Tax Cuts for the Rich Raise Taxes for the Rich
By Brian | July 13, 2006
More evidence that every prediction you hear about taxes is intended solely to confuse you, nothing more. This, from the New York Times (free for now…)
An unexpectedly steep rise in tax revenues from corporations and the wealthy is driving down the projected budget deficit this year, even though spending has climbed sharply because of the war in Iraq and the cost of hurricane relief.
Unexpectedly steep rise in tax revenues from the wealthy? But I thought W’s sinister tax cuts were just fancy ways of cutting taxes for his rich cronies while taxing the lower middle class into poverty? I guess not…
The rest of the article quotes various partisans that bicker back and forth with the numbers: numbers are up, but haven’t reached the 2000 levels yet (right – 2000 was the peak of the largest peacetime expansion ever), numbers are up, but not as a percentage of GDP (why would you measure taxes against production? We tax income, not production, right?), etc., etc.
Here’s the key quote as regards taxes:
One reason for the increased volatility may be that, contrary to a popular assumption, a disproportionate share of income taxes is paid by wealthy households, and their incomes are based much more on the swings of the stock market than on wages and salaries. About one-third of all income taxes are paid by households in the top 1 percent of income earners, who make more than about $300,000 a year. Because those households also earn the overwhelming share of taxable investment income and executive bonuses, both their incomes and their tax liabilities swing sharply in bull and bear markets.
That’s mostly right, except for the bull & bear markets part. You pay capital gain taxes when you sell a stock. There’s more selling in a bear market, but in a bull market, sales occur at higher prices – causing larger capital gains & higher tax revenue, even though the tax rate is the same. You also pay taxes on dividends (one of the rates the Bush plan cut). Dividends come in bull and bear markets, although corporations tend to raise their dividends when things are going well, so bull markets will see higher taxes, but it’s very rare that a company lowers its dividend once it’s been raised, so I don’t expect this number declines much in a bear market.
Bottom line: both parties are obfuscating here.
The Democrats spent years telling us that Bush’s tax cuts were only for the rich, quoting us bogus statistics about how someone making over $200,000 per year would receive tens of thousands in tax cuts, while someone making $75,000 per year would receive a few hundred bucks. Now that it turns out the rich are paying significantly more in taxes, their gripe is that it’s not growing fast enough. I assume they’d be against further “cuts for the rich” to make it grower faster, though, huh?
The Republicans are spinning this good news into a claim that the deficit will be smaller than originally predicted. Someone needs to slap them in the face and tell them that increased revenue is not a valid excuse for unbelievable excesses in spending, and that faster than expected revenue increases are a golden opportunity to run budget surpluses, as opposed to smaller-than-expected deficits (cf. Bill Clinton’s last two years in office). While they are correctly touting this as a reason to make the tax cuts permanent, they are also using it as a matador’s cape to distract us from the runaway spending problem they’ve created.
Spinners, one and all. But, the policy itself seems to have been sound, so it’s good to know that at least it could have been worse…
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Missed me again (again)
By Brian | July 9, 2006
So I’m back from Chicago, and now the target du jour is the PATH Trains, or possibly the Holland Tunnel. As per usual, we count on the terrorists to be just a little bit dumb:
New York Police Department Commissioner Ray Kelly said the men believed that bombing the train tunnels under the Hudson River would unleash massive flooding in lower Manhattan, home to Wall Street and the World Trade Center site.
Now, I’m no engineer, but correct me if I’m wrong here: both of the above mentioned tunnels are built under the bedrock beneath the Hudson river. If a bomb were to explode in either of them, the odds are pretty good we wouldn’t even have water in the tunnel. But even if the bomb were powerful enough to penetrate the bedrock and flood the tunnel, how exactly does the water rise above its current level to flood lower Manhattan? If I’m thinking about this correctly, the only water Manhattan gets on it is from the (considerable) splash.
