tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3325927358106344242024-03-24T13:27:02.453-04:00ClaritasNo Enemy But IgnoranceHowardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16424520257796706030noreply@blogger.comBlogger263125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-332592735810634424.post-48362773337220034812019-12-07T17:47:00.002-05:002022-01-08T14:29:56.151-05:00The Twelve Days of Christmas: An AnalysisThere was a funny piece on the radio about the song "The Twelve Days of Christmas," imagining the woman's response to all those gifts. She starts out thrilled and touched by her partridge in a pear tree, but as the days go on and the presents keep piling up, she goes from gentle dissuasion to chilly formality to outright hostility.<br />
<br />
It had not occurred to me that the woman would end up wilth twelve partridges in pear trees. Moreover, matters were getting worse, as she would get two turtledoves a day for days two through twelve, for a total of twenty-two turtledoves, and similarly, thirty French hens. On the other hand, the numbers did not keep increasing for all twelve days: she would get, fortunatelv, only twelve drummer drumming.<br />
<br />
In fact, I realized, there are two effects in opposite directions: as the days go by, the gift gets bigger, but it is received for fewer days. Specifically, for the gift of day <b>x</b>, the recipient will get<br />
<br />
<b>x(13 - x)</b><br />
<br />
copies, where the first part is copies per day (the number of geese a-laying or whatever), and the second part is the number of days the gift is received. This expression has a maximum between 6 and 7, and in fact our lucky love-object will get:<br />
<br />
12 drummers druming;<br />
22 pipers piping;<br />
30 lords a-leaping;<br />
36 ladies dancing;<br />
40 maids a-milking;<br />
42 swans a-swimming;<br />
42 geese a-laying;<br />
40 golden rings;<br />
36 calling birds;<br />
30 French hens;<br />
22 turtledoves;<br />
and of course,<br />
12 partridges in pear trees.<br />
<br />
A few final comments: If you add up all the gifts, they total 364. If the true love had wished to demonstrate less romantic flamboyance and more dedication, he could have given her a present every day for an entire year, leaving her birthday as the one day when he gets her something she actually wants.<br />
<br />
Of course, that would make a very long and and very dull song. "On the sixth day of March, my true love gave to me/ A French hen. On the seventh day of March, my true love gave to me/ Another French hen. On the eighth day of March, my true love gave to me/ Another French hen. On the ninth day of March, my true love gave to me/ Another French hen. On the tenth day of March...."<br />
<br />Howardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16424520257796706030noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-332592735810634424.post-84048500269013681502019-08-04T19:34:00.000-04:002019-08-04T19:44:42.402-04:00CNN Debate MathThe Democratic debates on July 30 and 31 were a little less than 3 hours long each. A conservative estimate would be 150 minutes.<br />
<br />
150 minutes /10 candidates = 15 minutes/candidate<br />
<br />
Now if you were CNN, and you had 15 minutes per candidate to allocate, which of these would you choose?<br />
<br />
A. Ask each candidate five questions, allowing her or him three minutes to respond to each.<br />
<br />
B. Ask the candidates three questions of three minutes, and let them comment on three other questions for two minutes each.<br />
<br />
C. Ask a whole lot of questions and allow candidates sixty seconds to respond to each. If the candidate attacks another candidate, allow the second candidate thirty seconds to respond.<br />
<br />
If you voted for alternative (C), your name is probably CNN.Howardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16424520257796706030noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-332592735810634424.post-87499592825718811152019-07-11T21:22:00.000-04:002019-09-04T23:20:25.685-04:00What Should the Democrats Stand For? I: Equality<i>A party as large and varied as the Democrats needs some core that people can use as a shorthand for what the party stands for, and that make sense out of a welter of policy positions. I'll be making some suggestions; here's my first.</i><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">I. Equality</span><br />
<div style="margin: 0in;">
<i><span style="color: black; font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt;"><br /></span></i><i><span style="color: black; font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif";">"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all ... are created equal..."</span></i></div>
<div style="margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0in;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif";">Equality is a founding value of the American republic, the first of the "self-evident" truths in the Declaration of Independence. Yet while we hear a lot these days about <i>inequality</i>, it's hard to find anyone talking about <i>equality</i> as a political issue. When we're talking about wealth and income, the argument is over how unequal they should be, and whether they've become <i>too </i>unequal</span><span style="font-family: "tahoma" , sans-serif;">.</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0in;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif";">But the promise of the American Revolution was of a nation where people, whatever their differences in position or privilege, had equal rights as citizens. How are we doing?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0in;">
<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif";"><u>Equality of Political Power</u></span></b><span style="color: black; font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0in;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif";">The fact is, most people do not feel they have a say in our political life equal to that of people with money. A recent <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/06/02/us/politics/money-in-politics-poll.html?_r=1"><b>New York Times/CBS poll</b></a><b> </b>found that 66% of Americans think that "wealthy Americans have more of a chance to influence the electoral process than other Americans." And not just the electoral process but the whole political process: <a href="http://www.apnorc.org/news-media/Pages/AP-NORC-Poll-Three-quarters-in-US-say-they-lack-influence.aspx"><b>A poll last year</b></a> found that 75% thought that people like them have too little power and influence in Washington (with similar percentages for working people and, to my surprise, poor people), while 82% thought that wealthy people have too much power and influence (69% for large businesses).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0in;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif";">Here's the thing: <i>they're right</i>. A startling <a href="https://scholar.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/mgilens/files/gilens_and_page_2014_-testing_theories_of_american_politics.doc.pdf"><b>recent piece of academic research</b></a> looked at the outcomes on almost 1,800 policy issues, and concluded: "... analysis indicates that economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy, while average citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no independent influence."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0in;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif";">There are a lot of ways the rich and corporations could exert influence, but surely the main one is through campaign contributions. Any doubts people might have had about this were surely removed by the Republican panic around their recent tax bill, when a <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/house/359110-gop-lawmaker-donors-are-pushing-me-to-get-tax-reform-done"><b>congressman from New York</b></a> made the memorable statement, "My donors are basically saying, ‘Get it done or don’t ever call me again.’ "<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0in;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif";">Public patience with the situation has worn thin. In a 2015 poll, <a href="https://www.scribd.com/doc/267409090/CBS-News-New-York-Times-money-and-politics-poll"><b>85% (including 81% of Republicans</b>)</a> say either that the system for funding political campaigns needs fundamental changes or that it needs to be completely rebuilt.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0in;">
<span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif";"><br /></span><span style="background: white; color: #2b2c30; font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif";">Yet at the same time, the Supreme Court has handed down a series of rulings, beginning with the famed </span><i style="color: #2b2c30; font-family: arial, sans-serif;">Citizens United v. FEC</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #2b2c30; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"> decision of 2010, t</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #2b2c30; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">hat have seemingly made it nearly impossible to restrict the role of money in politics. The <i>Citizens United </i>case, as you may recall, involved an organization that wanted to air a film critical of Hillary Clinton shortly before a primary. In that decision and later ones, the Court, while upholding the right of Congress to restrict contributions to candidates, has </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #2b2c30; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">essentially said that any attempt to restrict independent expenditures for or against a candidate is an impermissible infringement of freedom of speech. Some of the rulings seem bizarre--for example, </span><a href="https://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/arizona-free-enterprise-clubs-freedom-club-pac-v-bennett/" style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><b>the Court has held</b></a><span style="background-color: white; color: #2b2c30; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"> that providing matching funds to a candidate who is being outspent places an unacceptable burden on free speech.</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0in;">
<span style="background: white; color: #2b2c30; font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif";"><br /></span><span style="color: black; font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif";">So it has increasingly seemed impossible to stop the flood of big money into politics. Fortunately, we don't need to.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0in;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif";">Wait...what?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0in;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif";">Actually, we don't need to keep big money out of politics-- we just need to get <i>small </i>money <i>in.</i> Let's do the arithmetic. <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/overview/cost.php"><b>In 2016</b></a> a total of $4 billion was spent on Congressional races, and another $2.4 billion on the Presidential race. There are <a href="https://www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/demo/popest/2010s-national-detail.html"><b>roughly 250 million voting-age people</b></a> in the US, and around <a href="https://www.kff.org/other/state-indicator/distribution-by-citizenship-status/?currentTimeframe=0&sortModel=%7B%22colId%22:%22Location%22,%22sort%22:%22asc%22%7D"><b>93% are citizens</b></a>-- call it 230 million. A campaign contribution of $50 per person would yield more than $11 billion, completely swamping big-money contributions.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0in;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif";">Now, how do we get 230 million people to contribute $50 each? Several variants on a solution have been <a href="https://howardfrant.blogspot.com/search?q=no+kidding"><b>proposed by me</b></a> and <a href="http://republic.lessig.org/"><b>better-known people</b></a>. My preferred version is to simply give everyone a $50 tax credit for contributions to a candidate for Federal office. A tax credit, not a deduction: the first $50 of any contribution would from the donors viewpoint be free. The credit would be refundable, meaning that even those with no tax liability would be eligible to receive $50. Some minor tweaks would be necessary to prevent fraud.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0in;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif";">But, you object, even though the contribution costs the donor nothing, surely not everyone will be interested enough to contribute. True. Let's assume that after advertising to inform people about the law, half contribute. So divide expected contributions by two. But there is only one Federal election every two years, so multiply by two. Result: more than $11 billion.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0in;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif";">A law like this could have powerful effect on the way politics is practiced. In theory, politicians could go on trying to supplement their small-contribution funds with large contributions from wealthy donors, but those who did would be vulnerable to attacks from rivals who promised not to accept large contributions. To be sure, those who went the small-money route would have to develop new strategies for fund-raising. Instead of spending <a href="https://howardfrant.blogspot.com/2013/02/the-four-hours-and-two-hours.html"><b>hours every day on the phone</b></a> with wealthy people--unconsciously soaking up their view of the world--they would have to (and now could!) spend more time in touch with their constituents. As for voters, contributions would no longer be an elite activity for the wealthy and the ideologically committed, but could become as commonplace as voting.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0in;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif";"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0in;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif";">Combine the voter hunger for a solution with the intuitive appeal of this approach (and add a catchy name-- my suggestion is the "U.S. Grant," after the face on the $50 bill, but maybe "The Fifty-Buck Plan" gets the idea across better) and this could be a very strong campaign issue for the Democrats.</span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif";"><br /></span><span style="color: black; font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt;"><br /></span></div>
<b><u>Equality Before the Law</u></b><br />
<b><br /></b>If equality means anything, it means that the law--specifically, the criminal-justice system-- should treat everyone equally. And this seems not to be true for some people. Most notably, it seems not to be true for African-Americans.<br />
<br />
It is difficult for lifelong whites like me to wrap our minds around how differently blacks view the prospect of an encounter with police. I found <a href="https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/03/letter-from-black-america-police-115545"><b>anecdotal reports like this one</b></a> to be the most illuminating.<br />
<br />
But there is ample survey evidence of differences in attitudes to back it up. In a <a href="https://opportunityagenda.org/explore/resources-publications/new-sensibility/part-iv"><b>2015 Gallup survey</b></a>, for example, that asked, "Thinking about the community where you live and work, do you think the local police treat minorities more harshly, less harshly, or just as they do anyone else?" 19% of whites said "more harshly;" so did 54% of blacks. (This may partly reflect the fact that they live in different communities.) And asked, "Do you agree or disagree: These days police in most cities treat blacks as fairly as they do whites," 31% of whites disagreed; so did 76% of blacks. Most poignantly, when Gallup asked, "Have you ever warned your children to be careful when dealing with the police?" 32% of whites said yes, as did 74% of blacks.<br />
<br />
It is, of course, the spate of videos of police killing unarmed black men and boys that raised this issue to public (meaning white) notice. Are police really more likely to shoot unarmed blacks than unarmed whites? When <a href="https://howardfrant.blogspot.com/2015/06/a-note-on-police-shootings.html" style="font-weight: bold;">I took a look at this</a><b> </b>question a few years ago, I found that, while armed blacks and whites were killed by police at similar rates, blacks were greatly overrepresented among the unarmed who were killed by police.<b> <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2018/08/29/we-gathered-data-on-every-confirmed-line-of-duty-police-killing-of-a-civilian-in-2014-and-2015-heres-what-we-found/?utm_term=.2e4b6843c329">More recent research</a></b> has come to a similar conclusion.<br />
<br />
It's unlikely that this mostly represents racist killers on our police forces. But there are situations where cops have to make very quick decisions weighing the <a href="https://www.facebook.com/BostonPoliceDepartment/photos/update-officer-involved-shooting-in-the-area-of-humboldt-avenue-and-ruthven-stre/10152834217222685/"><b>threat to their own lives</b></a> against the risk of killing an innocent civilian. Those situations might be turning out worse for blacks because cops unconsciously view them as more threatening than whites. Or they might be turning out worse because cops unconsciously think lives of innocent blacks matter less than lives of innocent whites.<br />
<br />
Notice how framing the issue as "equality," instead of "identity politics" (whatever that is) changes the debate. The response of many whites to the shooting of an unarmed black man is to focus on what the victim should have done differently. For example, Timothy Russell and Malissa Williams would undoubtedly be alive today if they had not led police on a high-speed chase. But undoubtedly there have been unarmed white couples that did that. The question is, have any of them ended up being shot by police a total of 47 times? If so, I haven't heard about it. In a society where people are equal, we should not tell a subset of citizens, "Behave perfectly all the time, and we'll let you live."<br />
