Work in Progress

1%, 2%, 3%, 4, 5%, 6%, 7% more

From Business Insider, here's a good look at America's inequality problem and some possible ways to address the growing inequity between the rich and everyone else.

If history is a guide, the inequality will likely resolve itself eventually, one way or another.

The question is whether this "adjustment" will occur peacefully and gradually, through minor shifts in policies and social mores, or suddenly, through market crashes or revolution.

Obviously, the former is preferable.

So the question is how to help this peaceful, gradual adjustment process along.

Specifically, what policies can the government pursue that help ameliorate the inequality problem without killing the golden goose--free-market capitalism--in the process?

Switching to socialism is not the answer. (It doesn't work.)

Embracing "capitalism with socialist characteristics" is not the answer (unless we want to eliminate Democracy and go to one-party rule, like China and Russia, which I certainly don't).

And ever more violent demonization of "the 1%" is not the answer: With some exceptions, we should be celebrating successful Americans, not vilifying them as greedy bastards who are screwing everyone else. (For the most part, the 1% are playing by the rules our government has established, so if anything should be blamed, it's the rules.)

Although most people agree that inequality is a problem, the solutions are not obvious. This is in part because one cause of inequality is the huge influx of talented low-cost labor in emerging economies--"three billion new capitalists who are putting pressure on wages the world around.

It's tempting to blame "Benedict Arnold" companies for taking advantage of this new labor pool to reduce production costs, but protectionism also isn't the answer. Americans benefit from low-cost manufacturing as much as they are hurt by it: Prices at Apple and Walmart would soar to unaffordable levels if we suddenly forced all "American" companies to make and source everything here.  Also, like it or not, we're all now in this together. Even if you are convinced that Americans' moral duty is to "Americans," not "people," our challenges are now global. The only way to solve the world's long-term environmental, resource, education, and population problems is to quickly improve the standard of living for "the 99%" everywhere in the world, not just in the United States.

(Richer people have fewer babies and more options. They also turn to violence less frequently.)

So how do we solve the inequality problem?

Well, it's worth noting that we "solved it" once before: The extreme inequality of the 1920s disappeared by the 1940s and 1950s, when American society became far more equal.

Part of that adjustment was undeniably negative: Wealth and businesses were destroyed by the stock-market crash, Depression, and wars.  It would obviously be nice to find a way out of our current problem other than stock-market crashes, Depressions, and wars. (Although we're certainly experiencing a form of all three.)

The other thing that changed from the 1920s to the 1940s was tax policy.

Image: National Taxpayers Union

History of the top income tax bracket. Click for larger.

Now, tax policy is a hot-button issue. The moment a discussion of taxes starts, normally level-headed people suddenly transform into angry zealots and start screaming at each other across the room. 

So let's start this discussion by acknowledging a universal truth of taxes: No one likes them except people who don't pay them. And no one, but no one, should be expected to happily agree when someone else starts arguing that their taxes should go up.

But as the chart above shows, three facts are undeniable:

• The extreme inequality that developed in the 1920s came in a period in which marginal tax rates on high-income Americans were extremely low.

• The more balanced equality that reigned in the 1940s-1970s came in an era when progressive tax rates on higher-income Americans and corporations were high.

• The extreme inequality that has developed in the last three decades has come in an era in which tax rates on higher-income Americans and corporations were low.

It therefore seems, at least at first glance, that tax policy may well have something to do with the inequality problem.

And it follows, therefore, that if we raised taxes modestly on higher-income Americans and corporations, we might begin to lessen the inequality problem.

Read the rest here.

The sad thing is the post-war period that ushered in the American century saw the invention of the middle class. Coming out of the Great Depression, governments understood that the too big to fail concept could be addressed by spreading, um, sprinkling spreading wealth (yeah, I said it) through society a little more generally. Did America not have rich people in the 50s? In the 60s? Was there no incentive for people to work hard and invent and create in the 70s?

Funny but I thought at least a couple of decent businesses got formed during that period. Granted, tehse were tiny firms like Microsoft, Apple, Berkshire Hathaway, etc. but nonetheless.

