Talking to union members is oddly libertarian. They seem to mostly be concerned with property rights. Strange.
Ducks and Economics
A blog by Eapen Thampy
Monthly Archives: April 2010
Weekend Plans
This weekend I’ll be heading to the Young Democrats of Missouri state convention in Springfield, Missouri. At this point, I have scheduled interviews with Rep. Stephen Webber (D-23), MO State Auditor Susan Montee, MO State Treasurer Clint Zweifel, MO Attorney General Chris Koster, Missouri Democratic Party Chairman Craig Hosmer. That list will probably grow during the weekend, but hopefully I’ll get some content that I’ll be able to format in posts both here and over at the Boone County Democrats. There might even be some video (a friend has generously donated his Flip HD camera).
I did particularly want to note that my interview with Susan Montee will include some questions to flesh out her latest audit on civil asset forfeitures performed in the state during 2009.
A quick bleg on the income tax and fraud
I argue that Missouri’s ‘Fair tax’ proposal to eliminate the income tax and implement a revenue-neutral, broad-based sales tax makes intuitive sense to me on the grounds that it is relatively more idiotproof. That is, sales taxes are relatively easy to implement and monitor and a lot less costly to enforce relative to income taxes. Sales taxes also are hard to get out of paying relative to income taxes; you don’t lose money when people forget to send them in (or they get lost in the mail), cheat on them, or make mistakes.
Speaking of cheating on your taxes, here is a rather egregious story of tax fraud from CNN today:
Investigators say Monroe County jail inmates in Key West had been filing false tax return forms for jobs they never had as far back as 2004, and getting thousands of dollars a pop in refund checks.
Using a formula that kept their refunds to amounts under $5,000 per claim, inmates thought they would fly under the radar, investigators say. And they did for years, passing around cheat sheets that showed line by line how to fill out the complicated forms.
The scam however is not a local gig. Investigators and federal officials say it has been going on for decades in state and federal prisons around the country.
“These guys weren’t rocket scientists…They didn’t just wake up and come up with this great scheme,” Monroe County Sheriff Bob Peryam said.
Here’s how it allegedly worked: using names of defunct or made up businesses as places of work and a master cheat sheet for salary and other numerical information, inmates filled out 4852 tax forms — the ones you use if your employer didn’t provide you with a W-2.
The inmates sent the forms in and the IRS then issued refund checks, in some cases sending them directly to the county jail. But inmates didn’t just fill out the forms for themselves. For a $500 fee ringleaders at the prison filled out refund requests for other inmates, promising they would each get a return of about $4,500.
Some of the prisoners, homeless before their arrests, were unaware of the scam. They gave away their social security numbers for honeybuns, a sweet pastry that inmates can buy in prison. The scammers would then file more refund requests under those social security numbers.
Wow. Consider that without an income tax, this scenario is simply impossible.
I want to point out that I don’t have a philosophical objection to income taxes per se. Rather it seems to me a matter of pragmatism: how idiot-proof can we make our taxation and government mechanisms?
Absence of racial, but not gender, stereotyping in Williams syndrome children
That is the title of this study by Santos, Meyer-Lindenberg, and Deruelle in the latest issue of Current Biology:
Stereotypes — often implicit attributions to an individual based on group membership categories such as race, religion, age, gender, or nationality — are ubiquitous in human interactions. Even three-year old children clearly prefer their own ethnic group and discriminate against individuals of different ethnicities [1]. While stereotypes may enable rapid behavioural decisions with incomplete information, such biases can lead to conflicts and discrimination, especially because stereotypes can be implicit and automatic [2], making an understanding of the origin of stereotypes an important scientific and socio-political topic. An important process invoked by out-groups is social fear [3]. A unique opportunity to study the contribution of this mechanism to stereotypes is afforded by individuals with the microdeletion disorder Williams syndrome (WS), in which social fear is absent, leading to an unusually friendly, high approachability behaviour, including towards strangers [4]. Here we show that children with WS lack racial stereotyping, though they retain gender stereotyping, compared to matched typically developing children. Our data indicate that mechanisms for the emergence of gender versus racial bias are neurogenetically dissociable. Specifically, because WS is associated with reduced social fear, our data support a role of social fear processing in the emergence of racial, but not gender, stereotyping.
Felix Salmon on journalism
Alternatively, you could title this post: Why journalism education programs are useless (in most respects).
Then, of course, there’s the very germane fact that many highly successful bloggers didn’t get a formal training in journalism because they were too busy getting a formal training in the thing they’re writing about — business, finance, economics. The likes of Yves Smith or Brad DeLong or Simon Johnson or John Hempton are popular partly because these people know what they’re talking about and actually do it; it’s surely an advantage to be able to use first-hand rather than second-hand knowledge when you’re writing about something.
Can you think of any popular (and legitimate) economic or finance blogger who a) has a journalism degree and b) didn’t receive a second degree or c) wasn’t self-educated about their subject?
