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Media Infiltrations: Of Interventions and Conservative Principles  National Review Online September 23, 2008 Quit Doling Out That Bad-Economy Line The Washington Post September 14, 2008
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The Conspiracy Letters
Join the fray! Email us at letters@poorandstupid.com. We reserve the right to publish all letters with authors' names, unless specified as not for publication or for publication anonymously. Letters may be edited for clarity and brevity.
Thursday, October 12, 2006
GOOD QUESTION Has anyone done any work on the Treasary Reciept on Roth Rollover taxes from 1998-2001?My better half and I left a company in 1998 after working for that company for 13 years. I Rollover her and my 401k, into an IRA account and then rollover half of that amount into an Roth account. Since the accounts were new that year, the tax event was spread over the next 4 years. This added $12,500 to my A.G.I. and $10,000 to her A.G.I for the next 4 years. The marginal tax rate was about 25%.
Our household taxes were around $35,000 in 2000, and are now down to around $23,000.
How much and how many people paid additional taxes to help balance to decifit. I have not heard anyone make this point with Robert Reich on Kudlow & Co.
Without this additional tax revenue, would the budget have been balance? Are we talking 1% or 10% of additional income?
Y2K was a gift to Clinton. Even Jimmy Carter couldn't have screw up Y2K!!!
Tom Pearson
Posted by Donald L. Luskin at 4:15 PM | link
Monday, July 31, 2006
BUSH FRIED? The media, once again, blows a natural occurrence out of proportion; and inconspicuously, with a little help from PETA and Al Gore, blames Bush and SUV owners for another record-breaking summer. With all the hype about hot temps, two questions come to mind: Is summer supposed to be hot? What did people do before central air?Because of our pampered culture, it's impossible to tolerate such extreme seasons without it being a perfect 71 degrees year-round. Yes, summer is supposed to be hot. I can't remember one summer in my life without it being hot. But I have an obvious remedy to avoid the hot weather - simply switch hemispheres for a season! My sister-in-law just arrived home from a two-month trip to Australia, where she spent most of the summer with a coat and heater. But if our media moves Down Under, you may hear about the coldest summer on record.
Also, I can't help but wonder what people did before air conditioning. As for those who came before us, namely within the past five centuries, what did the women do with the yards of fabric and layers of petticoats they dragged behind them? I'm convinced that what ultimately got them through the summer were the flutter fans. If used correctly, those fans must have blown more air onto their faces and necks than any modern AC would.
Our city holds a charity drive every summer, during the hottest week, to collect fans and distribute them to the "needy." First, why do they wait until it's over 100 degrees? Buy out the stock at Wal-Mart at the end of summer while they're on sale, and distribute them out then!
Second, all welfarians (those on welfare) are not necessarily needy. Many times, we, the working class, rush to the need of welfarians after they spend our tax money on double bass car speakers, $300 shoes, and imported drugs. Instead of electric fans, my advice would be to pass out those little miraculous flutter fans to the welfarians. Not only would it help them to stay cool, it would also give them the satisfaction of actually working for something they need.
Despite all the past successes in surviving summers without AC, I'm still waiting for someone to blame Bush for the heat wave. In the meantime, chill.
Sarah Coley
Posted by Donald L. Luskin at 10:26 PM | link
Friday, July 28, 2006
DESIRE AND PERSISTENCE I have some expertise in this area, I think ["Have You Considered Redistributing Your Desire?" 7/25/2006]. I teach in a Masters of Public Administration Program. We have some 125 students in the program, of whom about 100 are taking classes during any given semester. Probably 60% are "in service" (i.e. already working in a public admin or civil service position or for a non-profit), 30% are working full-time outside of govt or NPOs and 10% are full-time students.I have had students who I later found had worse personal situations than the one described. It didn't always stop them. Mostly it appears to me to be a question of desire and persistence. The op ed writer doesn't obviously display much of either.
Sure, it's tough, but my good students work really hard, produce great work, and finish the course. Full-time students frequently finish in 2 years while the others take up to 4.
It is a balancing act, but it is being done routinely by my students.
OTOH, I do have a (thankfully small) number of student whiners. It's not just free grad school they seek, it's free everything, including grades and a degree. My guess is the op ed person would fit in the latter. It would be interesting to talk confidentially to her profs and find out.