Not to make light of this, of course. Thousands could be killed (depending on the time of day, etc.) As for disruption, knocking out the PATH trains would just make the NJTransit commuter trains more crowded (as was the case in the weeks just after 9/11). Knocking out the Holland tunnel would be worse – the commuter trains would be more crowded, the ferries would come back into use (as was also the case after 9/11), but traffic through the Lincoln tunnel (the other tunnel going from NJ to Manhattan) would be prohibitive. They’d probably reinstitute the “two or more people per car in the tunnel” rules they had after 9/11 as well. This is just whining at this point, but man – am I glad those days were over…
Some other thoughts:
— The FBI seems to be on a roll, no?
A sudden rash of plot foilings right before the midterm elections? The cynical mind would suggest that these are minor incidents that are being trumped up as major threats to make the administration look good. I take a slightly different view (but only slightly different). My guess is these are serious threats, but the FBI and/or the administration is getting just a little sick of hearing that all of their warnings are nothing more than fear mongering, so they decided to publicize a few of their successes.
— Both this plot and the Sears Tower plot were “aspirational” but not “operational.”
This makes them less of a threat, but also harder to find. I also think it’s important to note that while neither had access to weapons, both believed they were in contact with Al Qaeda about procuring the necessary funding/weapons. One wonders how efficient Al Qaeda is about finding these people, and if they’re more efficient than our network of informants are…
— You’ll notice that no one is complaining about our pre-emptive actions against folks who were not (yet) a national security threat.
— The Tunnels plot was foiled by decoding messages found in Internet Chat Rooms.
This isn’t one of those data mining programs we’ve been reading about, but it does highlight the importance of electronic surveillance.
— You’ll also notice that no one is complaining about the government secretly lurking in those chat rooms and listening in on the conversations of people who haven’t done enough to justify a search warrant.
— If someone bombs the PATH tunnels tomorrow, will they accuse Bush of knowing about it & doing nothing? Probably. The administration would point to the arrests reported yesterday, the critics would point to the fact that security is not being beefed up in these areas, the NYPD would point to all the efforts already under way (plainclothes cops, the toll-free “TIPS” line for commuters to call, additional security cameras, national guard in the major stations, etc.). I forget who said it, but I think it’s true: if there is another attack, we won’t have the several month “grace period” of nationalism before the political bickering starts like we did last time. Just goes to show, absolutely anything can become normal.
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“Google” earns official verb status
By Brian | July 6, 2006
The latest edition of Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary defines the word “google” as a verb. It also contains other words and phrases I figured were already in there, such as “drama queen,” “biodiesel” and “bling.” And then there are those I wouldn’t have guessed, like “mouse potato,” “soul patch” and “himbo.”
I understand the need to keep the language current, so that future generations can look up the words they use regularly. The real question, though, is this: who uses a dictionary anymore? If you need to know how to spell a word these days, you’d just..er…what’s the word? Oh yeah, you’d just google it!
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The Internet’s in the Mail…
By Brian | July 3, 2006
Ladies and Gentlemen, Senator Ted Stevens (R-Alaska):
(hat tip: Lileks)
I just the other day got, an internet was sent by my staff at 10 o’clock in the morning on Friday and I just got it yesterday. Why?
Because it got tangled up with all these things going on the internet commercially.
[…]They want to deliver vast amounts of information over the internet. And again, the internet is not something you just dump something on. It’s not a truck.
It’s a series of tubes.
And if you don’t understand those tubes can be filled and if they are filled, when you put your message in, it gets in line and its going to be delayed by anyone that puts into that tube enormous amounts of material…
[…]The whole concept is that we should not go into this until someone shows that there is something that has been done that really is a violation of net neutraliity that hits you and me.
Can you believe….What is he….How could anyone …. BBLLLAAAARRRRGGGHHH!!!
Sorry. The mind boggles. There is nothing left to say, except that it’s a pretty safe bet that no net neutrality legislation is going to affect this guy.
