Tax practitioners are so serious and dry. Why are their blogs scary?

Not a single news organization reported this data, this basic information, when it was released October 15.

The story the numbers tell is one of a strengthening economic base with income growing fastest at the bottom until, in 1981, we made an abrupt change in tax and economic policy.

The Founders were concerned first and foremost with preventing tyranny, oppression and policies that retard the human spirit. Economies have rules and those rules have a huge influence on the distribution of benefits. Specific rules raise or lower incomes, for example.

There are hundreds of thousands of pages of these rules.

These rules distort economic outcomes. Hardly anyone but the people who get rich off them through what economists call ‘rent seeking’ has ever read them, much less explain how they distort the economy.

When those rules allow huge interest-free loans to some, or limit how much the vast majority can save on a tax-favored basis but lets those at the top save unlimited amounts, when some workers can defer paying their taxes for years or decades and then at rates lower than that of the median income worker the outcomes are heavily influenced by those rules.

The current federal income and payroll tax burden on a single worker who made the median wage of $26,000 in 2007 was 21.6%, but by the same measure for the 400 highest income taxpayers, who made almost a million dollars a day, this tax burden was just 16.6%.

Only the wealthy pay low taxes.

Why do you think corporations spend all that money in Washington? They did not always run huge lobbying shops. They do it to win favors that shape, influence and in some cases rig markets, and that in turn alters how the benefits of the economy and the burdens of government are distributed.

We are a terrible thing to waste:

1) The data show that the tectonic shifts have taken place since the Reagan administration began, with its ‘new theory’ about wealth creation, jobs and taxes.

2) The data show that these policies have not worked out well for the vast majority, but they have helped a relative few really prosper.

Oops. Bloomberg cites the data October 25; thanks Zo. Tax returns were made secret in the 1920s, yet last year’s pay at the very top is up more than 500%.

There’s something to gain understanding where our money goes went.

Who dares believe Republicans are defending this nation? It’s plundering and pillaging and marauding since the neoconservative launch; since Reagan’s Budget Director David Stockman, never an economist nor taxation analyst, but a one-time Representative of a 95% white rural Michigan district plucked as Sarah Palin is plucked, a political operative and willing trumpet.

Renting Congress.
Now that’s rent seeking!

And there’s the rub, put into a practical series, for our own good.

If we’re going to spend way more than any other country on health care, then we should absolutely, positively have the best health care system in the world.  We don’t.

1. Introduction –I can’t blame you.
2. Population Statistics –This may seem like a small thing, but.
3. Available Technology –Well, we’re not the worst.
4. Disease Care –Here’s where we shine. Not.
5. Infrastructure –I won’t lie to you.
6. Health Care Utilization –Nowhere near the top.
7. Physician and Practice –They are, after all, essential.
8. Patients –They should have some say.
9. Executives –Let’s move on to something new.
10. Conclusion –I expected more arguments.

Why $142 million of her own money hasn’t bought Meg Whitman the governorship:  “As one GOP strategist recently told the Post, “You could hold a gun to my head, and I couldn’t tell you why she’s running for governor.”

The Exiled:  “Whitman’s fabled $1 billion in wealth was acquired in the first few months of her tenure, well before she could muck the company’s bottom line up.

Her billion, in a few months, on a frenzy of shares! ooo dat dot com go boom

That billion-plus that eBay’s directors handed Whitman was perhaps the easiest billion in corporate history.

eBay hired Whitman in March 1998, when the company was already the tech world’s darling.

Just six months after she joined, eBay went public, making Meg Whitman an overnight billionaire thanks to stock options that allowed her to buy eBay stock at just 7 cents a share and sell them on the market for as high as $170 per share.”

found at whimsy speaks

CaliforniaWatch partial breakdown of Whitman’s $160+ million campaign:

• Attack ad barrage: $106.9 million. • GOP tie-up to Karl Rove $4.5 million. • GOP talent: campaign manager $829,000, senior adviser $512,000, deputy campaign managers $350,205 and $273,000, press secretary $202,000. • Mail barrage: $5.4 million, GOP mail experts $5 million. • Multi-media and social web $1.1 million and $3.8 million. • GOP fundraising experts and event planners, $1.1 million and $1 million. • GOP paid advisers: $696,000, online fundraising $640,000 and $528,000. • Much much more.

So why do two in three Americans not know that TARP expects to turn a small profit, the economy is crawling upward, Obama significantly cut taxes?

“It’s astonishing to see how Americans have been conditioned to think that political action and engagement is futile.” —Yves Smith

Small comfort that a large crowd attended Jon Stewart’s Rally for Sanity: 250,000.

It was certainly the largest gathering I’ve seen at a DC rally since the anti-Vietnam protests of the late sixties and early seventies.