Chicago charter school Urban Prep has 100% college acceptance rate
From the Christian Science Monitor:
But the Urban Prep charter school, located in the city’s tough Englewood neighborhood, has produced a very different statistic. In March, this school, which is made up of young African-American men, announced that all 107 boys in its first graduating class have been accepted to a four-year college. Just 4 percent of those seniors were reading at grade level as freshmen.
There are I’m sure many lessons to be taken from this one shining example of American secondary education. Others have already spoken well on the transformative capacity of the charter school model. But that’s not all that’s at work here. One less obvious lesson is that Urban Prep is active in one of the most vibrant debate leagues in America through the sanction of the Chicago Debate League.
Here is Alfred Snider with more:
Even more dramatically, in schools with 90% or more Title I students, participation in the CDL grew by 192%, almost tripling the number of debaters in one year. Moreover, a substantial portion of this growth is from returning schools, not simply the addition of new schools. Returning school growth adds to our overall participation numbers in a very cost-efficient manner.
Low-income students in Chicago are in greatest need of the transformative benefits of competitive academic debate. The Chicago Debate Commission focused a substantial share of its own human and organizational resources to build interest in debate in our schools with high Title I rates. Increasing the percentage of first-generation college students and decreasing the racial achievement gap are proven outcomes of the CDL’s research-driven intervention.
Name this former slave state
That in this free government *all white men are and of right ought to be entitled to equal civil and political rights* [emphasis in the original]; that the servitude of the African race, as existing in these States, is mutually beneficial to both bond and free, and is abundantly authorized and justified by the experience of mankind, and the revealed will of the Almighty Creator, as recognized by all Christian nations; while the destruction of the existing relations between the two races, as advocated by our sectional enemies, would bring inevitable calamities upon both and desolation upon the fifteen slave-holding states.
The answer is here.
2010 Missouri High School Speech and Debate Tournament
If you are interested in judging the 2010 Missouri High School Speech and Debate tournament, here are the details:
DEBATE JUDGES NEEDED
$$$ PAID POSITIONS AVAILABLE $$$
Debate judges are being hired for the 2010 Missouri State High School Activities Speech and Debate Tournament, which will be held on the MU Campus on Friday, April 23.
There are four preliminary rounds and judges can work one or more rounds at the following rates:
$ 7.00 per flight for Lincoln-Douglas Debate
$ 7.00 per flight for Public Forum Debate
$10.00 per round for Cross-Examination Debate
Bonuses are paid for judging 3 or more rounds
(This includes availability to judge the evening elimination rounds)
Qualifications: Judges must have at least one year of experience with debate and have been out of high school for at least one full year. Semi-professional dress required.
Contact: Submit your availability to judge to Scott Jensen via e-mail (jensensc@webster.edu) or telephone (314-968-7439)
James Cameron defends property rights
From the NYT:
The focus is the huge Belo Monte dam planned by the Brazilian government. It would be the third largest in the world, and environmentalists say it would flood hundreds of square miles of the Amazon and dry up a 60-mile stretch of the Xingu River, devastating the indigenous communities that live along it. For years the project was on the shelf, but the government now plans to hold an April 20 auction to award contracts for its construction.
Stopping the dam has become a fresh personal crusade for the director, who came here as indigenous leaders from 13 tribes held a special council to discuss their last-ditch options. It was Mr. Cameron’s first visit to the Amazon, he said, even though he based the fictional planet in “Avatar” on Amazon rain forests. Still, he found the real-life similarities to the themes in his movie undeniable.
The dam is a “quintessential example of the type of thing we are showing in ‘Avatar’ — the collision of a technological civilization’s vision for progress at the expense of the natural world and the cultures of the indigenous people that live there,” he said.
Here is the wiki on the Belo Monte Dam. It is the old story of taking things from others by force, the story of national entities and identities forged in violence, for the benefit of companies run by the corrupt.
Why soccer players ‘fake it’ and South Africa 2010
From an article on SSRN titled “Football Most Foul” by William Birdthistle:
Scenes of simulation and outrage are relatively absent from American playing fields less because U.S. sports boast omniscient officials with greater acuity than soccer referees, or because there are no bad calls in America, but because the consequences of any official error are much less harmful. Except in relatively rare circumstances, American referees simply do not wield the power to work a game’s bouleversement with one blow of the whistle. Certainly, it is almost unheard of in the United States for a referee to be able to decimate (in the original sense) one team’s playing strength or to award another team the game’s only score. In soccer, however, a referee’s red card is regularly the most critical development in a match, and a penalty frequently leads to the game’s only goal. Last year’s champions, Italy, will readily attest to this principle. Indeed, so important is the power and personality of a referee that in Italy, media listings for domestic soccer fixtures routinely include – along with the teams, the date, and the venue – the official’s name.