A series of tubes? Wow…
Categories: Political Rantings, Tech Talk | 1 Comment »
Due Process Finds Lack of Due Process
By Brian | June 29, 2006
In a “sharp rebuke of President George W. Bush’s tactics in the war on terrorism,” the U.S. Supreme Court declared the military tribunals in Guantanamo Bay unlawful.
“We conclude that the military commission convened to try (Salim Ahmed) Hamdan lacks power to proceed because its structure and procedures violate” the international agreement that covers treatment of prisoners of war, as well as the Uniform Code of Military Justice, Justice John Paul Stevens wrote for the court majority.
The President, who considers himself all powerful and above the law, said, “Screw You – we’re doing it anyway” and ordered the execution of all five justices who voted against him. Oh, no wait – that’s not right:
At the White House, Bush said he had not fully reviewed the ruling and would consult with the U.S. Congress to attain appropriate authority for military tribunals. “We take the findings seriously,” he said.
So am I the only one who sees the irony here? We are such lawless bastards that we threw these guys in jail with no trial, but then the judicial process back home got them in front of the SCOTUS twice – once to win their right to sue the government, and then again to have their trials declared illegal. Name me another country that policies itself so dilligently.
NOTE: Please spare me the standard Bush bashing on this. I’m talking about how our country responded, not the administration. I realize that this isn’t ideal – the prisoners’ victories are largely Phyrric, in that they sat in jail for two years while we worked all this out. I also realize that Bush’s comment above could be nothing more than words, and “consult with Congress” could be code for “put this in a drawer and never think about it again.” Also it’s very easy to say you’ll consult with Congress when your party controls both houses of Congress, and will likely pass a law saying, “the President can do anything the Supreme Court says he can’t do.”
BUT: It would be very, very difficult for us to continue holding the trials in Guantanamo, given this SCOTUS ruling. If we tried, the media (and a great many of our politicians) would be all over it and the administration would have yet another meal of “Egg a la face.” Also, if Congress passes a law on this, they’ve got to face their constituents in an election year, so whichever way that goes, there’s a better than average chance that the people will get their way. Also, this kind of thing puts us in serious danger of ignoring important congressional discussion topics like preventing flag burning, outlawing gay marriage, and evicting illegal aliens.
So there are plenty of upsides…
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OyMap.com
By Brian | June 24, 2006
I got an e-mail asking me to register my blog at OyMap.com. It’s billed as a regional index of websites (in case you’re looking for websites published by people who live near you, I guess?)
The presence of “Oy” in the title, suggests it has something to do with Judaism, and that they probably found me because my last name is a common Jewish name.
In any case, it seems relatively harmless, so I gave it a shot.
Now you know. Moving on…
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Some More About the SWIFT Story
By Brian | June 24, 2006
I wouldn’t claim to be an expert on how SWIFT messages work, but I have worked with/for Wall Street firms for more than a decade, so I do know a thing or two about them. The more I read about this story, the more I am dumbstruck at the apparent lack of knowledge being displayed (or, as is more likely the case, ignored for political purposes). So, some facts that might help:
- A very large majority of banking institutions worldwide use the SWIFT network to send inter-bank messages. This is Metcalfe’s Law at work – the more people that use the network, the more valuable it becomes.
Categories: Money Talk, Political Rantings | 12 Comments »
Missed me again…
By Brian | June 23, 2006
I was on the 27th floor of the World Trade Center on 2/26/93 when the first bomb went off, and I was in 195 Broadway about two years later when some nutcase tried to blow up the subway with a mayonaise jar filled with gasoline. So it comes as no surprise that two weeks after my first visit to the Sears Tower, a group of terrorists got caught discussing a plan to blow it up. Not that I’m taking any of this personally or anything…
Apparently, these guys had “aspirations, but not the means” to pull off such an attack. They were caught when they approached an FBI informant who they thought was an AL Qaeda operative.
A few thoughts:
1) These guys weren’t necessarily all that dangerous (although they could have been if they had actually reached Al Qaeda), but we slam our intelligence agencies when they screw up, so it’s good to see them get a pat on the back when they nail something cold.