Anyway, as the article states, history tells us the inequality will be ultimately be addressed, it just depends on whether this will be a gradual, inclusive process or a radical backs against a wall revolución. 

Time will tell.

Perhaps, just for the sake of comedy, you might not want to have contracted AIDS from an African prostitute

 

Who knew?

h/t to Jen Irwin.

In Flanders Fields

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

a worthless prick

One more example of how little we know yet how much our body can do for itself. 

Scientific jargon can be impenetrable, but it’s often necessary—ideas must be precisely and unambiguously defined in order to be useful. It’s difficult to test a vague notion or subject an amorphous concept to examination. So we must first define what acupuncture actually is before we can ask whether acupuncture works. This is not as easy as it might seem.

Acupuncture is often referred to as an ancient Chinese practice, but in actuality it’s neither very ancient nor exclusively Chinese. The modern practice of acupuncture is only decades—not centuries or millennia, as is often claimed—old (Ramey 2010). It has antecedents in ancient times, but the practice of needling in Asia was not much different from the practice of bloodletting in the West (Novella 2010).

The National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM) has this to say about the definition of acupuncture:

The term “acupuncture” describes a family of procedures involving the stimulation of anatomical points on the body using a variety of techniques. The acupuncture technique that has been most often studied scientifically involves penetrating the skin with thin, solid, metallic needles that are manipulated by the hands or by electrical stimulation. (NCCAM 2011)

Clinical studies into the effectiveness of acupuncture have evolved over recent years, and there have actually been quite a few well-designed studies that adequately isolate these two variables (acupuncture points and needle insertion). For example, many studies compare verum acupuncture (true acupuncture in which needles are inserted into the alleged proper acupuncture points for the condition being treated) to sham acupuncture (in which needles are inserted into the “wrong” locations). These studies overwhelmingly show that needle location does not matter—verum acupuncture is no more effective than sham acupuncture (Moffet 2009; Ernst 2009).

Some trials also control for the variable of needle insertion, using placebo or simulated acupuncture in which opaque sheaths are used and a dull needle is pressed against the skin when the plunger is depressed, but there is no skin penetration. Alternatively, toothpicks have been used to simulate the sensation of acupuncture without going through the skin. Again, when this variable is isolated, it turns out that simulated acupuncture works as well as verum acupuncture. This is true of the largest and best trials of acupuncture for the most common uses, such as reducing back pain (Haake et al. 2007) and treating nausea (Enblom et al. 2011).

Therefore, if we define acupuncture as using needle insertion to stimulate acupuncture points, and the best scientific evidence shows that acupuncture points do not exist (it doesn’t matter where you stick the needles) and needle insertion has no effect (it doesn’t matter whether or not you stick the needles), then does acupuncture work? I think the only reasonable answer is no; there is no reality to acupuncture or the concepts upon which it is based.

If anything can be said to have a measurable effect in acupuncture trials it is the therapeutic ritual that surrounds acupuncture (but not the acupuncture itself). Even these effects are modest and nonspecific—they result from a subjective sense of well-being gained from the kind attention and relaxation that attends the acupuncture ritual.

We have known for decades that a good bedside manner, with some relaxation and encouragement, makes people feel better. This may create the illusion that whatever specific intervention accompanies these nonspecific effects is itself having some effect. That is the very point of scientific experiments: to isolate these variables. And when that is properly done, it becomes increasingly clear that acupuncture (the sticking of needles into alleged acupuncture points) does not work.

Read the rest here.

Save your money, folks.

Next up: The Easter Bunny, man or myth?

h/t to my buddy Stéphane Giroux.

what's wrong with this picture?

If you plan on your empire country thriving competing surviving in the 21st century, shouldn't you maybe get with the program?

This map shows the countries in the world not currently using the metric system, otherwise known as the way everyone almost everyone measures everything.

If you think your country citizenry is too powerful stoopid to learn this new 212 year-old system, maybe you should reconsider how you educate your people.

The bridge to the 21st that Clinton talked about? Yeah, it will be is being measured in kilometres.

(Oh and by the way, if you don't recognize the big red country on the left-hand side, don't feel bad, just ask someone "ejucated", like such as.

how not to do it

 

Mr. Cain, with all due respect, get a new staff.