<br />
But, perhaps with one nervous eye on the white working class, Democrats have had a hard time talking about this issue-- witness the <a href="https://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/watch/speaker-pelosi-on-black-lives-matter-redressing-past-grievances-1420400195924"><b>strange, flustered response</b></a> of Nancy Pelosi to a question about Black Lives Matter. Here's all she needed to say:<br />
<br />
"I think there's been a lot of confusion among whites about what the phrase 'Black Lives Matter' actually means. As I understand it, it's saying that that the life of a black should matter as much as the life of a white-- it's about equality. And as a principle, I don't see who could be against that."<br />
<br />
<br />
<b><u>Equality of Opportunity</u></b><br />
<br />
If the American Revolution was anything, it was a rejection of the European idea of a hereditary ruling class; the Constitution even says explicitly, "No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States." Yet today, the chance that someone born in the bottom 20% of the income distribution will end up in the top 20% is <a href="https://www.stlouisfed.org/~/media/files/pdfs/community-development/econmobilitypapers/section1/econmobility_1-1chetty_508.pdf?la=en"><b>higher in Britain than in the U.S.</b>,</a> and in our New World neighbor Canada <b>it's <a href="https://www.stlouisfed.org/~/media/files/pdfs/community-development/econmobilitypapers/section1/econmobility_1-1chetty_508.pdf?la=en">almost twice as high</a></b> as in the U.S.<br />
<br />
Consider that passport to the top 20%, Harvard. <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/projects/college-mobility/harvard-university"><b>Two-thirds of its undergraduates come from the top 20%</b></a> of the income distribution. A startling two in five come from the top 5%, and 15% from the top 1% By age 34, Harvard grads from poor backgrounds are doing nearly as well as people from wealthy backgrounds, but there were few from poor backgrounds to begin with.<br />
<br />
The story is the same, or worse, at other Ivy League schools: <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/01/18/upshot/some-colleges-have-more-students-from-the-top-1-percent-than-the-bottom-60.html"><b>Dartmouth, Yale, Princeton, Penn, and Brown</b></a> all had more students from the top 1% than from the bottom 60%. I doubt it's because admissions officers prefer to admit people of their own social class. Rather, it's because of the accumulation of privileges of upbringing and schooling that parents in the upper 20% are able to bestow on their children.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.stlouisfed.org/~/media/files/pdfs/community-development/econmobilitypapers/section2/econmobility_2-2finighanputnam_508.pdf?la=en"><b>Finighan and Putnam</b></a> talk about a "growing opportunity gap in America." They point out that someone from a disadvantaged background with high test scores has about the same chance (around 30%) of graduating from college as someone from an affluent background with low test scores; that over the 35 years from 1972 to 2007, the top income decile doubled the amount it spends on its children, to around $6,000, while spending by the lowest deciles remained flat at around $1,000 (to be completely clear, I am not blaming poor parents for this-- it mirrors what happened to incomes over this period); and so on. In particular, while the more affluent find it increasingly difficult to cover the cost of high-quality child care, working-class families find themselves priced out of the market altogether, and must settle for lower-quality child-care, such as with unlicensed providers.<br />
<br />
If we want to avoid--or undo--the development of a de facto hereditary aristocracy ,we need to take some serious steps at both ends of the existing public school system. The first step would be to come closer to equalizing the early childhood environments of children from different income classes by establishing universal preschool. This would also be a bread and butter issue for many middle-to-low-income families, for whom child-care expenses are a significant burden. The second step would be to offer free or nearly free college, so that students get used to thinking of college as something achievable.<br />
<br />
This is going to cost some money, much more than the U.S. Grant plan I discussed above. The cost of providing universal "quality preschool education" <a href="https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/fact-sheets/2005/06/15/cost-of-providing-quality-preschool-education-to-americas-3-and-4year-olds">has been estimated</a> at $34 billion for 4-year-olds and $35 billion for 3-year-olds. Bernie Sanders estimates the cost of his plan to cover 2/3 of the cost of tuition at state colleges and universities (with <span style="background-color: yellow;">states </span>paying the rest) at $47 billion-- it's unclear to me whether this number includes other parts of his plan, such as the reduction in student loan payments.<br />
<br />
So for the full two years of preschool plus the Sanders plan, the total is $116 billion per year. That's around 9% of the total US discretionary (i.e., excluding thing like Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid) budget, or around 19-20% of the non-military discretionary budget, which seems like a lot. On the other hand...<br />
<br />
On the other hand, the recent Republican <a href="https://thehill.com/policy/finance/382319-gop-tax-law-will-add-19-trillion-to-debt-cbo"><b>tax cut is projected</b></a> to add $1.9 trillion to the debt over ten years, which averages out to $190 billion <span style="background-color: yellow;">per</span> year, for something that had very little effect on the economy other than making some rich people much richer. Should we not spend a third less than that for something that promises to increase U.S. productivity, improve life for struggling families, take seriously the promise of equal opportunity regardless of social background, and maybe make a start on healing the cultural chasm that is America today? I think we should.<br />
<br />
Note: If you've been following the Democratic candidates closely, you may be wondering how this sort of preschool plan compares to Sen. Elizabeth Warren's universal child-care proposal. As far as I can tell, the terms high-quality preschool and high-quality childcare (for ages 3 and 4) are synonymous. Warren's plan costs around 50% more, but includes children from ages 0 - 3 in addition to 3- and 4-year-olds. The gap is filled by having parents, except low-income parents, pay up to a cap of 7% of income, which, as best I can tell, means that virtually everyone will get some degree of subsidy. I am not advocating for one plan over the other.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<b><br /></b>Howardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16424520257796706030noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-332592735810634424.post-22201521478134567282019-05-23T19:12:00.000-04:002019-09-06T19:10:24.480-04:00How Much Could We Raise Income Taxes on the Rich? Actually, A Lot.<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez really
set the cat among the pigeons with her recent re</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">marks about taxation. Asked how she would pay for everything in the proposed </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">marks about taxation. Asked how
she would pay for everything in the proposed </span><a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-resolution/109/text" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><span style="color: blue;"><b>Green New Deal</b>,</span></a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> she </span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWA-ooPU1-0" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><span style="color: blue;"><b>said</b>:</span></a><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>You look at our tax rates back in
the ’60s, and when you had a progressive tax rate system your tax rate, let’s
say, from zero to $75,000 may be 10 percent or 15 percent, et cetera.
But once you get to the tippy tops — on your 10 millionth dollar —
sometimes you see tax rates as high as 60 or 70 percent. That doesn’t mean all
$10 million are taxed at an extremely high rate, but it means that as you climb
up this ladder you should be contributing more.</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><br />
</i>Feathers flew. Rep. Steve Scalise tweeted that Democrats want to
"[t]ake away 70% of your income and give it to leftist fantasy
programs," to which Ocasio-Cortez tartly replied, "You’re
the GOP Minority Whip. How do you not know how marginal tax rates work?"
For those of you who find yourselves in the same boat as Scalise, the
marginal tax is the amount of tax you pay on the next dollar of income; it's
relevant when we're looking at your incentives. The average rate is the tax you
pay divided by your income, or in other words, the share of your income that
goes to taxes. Ocasio-Cortez is quite explicitly talking about
marginal rates; Scalise's tweet mixes up marginal rates and average rates.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">But in defense of Scalise, it's
quite possible under Ocasio-Cortez's proposal for someone to end up paying
very close to 70% of their income. Consider, for example, the <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/nathanvardi/2018/04/17/the-25-highest-earning-hedge-fund-managers-and-traders-3/#5e696aaf3596"><span style="color: blue;"><b>25 highest-earning hedge-fund managers and traders</b></span></a> profiled
by Forbes. They earned an average of more than $670 million each in 2017; if
they were paying 70% on income above $10 million, virtually all of their income
would have been taxed at 70%. If this strikes you as the job for you, by the
way, don't be shy. Fully half of them, including some getting compensation over $1 billion, performed worse at picking investments than you could expect if you were
choosing at random.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b>Rate Amnesia</b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">In any
case, Ocasio-Cortez is if anything understating the history of high
marginal rates. From 1951 through 1963 the <a href="https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/statistics/historical-highest-marginal-income-tax-rates"><span style="color: blue;"><b>top marginal tax rate</b></span></a> never went below 91%.
From 1964 through 1980 it never went below 70%, and not until 1987 did it get
below 50%.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Today, though, this (relatively recent)
history seems to have been all but forgotten, as attested by <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/01/23/billionaires-davos-hate-alexandra-ocasio-cortezs-percent-tax-rich/?utm_term=.572b7f26cd4b"><span style="color: blue;"><b>this clip</b></span></a> from the World Economic Forum
in Davos, Switzerland. An economist finally speaks up about the actual
history of tax rates in the U.S., to incredulity from the interviewer. And even
he understates the case: as we have seen, a 70% rate persisted through 1980.
(Don't miss Michael Dell's smug performance as <b><a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/01/19/who-are-davos-man-and-davos-woman.html"><span style="color: blue;">Davos Man</span></a>.</b>) <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br />High top rates were the rule during some of the strongest periods of economic
growth in U.S. history, which suggests they weren't a huge burden on the
economy. Yet the idea that high marginal tax rates have big negative effects on
incentives is one of the most cherished beliefs of American conservatism. How
much should we be worried about the economic consequences of raising rates?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">As it happens, some extremely
distinguished economists have just weighed in on that question. Two recent
papers attempted to estimate the incentive effects of high marginal rates and
to find the economically optimal top rate. Both find that the effect is small,
and their estimates of the optimal top rate are correspondingly high: <b><a href="https://eml.berkeley.edu/~saez/diamond-saezJEP11opttax.pdf"><span style="color: blue;">one</span></a> </b>estimate is 72%, <a href="http://ceg.berkeley.edu/research_117_2123314150.pdf"><span style="color: blue;"><b>the other</b></span></a> 84%. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">It seems pretty reasonable, then, to
tax the income of the rich at high rates. Yet Democrats have so far been quite bashful about
proposing any changes to income taxes, even members of the progressive wing of
the party, like Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and Kamala Harris. To fund
various ideas they have proposed an increase in the estate tax
(Sanders,Warren, Harris), a tax on financial transactions (Sanders), and a tax
on wealth (Warren).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: black;"><br />
There's nothing wrong with any of those taxes (with the possible exception of
the wealth tax, whose <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-01-30/elizabeth-warren-s-wealth-tax-is-probably-constitutional"><span style="color: blue;"><b>constitutionality will surely be challenged</b></span></a>,
bringing it before a Supreme Court that has been fiercely protective of the rights of the rich). But it's long past
time to reestablish the norm of taxing the rich and the ultra-rich at high rates. There doesn't appear to be any political downside: a <a href="https://thehill.com/hilltv/what-americas-thinking/425422-a-majority-of-americans-support-raising-the-top-tax-rate-to-70"><span style="color: blue;"><b>poll in January</b></span></a> showed 59-41 support for a
top tax rate of 70 percent.</span><span style="color: black;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: black;"><br />
<b>Raising Income Tax Rates on the Rich</b></span><span style="color: black;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: black;"><br />Let's see what the revenues might be from an increase in tax rates at the top. The boundaries of the top 1%, 0.1%., and .01% </span><span style="color: black;">make convenient tax bracket cutoffs: roughly
$500,000, $2,000,000 and $10,000,000 in a year (<a href="http://gabriel-zucman.eu/files/PSZ2018QJE.pdf"><span style="color: blue;"><b>Table
I</b></span></a>, p. 575). Using information about those three income classes, I've done some rough estimates of the added
revenue from relatively "moderate" increase in tax rates to 50%, 58%, and
65%. (I've posted an explanation of my methodology <a href="https://howardfrant.blogspot.com/2019/05/note-on-methodology.html"><b>here</b></a>.) I get an estimate
of <b>$222 billion</b>. (Interestingly, of the three new steps, two-thirds of the revenue comes from the first one, the increase to 50%, and nine-tenths comes from the first two.)</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: black;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">To be sure, $222 billion
is not enough to put much of a dent in the cost of Medicare for All, which would run to between two and three trillion dollars a year. But $222 billion is enough to fund some things that could have a really dramatic
impact on people's lives. Leaving aside items that have already been proposed by one or another Presidential candidate, here's one cut:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<ul type="disc">
<li class="MsoNormal" style="color: black; line-height: normal; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list .5in;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Spend $150 billion per year eliminating
America's <a href="https://s3-ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com/global-infrastructure-outlook/countrypages/GIH_Outlook+Flyer_United%20States.pdf"><span style="color: blue;">i<b>nfrastructure spending shortfall</b></span></a>;<o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="color: black; line-height: normal; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list .5in;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Treat with buprenorphine the <a href="https://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/research-reports/medications-to-treat-opioid-addiction/overview"><span style="color: blue;"><b>2.1 million people</b></span></a> with prescription-opioid use disorder at
$5980/year each, for a total cost of $13 billion.<o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="color: black; line-height: normal; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list .5in;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Increase the salary of each of the 3.6 million public
school teachers by $10,000, for a total cost of $36 billion;<o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="color: black; line-height: normal; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list .5in;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Increase by 50% the budgets of the National Science
Foundation (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Science_Foundation"><span style="color: blue;"><b>$3.9 billion</b></span></a>) and the IRS ($<a href="https://www.irs.gov/statistics/irs-budget-and-workforce"><span style="color: blue;"><b>5.8 billion</b></span></a>) <o:p></o:p></span></li>
</ul>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">That still leaves us
more than $13 billion in the black. And we haven't raised taxes on anyone in
the lower 99% by one cent</span></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">.</span><br />
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">And don't worry that we'll be leaving the 1% destitute. They're currently paying 27% of their income in Federal taxes (</span><span style="color: blue; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="https://taxfoundation.org/summary-latest-federal-income-tax-data-2018-update/"><b>Table 1</b></a>, last row</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">); this increase would raise that to 38%.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b><span style="color: black;">It's All About the Base</span></b><span style="color: black;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b><span style="color: black;"><br />