James Ivers
Posted by Donald L. Luskin at 4:10 PM | link
WHO'S "UPPER CLASS" NOW? I sometimes wonder how opinion pieces like these ["Have You Considered Redistributing Your Desire?" 7/25/2006] can actually be printed in major newspapers. The author is complaining about graduate school only being available for the "upper class" in society and how she is not part of that "upper class". What amazes me is how her own situation contradicts her point? "Is access to graduate education in America exclusively for the upper class? As a first-year graduate student struggling to make ends meet, I believe the answer is yes." - If graduate education in America (I guess, as opposed to every where else in the world) is exclusively for the upper class, then how is the author a graduate student? Is she a part of the "upper class" or has she lied to infiltrate this elite society of wealth in order to get an education? All she says throughout the article is that she is struggling...so, she is complaining that paying for graduate school is not easy. She states "It's clear that a federal need-based grant program for graduate students must be created. This would help level the playing field by creating access to graduate programs for students -- access based on merit and ambition rather than economic resources." This translates into "I am attending and paying for graduate school but finding it difficult. Would the government please force someone to pay for my education since I do not want to go through these hard times?" It is not a "need-based" program she wants, but a "wants-based" program.
And, as a man who grew up in a small town in Oklahoma (~800 people), who lived in a trailer all his childhood, whose father passed away when he was 17, and whose mother works as a janitor, I graduated with a Master's degree from Princeton University without any government aid - yes, an Ivy League school. I guess the author will have to categorize me and my family as "upper class" now.
Shawn Smith
Posted by Donald L. Luskin at 12:23 AM | link
Tuesday, April 25, 2006
GRASSROOTS LOGIC I paid into Social Security for 37 years ["Long Live Social Security Reform", April 21, 2006]. My last statement reveals that my contributions and my "employers" contributions totaled over 200K. I shall be 56 in October. I recognize the dilemma and humbly make the following suggestions:For those 60 and over, the full meal deal.
55-59 95% of your current defined benefit.
50-54 90%
45-49 85%
40-44 80%
Below 40, 75%
Raise the age for full benefits to 67 for those between 50 and 59. 68 for those in their 40s. 70 for everyone else. Raise the income limit to 500K upon which the tax is applied and index it.
I am willing to be reasonable. I do, however, intend to collect some of that 200K. The absolute tragedy of social security is that had I been allowed to invest my money properly, I would have a secure retirement.
I am not a stockholder in this country. I am a stakeholder! I have worked and paid taxes for over 40 years (and plan on working well into my 60s). I have served in the military. I have been a productive citizen, husband and father. I do not believe it is bad form to suggest that yes...I am entitled to my place in the Sun in my old age. I have earned it.
I am willing to be patriotic. I am willing to make a sacrifice for the greater good of this beloved land. It must be said, however, that I only feel contempt for a Congress that has used this money as nothing more than a slush fund. They carry on about Enron. Enron can't hold a candle to what Congress has done to Social Security.
One more thing. A Congress whose members retire with 6 figure pensions, gold plated medical benefits and fabulously lucrative careers as lobbyists .... has no face on this issue.
Paul Evans
Posted by Donald L. Luskin at 11:24 AM | link
Friday, December 30, 2005
ZERO DYNAMICS THINKING I enjoyed your discussion of zero sum thinking yesterday ["Them's Fighting Words" 12/29/2005] and I applaud your willingness to post dissenting views and address them directly.
I've thought about the mindset of leftist economics and I think there are two other more important distinctions between them and free market oriented thinkers.
* Static versus dynamic thinking. That is, policy decisions are analyzed purely in the context of today's variables with no concept of how changing the rules of the game might change how people play it in the future. That's why staticists ridicule the Laffer curve despite it's almost tautological obviousness to dynamists.
* Excessive association of morality to
financial/economic decisions. It's "bad" for people to be rich when others have unmet needs or wants.
People "ought" to spend their money on more morally pure things. This leads to statist policies as people
(shockingly!) inevitably fail to care for others before themselves.
I think the zero sum thinking you reference is mostly an outgrowth of their static models of the economy, but more importantly are mostly used as rhetorical devices with which to bash the morals of those who disagree with them.
