There was an article in the U-T San Diego the other day about California revenue, which said that sales tax revenue had dropped because people were spending more on services and non-taxable items and were spending less on items which are subject to sales tax. I think the writer missed the point, and the Editorial Board compounded the missed point today. Our local paper continues to set records for obtuseness.
Their idea seems to be that consumer thinking goes, “I’m trying to decide between groceries and a new electric drill. I think I’ll buy the groceries, because the electric drill is subject to sales tax.” Most people choose the groceries because they are what is called a “necessity,” which is why they are not subject to sales tax. The new electric drill is an optional purchase, which is why California subjects it to sales tax. That is the principle which prevents sales taxes from being entirely regressive.
People are not buying fewer taxable items because they are taxable. They are buying fewer taxable items because they are optional purchases and the economy sucks. Raising taxes is not going to help the economy and cause people to buy more, thereby increasing California revenue.
What will increase revenue is creating more jobs, and in particular more jobs that pay better wages. We could start that process by electing legislators who have something inside their skulls other than sawdust.
Finding media with brains is, however, something beyond our power.
Friday, August 9, 2013
All Things Are Relative
Time is actually around, believe it or not, and displays another example of its irrelevance yesterday with an article applauding Obama for canceling a visit with Putin prior to the G20 summit meeting next month. They are highly pleased that Obama worked up the courage to kick Putin in the gonads, or at slap him in the face, or whatever it is that this cancellation represents.
Reading between the lines, I’m thinking that the Russians were a lot less impressed by the cancellation than Time was. The Russian media barely mentioned it in passing, while American media has been hyperventilating about it for days. Of course, Russians don’t think our president is quite as overwhelmingly important as we do.
Or, perhaps, they simply didn’t think it mattered all that much.
Reading between the lines, I’m thinking that the Russians were a lot less impressed by the cancellation than Time was. The Russian media barely mentioned it in passing, while American media has been hyperventilating about it for days. Of course, Russians don’t think our president is quite as overwhelmingly important as we do.
“The actual news — that Obama had decided not to meet with his Russian counterpart before, after or during the G20 summit in St. Petersburg next month — was clearly not something the official spin doctors wanted to advertise,” according to the Time piece.
Or, perhaps, they simply didn’t think it mattered all that much.
Thursday, August 8, 2013
Sometimes We Need A Reminder
Watching an episode of “Chopped” today, one of the contestants was a young woman whose parents brought her to this country from the Ukraine when she was a young child, escaping from a collapsing Soviet Union. When asked why she was competing today she started by saying, “I want to show my parents that my success is worthy of their struggle.”
She went on to say that her parents had been esteemed professionals in the Ukraine and, like many refugees, had been reduced to working as menial laborers in this country. As she grew up she watched them rebuild their lives and regain professions worthy of their educations and experience again, after years of hard work and patience. “It is the story of their lives,” she said, “that motivates me.”
How can you not be inspired by such a person?
She went on to say that her parents had been esteemed professionals in the Ukraine and, like many refugees, had been reduced to working as menial laborers in this country. As she grew up she watched them rebuild their lives and regain professions worthy of their educations and experience again, after years of hard work and patience. “It is the story of their lives,” she said, “that motivates me.”
How can you not be inspired by such a person?
Snackaby's {Back to School} Giveaway
Click on the image below to visit Snackabys Etsy Store
Thanks for stopping by and entering the giveaway!
Click on the image below to see Being Creatives other giveaways
Monday, August 5, 2013
Irrational Discourse
I don’t hold a lot of truck with today’s Republican Party but, as those who read my work regularly know, I don’t spend waste any of my time and energy bashing them either. I have not voted for any of them lately, do not consider myself part of them, and I don’t think I bear any responsibility for whatever power they hold in governance.
I do pay attention to the policies and actions of Democrats because that’s how I have been voting until recently, I helped put them in office, and I am in part responsible for them being in office. To a large degree, I regret that.
Most Democrats do not focus on what their party is doing, but spend an enormous amount of energy declaiming on the evils of the opposition; writing at great length about not only how evil Republicans are, but about how crazy they are, how little contact they have with reality and what a total disaster it will be for the nation if they were to achieve a position of power.
Republicans may not be entirely rational, but Democrats have become utterly insane on the subject of how evil and insane Republicans are. I think that many of them may actually believe that Republicans invented AIDS and the Bubonic Plague. Paul Krugman actually wrote recently that “the madness of the GOP is the central issue of our time.”
Really? It’s not Republicans who are telling us that we are fighting in Afghanistan in order to “deny them space in which to plan their attacks.” It’s not a Republican administration which is executing American citizens without due process of law and defending their actions in court by claiming that executive review is “due process.”
Several writers have claimed that the current closing of embassies is a political ploy to distract the public from recent disclosures of the Democratic administration’s violations of our constitution, but Juan Cole at Informed Comment claims today that the blame for this alarm actually lies with the Republican Party.
After condemning the embassy closures as being harmful both to this nations image and its mission, which I think he exaggerates rather significantly, he then says that, “…the GOP is inadvertently pushing the US into a posture of dangerous diplomatic weakness.” The weakness is displayed, he claims, by the “unprecedented closing of 21 US embassies in the Middle East,” reportedly due to a “vague terrorist threat.”
That’s an interesting piece of mind reading, but how he can say this and think that he is insulting Republicans rather than describing a craven and utterly feckless Democratic administration escapes me. This, though, is the sort of thing that Democrats do these days. Whatever the government does, it’s the fault of Republicans, and they don’t even think about the words that are coming out of their mouths.