</span></b><span style="color: black;">It's easy, though, to be
hypnotized by the controversy about tax rates and miss an equally important
question: What is the income base to which those rates are being applied? If we
say the top rate is 70%, we need to remember to ask: 70% of what?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">When it comes to taxing
the rich, there are two big items in the definition of the tax base. The bigger of the two is tax treatment of
capital gains. Capital gains are what you net when you sell an asset for more
than you paid for it; the difference, the capital gain, is taxable income. But
if you held the asset for more than a year, you are taxed at rates much lower
than those on ordinary income. The usual justification is that it encourages long-term, and discourage short-term, investment. This claim, though, is <a href="https://www.cbpp.org/blog/tax-preference-for-capital-gains-doesnt-make-sense" style="color: black;"><span style="color: blue;"><b>controversial</b></span></a>. </span></span><br />
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The other and more recent tax break is
the special treatment of "qualified" dividends. The idea is to extend
the reduced rate on capital gains to dividend income as well. Both these tax
breaks are, to some extent, used by the non-rich as well as the rich. </span></span><br />
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">But they are
used a <i>lot </i>more by the rich: <a href="https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/model-estimates/distribution-individual-income-tax-long-term-capital-gains-and-qualified-dividends-7"><b>this table</b></a> shows that these two tax preferences were used for <i>more than three-quarters of the taxes paid by those with incomes over $1 million</i>. In no other income class did those tax breaks account for even ten percent of taxes paid, and in no class making less than $100,000 did they account for even two percent. A repeal of those provisions would be nearly as well targeted as a rate increase.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: blue;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The Treasury Department has estimated <a href="https://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/tax-policy/Documents/Tax-Expenditures-FY2018.pdf"><span style="color: blue;">(<b>items 69 and 70</b>)</span></a> revenue loss from the qualified dividend provision and the capital gains provision to be $29 billion and $110 billion, respectively. </span></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Adding that revenue to our estimate of the revenue from raising marginal rates gives a total of just over $360 billion-- or, as they would say in the Washington style of talking in ten-year chunks, $3.6 trillion. (That's without taking account of interaction effects, i.e., the fact that higher rates would now be applied to a bigger base.)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">That is a lot of money. It's enough to fund what you could either call a leftist wish list or a transformation in the lives of ordinary people. Take a moment to contemplate, for instance, the <a href="https://www.cbpp.org/research/federal-tax/brown-khanna-proposal-to-expand-eitc-would-raise-incomes-of-47-million-working">Brown-Khanna bill</a> to dramatically increase the Earned Income Tax Credit. At a cost of $140 billion, it would raise the incomes of more than a third of working households in the US, in most cases by thousands of dollars, and reduce the poverty rate by a third. </span></span><br />
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Bear in mind, too, that the revenues we've been discussing here are only those from the personal income tax, and not the corporate
"income" tax (which no longer is based on corporate income). That's way too complicated to get into now, so for the time being I will simply assert that a selective undoing and alteration of some of the changes of the 2017 tax legislation could produce revenue of at least $170 billion
a year, with very likely a net gain in economic efficiency.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background: white; color: #666666;">In
his inaugural address in 1989, President George H.W. Bush said, "We have
more will than wallet." That wasn't true then, and it's even less true
today. There's plenty of wallet. What's been lacking is the will.</span></span></div>
Howardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16424520257796706030noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-332592735810634424.post-52968012406127061392019-05-23T18:00:00.000-04:002019-09-05T01:05:04.531-04:00Note on MethodologyStart at <a href="https://taxfoundation.org/summary-latest-federal-income-tax-data-2018-update/"><b>Table 1</b></a>, the first column, "Top 1%".<br />
<br />
Take "Number of Returns" (first row) and multiply it by $466,950 , which I got from <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/kellyphillipserb/2015/10/21/irs-announces-2016-tax-rates-standard-deductions-exemption-amounts-and-more/#58ac97512cd0"><b>here</b></a>, as the boundary for the top marginal rate. Fortunately, it's very close to the cutoff for the top 1% (second row from bottom). I used the rate for "married filing jointly." I take the product of those two numbers to be that income of the top 1% which is taxed at less than the top rate.<br />
<br />
Subtract that number from "Adjusted Gross Income." I take the result to be that income of the 1% which is subject to tax at the highest rate. I'm using 35% as the highest rate; I use 2016 data because it was the newest I could find.<br />
<br />
I now have $1.345 trillion. I next included an adjustment for the negative incentive effect of the tax. <a href="http://ceg.berkeley.edu/research_117_2123314150.pdf"><b>Romer and Romer</b></a> estimate the elasticity of supply at at 0.2. The percentage change in the after-tax wage times the elasticity gives the percentage change in the supply. I got an estimated change of -5%, so I reduced the revenue accordingly.<br />
<br />
Then I subtracted 23% as an allowance for deductions from taxable income. I got 23% <a href="https://taxna.wolterskluwer.com/whole-ball-of-tax-2018/average-itemized-deductions"><b>here</b></a>. It's the approximate average deduction in both the second and the third highest income groups, taken at the midpoints. I didn't use the highest group because there's no midpoint.<br />
<br />
We multiply that by .50-.35=.15 to get the additional revenue from raising rate from 35% to 50%. I ended up with $147 billion for this piece.<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
Now we add to that the additional revenue from the 58% and 65% rates, which I'll take to apply to the .1% and the .01%, as I indicated in the post. <a href="https://taxfoundation.org/summary-latest-federal-income-tax-data-2018-update/">Table 3</a> gives $966 billion for the income of 0.1%. I don't have an estimate of income for the "tippy top" group, but looking at <a href="http://gabriel-zucman.eu/files/PSZ2018QJE.pdf"><b>Table I</b></a> on p. 575 under "Pretax national income/Income share" it is apparent that there is a strong tendency for the top 10% of any group to get about 45% of the income for that group. So take 45% of $966 billion to get $434.7 billion for the top .01%.<br />
<br />
Now we proceed as before. The calculated incentive effects this time are 9% for the increase from 35% to 58%, and 12% for the increase to 65%, and the deductions are as before. Since we already counted these people when we raised the rate to 50%, we multiply only by .58-.50 and, similarly, .65-.58. My totals are $54 billion and $20.5 billion, for a grand total of $222 billion.<br />
<br />
Note that the increase to a 50% rate accounts for two-thirds of total revenue, and the increase to 58% another quarter, while the final increase to 65% accounts for less than a tenth.<br />
<br />
<br />
I've done this wrong about seven times up to now, so if you see what looks to you like a major error, please email me at hfrant@post.harvard.edu.Howardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16424520257796706030noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-332592735810634424.post-45333870318864818212016-03-15T18:45:00.000-04:002016-03-16T01:44:04.114-04:00Comments on the Democratic Debate in MiamiThis was truly the most bizarre debate I've ever seen. The level of questioning from the three interviewers, two from Univision, a Spanish-language network, and one from the Washington Post, was beyond belief.<br />
<br />
Here are some samples:<br />
<br />
<i>Where did you fail last night in Michigan? </i>followed by <i>What went wrong in Michigan? What went wrong in Michigan? What failed in Michigan specifically?</i><br />
<br />
<i>She has 1,221 delegates, including superdelegates, and you have 571. What is your pathway to make up the deficit, and can you realistically catch up?</i><br />
<br />
<i>So who specifically gave you permission to operate your email system as you did? Was it President Barack Obama? And would you drop out of the race if you get indicted? </i>followed by <i>Secretary Clinton, the questions were, who gave you permission to cooperate? Was it President Obama? </i>and<i> If you get indicted would you going to drop out?<br /><br />Secretary Clinton, is Donald Trump a racist?....Senator Sanders, do you think it's fair to call Donald Trump a racist?</i><br />
<div>
<i><br /></i></div>
<div>
And then, believe it or not, a question about Benghazi, which included a video clip:</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<i>Hillary and Obama and Panetta and Biden and all of -- and Susan Rice, all told me it was a video, when they knew it was not the video. And they said that they would call me and let me know what the outcome was.</i><br />
<div>
<i><br /></i></div>
<div>
followed by:</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<i>Secretary Clinton, did you lie to them?</i><br />
<div>
<i><br /></i></div>
<div>
And there was much, much more. What were they thinking? Is this their idea of hard-hitting questioning? I looked for pundits remarking on this, but the only things I saw were people commenting on how Univision showed it could be "tough on both sides." The only critical coverage I saw was from the left-snarky news site Wonkette, which headlined its story <i><a href="http://wonkette.com/599496/dear-univision-show-us-on-the-doll-where-hillary-and-bernie-hurt-you#lP4EajA79CbFsHrq.01">Dear Univision: Show Us On The Doll Where Hillary And Bernie Hurt You</a></i>, with the subhead <i>what the hell did we just watch?!</i></div>
<div>
<i><br /></i></div>
<div>
All that aside, I as a <a href="http://howardfrant.blogspot.com/2016/02/why-im-voting-for-hillary-and-why-im.html">Clinton supporter</a> was depressed by Hillary's performance, particularly her persistent failure to push back on the issue of her supposed corruption. Don't her advisers know what a big issue this is? At one point, Sanders accused her of saying that the big banks were her constituents, and she let it slide, instead of saying something like this:</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
"I certainly never thought big banks were my constituents, and I think you may have misunderstood me. Here's what I was trying to say: I was a senator from New York. There are almost 400,000 people in New York who work in the financial industry. Those people were my constituents. Some of them are Democrats, some Republicans. But if any one of them gives me money, Senator Sanders will say, 'Aha! You're taking money from <i>Wall Street</i>!' If you look at a list of my contributors, you will see the names of some banks with some big sums of money beside them. But those banks didn't give me that money. Almost all of it is from individuals who work for those banks. Some of them may be trying to influence me, but a lot of them are just supporting my campaign, like people who give money to Senator Sanders.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
"If you want to see whether I'm in the pocket of the big banks, here are two tests. First, look at what the banks want. What the banks really badly want is the repeal of Dodd-Frank. They have literally hundreds of lobbyists working on it. All the Republican candidates have promised it. I'm against the repeal of Dodd-Frank. It's made the banking system a lot safer, and it's actually starting to make some banks smaller. Senator Sanders thinks it's not important, but all the money the banks are spending says otherwise.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
"The second test is to ask who the billionaires are afraid of. Senator Sanders thinks it must be him. Maybe, but I haven't seen any sign of it. All the Republican Super PAC spending has been against me, except for this latest ad that praises Senator Sanders. I don't think the Koch brothers really want Senator Sanders to be President, but they certainly want him to be the Democratic nominee." </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Granted, it's not clear that the moderators would've let her say all that.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I'm writing this before the results of today's primary are in. We'll see how much difference any of this made.<br />
<br />
<b>Update: </b>Evidently, not much. Perhaps those of us watching from afar underestimate how much difference actual campaigning makes. In any case, I think Hillary still needs to deal with the campaign-finance issue if she wants to win over Bernie voters for the general.<br />
<br /></div>
<div>
<div>
<br /></div>
</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
Howardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16424520257796706030noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-332592735810634424.post-38755006787457044732016-02-29T15:55:00.000-05:002020-03-06T09:22:24.834-05:00Why I'm Voting for Hillary, and Why I'm Not Voting For Bernie<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>Why I'm Voting For Hillary</b></div>
<br />
The reasons to vote for Hillary are pretty clear, once you get through all the supposed reasons to vote against her. She has a long record of supporting progressive causes; she is also clearly the most qualified candidate in either party, with experience in the White House, in Congress, and in managing a large bureaucracy. I would have much more confidence in her ability to get things done than in Bernie Sanders's.<br />
<br />
But what about her Super PAC? What about all those ties to Wall Street?<br />
<br />
There are two reasons people give money to candidates: to buy influence, or to help someone get elected. The second is the reason most people give money, and most rich people too. The Koch brothers and their friends will probably give hundreds of millions of dollars to Super PACs this year, and I doubt they care much about buying influence. They do it because they want Republicans to be elected. They're not buying politicians; they're buying elections. That's the real problem with Citizens United, and with Super PACs. That's why Clinton has been against them from the beginning.<br />
<br />
But here they are, and the Koch brothers and their friends are doing their best to buy the 2016 election. That being so, should Democrats accept large contributions from the few Democratic billionaires there are (like the $7 million the pro-Clinton Super PAC got from George Soros)? Why on earth not? I don't see how it's a sign of progressive virtue to say that only Republican billionaires will be allowed to make huge contributions.<br />
<br />
Here are the top <b><a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/pres16/contrib.php?id=N00000019&cycle=2016&type=f&src=o">contributors to</a><a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/pres16/contrib.php?id=N00000019&cycle=2016&type=f&src=o"> </a><a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/pres16/contrib.php?id=N00000019&cycle=2016&type=f&src=o">Hillary's Super PAC</a></b>. Topping the list is Soros, who is hated by the right for his support of liberal causes. Also included: the Operating Engineers Union, the Plumbers/Pipefitters Union, and the Laborers International Union, at $2 million each, the Carpenters and Joiners Union, at $1.5 million, and the American Federation of Teachers at $1 million. This does not strike me as a sellout of progressive values.<br />
<br />
As for the ties to Wall Street, Clinton was a senator from <i>New York</i>. The finance industry employs more than 300,000 people in New York. (Many fewer, I imagine, in Vermont.) Some of those people have contributed to Hillary-- not to her Super PAC, but to the campaign committee, with its $2,700 limit. This does not make Hillary a corrupt tool of Wall Street. If you want to see what a tool of Wall Street would do, look at where Wall Street firms are spending their lobbying money. They are all fighting tooth and nail for the repeal of the oversight law known as Dodd-Frank. Hillary supports Dodd-Frank. The Republican candidates have vowed to repeal it. Bernie seems to regard it as an irrelevance.<br />
<br />
Then we have the rest of the cats and dogs. What about all the skeletons in her closet? Friends, the Republicans have spent two decades, and considerable resources, trying to find skeletons in Hillary's closet. Remember Whitewater? Remember Benghazi? They haven't found anything. Possibly, though, they have succeeded in creating a vague sense of unease that there<i> must</i> be something there. But she's a liar! Well, no, she isn't; she's pretty good for a politician. By <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/13/opinion/campaign-stops/all-politicians-lie-some-lie-more-than-others.html?smid=fb-share"><b>one imperfect measure</b></a>, she's comparable to Bernie, and much better than any of the Republicans.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>Why I'm Not Voting for Bernie</b></div>
<br />
My Bernie problem started with his supporters, the people I call the Bernistas. I was, and am, stunned by the rage and vitriol they direct at Hillary. As someone who remembers the nineties, and who occasionally reads crazed right-wing websites, I couldn't help but wonder why they seem to have adopted Republican language: She's a liar! She's corrupt! Oh, and by the way, she's <a href="http://skepchick.org/2016/02/hillary-clinton-is-not-my-feminist-hero/"><b>not a real feminist</b></a>! (Presumably, they were born too late to know about <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/1995/09/06/world/hillary-clinton-in-china-details-abuse-of-women.html"><b>this</b></a>.)<br />
