry' and requiring a masters degree to get that job

[vt]

Re: Are You A One Percenter

This sounds too much like a Luddite solution to the problem


POLITICS & IDEAS
Countering Tech’s Damaging Effect on Jobs

Standard conservative and liberal answers aren’t enough to address the big changes under way.

By WILLIAM A. GALSTON

Oct. 14, 2014 7:13 p.m. ET36 COMMENTS

American workers have made no economic progress since the beginning of the 21 century, and they didn’t do much better in the preceding three decades. The problems besetting the U.S. workforce are longstanding and structural, and incremental measures are unlikely to cure them. We need to understand the roots of wage stagnation—and act boldly to counteract them.
It is well known that median household incomes are lower today than they were 15 years ago. But declining labor-force participation explains only a portion of this drop. Since 2000, corrected for inflation, the weekly earnings of full-time wage and salary workers at the median have declined slightly. And remarkably, average hourly wages adjusted for inflation are lower than they were 40 years ago.
To be sure, workers get benefits as well as wages, and employers must pay for both. The cost of benefits—especially health care—has been rising faster than wages. It is easy to conclude that total compensation has been rising briskly even if wages have stalled. But the facts don’t bear out this conjecture.
ENLARGE
CORBIS


Between 1981 and 2014, according to calculations based on the Bureau of Labor Statistics, wages corrected for inflation rose at the anemic rate of 0.3% a year. (At that pace, it would take 230 years for wages to double.) But total compensation—wages plus benefits—hasn’t done much better, rising at only 0.6% a year. Workers feel stuck because they arestuck. When they look at an economy that has expanded much faster than their wages and benefits in recent decades and even since 2009, they have a right to ask: Where’s our share and why haven’t we gotten it?
A recent special report by the Economist magazine offers a disturbing answer to this question. The report’s author, Ryan Avent, assembles an impressive array of evidence for the proposition that advances in information and communications technology are destroying more jobs in advanced economies than the advances are creating. Two Oxford scholars, Carl Benedict Frey and Michael Osborne, recently concluded that 47% of employment in America “is at high risk of being automated away” over the next two decades. Computer-driven technological change, which began by reducing the labor required for mass production, is now hollowing out the job market, for even routine legal and accounting tasks.
Although opportunities are increasing for professional and high-skill technical workers, many mid-skill workers are being displaced and forced down the ladder to compete with low-skill workers, who are already a glut on the domestic and global market. This helps explain why labor’s share of national income has declined since the 1980s, not only in the U.S., but throughout the developed world. If we exclude earners at the very top, who have garnered a rising portion of labor compensation during this period, the picture for average workers is even worse.
No doubt the latest technological wave has brought gains to average Americans as consumers. But the losses it has inflicted on average Americans as producers is far more consequential. The digital revolution, Mr. Avent concludes, is “opening up a great divide between a skilled and wealthy few and the rest of society.” This poses a political challenge for governments throughout the developed world. If they get it right, Mr. Avent says, they will be able to “channel technological change in ways that broadly benefit society.” If they get it wrong, they could be “under attack from both angry underemployed workers and resentful rich taxpayers,” generating a “bitter and more confrontational politics.”
Up to now, our collective failure to understand the implications of the information and communications technology revolution for our economy, society and politics has allowed these problems to fester. Standard liberal and conservative narratives have lost much of their power. Tax cuts are no response to the technological challenge, but stronger unions would be only marginally more relevant. Americans have withdrawn trust from parties and institutions that seem incapable even of explaining our ills, let alone address them.
What can we do? The business community favors upgrading K-12 education and the skills training that community colleges are getting better at providing. Many leaders in both parties favor increased public investments in areas—such as infrastructure, energy efficiency and basic research—that boost both growth and job creation. Entrepreneurs urge reforming the taxes and regulations that have slowed innovation and business startups in recent decades.
These measures are a good start, but they won’t be enough. For the next decade or two, governments will have to act directly to boost take-home pay. Carefully calibrated minimum-wage increases, expanded wage subsidies and work-sharing programs such as Germany’s should be regarded as essential parts of the public tool kit.
Governments, then, must simultaneously liberate technology to transform production and protect their citizens against the worst effects of this Schumpeterian “creative destruction.” It is not an easy balance to strike, even in well-functioning political systems. Against the backdrop of our polarized, paralyzed national institutions, it will take leadership of exceptional clarity and skill to do what we must do.