If they're telling you that ads featuring Mark Block smoking will help your campaign and that scolding reporters asking about the sexual harrassment accusations you've faced is a good idea, you're getting bad advice, sir.

Hilariously bad advice.

Smart & Dumb? Amen

Occasionally, I read something and my first thought is "Rats, why didn't I write that?"

This piece, by The Reformed Broker, brought on one of those bursts of envy. I liked this so much, I couldn't even find a spot to cut out a snippet. It's all so good, so true, I felt wrong slicing out a tidbit for your to read.

Read it all:

One of the things that began to creep into our society sometime in the last 20 years is this idea that no one can ever lose and there's no such thing as smart and stupid.  Instead of calling things what they were, we just used the term "different" instead.

I guess it started in elementary schools when kids would compete in sporting activities and then be told they were all "winners" at the end of the game.  We also lost the right to be honest and say that one thing is intelligent and another thing is dumb for fear of insulting or offending people.

But there are cases where the difference between smart and stupid is so stark that it would be even more offensive not to point it out.  This past month two books came out and, depending on which one you bought, we can pretty much make the assumption that you're either a smart person or a stupid person.

The first book is the eponymous Steve Jobs biography by Walter Isaacson.  Isaacson is one of the nation's great biographers, having written the definitive books on both Benjamin Franklin and Henry Kissinger.  Obviously the story of Steve Jobs is one of innovation, iconoclasm, big business, fighting back after defeat and ultimately changing the world.  It's not that buying this book automatically makes you "a smart person", but chances are that if you have the desire to read it, you're probably not dumb.

No, the dumb people have their own new book out this month.

Here's the New York Post on the launch of Kim Kardashian's mom's new book (about god-knows-fucking-what)...

...family matriarch Kris Jenner, promoting a memoir, is still making some cold, hard kash. Jenner, who has done a grueling series of TV appearances this week to insist that Kim didn’t profit from her mega-televised wedding to Kris Humphries, took time for a book launch at The Darby on Wednesday night to make some of her own money. Spies at the event said publisher Simon and Schuster brought along 100 books for Jenner to sign, but instead of giving them to the invited guests for free, as is usual, they set up a credit-card machine, charging all the mommy bloggers for their personalized copies. “They even had a fanny pack on hand to collect cash,” said a source.

Here's the deal...if you walked into a bookstore or logged on to Amazon and bought Kim Kardashian's mom's book instead of the Steve Jobs biography, you're stupid.  It's not that you're just "less smart" or you have "different interests" or anything like that - it's simply that you're a stupid person.

And that's okay, we need stupid people in this world also - especially here in the Eternal Consumption Engine that is America.

And I think it's also okay for society to be honest about the fact that some people just happen to be stupid.  We need to re-remember that there is a difference between winning and losing, knowledge and foolhardiness, before we go any farther down this path of equivocation.

It's time we stopped pretending otherwise.

The simultaneous explosion of information technology and dumbing down of our society has perplexed me for years. How can we, as a species, choose to use this new-found ability to access the accumulated knowledge of our history to get the latest on Lindsay Lohan's bail hearing?

I love the point he makes despite the fact that I have no intention of reading either book. I have too much other stuff to read to get to the Jobs biography now and I would not read the Kris Jenner book if I was stuck on a desert island with only that book loaded on my kindle. In fact, if it was the only thing on my kidnle, I would rather use the gigantic e-reader to build a shelter, rather than kill valuable brain cells reading that crap. 

The internet allows us to walk around with everything we know, think, believe, surmise, doubt, love, hate, theorize, contextualize, diarize & exercise going back forever and that we are filling this airtime and bandwidth with so much nonsense is really, really depressing.

Triumph @ Occupy Wall Street

  

This. is. funny.

Jimmy Kimmel prank demonstrates First World (kid) Problems

 

The two at the end are very cute.

far away in time

 

If you weren't in Canada in 1980, you may not remember this song but if you were, how could anyone forget that opening guitar riff?

I heard an interview with Martha Johnson this morning and it took me back 31 years. To hear that she is battling Parkinson's, this iconic singer from our youth, only exacerbated the feeling that we are all here for good time, not a long time. 

Enjoy.