<br />
And my problem with the cult of St. Bernard doesn't end with their attitude toward Hillary. Anyone who disagrees with them--<a href="http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/01/23/wonks-and-minions/"><b>Paul Krugman, for example</b></a>--is assumed to be in the pay of the banks, or at least, to be afraid of losing their privileges when the Revolution inevitably comes.<br />
<br />
Well, OK, maybe they get carried away. But surely Bernie himself is waging a high-minded campaign about the issues. Right?<br />
<br />
Actually, I'm not so impressed. True, the Democratic debates have been more substantive than the circuses on the Republican side. But a lot of the Clinton/Sanders conflict has not been over policy, or even personal history, but over Hillary's supposed ties to Wall Street, and her use of a super PAC for fundraising. "I do not know a progressive," said Bernie at a town hall, "who has a super PAC and takes $15 million from Wall Street."<br />
<br />
But as we have seen, the contributors to Hillary's Super PAC are progressive by any standard. And no, she didn't go to an ATM marked "Wall Street" and take out $15 million. These are donations from individuals, former constituents, who may be trying to influence her, or may just be Democrats. Number 3 on the list of <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/pres16/contrib.php?id=N00000019&cycle=2016&type=f&src=c">big donors to her campaign committee</a> is the University of California. How can a public university make political contributions? It can't, of course. What that represents is donations from individuals who work at the university. And by the way, where does that $15 million figure come from? I can't find it anywhere.<br />
<br />
The latest from Bernie is an ad singling out Goldman Sachs by name. "How does Wall Street get away with it?" the ad asks. "Millions in campaign contributions and speaking fees." Not mentioning any names there, of course. Exactly how Hillary's speaking fees contributed to Goldman Sachs getting away with it is not specified. The whole thing strikes me as a bit sleazy. I'm really starting to dislike Bernie.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>What About Policy?</b></div>
<br />
But what about policy? There are some things I like better about Bernie. I think free public college education for all is a good idea, for the same reason I think it would be a bad idea to make Social Security means-tested: programs that are universal are politically stronger and don't stigmatize people. Hillary's argument that this will permit children of billionaires to get free education is a bit disingenuous: billionaires are unlikely to send their kids to state universities, and in any case there aren't very many of them.<br />
<br />
I also prefer Bernie on taxes. Hillary raises taxes on the rich by quite a bit, but she could go a lot higher. On the estate tax, her top rate rate of 45% strikes me as timid; even Bernie's rate of 65% strikes me as timid. If we want to strike a blow against aristocracy, estates over, say, $100 million should be taxed at 90%. (That's not very onerous; the Koch brothers could still leave their heirs several billion dollars. Each.)<br />
<br />
On single-payer health insurance I'm a lot more troubled. I don't think Bernie has been terribly honest about the costs or what it would be like. There has been a lot of criticism that <a href="http://www.vox.com/2016/1/28/10858644/bernie-sanders-kenneth-thorpe-single-payer"><b>the numbers don't add up</b></a>. Even more disturbing, the campaign responded to one such study by calling it a "hatchet job," the kind of thing one would expect from the Bernistas.<br />
<br />
Finally, if you scroll down <a href="http://www.marketwatch.com/story/text-of-bernie-sanders-wall-street-and-economy-speech-2016-01-05"><b>this</b></a>, you will find Bernie's views on the Federal Reserve, which are alarmingly crankish. Here's a sample: <i>When Wall Street was on the verge of collapse, the Federal Reserve acted with a fierce sense of urgency to save the financial system. We need the Fed to act with the same boldness to combat unemployment and low wages</i>. Um, Bernie, they didn't just save the financial system; they saved the whole economy from going into another Great Depression, with a lot of opposition from Republicans. Fighting unemployment is part of the Fed's statutory mandate, and they did about the best they could without any help from Congress. It is alarming to see a Presidential candidate with such a confused idea about such an economically central institution.<br />
<br />
One last point: what is it with Bernie and Wall Street, anyway? Yes, they're an easy target, because they did in fact crash the economy. But they're far from the only culprit in inequality. They're about 8% of the economy. We've still got McDonald's and Walmart and GM and Verizon. What are we doing about them? Wall Street is not single-handedly responsible for the fact the median wage has stagnated.<br />
<br />
So I'll be voting for Hillary tomorrow. Good luck with that whole revolution thing.<br />
<br />Howardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16424520257796706030noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-332592735810634424.post-48368525345742587102015-10-15T22:45:00.000-04:002015-10-15T22:56:48.817-04:00Good News About the Good News: It's RealIf you're not a regular reader of The New York Times, you may have missed <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/01/opinion/nicholas-kristof-the-most-important-thing-and-its-almost-a-secret.html">this column by Nicholas Kristof</a>. It makes a startling point: The world has gotten dramatically better, and most Americans don't know it. For example, the number of people living in extreme poverty has "fallen by more than half, from 35 percent in 1993 to 14 percent in 2011." But 95 percent of Americans think the number has either gone up or remained the same.<br />
<br />
I began to wonder, though, about that poverty statistic. I knew that China's industrialization had reduced poverty there by a lot. And China, as you may know, has a very large population. How much of the reduction was just China pulling down the average? Is this a real phenomenon in other parts of the world ?<br />
<br />
I went to the <a href="http://iresearch.worldbank.org/PovcalNetPPP2005/index.htm?1">World Bank data set</a> that Kristof used, and looked at results broken down by region. Here are some (in evenly spaced years):<br />
<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 571px;">
<colgroup><col span="2" style="width: 48pt;" width="64"></col>
<col style="mso-width-alt: 2702; mso-width-source: userset; width: 57pt;" width="76"></col>
<col style="mso-width-alt: 3328; mso-width-source: userset; width: 70pt;" width="94"></col>
<col style="mso-width-alt: 2958; mso-width-source: userset; width: 62pt;" width="83"></col>
<col style="width: 48pt;" width="64"></col>
<col style="mso-width-alt: 2218; mso-width-source: userset; width: 47pt;" width="62"></col>
<col style="width: 48pt;" width="64"></col>
</colgroup><tbody>
<tr height="19" style="height: 14.4pt;">
<td height="19" style="height: 14.4pt; width: 48pt;" width="64"></td>
<td style="width: 48pt;" width="64"><br /></td><td class="xl63" colspan="4" style="mso-ignore: colspan; width: 237pt;" width="317"><br /></td><td style="width: 47pt;" width="62"><br /></td><td style="width: 48pt;" width="64"><br /></td></tr>
<tr height="19" style="height: 14.4pt;"><td align="right" height="19" style="height: 14.4pt;"><br /></td><td class="xl65"><table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 571px;">
<colgroup><col span="2" style="width: 48pt;" width="64"></col>
<col style="mso-width-alt: 2702; mso-width-source: userset; width: 57pt;" width="76"></col>
<col style="mso-width-alt: 3328; mso-width-source: userset; width: 70pt;" width="94"></col>
<col style="mso-width-alt: 2958; mso-width-source: userset; width: 62pt;" width="83"></col>
<col style="width: 48pt;" width="64"></col>
<col style="mso-width-alt: 2218; mso-width-source: userset; width: 47pt;" width="62"></col>
<col style="width: 48pt;" width="64"></col>
</colgroup><tbody>
<tr height="19" style="height: 14.4pt;">
<td height="19" style="height: 14.4pt; width: 48pt;" width="64"></td>
<td style="width: 48pt;" width="64"></td>
<td class="xl65" colspan="4" style="mso-ignore: colspan; width: 237pt;" width="317"><b>Percentage in extreme poverty ($1.25/day or less)</b></td>
<td style="width: 47pt;" width="62"></td>
<td style="width: 48pt;" width="64"></td>
</tr>
<tr height="19" style="height: 14.4pt;">
<td height="19" style="height: 14.4pt;"></td>
<td class="xl66">E Asia</td>
<td class="xl66">Eur, Ctl Asia</td>
<td class="xl66">Lat Am, Carib.</td>
<td class="xl66">M East, N Afr</td>
<td class="xl66">S Asia</td>
<td class="xl66">Sub-S Afr</td>
<td class="xl66">Total</td>
</tr>
<tr height="19" style="height: 14.4pt;">
<td class="xl68" height="19" style="height: 14.4pt;">1984</td>
<td class="xl67">65.6</td>
<td class="xl66">2.3</td>
<td class="xl66">13.4</td>
<td class="xl66">6.6</td>
<td class="xl66">57.7</td>
<td class="xl66">56.3</td>
<td class="xl67">47.5</td>
</tr>
<tr height="19" style="height: 14.4pt;">
<td class="xl68" height="19" style="height: 14.4pt;">1990</td>
<td class="xl67">57.0</td>
<td class="xl66">1.5</td>
<td class="xl66">12.6</td>
<td class="xl66">5.8</td>
<td class="xl66">54.1</td>
<td class="xl66">56.8</td>
<td class="xl67">43.4</td>
</tr>
<tr height="19" style="height: 14.4pt;">
<td class="xl68" height="19" style="height: 14.4pt;">1996</td>
<td class="xl67">38.3</td>
<td class="xl66">4.2</td>
<td class="xl66">10.6</td>
<td class="xl66">4.8</td>
<td class="xl66">48.6</td>
<td class="xl66">59.7</td>
<td class="xl67">35.9</td>
</tr>
<tr height="19" style="height: 14.4pt;">
<td class="xl68" height="19" style="height: 14.4pt;">2002</td>
<td class="xl67">27.3</td>
<td class="xl66">2.1</td>
<td class="xl66">10.2</td>
<td class="xl66">3.8</td>
<td class="xl66">44.1</td>
<td class="xl66">57.2</td>
<td class="xl67">30.5</td>
</tr>
<tr height="19" style="height: 14.4pt;">
<td class="xl68" height="19" style="height: 14.4pt;">2008</td>
<td class="xl67">13.7</td>
<td class="xl66">0.5</td>
<td class="xl66">5.4</td>
<td class="xl66">2.1</td>
<td class="xl66">34.1</td>
<td class="xl66">49.7</td>
<td class="xl67">21.9</td>
</tr>
<tr height="19" style="height: 14.4pt;">
<td class="xl68" height="19" style="height: 14.4pt;">2011</td>
<td class="xl67">7.9</td>
<td class="xl66">0.5</td>
<td class="xl66">4.6</td>
<td class="xl66">1.7</td>
<td class="xl66">24.5</td>
<td class="xl66">46.9</td>
<td class="xl67">17.0</td>
</tr>
</tbody></table>
</td><td class="xl64"><br /></td>
<td class="xl64"><br /></td><td class="xl64"><br /></td><td class="xl64"><br /></td><td class="xl64"><br /></td><td class="xl65"><br /></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
Yes, this looks pretty real. The decline in East Asia is the most dramatic, a reduction of 88% over the period shown. But poverty in South Asia (India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, etc) has fallen by more than half, and in Latin America by two-thirds.<br />
<br />
And what about within East Asia? Surely that must be just the effect of China. Actually, no. There are huge reductions in Cambodia, Indonesia, Vietnam. There is a smaller but still dramatic reduction in the Philippines.<br />
<br />
Does this just mean that there are a lot of people making $1.30/day? No, worldwide the number of people making $2/day or less has fallen by almost half. It's real.<br />
<br />
Kristof, unfortunately, says nothing about what brought this about. But if China is representative, <i>globalization</i>, the shifting of production to the Third World, played a big role in raising Third World incomes. This is a rather uncomfortable conclusion for liberals; one has to ask, "Are decades of wage stagnation for the middle class in the developed world too high a price to pay for lifting billions of people out of extreme poverty?" (If the answer is that it's not too high a price, of course, we can still do better about asking the rich to bear some of the burden.)<br />
<br />
Finally, it is disturbing that progress has been so slow in sub-Saharan Africa. Undoubtedly, a big part of the explanation is war: Extreme poverty is at 97 percent in Congo, for example, and 95 percent in Liberia. And a part of that, in turn, is the <a href="http://www.cfr.org/africa-sub-saharan/beating-resource-curse-africa-global-effort/p28780">resource curse</a>.Howardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16424520257796706030noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-332592735810634424.post-67058563520661235962015-07-10T21:43:00.000-04:002015-08-22T18:01:21.381-04:00Southern Crybabies Start War; Slaughter EnsuesAs you may have noticed, there has been a lot of public discussion of the Civil War recently. One point that has been made often is that yes, the cause the South was fighting for really was slavery (and not, say, "states' rights"), and that this is quite evident when we read the states' Declarations of Secession.<br />
<br />
So I was looking at <a href="http://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/csa_scarsec.asp">South Carolina's Declaration of Secession</a>. It was the first in the nation, and South Carolina is the state that fired the first shot of the Civil War. South Carolina is also the state that's been the focus of the recent news.<br />
<br />
Now, recall that this was the bloodiest war in U.S. history, <a href="http://www.civilwar.org/education/civil-war-casualties.html?referrer=https://www.google.com/">killing about 620,000 people</a> (the equivalent of around 6 million today), ending slavery, and permanently impoverishing the South. You would think, then, that they would not make this decision lightly.<br />
<br />
You'd be wrong. What is most striking about South Carolina's reasons for secession is how trivial they are. They complain at great length that Northern states are not returning fugitive slaves, as the Constitution requires:<br />
<br />
<i>In many of these States the fugitive is discharged from service or labor claimed, and in none of them has the State Government complied with the stipulation made in the Constitution...In the State of New York even the right of transit for a slave has been denied by her tribunals; and the States of Ohio and Iowa have refused to surrender to justice fugitives charged with murder, and with inciting servile insurrection in the State of Virginia. </i><br />
<i><br /></i>
Annoying, of course, if you're a slaveowner--but annoying enough to start a war? Surely not. And how exactly is secession going to make things better? One would think, in fact, that being a separate nation makes the problem worse; for instance, you might not be allowed even to enter the neighboring state. (Notice, by the way, that the secession was actually a revolt <i>against </i>states' rights. The association of the Civil War with states' rights, like the public display of the Confederate battle flag, dates to the era of school desegregation.)<br />
<br />
So you're seceding over <i>this</i>? Oh no, there's much more:<br />
<br />
<i>Those States have assumed the right of deciding upon the propriety of our domestic institutions..they have denounced as sinful the institution of slavery; </i><br />
<div>
<i><br /></i></div>
<div>
Ma! Jimmy's calling me sinful!</div>
<div>
<i><br /></i></div>
<div>
<i>...they have permitted open establishment among them of societies, whose avowed object is to disturb the peace and to eloign the property of the citizens of other States. They have encouraged and assisted thousands of our slaves to leave their homes; and those who remain, have been incited by emissaries, books and pictures to servile insurrection.</i></div>
<div>
<i><br /></i></div>
<div>
Again, annoying; but how is secession supposed to help? (By the way, great oxymoron: "servile insurrection.")</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
And finally, we get to the nub</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<i>A geographical line has been drawn across the Union, and all the States north of that line have united in the election of a man to the high office of President of the United States, whose opinions and purposes are hostile to slavery. He is to be entrusted with the administration of the common Government, because he has declared that that "Government cannot endure permanently half slave, half free," and that the public mind must rest in the belief that slavery is in the course of ultimate extinction.</i><br />
<i><br /></i>So the trigger for South Carolina's secession is, in fact, the election of Lincoln. Mind you, Lincoln hasn't even been inaugurated yet, let alone done anything against slavery. But he is "hostile" to it. The slaveowners feel unloved.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Those are their reasons for starting a war. In fairness, they probably never imagined that because of them, one American in fifty (or, I suppose, one American male in 25) would die.</div>
Howardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16424520257796706030noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-332592735810634424.post-78118145860329420262015-06-14T23:32:00.000-04:002016-12-21T15:00:00.398-05:00Police Killings and Racial Bias<i>The Guardian </i>newspaper<i>,</i> which has been keeping count, <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jun/10/the-counted-500-people-killed-by-police-2015">announced Wednesday</a> that fatal shootings by police in the U.S. in 2015 had reached 500, and that's only through the end of May. That seems like a shockingly large number.<br />
<br />
The article points out that a disproportionate number of African-Americans were killed, using statistics that I've put into this table:<br />
<br />
<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 384px;">
<colgroup><col span="6" style="width: 48pt;" width="64"></col>
</colgroup><tbody>
<tr height="19" style="height: 14.4pt;">
<td class="xl63" height="19" style="height: 14.4pt; width: 48pt;" width="64"></td>