And contrary to the predictions of some, it was not dominated by the young — seniors were well-represented and stories abounded…Michael Winship

That’s roughly three times wingnut rallies, tho’ not three times the noise. The Park Service contracts AirPhoto for accuracy, posted here. Many sister rallies in many cities, including Wasilla of course.

reasonableness and moderation in our country’s rhetoric

From the diligent scourings of Humorzo, here’s an entirely new shake on byte my feed, but please, let’s tend to this story now.

An only child, a lonely boy, over-assertive, absolutely sure that he had big things coming.

On a raw December ­afternoon…

On the table lay…

The midwife wiped the poor girl’s brow…

Macrophallus is the medical term, and Frank was proud of his ­extraordinary endowment.

In his mind he was a ­personage !

Roger Ebert:

So now I move on to a larger view of Hugh Hefner.

Hefner and Playboy have been around so long that not everyone remembers what America used to be like.

The fact is that sex made money for Hefner, and he used it to produce one of the best magazines in America.

He also spent money to free a man who faced a 50-year prison term for…fellatio.

Hefner’s Playboy Foundation fought for civil liberties in general. The cost for these activities came out of his profits, and that didn’t give him a moment’s pause.

Every single living thing is a dazzling interdependency in the bottom one percent of the atmosphere…

[link]

In “Happiness the World Over” [abstract], countries enjoy individual and economic freedom, higher life expectancy, lower rates of infant mortality and greater wealth.

There were no significant happiness based on marriage rates, divorce rates, fertility rates, literacy rates, suicide rates and penal incarceration rates.

The 20 happiest nations are:

1. Denmark
2. Switzerland
3. Austria
4. Iceland
5. The Bahamas
6. Finland
7. Sweden
8. Bhutan
9. Brunei
10. Canada
11. Ireland
12. Luxembourg
13. Costa Rica
14. Malta
15. The Netherlands
16. Antigua and Barbuda
17. Malaysia
18. New Zealand
19. Norway
20. The Seychelles

23. USA

Summary of recent happiness research, BUT he observed that the amount of data and experimentation regarding happiness research is in its infancy…

Stuart Staniford:

Terrifying Drought Projections

On the projections of the Palmer Drought Severity Index: I was pretty freaked out by the paper.  This post covers PDSI at a very basic level, and discusses the projections.

Recent History of Drought vs Models

This post looked at the somewhat imperfect fit between climate models and drought data for recent history.

Extracting Signal From Drought Noise

This post extracted the global warming signal and the El-Nino signal from the drought data.

Interesting that much of our population in hardship & worry shrinks charitable & political contributions yet this midterm election is reaching a record $4.2 billion.

Oligarch spending dominates, and I’m not surprised the best these bullies have done is to dredge myth-kickers and sociopaths to help them. There’s the intriguing two sides of this election, the wealthy and their wacky.

‘All they ask for is an unfair advantage‘ is Michael Winship’s one-man assay of political spending, i.e. the temblor & tilt from the US Chamber of Commerce: 300,000 members, but half of its $140 million in contributions from just 45 donors.

Open any newspaper, magazine or political website and the coverage of corporate campaign largess, much of it anonymous, bedazzles the mind.

When all is said and done… outside interest groups could spend $400 million or more by Election Day. House and Senate candidates have already shattered fundraising record for a midterm election… the equivalent of about $4 million for every congressional seat.

Industry leaders with conservative provocateurs recruiting flamers & fruitcakes to help them fight for the status quo are vigorously opposed to legislation that would require identifying the money behind sponsors and campaign ads.

A recent conservative strategy & tactics session called “Understanding and Addressing Threats to American Free Enterprise and Prosperity” was not attended by media flamers, coffee shop pundits or Tea Party candidates. None of their carny shills raised up for this election were in attendance.

Claiming to be ‘dedicated to defending our free society’ but merely funding Republicans for the simpler purposes of stalling financial and  consumer regulations, derivatives reform and equitable taxes et et et.

The GOP is opposed to all this: “They have already signaled to Wall Street that, starting the morning of November 3rd, 2010, the GOP will be the party that fights sensible Wall Street reform and returns us to the world of 2009, the world most favorable to Wall Street.”

For that, they’ve plucked silly candidates from their serfdom and raised a foolish electorate. “An energized minority trumps a tepid majority every time.”

These wealthy reveal an embarrassing incompetence. The bandit viciousness that pilfered our nation has launched nothing better than a political frenzy. Shame. Stunning not merely for its dominance & distortion, but for its poverty of reason & solution.

The brain is not a butler to serve our whim. Mark Morford’s column in San Francisco’s Chronicle newspaper is pointing out we just don’t know much and that’s most true when we shrink the world to our beliefs.

You’ll enjoy this massive, humbling truth:

What we do not know still far outweighs what we do. Better yet, it always will.

Mr. RICHARDS: Exactly. So we’re here to grow up rock n’ roll…

GROSS: Right. So…

Mr. RICHARDS: …and see how far it can go.

[link]
[podcast]

On Monday night at Mr. Chill’s Barber Shop, men passed on tie-tying knowledge they had gained from their fathers, grandfathers and uncles to a new generation.

I’ll Voluntie.