[lektrode]

Re: Are You A One Percenter

Yup. I'm sitting here in a "young" house. Only 124 years old. Drafty as hell. Also small. At least a hundred gallons of #2 goes every month. And all at about $4/gal these past few years.

can only imagine what the bill would've peaked at had we not 'evacuated' from good ole taxachusettes when we did, in '77

had tried ONE winter a few years later - 79 or 80 IIRC - to attempt to heat with wood up in the north country - but after doing the whole bit with that option: bought a truckload of loglength - sliced it, diced it (rented a splitter even), stacked it (at least twice, prolly 3x) - humpin it up onto the deck from below so didnt have to go too far (out into the snow/cold) to keep it burning all night - burnt several holes in the carpet (theres a reason why a lot of woodframe buildings - esp the big old hotels that were prevalent in the area - never made it to the last turn of the century) - never mind smoked/choked-out the joint a few too many times more than i care to remember...

bottom line on that 'experiment' ?

dont care how high the price of whatevah goes - #2/LP/NG/KWH's - i'd rather work a few more hours so can flip the switch - than bust my balls humpin hunks of oak around ANY DAMN DAY

the lumberjack scene really only really works if one OWNS the timber and harvests on a regular (and slow) sched - like... ya go walkin thru 'your forest' taking out the dead/dyin stuff and hack away at it when time/inclination permits (the way they did stuff like that back in the good ole daze, read: b4 mortgages/car pmts reduced most to wageslaves)

The opposition to the pipeline is just absurd. There's already one there. What's so bad about upping the rate or building a second? We saw our methane price spike hard last winter. They're shutting all the old nukes and coal burners down and opening natural gas plants everywhere. They're pushing policies to get people converted to natural gas - esp in CT - it's one of Malloy's big moves. They even want big rigs on it. But they're against a pipeline? Blows my mind.

yer tellin ME?
dont EVEN get me goin on the stuff thats been happnin out in the 'waaaaaay out west'
where the same bunch is 'in charge'
vs closer-in to there, where they've got plenty of other options, incl solar and BIG winds (but nary a PV panel in sight)

And I never did understand the crystal worship either. I've met a couple of full grown swamp yankees 10 generations in I've worked with - and who otherwise know their stuff - tell me about powerful crystals that do some sort of voodoo or other with a straight face. I always figured the northeast yankee types would be too damn practical-minded for that crystal hocus-pocus. It always felt more left-coast to me. But in the last 10 years, it has picked up big over here. It ain't just Steve Jobs going to a witch doctor for top dollar to get his chakras crystal-aligned anymore. Now it's Joe the fisherman going to his buddy Ralph's wife's studio and getting cut-rate "energy healing." Weird as hell. Never thought I'd see the day.

this might have something to do with it....
;)

But I think voodoo will only pick up over time. Real doctors are too expensive. People save them for when they're falling apart. They go to the witch doctor for the more minor aches and pains and screw-ups they have throughout the years that might have warranted a trip to the doctor's in the past, but now is too expensive.

yeah, huh - IIRC, theres some sort of 'end times prophecy' that talks about that phenom - and the 'lower cost' options, like these '24hour walkin clinics' aint any 'cheaper' - since at most of em ya dont actually get to see a doc, ya get a 'PA' - most of whom apparently arent much more qualified than to take yer temp/BP, suggest a 'few tests' that NOBODY will tell ya just how much will cost up front (read: 'ya gotta take the test to find out how much it'll cost') prescribe some over-priced (if not entirely wrong) goop or pill - and THEN when all that comes to not?

ya gotta go see a REAL doc and pay AGAIN ?

dont get me goin, dc

the other1/2 is already snarlin at me and i gotta keep my eye on the ball today, since i'm thinkin once again (uh OH....) that the bottom is in (and hoping maybe simply posting this will cause em to slam it down again, as has been the pattern ;)

[dcarrigg]

Re: Are You A One Percenter

Yup. I'm sitting here in a "young" house. Only 124 years old. Drafty as hell. Also small. At least a hundred gallons of #2 goes every month. And all at about $4/gal these past few years.

The opposition to the pipeline is just absurd. There's already one there. What's so bad about upping the rate or building a second? We saw our methane price spike hard last winter. They're shutting all the old nukes and coal burners down and opening natural gas plants everywhere. They're pushing policies to get people converted to natural gas - esp in CT - it's one of Malloy's big moves. They even want big rigs on it. But they're against a pipeline? Blows my mind.

And I never did understand the crystal worship either. I've met a couple of full grown swamp yankees 10 generations in I've worked with - and who otherwise know their stuff - tell me about powerful crystals that do some sort of voodoo or other with a straight face. I always figured the northeast yankee types would be too damn practical-minded for that crystal hocus-pocus. It always felt more left-coast to me. But in the last 10 years, it has picked up big over here. It ain't just Steve Jobs going to a witch doctor for top dollar to get his chakras crystal-aligned anymore. Now it's Joe the fisherman going to his buddy Ralph's wife's studio and getting cut-rate "energy healing." Weird as hell. Never thought I'd see the day.

But I think voodoo will only pick up over time. Real doctors are too expensive. People save them for when they're falling apart. They go to the witch doctor for the more minor aches and pains and screw-ups they have throughout the years that might have warranted a trip to the doctor's in the past, but now is too expensive.