<td class="xl63" style="width: 48pt;" width="64"></td>
<td class="xl63" colspan="2" style="mso-ignore: colspan; width: 96pt;" width="128"><b>Police killings</b></td>
<td class="xl63" colspan="2" style="mso-ignore: colspan; width: 96pt;" width="128"><b>US
population</b></td>
</tr>
<tr height="19" style="height: 14.4pt;">
<td class="xl63" height="19" style="height: 14.4pt;"></td>
<td class="xl63"></td>
<td class="xl63"></td>
<td class="xl63"></td>
<td class="xl63"></td>
<td class="xl63"></td>
</tr>
<tr height="19" style="height: 14.4pt;">
<td class="xl63" height="19" style="height: 14.4pt;"><b>White</b></td>
<td class="xl63"></td>
<td align="right" class="xl63"><b>49.6%</b></td>
<td class="xl63"></td>
<td align="right" class="xl63"><b>64.2%</b></td>
<td class="xl63"></td>
</tr>
<tr height="19" style="height: 14.4pt;">
<td class="xl63" height="19" style="height: 14.4pt;"></td>
<td class="xl63"></td>
<td class="xl63"></td>
<td class="xl63"></td>
<td class="xl63"></td>
<td class="xl63"></td>
</tr>
<tr height="19" style="height: 14.4pt;">
<td class="xl63" height="19" style="height: 14.4pt;"><b>Black</b></td>
<td class="xl63"></td>
<td align="right" class="xl63"><b>28.2%</b></td>
<td class="xl63"></td>
<td align="right" class="xl63"><b>13.2%</b></td>
<td class="xl63"></td>
</tr>
<tr height="19" style="height: 14.4pt;">
<td class="xl63" height="19" style="height: 14.4pt;"></td>
<td class="xl63"></td>
<td class="xl63"></td>
<td class="xl63"></td>
<td class="xl63"></td>
<td class="xl63"></td>
</tr>
<tr height="19" style="height: 14.4pt;">
<td class="xl63" height="19" style="height: 14.4pt;"><b>Hisp.</b></td>
<td class="xl63"></td>
<td align="right" class="xl63"><b>14.8%</b></td>
<td class="xl63"></td>
<td align="right" class="xl63"><b>17.1%</b></td>
<td class="xl63"></td>
</tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
Yes, clearly, a disproportionate number of African-Americans are killed. But is that evidence of discrimination by police? After all, there are <a href="https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2013/crime-in-the-u.s.-2013/tables/table-43">more arrests of African-Americans</a>, and if there are more arrests, then surely we would expect more gunplay:<br />
<br />
<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 320px;">
<colgroup><col span="5" style="width: 48pt;" width="64"></col>
</colgroup><tbody>
<tr height="19" style="height: 14.4pt;">
<td class="xl65" height="19" style="height: 14.4pt; width: 48pt;" width="64"></td>
<td class="xl65" style="width: 48pt;" width="64"></td>
<td class="xl65" colspan="2" style="mso-ignore: colspan; width: 96pt;" width="128"><b>Police killings</b></td>
<td class="xl65" style="width: 48pt;" width="64"><b> Arrests</b></td>
</tr>
<tr height="19" style="height: 14.4pt;">
<td class="xl65" height="19" style="height: 14.4pt;"></td>
<td class="xl65"></td>
<td class="xl65"></td>
<td class="xl65"></td>
<td class="xl65"></td>
</tr>
<tr height="19" style="height: 14.4pt;">
<td class="xl65" height="19" style="height: 14.4pt;"><b>White</b></td>
<td class="xl65"></td>
<td align="right" class="xl65"><b>49.6%</b></td>
<td class="xl65"></td>
<td align="right" class="xl65"><b>68.9%</b></td>
</tr>
<tr height="19" style="height: 14.4pt;">
<td class="xl65" height="19" style="height: 14.4pt;"></td>
<td class="xl65"></td>
<td class="xl65"></td>
<td class="xl65"></td>
<td class="xl65"></td>
</tr>
<tr height="19" style="height: 14.4pt;">
<td class="xl65" height="19" style="height: 14.4pt;"><b>Black</b></td>
<td class="xl65"></td>
<td align="right" class="xl65"><b>28.2%</b></td>
<td class="xl65"></td>
<td align="right" class="xl65"><b>28.3%</b></td>
</tr>
<tr height="19" style="height: 14.4pt;">
<td class="xl65" height="19" style="height: 14.4pt;"></td>
<td class="xl65"></td>
<td class="xl65"></td>
<td class="xl65"></td>
<td class="xl65"></td>
</tr>
<tr height="19" style="height: 14.4pt;">
<td class="xl65" height="19" style="height: 14.4pt;"><b>Hisp.</b></td>
<td class="xl65"></td>
<td align="right" class="xl65"><b>14.8%</b></td>
<td class="xl65"></td>
<td align="right" class="xl65"><b>16.6%</b></td>
</tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
The numbers in the right column add to more than 100, because "Hispanic" is not considered a separate racial category in government statistics. But if we assume that 90-95% of Hispanics are white, and reduce the totals for "white" and "black" in the second column accordingly, then the number of shootings seems roughly in line with the number of arrests.<br />
<br />
But that just pushes the question back a step. Why are more African-Americans arrested? Is it because they commit more crimes, or is the statistic itself a sign of police bias? There were complaints in New York City, for example, that blacks were arrested more than whites for marijuana possession, not because they were more likely to smoke marijuana, but because of discriminatory use of "stop-and-frisk" searches.<br />
<br />
This, however, doesn't seem to be true for arrests in general. African-Americans make up 30% of all drug arrests, and 26% of all vandalism arrests, but 52% of all murder arrests. It seems unlikely that discriminatory enforcement is more common in murder cases than in drug cases.<br />
<br />
So far, the facts don't seem to bear out a claim of police bias. But wait... here's an odd thing.<br />
<br />
<i>More than one in every five people killed so far in 2015 – 108, or 21.6% – were unarmed. A significant disparity in the proportion of black and white people killed who were unarmed, which was reported last week by the Guardian, has since narrowed slightly. While 30.5% of white people killed were unarmed, 16.1% of black people killed had no weapon.</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
Apparently, whites were a lot more likely than blacks to be unarmed when they were killed. Does that mean whites were more likely to be killed when they were unarmed? That would be surprising.<br />
<br />
I decided to take look at <i>The Guardian</i>'s data set. The data set is actually quite admirable. In addition to demographic information, it has a brief narrative and often a photo for each case. And it will provide counts using various filters, including race of victim and how they were armed.<br />
<br />
The first thing I discovered is that they got the numbers reversed: it's actually 30% of blacks and 16% of whites who were unarmed when they were killed. [Update: The webpage linked above now notes and corrects this error.] Playing just a little more with the data, I find that <i>The Guardian</i> has kind of missed the big story here. Rather than presenting the data as in the first table above, they should have presented this:<br />
<br />
<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 330px;">
<colgroup><col span="2" style="mso-width-alt: 2275; mso-width-source: userset; width: 48pt;" width="64"></col>
<col style="mso-width-alt: 2616; mso-width-source: userset; width: 55pt;" width="74"></col>
<col span="2" style="mso-width-alt: 2275; mso-width-source: userset; width: 48pt;" width="64"></col>
</colgroup><tbody>
<tr height="19" style="height: 14.4pt;">
<td class="xl65" height="19" style="height: 14.4pt; width: 48pt;" width="64"></td>
<td class="xl65" style="width: 48pt;" width="64"></td>
<td class="xl65" colspan="2" style="mso-ignore: colspan; width: 103pt;" width="138"><b>Police killings:</b></td>
<td class="xl65" style="width: 48pt;" width="64"></td>
</tr>
<tr height="19" style="height: 14.4pt;">
<td class="xl65" height="19" style="height: 14.4pt;"></td>
<td class="xl65" colspan="2"><b>Armed people</b></td>
<td class="xl65" colspan="2"><b>Unarmed people</b></td>
</tr>
<tr height="19" style="height: 14.4pt;">
<td class="xl65" height="19" style="height: 14.4pt;"></td>
<td class="xl65"></td>
<td class="xl65"></td>
<td class="xl65"></td>
<td class="xl65"></td>
</tr>
<tr height="19" style="height: 14.4pt;">
<td class="xl65" height="19" style="height: 14.4pt;"><b>White</b></td>
<td align="right" class="xl65"><b>53.5%</b></td>
<td class="xl65"></td>
<td align="right" class="xl65"><b>36.7%</b></td>
<td class="xl65"></td>
</tr>
<tr height="19" style="height: 14.4pt;">
<td class="xl65" height="19" style="height: 14.4pt;"></td>
<td class="xl65"></td>
<td class="xl65"></td>
<td class="xl65"></td>
<td class="xl65"></td>
</tr>
<tr height="19" style="height: 14.4pt;">
<td class="xl65" height="19" style="height: 14.4pt;"><b>Black</b></td>
<td align="right" class="xl65"><b>26.9%</b></td>
<td class="xl65"></td>
<td align="right" class="xl65"><b>40.4%</b></td>
<td class="xl65"></td>
</tr>
<tr height="19" style="height: 14.4pt;">
<td class="xl65" height="19" style="height: 14.4pt;"></td>
<td class="xl65"></td>
<td class="xl65"></td>
<td class="xl65"></td>
<td class="xl65"></td>
</tr>
<tr height="19" style="height: 14.4pt;">
<td class="xl65" height="19" style="height: 14.4pt;"><b>Hisp.</b></td>
<td align="right" class="xl65"><b>15.3%</b></td>
<td class="xl65"></td>
<td align="right" class="xl65"><b>15.6%</b></td>
<td class="xl65"></td>
</tr>
</tbody></table>
<b><br /></b>
<br />
Let's recap. Blacks are disproportionately likely to be arrested. Probably that's mostly because they commit more crimes. While racism undoubtedly is part of the ultimate explanation for that, racism on the part of the police doesn't seem to explain why blacks are arrested more. And if you're armed, your chances of being killed appear about the same for blacks and whites.<br />
<br />
But if you're unarmed, the chance of being killed is much greater for blacks than for whites. That does start to look like racism. It needn't mean that the police hate blacks; it could mean they're more likely to perceive blacks as threatening. But of course, that's not much consolation to the familes.<br />
<br />
"Hands up, don't shoot" indeed.Howardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16424520257796706030noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-332592735810634424.post-32063786341918071952015-05-20T20:06:00.000-04:002015-05-26T02:39:08.089-04:00Question for Ted Cruz and Rick Perry"Q: The <a href="http://www.texasgop.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/2014-Platform-Final.pdf">2014 Platform of the Republican Party of Texas</a> says, 'Homosexuality is a chosen behavior that is contrary to the fundamental unchanging truths that have been ordained by God in the Bible, recognized by our nation’s founders, and shared by the majority of Texans.... ' Do you agree with this statement?"<br />
<br />
At that, the statement represents a degree of moderation from the 2010 platform, which says, "We believe that the practice of homosexuality tears at the fabric of society, contributes to the breakdown
of the family unit, and leads to the spread of dangerous, communicable diseases." It then goes on to talk about the fundamental unchanging truths, etc. I always hoped that someone would ask Ron Paul about this in 2012.<br />
<br />
By the way, does anyone know where they're getting this stuff about our nation's founders?<br />
<br />
If you start looking the 2014 platform, though, you can find all kinds of statements that a national Presidential candidate would probably prefer not to deal with, at least during the general election:<br />
<br />
"We support eliminating bureaucratic prohibitions on corporal discipline and home
schooling in foster homes."<br />
<br />
"We support an immediate and orderly transition to a system of private pensions based on the concept of individual retirement accounts, and gradually phasing out the Social Security tax."<br />
<br />
"We urge the legislature to end censorship of discussion of religion in
our founding documents and encourage discussing those documents, including the Bible as their
basis. Students and district personnel have the right to display Christian items on school
property."<br />
<br />
"We oppose any sex education other than the biology of reproduction and abstinence
until marriage."<br />
<br />
But why go on? This is the full right-wing-crank stuff. Supporting those positions probably wouldn't damage Cruz or Perry at all in the Republican primaries. But that's interesting in itself, no?Howardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16424520257796706030noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-332592735810634424.post-75580921056931214122015-05-02T22:18:00.000-04:002020-05-17T15:51:24.140-04:00 The Myth of the "Ten Commandments"The Ten Commandments have been in the news again; the Christian right has been saying silly things in their effort to convince people that the Founders intended the U.S. to be a Christian nation. There is, for example, the <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/11/17/texas-textbook-inaccuracies/19175311/"><b>Texas school textbook</b></a> that says the Constitution was influenced by the Ten Commandments. This is like saying that my Honda owner's manual was influenced by "Hamlet"; there is simply no overlap between the two. Put the two documents side by side and see if you can find any resemblance.<br />
<br />
But that brought up another question: Why do Christians attach such importance to the Ten Commandments? It seems awfully, shall we say, Old Testament. Out of all the Old Testament, why is this the part that Christians want to carve into <a href="http://religiondispatches.org/roy-ten-commandments-moore-is-back-with-his-constitution-defying-tricks/"><b>two-ton sculptures</b></a>?<br />
<br />
Actually, not everyone believes that Christians need to follow the Ten Commandments; some hold out for faith alone. But among those who do think they must be followed, many sources, including the <a href="http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p3s2.htm"><b>Catechism of the Catholic Church</b></a>, cite this passage from Matthew 19:<br />
<br />
<i><a href="http://biblehub.com/matthew/19-16.htm">16</a>And behold, a man came up to him, saying, “Teacher, what good deed must I do to have eternal life?” </i><br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<i><a href="http://biblehub.com/matthew/19-17.htm">17</a>And he said to him, “Why do you ask me about what is good? There is only one who is good. If you would enter life, keep the commandments.” </i></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<i><a href="http://biblehub.com/matthew/19-18.htm">18</a>He said to him, “Which ones?” And Jesus said, “You shall not murder, You shall not commit adultery, You shall not steal, You shall not bear false witness, <a href="http://biblehub.com/matthew/19-19.htm">19</a>Honor your father and mother, and, You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”</i></div>
<div>
<i><br /></i></div>
<div>
Christians conclude that "Keep the commandments" means "Follow the Ten Commandments." But that creates some puzzles. First, there's the man's question "Which ones?" Seriously? Ten is too many? Second, why does Jesus put in that sixth item, about loving your neighbor? The usual explanation is that this is a sort of summary of the others. But it's certainly not a summary of the missing ones, which include not worshiping idols and observing the Sabbath.<br />
<br />
To an observant Jew (I'm not one, but seemingly Jesus was) this is all way off the mark, a misunderstanding. Any observant Jew knows what "Keep the commandments" means. It refers to the <b><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/613_commandments">hundreds of commandments</a> </b>(<i>mitzvot) </i>in the Five Books of Moses. So the question "Which ones?" makes perfect sense. How important is eating matzoh on Passover? Not mixing wool and linen? Wearing fringes on your garments? Jesus then lists six that he considers important. The sixth is not his own invention; it's another one of the <i>mitzvot,</i> found in Leviticus 19:18.<br />
<br />
In fact, Jesus could not have been talking about those ten things written on the two stone tablets, because in Hebrew they are not even called "the Ten Commandments." They're called something like the Ten Words or the Ten Utterances (hence the Greek <i>Decalogue</i>). Jews consider the first one to be "I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt," so only the remaining nine are actual commandments.<br />
<br />
The Ten Utterances are considered to be God's covenant with Israel. Remember "Raiders of the Lost Ark"? The box in which the Israelites carried the two stone tablets was called the Ark of the Covenant, not the Ark of the Commandments. And Jews believe that only some of the commandments in the covenant are binding on non-Jews. Notice that in the First Utterance, God says "...who brought you out of the land of Egypt." Brought <i>whom</i> out of the land of Egypt?<br />
<br />
Things I don't understand, o my Christian brethren:<br />
<br />
(1) Christians are quite emphatic that Jesus gave them a New Covenant to supplant the Old Covenant that Jews had with God. So why would you adopt the Old Covenant in its entirety?<br />
<br />
(2) A man asks the central figure in Christianity--the Son of God--what laws to follow. The man is given a list of six laws. Christians do not respond by writing them on the walls of their churches. Instead, they put aside the sixth one, and add five others that Jesus doesn't mention. Why?<br />
<br />
Well, for whatever reason, that's what the Christians did. And so the Ten Commandments became "<a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=QRy2vKbwBQsC&pg=PA114&lpg=PA114&dq=ten+commandments+cornerstone+of+western+civilization&source=bl&ots=ABi7Px2Hv9&sig=5cyKdF1jSMSHusNq1YJLW1zS5u4&hl=en&sa=X&ei=1DdEVcjwH4-1sQSwmICwDQ&ved=0CCkQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=ten%20commandments%20cornerstone%20of%20western%20civilization&f=false"><b>the very cornerstone of Western Civilization, and the basis of our legal system here in America</b>.</a>" Surely no one can dispute that.<br />
<br />
I do dispute it. Take a look at our nation's prisons. You will find no one convicted of Sabbath-breaking, adultery, making graven images, coveting, or talking back to their parents. The Puritans, certainly, might have locked up such people, but that's never been part of "our legal system here in America." (Yes, I know, Massachusetts used to have blue laws.) The only Commandments whose violation is a felony in America are those against murder, theft, and perjury, and probably those were felonies in Zhou Dynasty China and Egypt under the Pharaohs. Conversely, we managed to come up with laws against rape, sale of narcotics, child molestation, prostitution, and many other things not mentioned in Ten Commandments.<br />