He continues:
The World Cup comprises more nations than either the Olympics or the United Nations. It is therefore a rare, truly global event. Every four years, billions of fans follow the tournament hoping to enjoy the apotheosis of soccer, played by its finest artisans for the highest stakes. Instead, with pressure and finality so palpable in every game, players frequently compete with more calculation and defensiveness than they do in their wildly popular domestic leagues. The current set of referees’ rewards and punishments only exacerbates the incentives to play in this cynical style. The abiding image of the tournament now is less one of spectacular goals or surpassing sportsmanship and more one of melodramatic chicanery. But if the referees’ tools can be adjusted and their roles thereby relegated, we might look forward to future World Cups in which the beautiful game, rather than the soap opera, plays center forward.
An extended thought on arms races
Reading over my previous post on nuclear deterrence and President Obama’s Nuclear Posture Review, I was immediately struck by the thought that it was incomplete. Part of the reason why I think nuclear weapons are becoming less important is because other technologies are becoming more important, or at least more relevant.
This world has already seen many arms races, and to-date the nuclear race has been the most important. But the arms race never stops. Nuclear weapons aren’t perfect weapons in the sense that they are relatively blunter and less precise than other technologies, or at least the promise of other technologies.
I suggest that while nuclear power will always be extremely relevant and nuclear weapons will remain the weapon of choice for ending the existence of all life on this planet, the true arms race has shifted to technologies that allow strategic micro-targeting. Predator drones represent but one facet of this direction; other directions include the military applications of sophisticated robotics, nano-technology, and bioengineering.
Perhaps one reason why America is willing to push for a nuclear-free world is because we are close to another game-changer, or because we already have one. In this world nuclear weapons don’t matter because other technologies provide effective countermeasures and the investment in nuclear weapons systems represent forgone opportunities to develop or build other technologies.
In any case, this is part of what I think the President’s Nuclear Posture Review signals.
On the Nuclear Posture Review and deterrence
Some thoughts that I’ve been having on President Obama’s negotiations with Russia over the number and status of our collective nuclear stockpile:
America is currently negotiating from a position of strength. This is true partly because the assumptions that have to be true for the theory of Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD) to exert a sufficient deterrent effect are no longer true: America has nuclear primacy, which means that we possess the capability to unilaterally first strike without the prospect of retaliation.
The signal that we are willing to reduce our nuclear inventory (from a President who has spoken openly of a nuclear-free era) is not a signal of weakness. Rather, it is a signal of utter confidence, and America’s enemies will take it that way.
Consider, by way of why this is true, the Predator drone. Unmanned drones offer us overwhelming conventional superiority because they allow us total control over a battlefield. It is not just the Taliban or Al Quaeda that should be making calculations about how viable they are in a world where drones see everything, it is the Russian and Chinese and North Korean militaries (and really, every potential enemy). Consider when unmanned drones are vastly cheaper for the US and more sophisticated in terms of the armament they’re used to deploy. In this world, no nation can claim the ability to control its airspace; squadrons of drones can infiltrate any airspace and stay radar-neutral, providing a blanket of offensive might that can completely neutralize entire nations. In this world, the option value of having nuclear weapons is increasingly offset by the prospect that unmanned drones can be anywhere, anytime.
Also consider that the US now has a dominant technological edge in military development. The collapse of the Soviet Union heralded the collapse of its military-industrial complex, and now the Russian scientists that are left mostly ply their skills elsewhere, leaving China and India as the only countries with the infrastructure to attempt to compete in this arena. I discount India as a strategic threat to the United States and think it unlikely that the Chinese alone can reach comparable levels of technological sophistication without the benefit of at least another decade. One might even reasonably assume that the next game-changing technological breakthrough will also be American.
Additionally, a world free of nuclear weapons is not a world free of nuclear technology. In a disarmed world, the nuclear threat is represented mostly by the prospect of a race to re-arm, a race in which America holds a dominant edge; even a timeframe of 24 hours to 48 hours represents a timeframe in which American air superiority, both manned and unmanned, is completely dominant.
The President’s formal declaration of the conditions under which nuclear weapons will be used is also a powerful factor in this equation. Now American enemies cannot use the argument that American nuclear power threatens non-nuclear states to muster support; at the margin, this makes the spectre of American military superiority more palatable to other nations and decreases the perception of America as a nuclear bully.
By committing to limiting our use of nuclear weapons, we implicitly signal that America is committed to maintaining our overwhelmingly superior conventional deterrent. Those that argue that nuclear weapons prevent the escalation of regional wars and that a nuclear deterrent is critical to maintaining peace were correct in the immediate aftermath of World War II; their assumptions are no longer true today.
Margaret Atwood on Twitter
From The Guardian:
So what’s it all about, this Twitter? Is it signalling, like telegraphs? Is it Zen poetry? Is it jokes scribbled on the washroom wall? Is it John Hearts Mary carved on a tree? Let’s just say it’s communication, and communication is something human beings like to do.
Ducks and Economics 