Trevor Hicks
Posted by Donald L. Luskin at 1:22 PM | link
Sunday, October 16, 2005
CAPITALISM EQUALS HEALTH? With regards to EU Rota's comments on life expectancy differences between the US and Western Europe ["What Differences" [October 13, 2005], he leaves out one important factor: Americans live riskier lifestyles in general. We drive more cars (and as a result have more accidents and deaths), do more drugs, are far more obese, and generally have riskier sex lives (most of these problems are especially prevalent in the black community). A better comparison between health care systems would involve life expectancy after turning 65, because a) most of the irresponsible people have died off and b) most of our health care consumption occurs after we turn 65. As it turns out, American life expectancy after 65 (16.1 years for men as of 1999) falls less than half a year short of France and Canada (each at about 16.5 years for men, according to the CDC). Also, it is interesting to note that Hong Kong, the most capitalist country on Earth, ranks No. 1 in this category. Puts a nice little hole in Krugman's theory, don't you think?Peter Johnson
Posted by Donald L. Luskin at 8:18 AM | link
Tuesday, October 11, 2005
HERE'S JOHNNY When talking about the cold war greats of game theory, don’t forget von Neumann and Morgenstern! Thomas C. Schelling’s work builds on their research and book on game theory ["Very Cool" 10/11/2005].John von Neumann was possibly the greatest mathematician of the 20th century and a key member of the Manhattan Project. Some have speculated that von Neumann (he was in a wheelchair at the end of his life) was the inspiration for the character Dr. Strangelove (Henry Kissinger and Werner von Braun are also often mentioned). If that is true, the producers of that film had very little knowledge of this complex man of massive intellect who made contributions to many areas of science, engineering, mathematics, and our national defense. For example the architecture of all computers in common use today is still the von Neumann architecture.
I have read that von Neumann once said something like: “You can never make a bomb that is too big.” I think he had determined from his work on game theory that the probability was infinitesimally small that an entire society including its politicians (especially including them) would be inclined to commit suicide.
The following is my favorite quote about von Neumann:There is an excellent book about game theory and von Neumann by William Poundstone called Prisoner's Dilemma.
“Perhaps the consciousness of animals is more shadowy than ours and perhaps their perceptions are always dreamlike. On the opposite side, whenever I talked with the sharpest intellect whom I have known – with von Neumann – I always had the impression that only he was fully awake, that I was halfway in a dream.”
Eugene Wigner (1963 Nobel Prize in Physics)
George Mitchell
Posted by Donald L. Luskin at 10:33 PM | link
Thursday, September 22, 2005
THE REALLY BIG LIE Krugman wrote,"... unlike any other advanced country, many people fail to receive basic health care because they can’t afford it. Lack of health insurance kills many more Americans each year than Katrina and 9/11 combined."This is a favorite LIE of the left. If you don't have health insurance, the theory goes, then you dont' have health care.
It's the big lie.
If you couldn't get health care in this country without health insurance, the streets would be littered with wounded, sick and dying people. So, where are they?
Lack of health insurance does not equal lack of health care. Louisiana, for instance (where I am from) has an extensive system of FREE health care. It's called the Charity Hospital system. The Catholic church provides FREE HEALTH CARE to many who cannot afford to pay insurance premiums.
And, can someone tell me please how not having health insurance kills people?
They may die of their disease, but I suspect that they would still die of their disease if they are paying for their hospitalization, or State Farm is paying for their hospitalization.
Insurance just pays for health care. It does not equal health care.
Kevin Greene
Posted by Donald L. Luskin at 3:15 PM | link
WHAT DOESN'T GOOGLE DO? Google does "prediction markets." Thanks to Chris Masse for the link.
Posted by Donald L. Luskin at 9:00 AM | link
ANOTHER VIEW I doubt very much that you will explore the issue I'm about to raise, but as a white person living in a mostly black and hispanic neighborhood, I hope that you will.
As you go home this evening think about where your children go to school. Where do Krugman's go to school? [Krugman is childless. -- editor] How many black families live on your street or in your neighborhood? If you live in an apartment building, do black families live there? Are Krugman's living arangements the same as yours?
What I bet is that both you and Krugman live in nearly all white neighborhoods. I bet that your children go to schools that are nearly all white and asian, if they don't go to private schools.
Both you and Krugman insulate yourself from the multi-racial society in which I actually live. And don't think for a minute that either of you would tolerate it. Zoning regulations are not enforced. Building codes are not enforced. Drug dealing and prostitution are a two block walk away. Outside the liquor store black men sit all day drinking. I try not to walk by them. Sometimes I'm afraid, even though I'm male, six feet tall and 270 pounds.
A mile away is the town of Rowayton. 100% white and insulated by an average housing price of over one million dollars. I'd live there if I could. It is nice, as I am sure you know, since you and Krugman already live in places just like it.
White liberals defend blacks, but don't live with them. Maybe you'd like to explore why that is? But I doubt it.