<br />
So there you have it. If I were a believing Christian, I'd just try to follow the Six Commandments. And I'd object vociferously if anyone tried to tell me the Ten Commandments are the basis for American law.</div>
Howardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16424520257796706030noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-332592735810634424.post-11471062608213752782015-04-30T19:44:00.000-04:002015-05-03T01:22:56.139-04:00"Dzhokhar Tsarnaev"The trial is now in the penalty phase, and I can't think of anything to say. So I'll talk about linguistics and orthography.<br />
<br />
Looking at his name, you can tell he's from a country in the former Soviet Union. First, it's obviously a non-Russian name, but it has the ov/ev ending common in Russian names. The president of Kazakhstan is Nursultan Nazarbayev, and the president of Uzbekistan is Islam Karimov. I don't know whether the intent was to seem Russian or just to make it fit into Russian grammar better.<br />
<br />
The real giveaway, though, is the first name. Like many languages, Russian does not have the English "j" sound as in joy, jam, Juliet. But it does have a "zh" sound, like the "s" in "pleasure" or the "z" in "azure." So it transliterates the "j" sound as "dzh." Try saying it. (Incidentally, "dzh" doesn't look quite as awkward in Cyrillic, where it's only two letters: <span style="background-color: #f9f9f9; font-family: 'times new roman', serif; font-size: 16.7999992370605px; line-height: 29.8666667938232px; text-align: center; white-space: nowrap;"> </span><span 16.7999992370605px="" 29.8666667938232px="" center="" font-family:="" font-size:="" line-height:="" new="" nowrap="" roman="" serif="" text-align:="" times="" white-space:="">д</span><span style="background-color: #f9f9f9; font-family: 'times new roman', serif; font-size: 16.7999992370605px; line-height: 29.8666667938232px; text-align: center; white-space: nowrap;">ж</span>)<br />
<br />
In French, as you may know, the letter j is pronounced "zh". They transliterate our "j" sound as "dj". Thus we get Django Reinhardt, who was born in Belgium. Quentin Tarantino notwithstanding, I'm certain that there never was an American slave named Django; Americans would have spelled it Jango.<br />
<br />
Djibouti is only one of the many places where French orthography has left its scar on the map of Africa. My favorite is Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso, which under the British Empire would've been called Wagadugu. Other than that, I don't know whether Africans were worse off under the French or the British, though apparently the Belgians were the worst.<br />
<br />
Another sound French lacks is the English "ch" sound in "cheese," which it writes "tch" ("ch" is pronounced "sh"). Chad managed to escape calling itself Tchad, which is what it's called in French. But poor Tchaikovsky somehow ended up that way in English, instead of Chaikovsky<br />
<br />
Oh, and the "kh" in "Dzhokhar" is <a href="http://howardfrant.blogspot.com/2013/12/the-mysterious-orient-and-occident.html">of course</a> the German "ch" sound. For Americans, he pronounced that as an "h".<br />
<br />
On second thought, I do have one comment about the trial. There may be good arguments for putting Tsarnaev to death. That he <a href="https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/04/23/power-dzhokhar-tsarnaevs-middle-finger/">gave the finger</a> to the camera in his cell is not one of them. The prosecution is being shamelessly manipulative, and not very truthful. This is a serious business. Take it seriously, Department of Justice.Howardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16424520257796706030noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-332592735810634424.post-81609671367275519132015-04-20T19:22:00.000-04:002015-05-27T15:47:49.794-04:00On the Question "When Does Human Life Begin?"When does an oak tree's life begin? I am not asking this frivolously.<br />
<br />
I would say: An oak tree begins life as an acorn.<br />
<br />
But an acorn is not the same thing as an oak tree. Then when does an oak tree become an oak tree? That's a much harder question.<br />
<br />
The question is not, When does human life begin? That's easy: at conception. The question is, When does a human become a human? That's a much harder question.Howardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16424520257796706030noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-332592735810634424.post-70269588906968110652015-04-19T23:58:00.000-04:002015-04-21T00:01:14.767-04:00The Israeli Elections II: Bibi's Last Rabbit?Benjamin Netanyahu used to be known in Israel as "The Magician," and there did seem to be something paranormal about how he saved himself in last month's election. Trailing by four seats in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_Israeli_legislative_election,_2015">the polls four days before the election</a>, his Likud party ended up on top by six seats, for a big increase over the previous election. Here's that chart from Wikipedia again:<br />
<br />
<br />
<table class="wikitable" style="background-color: #f9f9f9; border-collapse: collapse; border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); color: black; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 24.8888893127441px; margin: 1em 0px; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><th colspan="2" style="background-color: #f2f2f2; border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0.2em 0.4em; text-align: center;">Party</th><th style="background-color: #f2f2f2; border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0.2em 0.4em; text-align: center;">Votes</th><th style="background-color: #f2f2f2; border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0.2em 0.4em; text-align: center;">%</th><th style="background-color: #f2f2f2; border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0.2em 0.4em; text-align: center;">Seats</th><th style="background-color: #f2f2f2; border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0.2em 0.4em; text-align: center;">+/–</th></tr>
<tr><td bgcolor="#0047AB" style="border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0.2em 0.4em;"></td><td align="left" style="border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0.2em 0.4em;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Likud" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: none; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #0b0080; text-decoration: none;" title="Likud">Likud</a></td><td style="border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0.2em 0.4em;">985,408</td><td style="border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0.2em 0.4em;">23.40</td><td style="border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0.2em 0.4em;">30</td><td style="border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0.2em 0.4em;">+12</td></tr>
<tr><td bgcolor="#C61318" style="border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0.2em 0.4em;"></td><td align="left" style="border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0.2em 0.4em;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zionist_Union" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: none; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #0b0080; text-decoration: none;" title="Zionist Union">Zionist Union</a></td><td style="border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0.2em 0.4em;">786,313</td><td style="border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0.2em 0.4em;">18.67</td><td style="border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0.2em 0.4em;">24</td><td style="border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0.2em 0.4em;">+3</td></tr>
<tr><td bgcolor="red" style="border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0.2em 0.4em;"></td><td align="left" style="border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0.2em 0.4em;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joint_List" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: none; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #0b0080; text-decoration: none;" title="Joint List">Joint List</a></td><td style="border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0.2em 0.4em;">446,583</td><td style="border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0.2em 0.4em;">10.61</td><td style="border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0.2em 0.4em;">13</td><td style="border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0.2em 0.4em;">+2</td></tr>
<tr><td bgcolor="#005693" style="border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0.2em 0.4em;"></td><td align="left" style="border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0.2em 0.4em;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yesh_Atid" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: none; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #0b0080; text-decoration: none;" title="Yesh Atid">Yesh Atid</a></td><td style="border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0.2em 0.4em;">371,602</td><td style="border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0.2em 0.4em;">8.82</td><td style="border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0.2em 0.4em;">11</td><td style="border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0.2em 0.4em;">–8</td></tr>
<tr><td bgcolor="#0087DC" style="border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0.2em 0.4em;"></td><td align="left" style="border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0.2em 0.4em;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kulanu" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: none; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #0b0080; text-decoration: none;" title="Kulanu">Kulanu</a></td><td style="border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0.2em 0.4em;">315,360</td><td style="border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0.2em 0.4em;">7.49</td><td style="border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0.2em 0.4em;">10</td><td style="border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0.2em 0.4em;">New</td></tr>
<tr><td bgcolor="#4682B4" style="border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0.2em 0.4em;"></td><td align="left" style="border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0.2em 0.4em;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Jewish_Home" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: none; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #0b0080; text-decoration: none;" title="The Jewish Home">The Jewish Home</a></td><td style="border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0.2em 0.4em;">283,910</td><td style="border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0.2em 0.4em;">6.74</td><td style="border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0.2em 0.4em;">8</td><td style="border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0.2em 0.4em;">–4</td></tr>
<tr><td bgcolor="#00A2E3" style="border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0.2em 0.4em;"></td><td align="left" style="border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0.2em 0.4em;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shas" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: none; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #0b0080; text-decoration: none;" title="Shas">Shas</a></td><td style="border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0.2em 0.4em;">241,613</td><td style="border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0.2em 0.4em;">5.74</td><td style="border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0.2em 0.4em;">7</td><td style="border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0.2em 0.4em;">–4</td></tr>
<tr><td bgcolor="#013068" style="border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0.2em 0.4em;"></td><td align="left" style="border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0.2em 0.4em;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yisrael_Beiteinu" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: none; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #0b0080; text-decoration: none;" title="Yisrael Beiteinu">Yisrael Beiteinu</a></td><td style="border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0.2em 0.4em;">214,906</td><td style="border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0.2em 0.4em;">5.10</td><td style="border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0.2em 0.4em;">6</td><td style="border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0.2em 0.4em;">–7</td></tr>
<tr><td bgcolor="#000000" style="border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0.2em 0.4em;"></td><td align="left" style="border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0.2em 0.4em;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Torah_Judaism" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: none; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #0b0080; text-decoration: none;" title="United Torah Judaism">United Torah Judaism</a></td><td style="border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0.2em 0.4em;">210,143</td><td style="border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0.2em 0.4em;">4.99</td><td style="border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0.2em 0.4em;">6</td><td style="border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0.2em 0.4em;">–1</td></tr>
<tr><td bgcolor="#009F3C" style="border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0.2em 0.4em;"></td><td align="left" style="border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0.2em 0.4em;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meretz" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: none; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #0b0080; text-decoration: none;" title="Meretz">Meretz</a></td><td style="border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0.2em 0.4em;">165,529</td><td style="border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0.2em 0.4em;">3.93</td><td style="border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0.2em 0.4em;">5</td><td style="border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0.2em 0.4em;">–1</td></tr>
<tr></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<div>
So how did he do it? Did Israel suddenly shift to the right?<br />
<br />
Not noticeably. Here's the above chart, as recalculated by me:</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 386px;">
<colgroup><col style="mso-width-alt: 4636; mso-width-source: userset; width: 98pt;" width="130"></col>
<col span="4" style="width: 48pt;" width="64"></col>
</colgroup><tbody>
<tr height="19" style="height: 14.4pt;">
<td height="19" style="height: 14.4pt; text-align: center; width: 98pt;" width="130"></td>
<td class="xl65" style="text-align: center; width: 48pt;" width="64"><b>Votes</b></td>
<td class="xl68" style="text-align: center; width: 48pt;" width="64"><b>%</b></td>
<td class="xl68" style="text-align: center; width: 48pt;" width="64"><div style="text-align: right;">
<b>Seats</b></div>
</td>
<td class="xl68" style="text-align: center; width: 48pt;" width="64"><div style="text-align: right;">
<b>+/–</b></div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr height="19" style="height: 14.4pt;">
<td height="19" style="height: 14.4pt;">Right</td>
<td align="right" class="xl66">1,484,224</td>
<td align="right" class="xl67">35.2%</td>
<td align="right">44</td>
<td align="right">+1</td>
</tr>
<tr height="19" style="height: 14.4pt; mso-height-source: userset;">
<td height="19" style="height: 14.4pt;">Center</td>
<td align="right" class="xl66">686,962</td>
<td align="right" class="xl67">16.3%</td>
<td align="right">21</td>
<td align="right">+2</td>
</tr>
<tr height="19" style="height: 14.4pt;">
<td height="19" style="height: 14.4pt;">Left</td>
<td align="right" class="xl66">1,150,937</td>
<td align="right" class="xl67">27.3%</td>
<td align="right">29</td>
<td align="right">+2</td>
</tr>
<tr height="19" style="height: 14.4pt;">
<td height="19" style="height: 14.4pt;">Ultra-Orth.</td>
<td align="right" class="xl66">451,756</td>
<td align="right" class="xl67">10.7%</td>
<td align="right">13</td>
<td align="right">-5</td>
</tr>
<tr height="19" style="height: 14.4pt;">
<td height="19" style="height: 14.4pt;">Arab</td>
<td align="right" class="xl66">446,583</td>
<td align="right" class="xl67">10.6%</td>
<td align="right">13</td>
<td align="right">+2</td>
</tr>
</tbody></table>
</div>
<div>
<br />
Looked at this way, there's been almost no change. What Netanyahu apparently managed to do was scare people enough that they deserted the other right-wing parties and voted for Likud. That made Likud the biggest party, giving them the first chance to put together a coalition. But overall, there wasn't much change in the proportion voting for each group.*<br />
<br />
If not for the shift to Likud from other right-wing parties, the Zionist Union would have won; then it can easily put together a center-left coalition that, with passive support from the Arabs, could get a majority of more than 60.** But Bibi pulls out the win!<br />
<br />
The question now is what the cost will be to Netanyahu in the long run. Certainly his Election Day appearance on Facebook, warning that Arabs were coming out to vote "in droves," and were being bused in by leftist organizations, did not make a favorable impression among Americans, who quickly translate it to: "Come out and vote, because liberals are driving busloads of blacks to the polls!" Polarized though American politics has become, that hasn't been a conceivable statement by an American politician in at least forty years. (Netanyahu later apologized, but I don't think anyone was mollified.)<br />
<br />
More problematic still was <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/03/20/world/middleeast/netanyahu-two-state-solution.html">Netanyahu's statement</a> that there wouldn't be a Palestinian state on his watch, followed after the election with a "Ha, ha, just kidding!" This was about the last straw for the Obama administration, which seems to feel liberated now that it is no longer obliged to believe that Netanyahu is sincere. I think it's possible that Bibi's bag of tricks is now empty.<br />