2) For those who believe privacy concerns have gone out the window, I believe this is the first time in history that an FBI director took time to explicitly state that “whenever we undertake an operation like this, we would not do it without the approval of a judge. We’ve got search warrants and arrest warrants and the like.” This is also a good thing.
3) This was the top story in the New York Post and the Daily News this morning, but it wasn’t even on the front page of the New York Times.
Even now (4:15PM, EDT), it’s only the number two story, behind (another) scare story about (another) secret program to collect data about American citizens (this time, financial data). These stories, which are so full of news cataloging that they’re starting to look like they come from a template, are becoming more and more obscure and less and less relevant to the issue of privacy they supposedly address.
Of course, various Democratic congressmen and an ACLU official blindly condemmed the program as “abuse of power” and the like, while showing little or no knowledge of what the SWIFT network actually is. The Times, amazingly, did so little research on it, that it doesn’t even seem to know that it’s an acronym (Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication), and keeps spelling it in proper case (“Swift”).
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Making Yahoo Mail Work with Outlook 2003
By Brian | June 17, 2006
Oh my God, I can’t believe I didn’t think of this until just now…
For a very, very long time, I’ve been having trouble using Outlook 2003 as a POP3 client for my Yahoo mail account. The replication would download everything in the Inbox just fine, but when it started to download the messages in Yahoo’s Bulk folder (the place where it puts potential spam), it would randomly fail with a mail server error (either 0x800CCC90 or 0x800420CD). The failure point was never predictable – sometimes it would fail on the first message, sometimes it would get through dozens of messages and fail then. Sometimes, I would simply click “Send/Receive” again, and the same batch of e-mail that generated the error would work fine. I even found that moving the mouse around or scrolling the scroll wheel while the messages were downloading helped prevent the error (maybe it had something to do with keeping the client side from going idle? I don’t know – it sounds strange to me, but I’m very sure it helped…)
This problem was particularly annoying because when the download doesn’t finish, Yahoo doesn’t delete the mail from the server. So if I walk away from my machine with Outlook running, and it has this problem after the 50th message, I might get 9 or 10 copies of those fifty messages on my hard drive. The only way to stop it was to go to the Yahoo Mail website and manually delete the already downloaded mail.
I spoke with Yahoo when it first started happening, and they sent me here and closed the support ticket. The problem is that this is a known bug with Outlook Express, not Outlook 2003. I tried the fix anyway, but to no avail.
So tonight, it hits me: the problem is only with the Bulk mail folder. For some reason, it never has a problem with the regular Inbox. So I shut off the Spamguard feature, which makes it send all the mail to the Inbox! Now, not only does the download work, but it goes faster than before, and there’s no scrolling or clicking required on the client end.
The problem remains unsolved, but it’s no longer my problem! Hallelujah!
Categories: Tech Talk | 2 Comments »
London, Part 3
By Brian | June 16, 2006
Just to wrap-up the UK story:
Another successful day in the office. We split up at the end of the day, so I had to make my way back to the hotel, change clothes, and then head out to Picadilly Circus to meet a colleague for dinner. It’s amazing how 24 hours in a new city is enough to get you oriented. I was able to navigate the Tube (including adding money to my Oyster card and transferring lines halfway through the trip), and was able to walk around downtown London enough to find the hotel and Picadilly. Next time I’m there, it’ll take even less time to get my bearings, I’m sure…
As for the evening, we had dinner at a small Italian place right off Trafalgar Square (by the way, why is that one a square, while everything else is a circle/circus?) After that, we walked toward Buckingham Palace, and then down the Thames’ bank to see Westminster Abbey, Parliament, Big Ben, and the Millenium Eye. By the time we got to Big Ben, it had grown dark. IMHO, Big Ben’s much more impressive when it’s lit up at night. At any rate, it was great to see some of the sights before heading home.
And oh, by the way, for all the political bickering that goes on around here, there is still something indescribably comforting about touching down in the United States after having been away.
Categories: Travel Talk | 4 Comments »