Tom Grant
Posted by Donald L. Luskin at 1:14 AM | link
Monday, September 12, 2005
DIARY OF A WHISTLE BLOWER I worked at the Anchorage International Airport from 1992 to 2000. During this time I advocated that the airport should upgrade on aviation safety and security. On the back side of the airport there is a road that is not to far from the runways. The road signs were being shot out. If one was to look through the bullet holes in the signs one would see the airplanes landing and taking off, meaning these airplanes were down range of the firing of these guns. My job was to replace these road signs. I asked the airport police about patrolling the back side of the airport for the shooters to see if something could be done about it. They informed me that the solution was to replace the signs as they were shot up, not to stop the shooting of the signs. In disbelief I went to the airport management on this and to no avail my message was dead on arrival. I thought this situation was unacceptable and that something must be done about it. So I contacted the news and they did a story on it. Then I copied off the story and sent it to all airlines across the world that flew into the Anchorage International Airport. From there the airlines contacted the airport management and informed them that they were going to fly into and out of the Fairbanks International Airport and not to the Anchorage International Airport any more. The airport management put the airport police back on more patrols for the back side of the airport. The management had a meeting with me and I was picked out as an up start trouble maker.When I was moved to the midnight shift my co-workers told me that our supervisor took drugs and smoked dope out on the runways during our shift. I asked them why they did not report it. They informed me that the supervisor was the personal friend of the management and if they reported the supervisor for taking drugs the management would retaliate. So, I reported it to a state legislator and the legislator got my supervisor drug tested. My supervisor soon did not work at the airport anymore. The management was getting very angry at my disruption at the airport.
One night on low visibility conditions with heavy ice fog I was sent out to sand the runways. Our airport has the runways set out like a T with a double top on the T. I was sanding the runways and was heading toward the first top of the T, going south on the runway toward the first east west runway. I missed the first east west runway because the lights were turned down to step 1 where I could not see them. The lights have steps 1-5 with 5 being the brightest. Since I did not see the first runway because the lights were turned way down to step 1, I went onto the second east west runway almost having a head on collision with a landing passenger airliner. Since I was noted as a trouble maker for reporting on aviation safety issues at the airport the other supervisor denied me permission to ask the FAA tower to turn up the lights out on the runways at night during low visibility conditions like I always use to do before going out on them. All of my co-workers had permission to ask the FAA tower to turn up the lights before being sent out on the runways at night during low visibility conditions except myself. I was told that the supervisor would do this for me before my being sent out to work on the runways in low visibility conditions. The night I was sent out where I made a incursion and almost had a head on collision with a landing passenger plane the lights were not turned up high enough to be able to see as previously agreed before my being sent out on to the runways. So, I went across the first runway before realizing it and made an incursion. I explained that all airfield maintenance employees must have permission to ask to have the lights turned up high enough to be able to see before being sent out onto the runways. The airport management refused this request and removed me from field maintenance and put me over to building maintenance.
While I was at my new job I started to check doors around the airport to see if they were secured. I found one that was not secured and anyone could just open it quickly, easily bypassing airport screening and go directly to the airplanes unchecked. I reported it to the chain of command. They chose not to do anything about it. They did not want to rock the boat with the heavy handed management and become a trouble maker like myself. So I reported the unsecured door to airport dispatch. Airport dispatch reported it to the airport management. The management had a full scale meeting on this. The meeting was not about why the door was not secured, but why was I in the area to know that the door was unsecured and why was I distributing airport dispatch with this information. It was a meeting on how to kill the messenger and not about the message. I almost got fired for reporting the unsecured door. I received a letter of discipline in my file for reporting the unsecured door.
In the mean time I was sending out letters for aviation safety to the state government officials, airlines, aviation safety associations, ect to see if we could have a rule stating that all airport maintenance employees could have permission to ask the FAA tower to turn up the lights out on the runways during low visibility conditions before being sent out to work on them. By this time the airport management had enough of me and fired me. The charge was for making false and misleading statements. When I asked what were the false and misleading statements that I made and who were the person or persons I gave these false and misleading statements to, I was told that the information was confidential and no one was allowed to know.
The union said to me on my firing that if one does not talk, then one will not get into trouble. If one talks, then one is on one's own. I went to 15 attorneys on this. They stated that I was 100% on the side of the law, but it would cost 50-60 thousand dollars to take the state to court. So, like the vast majority of people who work at Americas airports I could not come up with that kind of money while being unemployed, so I had to let it go. What it come down to is that local government airport maintenance employees have to turn the other way on aviation safety, security issues or take their chances of being fired for speaking out on them. This does not help the aviation industry to have these people silenced from speaking out on aviation safety, security issues because they are right there at America’s airport seeing these things that needs to be done. These people are not going to put their jobs on the line. What needs to be done is to include the local government airport maintenance employees in with the airline employees and their contractors to have the same federal whistle blower protection so that they too can speak out for aviation safety and security issues. See this FAA web page.
John Suter
Posted by Donald L. Luskin at 9:23 PM | link