<br />
<br />
* In fact, probably less than appears-- one of the ultra-Orthodox parties didn't make the new higher cutoff and so is not counted above, resulting in a small gain in seats for everyone else.<br />
<br />
** You can't get over 60 with the ultra-Orthodox parties instead, because then you lose one of the centrist parties.<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<br />
<br /></div>
Howardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16424520257796706030noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-332592735810634424.post-38286837031357454702015-04-10T19:21:00.000-04:002015-04-12T10:48:29.697-04:00How To Solve the California Water CrisisThe California water crisis is all over the national news, thanks to Gov. Jerry Brown's imposition last week of mandatory cuts in urban water use averaging 25%. This has resulted in a lot of finger-pointing, as people blame their pet peeves.<br />
<br />
For example, we're told that, in the middle of a drought, fracking (the controversial new technique for oil and gas extraction) used up <i><a href="http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2015/04/06/3643184/california-70-million-gallons-fracking/">70 million gallons</a></i> of water last year. But when you do the math, this turns out to be about five millionths of California's water use. Then there's the <a href="http://www.salon.com/2015/04/07/nestles_despicable_water_crisis_profiteering_how_its_making_a_killing_%E2%80%94%C2%A0while_california_is_dying_of_thirst/">attack on Nestlé</a> for bottling and selling California's water. You can say, with some justification, that bottled water is a waste of money, plastic, and energy. What you can't say is that it's a waste of water-- I mean, people are drinking it. (OK, Nestlé may be shipping some of it out of state.)<br />
<br />
To my surprise, though, a lot of the finger-pointing this time has focused on the real issue: Brown's restrictions apply only to urban water use, but that represents just 20% of California's water use (around 10% to households and 10% to business and industry). The other 80% goes to agriculture. So a 25% reduction in urban use, a pretty drastic reduction, saves about the same amount of water as a 6% reduction in agricultural use.<br />
<br />
And the fingers are pointing pretty hard. <a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2014/05/_10_percent_of_california_s_water_goes_to_almond_farming.html">Ten percent of California's water</a> goes to almond farming-- in other words, as much as goes to all household use. <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-26124989">A hundred billion gallons a year</a> goes to alfalfa exported to China.<br />
<br />
Here we come to the fork in the road that divides most people from people with some background in economics. The former say, "That's outrageous! Maybe we should ban almond growing in California. Maybe we should make people aware of how much water is going into those almonds they're eating." The latter say, "Boy, the farmers really aren't paying enough for water."<br />
<br />
Enter the famous "miracle of the market." We don't need to decide whether growing almonds is worth it, where they should be grown instead, and what crops, if any, should replace them. We raise the price farmers pay for water, charging them a price comparable to the wholesale price of water in Los Angeles, and let farmers figure that out. Maybe they should continue growing almonds but not alfalfa, or vice versa. Maybe they should raise vegetables. Maybe they should install more efficient irrigation systems. Maybe they should pack it in and move to Palm Springs. In any case, consumers don't have to decide whether or not to feel guilty about eating almonds.<br />
<br />
Unfortunately, this particular miracle of the market leaves quite a bit of damage in its wake. Many farmers probably go out of business, and the ones who don't are a lot poorer than they used to be. A lot of people may not like that result, especially the farmers themselves. What then?<br />
<br />
Suppose we keep the price of water to farmers where it is, but allow them to wholesale some of their water (or water rights) to the cities. What happens? Clearly the farmers are no worse off; they can always decide not to sell. But now, for every gallon (or million gallons, or acre-foot) wasted through inefficient irrigation or overly thirsty crops, the farmer loses the opportunity to make serious money. Now farmers have the same incentive to conserve as if they had to pay a higher price, without being impoverished. Maybe they grow almonds, maybe alfalfa, maybe something else, maybe it's off to Palm Springs (which they'll now be able to afford). End of problem.<br />
<br />
Of course it's a little trickier than that. To allow farmers to sell their water means untangling the complexities of Western water law, under which, for example, you can lose your right to water if you don't use it, and some farmers have rights that are senior to other farmers'. But most of this is state law, so California could fix it if the pressure gets intense enough. Also, you need a good regulatory system for groundwater, which California is just putting into place; otherwise farmers just pump the aquifers dry and sell the water. But basically, end of problem.<br />
<br />
Wait! say the Greens. What about all those huge lawns in Los Angeles? Actually, per capita use in LA has been going down, as people install more low-flow bathroom fixtures, xeriscape their yards, and fill their pools with Pinot Grigio (well, in Beverly Hills). But maybe even with the farmers using less, we still need to cut back on urban use.<br />
<br />
So we could go the Jerry Brown route and impose a mandatory cut, making everyone use only 75% as much as they do now. Or... consider this: Suppose we make the first 50% <i>free</i>. Then we triple the price of every gallon thereafter. Now people who use 75% pay the same as they would have with the mandatory cut. But those who feel they've just gotta have more water for their pet beluga whale can do it, at a steep price. And perhaps more important, people have an incentive to conserve <i>below </i>75% if they can, because it saves them a lot of money. Those people come out ahead financially. In particular, poor people probably come out ahead.<br />
<br />
It's remarkable how many problems can be fixed by getting the prices right. Like global warming. But let's not get into that.Howardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16424520257796706030noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-332592735810634424.post-55624676454338039952015-04-07T22:12:00.000-04:002015-04-12T10:59:59.453-04:00The Israeli Elections I: What's With the Arabs?Israeli Arabs were pretty excited about this election, but not because there were unusual issues. A change in the election law had raised the vote threshold for representation in the Knesset (Israel's parliament), threatening the elimination of the three small Arab parties. The result was that they overcame their differences and ran on the same ticket, which they called the Joint List. Arab voters were excited because for the first time it it seemed possible that there would be a large Arab party in the Knesset.<br />
<br />
And so it turned out. Here's a chart from Wikipedia:<br />
<br />
<table class="wikitable" style="background-color: #f9f9f9; border-collapse: collapse; border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); color: black; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 24.8888893127441px; margin: 1em 0px; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><th colspan="2" style="background-color: #f2f2f2; border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0.2em 0.4em; text-align: center;">Party</th><th style="background-color: #f2f2f2; border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0.2em 0.4em; text-align: center;">Votes</th><th style="background-color: #f2f2f2; border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0.2em 0.4em; text-align: center;">%</th><th style="background-color: #f2f2f2; border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0.2em 0.4em; text-align: center;">Seats</th><th style="background-color: #f2f2f2; border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0.2em 0.4em; text-align: center;">+/–</th></tr>
<tr><td bgcolor="#0047AB" style="border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0.2em 0.4em;"></td><td align="left" style="border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0.2em 0.4em;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Likud" style="background: none; color: #0b0080; text-decoration: none;" title="Likud">Likud</a></td><td style="border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0.2em 0.4em;">985,408</td><td style="border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0.2em 0.4em;">23.40</td><td style="border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0.2em 0.4em;">30</td><td style="border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0.2em 0.4em;">+12</td></tr>
<tr><td bgcolor="#C61318" style="border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0.2em 0.4em;"></td><td align="left" style="border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0.2em 0.4em;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zionist_Union" style="background: none; color: #0b0080; text-decoration: none;" title="Zionist Union">Zionist Union</a></td><td style="border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0.2em 0.4em;">786,313</td><td style="border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0.2em 0.4em;">18.67</td><td style="border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0.2em 0.4em;">24</td><td style="border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0.2em 0.4em;">+3</td></tr>
<tr><td bgcolor="red" style="border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0.2em 0.4em;"></td><td align="left" style="border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0.2em 0.4em;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joint_List" style="background: none; color: #0b0080; text-decoration: none;" title="Joint List">Joint List</a></td><td style="border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0.2em 0.4em;">446,583</td><td style="border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0.2em 0.4em;">10.61</td><td style="border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0.2em 0.4em;">13</td><td style="border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0.2em 0.4em;">+2</td></tr>
<tr><td bgcolor="#005693" style="border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0.2em 0.4em;"></td><td align="left" style="border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0.2em 0.4em;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yesh_Atid" style="background: none; color: #0b0080; text-decoration: none;" title="Yesh Atid">Yesh Atid</a></td><td style="border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0.2em 0.4em;">371,602</td><td style="border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0.2em 0.4em;">8.82</td><td style="border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0.2em 0.4em;">11</td><td style="border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0.2em 0.4em;">–8</td></tr>
<tr><td bgcolor="#0087DC" style="border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0.2em 0.4em;"></td><td align="left" style="border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0.2em 0.4em;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kulanu" style="background: none; color: #0b0080; text-decoration: none;" title="Kulanu">Kulanu</a></td><td style="border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0.2em 0.4em;">315,360</td><td style="border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0.2em 0.4em;">7.49</td><td style="border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0.2em 0.4em;">10</td><td style="border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0.2em 0.4em;">New</td></tr>
<tr><td bgcolor="#4682B4" style="border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0.2em 0.4em;"></td><td align="left" style="border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0.2em 0.4em;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Jewish_Home" style="background: none; color: #0b0080; text-decoration: none;" title="The Jewish Home">The Jewish Home</a></td><td style="border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0.2em 0.4em;">283,910</td><td style="border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0.2em 0.4em;">6.74</td><td style="border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0.2em 0.4em;">8</td><td style="border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0.2em 0.4em;">–4</td></tr>
<tr><td bgcolor="#00A2E3" style="border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0.2em 0.4em;"></td><td align="left" style="border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0.2em 0.4em;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shas" style="background: none; color: #0b0080; text-decoration: none;" title="Shas">Shas</a></td><td style="border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0.2em 0.4em;">241,613</td><td style="border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0.2em 0.4em;">5.74</td><td style="border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0.2em 0.4em;">7</td><td style="border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0.2em 0.4em;">–4</td></tr>
<tr><td bgcolor="#013068" style="border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0.2em 0.4em;"></td><td align="left" style="border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0.2em 0.4em;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yisrael_Beiteinu" style="background: none; color: #0b0080; text-decoration: none;" title="Yisrael Beiteinu">Yisrael Beiteinu</a></td><td style="border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0.2em 0.4em;">214,906</td><td style="border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0.2em 0.4em;">5.10</td><td style="border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0.2em 0.4em;">6</td><td style="border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0.2em 0.4em;">–7</td></tr>
<tr><td bgcolor="#000000" style="border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0.2em 0.4em;"></td><td align="left" style="border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0.2em 0.4em;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Torah_Judaism" style="background: none; color: #0b0080; text-decoration: none;" title="United Torah Judaism">United Torah Judaism</a></td><td style="border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0.2em 0.4em;">210,143</td><td style="border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0.2em 0.4em;">4.99</td><td style="border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0.2em 0.4em;">6</td><td style="border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0.2em 0.4em;">–1</td></tr>
<tr><td bgcolor="#009F3C" style="border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0.2em 0.4em;"></td><td align="left" style="border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0.2em 0.4em;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meretz" style="background: none; color: #0b0080; text-decoration: none;" title="Meretz">Meretz</a></td><td style="border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0.2em 0.4em;">165,529</td><td style="border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0.2em 0.4em;">3.93</td><td style="border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0.2em 0.4em;">5</td><td style="border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0.2em 0.4em;">–1</td></tr>
<tr><th colspan="6" style="background-color: #f2f2f2; border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 0.2em 0.4em; text-align: center;"></th></tr>
<tr></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<div>
The Joint List ended up the third-largest group, with 13 seats out of 120. In testimony to the enthusiasm of the Arab electorate, they got two more seats than all three combined had in the last election.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
So with this new big party, how much power will the Arabs have in the new Knesset? </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Well, basically... none.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
You see, the right-wing Likud won the election, and now should be able to put together a coalition of the right and the ultra-Orthodox (everyone from Kulanu through United Torah Judaism in the chart above). As long as the coalition holds together, it doesn't need the Arabs. And the coalition includes some pretty anti-Arab people. As for a Palestinian state, forget it. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Now let's imagine a different scenario: suppose all the Arabs vote for the Zionist Union. The ZU ends up with, conservatively, 35 seats. It has no trouble putting together 61 seats for a coalition. Arabs represent about a third of the votes for the largest party in the Knesset. Under which condition do Arabs have more power, that or the actual one?</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
So why didn't they do that? What's with them? First, in Israel there doesn't seem to be much concept of power <i>within</i> an existing party. Rather, if you have a political agenda, you form your own party. As a former colleague of mine at Haifa put it, Israel doesn't have interest <i>groups</i>, it has interest <i>parties</i>. If U.S. politics were like Israeli politics, we would have a party for Hispanics, a party for evangelical Christians, and so on.<br />
<br />
Second, and probably more important, Arab leaders seem to prefer principles to power. The Arabs are against the idea of a Jewish state; they want "a state of all its citizens." The Arabs (or the Arab elite) are so attached this principle that they could never vote for any Zionist party, let alone one with "Zionist" in the name.<br />
<br />