First, it’s the Democratic administration that shut down the embassies due to a “vague terrorist threat,” not the Republicans and, second, if they did it out of fear of what their opposition might do, then that is an act of almost unbelievable cowardice on the part of Cole’s precious Democratic administration. Does he not get that?
Cole says that he “can’t rule out” that the Obama is “playing that kind of politics,” that is to say that the embassy closings are being used as a distraction from the administration’s abrogation of the fourth amendment to the constitution, but he closes with his conclusion that “I think the story is a different and sadder one.”
If Eisenhower had reacted to the German army the way that Juan Cole thinks that Obama is reacting to the Republican Party, we would never have invaded Europe and would have lost World War Two. Cole’s assessment is a remarkable and utterly riduculous insult to the Obama administration and is about the silliest thing that I have read in a long time.
I do pay attention to the policies and actions of Democrats because that’s how I have been voting until recently, I helped put them in office, and I am in part responsible for them being in office. To a large degree, I regret that.
Most Democrats do not focus on what their party is doing, but spend an enormous amount of energy declaiming on the evils of the opposition; writing at great length about not only how evil Republicans are, but about how crazy they are, how little contact they have with reality and what a total disaster it will be for the nation if they were to achieve a position of power.
Republicans may not be entirely rational, but Democrats have become utterly insane on the subject of how evil and insane Republicans are. I think that many of them may actually believe that Republicans invented AIDS and the Bubonic Plague. Paul Krugman actually wrote recently that “the madness of the GOP is the central issue of our time.”
Really? It’s not Republicans who are telling us that we are fighting in Afghanistan in order to “deny them space in which to plan their attacks.” It’s not a Republican administration which is executing American citizens without due process of law and defending their actions in court by claiming that executive review is “due process.”
Several writers have claimed that the current closing of embassies is a political ploy to distract the public from recent disclosures of the Democratic administration’s violations of our constitution, but Juan Cole at Informed Comment claims today that the blame for this alarm actually lies with the Republican Party.
After condemning the embassy closures as being harmful both to this nations image and its mission, which I think he exaggerates rather significantly, he then says that, “…the GOP is inadvertently pushing the US into a posture of dangerous diplomatic weakness.” The weakness is displayed, he claims, by the “unprecedented closing of 21 US embassies in the Middle East,” reportedly due to a “vague terrorist threat.”
“The Obama administration most likely took this weird step to insulate itself from any further witch hunts of the sort the Republicans launched over the tragic attack on a CIA safe house doubling as a US consulate in Benghazi, Libya, on Sept. 11, 2011.”
That’s an interesting piece of mind reading, but how he can say this and think that he is insulting Republicans rather than describing a craven and utterly feckless Democratic administration escapes me. This, though, is the sort of thing that Democrats do these days. Whatever the government does, it’s the fault of Republicans, and they don’t even think about the words that are coming out of their mouths.
First, it’s the Democratic administration that shut down the embassies due to a “vague terrorist threat,” not the Republicans and, second, if they did it out of fear of what their opposition might do, then that is an act of almost unbelievable cowardice on the part of Cole’s precious Democratic administration. Does he not get that?
Cole says that he “can’t rule out” that the Obama is “playing that kind of politics,” that is to say that the embassy closings are being used as a distraction from the administration’s abrogation of the fourth amendment to the constitution, but he closes with his conclusion that “I think the story is a different and sadder one.”
“The Republican Party is now so Raptor-like that it is preventing an entire Department, the one first headed by Thomas Jefferson, from doing its job at a time of turmoil and danger in a strategic part of the world.”
If Eisenhower had reacted to the German army the way that Juan Cole thinks that Obama is reacting to the Republican Party, we would never have invaded Europe and would have lost World War Two. Cole’s assessment is a remarkable and utterly riduculous insult to the Obama administration and is about the silliest thing that I have read in a long time.
Sunday, August 4, 2013
Oops, I Missed That
From the comments at Sic Semper Tyrannis, a thoughtful person points out something that I had missed completely:
Well, duh, of course those dots connect. How did I not notice that?
Another comment in the same thread compares this nation and its reaction to 9/11 to Moby Dick, in which Ahab is so blinded by his desire for revenge on the white whale that he sinks his ship and is himself killed in his irrational crusade to extract revenge. The white whale, of course, survives. Read it yourself, it's the second comment in the thread and is written by "mbrenner," whose comments are always worth reading.
Today we have an unspecified worldwide terror alert...right after the NSA had to appear before Congress to justify their snooping on Americans. No one in the media seems to have wondered if those dots connect.
Well, duh, of course those dots connect. How did I not notice that?
Another comment in the same thread compares this nation and its reaction to 9/11 to Moby Dick, in which Ahab is so blinded by his desire for revenge on the white whale that he sinks his ship and is himself killed in his irrational crusade to extract revenge. The white whale, of course, survives. Read it yourself, it's the second comment in the thread and is written by "mbrenner," whose comments are always worth reading.
Saturday, August 3, 2013
The Pepper Picnic {Back to School} Giveaway
Click on the image below to Visit The Pepper Picnics Etsy store
a Rafflecopter giveaway
Thanks for stopping by and entering the giveaway!
Thanks for stopping by and entering the giveaway!
Click on the image below to see Being Creatives other giveaways
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)