Indeed, the quest for purity of principle goes further than this: the Joint List said before the election that if the left won, they would support it, but wouldn't accept a cabinet position. One might think that if your goal is to improve the conditions of Israeli Arabs, it would be helpful to have a member of your party as, say, Minister of Housing and Construction. Or at least to have a vote at cabinet meetings. But no; apparently that would be too craven a compromise with the system.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Arabs are certainly entitled to try for a non-Jewish state if they want. They won't get it, because the overwhelming majority of Jews are against it, but they can try. The question is, does refusing to taint themselves with governing make it more likely that they will succeed? Not that I can see. It just makes them powerless in the meantime.</div>
Howardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16424520257796706030noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-332592735810634424.post-38091028171613388962014-12-28T17:23:00.000-05:002014-12-29T19:03:55.519-05:00The Thirdworldization of America ContinuesAs I remarked <a href="http://howardfrant.blogspot.com/2012/01/third-worlding-of-america-cont.html">some time ago</a>, the Republican vision for America seems to be to make it the world's richest Third World country. Consider, I said, these frequent characteristics of Third World countries:<br />
<ul>
<li>Life is extremely pleasant for the rich, and extremely difficult for everyone else.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Economic growth is hampered by poor transportation systems and crumbling infrastructure.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Environmental regulation is minimal.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>The only widely respected public institution is the military.</li>
</ul>
<div>
Now, it appears, we can add one more item to the Republican wish list:</div>
<div>
<ul>
<li>The government tortures people.</li>
</ul>
</div>
Howardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16424520257796706030noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-332592735810634424.post-5507652460618442122014-12-13T18:20:00.000-05:002014-12-28T16:59:09.256-05:00Dept. of Naming Things: Inequality<div class="tr_bq">
A story in today's <a href="http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2014/12/10/many-feel-the-american-dream-is-out-of-reach-poll-shows/">New York Times</a> about how people have lost faith in the American Dream has this interesting passage:</div>
<blockquote>
“I don’t know what you mean by an unequal distribution of wealth,” said Robert Monti, a 74-year-old retired social studies teacher from Niagara Falls, N.Y., who identified himself as “a registered Democrat but haven’t voted Democrat in years.” </blockquote>
<blockquote>
He said, “It’s a proven fact that everybody can’t make the same amount of money, and it’s a ridiculous assumption that they can. You’ll never have economic equality. Ever.”</blockquote>
Well, he's got a point. If inequality is the problem, surely what we want is equality. And practically nobody believes in equality of wealth or income.<br />
<br />
So people should stop talking about economic inequality as the problem. The problem is really (choose one or more):<br />
<ul>
<li>the <b>concentration</b> of wealth and income at the top</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>the fact that wealth and income are so <b>skewed</b></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>economic <b>inequity</b></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>economic <b>unfairness</b></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>the <b>redistribution</b> of income from the 99% to the 1%</li>
</ul>
<div>
There is one kind of equality, though, that Americans do believe in: <i>political </i>equality. Political inequality--the fact that the rich have so much political power--is at least as great a concern to Americans as the increasing concentration of wealth and income. And, of course, it will be hard to do much about the unfair income distribution without doing something about political inequality.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
But the latter requires the Democrats to make a serious effort toward campaign finance reform. So far, they've lacked the <i>ganas</i> for that. Or maybe the <i>cojones.</i></div>
Howardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16424520257796706030noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-332592735810634424.post-4097818696410356412014-12-12T20:12:00.000-05:002014-12-12T20:17:29.134-05:00Republicans Parody ThemselvesIf you're a Republican politician, what's the stereotype you struggle against? That Republicans are out of touch with ordinary people and only care about rich people and corporations.<br />
<br />
So when Republicans won control of the Senate, what are the two issues where future majority leader Mitch McConnell says they may be able to work with Democrats? (a) The Keystone XL pipeline and (b) repealing the medical-devices tax. Yes, Mitch, that's definitely what American voters gave you a mandate to do. The people who care about these things are (a) the <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/02/10/idUS292515702420110210">Koch brothers</a>, and (b) <a href="http://www.bizjournals.com/boston/blog/bioflash/2014/11/medical-device-makers-buoyed-by-election-prospect.html?page=all">medical-device manufacturers</a>.<br />
<br />
And with the recent fight in the House over the government spending bill, what were the key issues? Republicans wanted to (a) extend government insurance to cover the riskiest trades made by banks, and (b) allow the rich to give more money to political parties. Just what the public was demanding, another bailout for the banks and more money in politics.<br />
<br />
If the Republicans are willing to be this naked about their priorities, Democrats should make them pay for it. They need a Mocker-in-Chief. Normally that's a good role for the Vice President. Unfortunately, this time he was busy lobbying <i>for </i>the bill.Howardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16424520257796706030noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-332592735810634424.post-63808688429213778282014-12-11T16:12:00.000-05:002014-12-11T16:12:08.468-05:00If "the Democrats' Real Problem" Is Insoluble...What Then?Writing shortly after the midterm elections, <span id="goog_869384246"></span><a href="http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/forget-the-chatter-this-is-the-democrats-real-problem">Josh Marshall had an article in TPM</a> about "the Democrats' Real Problem." He agrees with those who say that the Democrats should have run on the economy, which is actually booming right now. But, he points out, this doesn't really resonate with voters, because wages haven't gone up. So it doesn't feel like a boom to voters. (Of course, gentle reader, <a href="http://howardfrant.blogspot.com/2014/11/ad-for-imaginary-democratic-candidate.html">you already knew that</a>.) And that, he says is the Democrats' real problem:<span id="goog_869384247"></span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
[M]any Democrats look at all this and say... the party needs to embrace economic populism ... But I think this misses the point. The great political reality of our time is that Democrats don't know (and nobody else does either) how to get wage growth and ... economic growth ... back into sync...So find the policies, <u>if there are any</u>, build a political coalition around them. (Emphasis added.)</blockquote>
And if there aren't any?<br />
<br />
Let's consider that for a moment. <a href="http://eml.berkeley.edu/~saez/saez-UStopincomes-2012.pdf">The top 1% captured 95% of the income gains in the first three years of the recovery.</a> Suppose that continues to be true, and wages in the US continue to stagnate while the economy grows. What then?<br />
<br />
One alternative is to do nothing. (Philosophically, libertarian. This is just the result of individual decisions; no need for government intervention.) But we should understand that this means resigning ourselves to a permanent aristocracy. The rich would continue to get richer, and pass their wealth on to their children.<br />
<br />
The other alternative is to say, "The growth in our economy should be shared widely across the population." (Philosophically, Rawlsian. If people didn't know whether they would end up among the 1% or the 99%, they would surely prefer this alternative.) So we should take some of those income gains and spend them on things that benefit the 99%. For example:<br />
<ul>
<li><b>Raise the minimum wage and expand the Earned Income Tax Credit. </b>Contrary to what Marshall believes, raising the minimum wage doesn't benefit only the poor. At <a href="http://howardfrant.blogspot.com/2014/06/every-economist-in-america-is-wrong.html">every income level except the very top</a>, people benefit, on average, from an increase. Maybe that explains why it gets so much support.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><b>Increase Pell grants, and cut the interest rate on student loans.</b> For the 70 percent of the class of 2014 that had student loan debt, the average debt was $33,000 (<a href="http://blogs.wsj.com/numbers/congatulations-to-class-of-2014-the-most-indebted-ever-1368/">source</a>). That's just a bit less than the national debt per person, but it has to be paid off in 25 years.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><b>Spend more on repairing infrastructure, especially transportation. </b>Rather than step into the quagmire of how many jobs this will create, just call it something we need, and something we owe to future generations. </li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><b>Mandate paid maternity leave.</b> We're one of about three or four countries in <i><a href="http://www.ilo.org/global/about-the-ilo/newsroom/news/WCMS_008009/lang--en/index.htm">the entire world</a> </i>without it. Chad has paid maternity leave, for crying out loud. Nepal has paid maternity leave. Haiti has paid maternity leave.</li>
</ul>
All of these policies poll at more than seventy percent support. They're not as good, perhaps, as higher wages, but they would make the life of the middle class a lot easier. And the middle class knows it.<br />
<br />
We can pay for them by increasing taxes at the top. There's plenty of room for increasing top marginal rates; in the booming sixties the top rate was 70%. But an easy sell on equity grounds is simply to tax dividends and capital gains at the same rate as wages and salaries. <br />
<br />
(And while we're at it, how about raising the estate tax from 40% to 90% above, say, $50 million? This shouldn't be a great hardship--a billionaire can still leave his heirs more than $100 million, which should be enough to give the grandchildren a good start in life.)<br />
<br />
So these policies end up looking a lot like the "economic populism" of the much-feared "Elizabeth Warren wing" of the Democratic Party. The assumption has been that these policies are extreme, and so will frighten moderates. The polling numbers don't support that assumption; quite the contrary.<br />
<br />
Of course, policies like these would never get through a Republican-controlled Congress. That's the point: that's why Democrats should run on them. Although raising money may be a problem.Howardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16424520257796706030noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-332592735810634424.post-6465112114193790322014-11-16T00:20:00.001-05:002014-11-26T09:56:51.334-05:00Note on Charlie BakerAll this nattering about how the Democrats lost so big that even Massachusetts elected a Republican governor... it's coming from people who don't know anything about Massachusetts. First, before the current governor, a Democrat, the previous four governors were all Republicans. Very moderate Republicans. Second, Charlie Baker, the Republican, was endorsed by the liberal <a href="http://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/editorials/2014/10/26/charlie-baker-for-governor/r4Yymw55jVr20D53EhUIkK/story.html"><i>Boston Globe</i></a>. In fact, the <i>Globe</i> endorsement could easily have swung the election, as a shift of 20,000 votes would have changed the outcome. Whatever the Democrats' problems are, Massachusetts does not exemplify them.Howardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16424520257796706030noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-332592735810634424.post-22590342970005988292014-11-11T23:23:00.000-05:002014-12-15T03:39:31.181-05:00Comment on the Agreement with China About Climate ChangeThis seems huge to me, at least five minutes after reading about it. What strikes me about it is how it cuts the legs out from under Sen. Inhofe, Rush Limbaugh and all the other "hoax!"-criers. I mean, you could believe, maybe, that Obama and the Democrats were trying to fool the American people about climate change, for their own nefarious purposes, but is anyone going to believe that they fooled the Chinese? Even if you believe that Obama secretly wants to destroy America, do you believe that the Chinese want to destroy China? I just don't see what Republicans are going to say about this. But no doubt they'll come up with something.<br />
<br />
<b>UPDATE:</b> Here's one Times reader's online comment about the announcement of a tentative deal in Lima:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Burbank Burner Genoa, NV 1 minute ago </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Since there is no "Global Warming" nor is there any human caused "Climate Change" this accord is a complete fraud. China, India, and most of the underdeveloped countries will simply ignore it. Only liberals in the US are stupid enough to commit economic suicide for zero reason. What a colossal waste of time, money, and...energy. The smaller countries are there to try to get their version of obamaphones. It is all about money. They don't believe the hoax.</blockquote>
Not sure what "obamaphones" are? Check <a href="http://www.snopes.com/politics/taxes/cellphone.asp">here</a>.<br />
Howardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16424520257796706030noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-332592735810634424.post-32465786762661828442014-11-06T20:36:00.001-05:002014-12-11T21:44:53.280-05:00Obama and Ebola<br />
God, that guy irritates me!<br />
<br />
We were recently treated to Republicans around the country running scare ads about Ebola and how it's some sort of failure by Obama. There <i>was </i>a failure of leadership by Obama, but it wasn't a management failure. It was a political failure. Once again, he doesn't talk to people, doesn't explain, doesn't lead.<br />
<br />
Obama should have given a brief prime-time speech on TV. (And for Pete's sake, what is so hard about sitting at a desk in the Oval Office? It's reassuring.) Something like this:<br />
<br />
" [......] First of all, you are not going to get Ebola, nor is anyone in your family. So far in America, there has been one death from Ebola, and one person is currently infected. Both of them were infected in West Africa. What the Centers for Disease Control said was true: it's only transmitted by bodily fluids, and people are not infectious until they're showing symptoms. The people at risk are the people caring for Ebola victims in the later stages of the disease, when it gets pretty messy.<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
"Unfortunately, some politicians are irresponsibly stirring up panic about this, coming up with all sorts of ridiculous theories about how Ebola <i>might </i>be transmitted. Well, if there's something wrong with your car, who are you going to take it to, a mechanic or a politician? Similarly, when it comes to dealing with infectious diseases, I'd rather talk to an expert.<br />
<br />
"There is no outbreak of Ebola in America. There<i> is</i> one in West Africa, and that's a problem for us, for a couple of reasons.<br />
<br />
"First, it's a humanitarian crisis, just like an earthquake in Haiti or a tsunami in Asia. But also, we need to get the disease under control, before it starts spreading to other countries.<br />
<br />
The medical workers who have gone to West Africa, at some personal risk, to fight Ebola are heroes, and we all owe them a debt of gratitude.<br />
<br />
"We need to fight Ebola with determination, not panic. [........]"<br />
<br />
A speech like that might have made a difference in close races.<br />
<br />
<b>UPDATE</b>: OK, I owe Obama an apology. It appears it's not so easy these days for the President to give a speech on TV. Astonishingly, none of the major networks carried Obama's immigration speech, a major policy announcement on a highly controversial issue that was only 15 minutes long. Something about sweeps week, I think.Howardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16424520257796706030noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-332592735810634424.post-12042098616265883412014-11-05T21:31:00.000-05:002014-11-06T21:08:22.635-05:00Ad for an Imaginary Democratic Candidate Who Wasn't Running From Obama"By the numbers, the economy's doing really well.<br />
<br />
"The unemployment rate is below 6% for the first time since before the crash. Even with the crash, the economy under Obama has <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jobs_created_during_U.S._presidential_terms">created more jobs</a> than in Bush's entire Presidency. In the last quarter, the economy grew at an annual rate of <a href="http://www.bea.gov/newsreleases/national/gdp/gdpnewsrelease.htm">three and a half percent</a>.<br />
<br />
"So why doesn't it <i>feel </i>better?<br />
<br />
"Because for the average family, it <i>isn't </i> better. The <a href="http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/MEHOINUSA672N">income of the average family</a> hasn't gone up at all. While the economy's been growing, <a href="http://eml.berkeley.edu/~saez/saez-UStopincomes-2012.pdf">95% of the gains</a> have gone to the top 1%. They've had a recovery, but the average family hasn't.<br />
<br />
"Are Republican economic policies going to fix this? Don't hold your breath. To begin with, we need to increase the minimum wage. Then we need to get rid of some of the tax loopholes the favor the rich.<br />
<br />
"The economy's growing. Now it's time for some of that growth to reach the rest of us."Howardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16424520257796706030noreply@blogger.com0