Okay, back to the point; charity vs. taxes.  Both ostensibly accomplish the same thing right?  You earn some money and then turn around and hand a portion of it over to someone else so that they can use that money to accomplish some type of greater good for society (for this post we will ignore personal time that you may or may not donate as I don’t think anyone voluntarily donates time for free to the government).  So let’s pretend that next year your tax forms had a new section at the end that allowed you to choose between giving your money to charity or letting it all go to the folks in DC.  Say your tax bill after all of your deductions, exemptions and credits ends up being $20,000.  At that point (still in the pretend world now…) you would be given the choice of sending all of that money to Washington or choosing a number of charities from a list among which to distribute the money.  Or perhaps you want a portion to go to the feds (since you still care about having a military and roads and all that cool stuff) and a portion to the charities you selected.  Which would you do?  Before you scroll down and jump all over the comment button to blast me about how impractical this is, remember that this is a hypothetical question.

Here is my two cents – I like charity much more than taxes and I am sure most of you do as well.  I know that in the real world we probably couldn’t allow people the option to pay zero taxes and instead let it all go to Jim Bob’s Pet Shelter, but wouldn’t it be nice if we could and still have a functional government to boot?  Just a thought…

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Economics in One Lesson

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Mr. Buffett,

Instead of dumping ever more of your wealth into the bottomless pit of bureaucratic inefficiency that is Washington DC, why don’t you put it where it can actually do some good?  I propose that instead of volunteering to pay a higher tax rate, you instead divert a small part of your fortune into job creation.  Our good friends in DC do not really believe that they have a spending problem, they think they have a revenue problem.  Yes, many like to talk a good game but in the end nobody will ever agree to any cuts meaningful enough to put a dent in the staggering debt we have accumulated.  Even if we get as serious as we can with five hundred or so bickering politicians at the wheel, it will still be decades before we reduce to debt to a more reasonable portion of GDP.  So maybe those of us with the means and the know-how should get serious about creating jobs and restoring confidence in this economy.  Once that ball starts rolling, it should be hard to stop (as long as those five hundred obstacles in DC stay out of the way).

So here is my challenge to you.  Your net worth is about $65 billion give or take a few dollars depending on which day we look.  How about you take $1 billion of that and establish a fund to provide grants to small business start ups?  Grants would be awarded based on a thorough review of business proposals and assistance provided to get the business through that critical first year.   A committee would monitor each company and help out where needed.  Rules could be put in place to prevent the business owners from paying themselves too high of a salary for a specified period of time, the point of this is to hire people and re-kindle the economic fires.   If you were to award say, 1,000 grants of $1 million each, and each start up employed an average of 15 people in the first year, then you will have directly created 15,000 new jobs!  Now imagine that your uber wealthy friends follow your example, its a job creation bonanza!  We know that not each of these businesses will last beyond that first year but a good percentage will.   Assuming an average salary of $30,000/yr, those 15,000 jobs will spend about $450 million in the economy!  If a few of your friends follow suit, then we might get a few billion or so flowing into the maket place.  This creates more demand for other goods and services and thus more jobs get created.

I don’t intend to fully flesh this out in this brief post.  I am sure some of my numbers are off a bit.  The fact that the plan needs polish does not make it a bad plan.  The great thing about blogs is that people can leave comments and I know that this will generate quite a few.  Perhaps by the end of the process we will have a more workable proposal but at least this is a start.  I also know that $1 billion sounds like a lot of money and indeed it is for most of us.  For you though, this is less than 2% of your net worth.  I hardly think you will miss it too much; Ted Turner gave $1 billion to the United Nations and he was only worth $3 billion at the time.  Personally, I think the $1 billion I am asking you to put into this proposal will do more good, but I am sure Ted sleeps well at night knowing his money is being well spent at the UN.  I am tired of hearing the pundits calling on DC to put out a “jobs plan” or to pass a “jobs bill”.  I am sure that you yourself will admit that politicians cannot create jobs.  Lets stop asking them to do what they cannot do and start taking care of each other instead!

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I have considered every aspect of this bill and although I think that right now it will not pay for itself, in the very near future it has a strong chance of paying for itself and even resulting in a surplus to go towards the national debt.  The vast majority of provisions in the bill will no doubt be costly, after all the intention is to ensure that everyone has adequate health care.  It isn’t cheap to insure 300 million people.  In reality, a large chunk of those 300 million will be paying for their own health care plus a little more to help cover the less fortunate, so I think that part will be a wash.  The part that really worried me was the administrative costs.  Yes, the bill proposes all kinds of things to ensure this program is administered as efficiently as possible.  Those of us who actually work in the government sector know better.  Few, if any government run programs are run efficiently.  I guess much of that is subjective, efficiency can be a fairly elusive concept to nail down. The bill we have made into law recently creates dozens of new federal agencies and will require hiring over 15,000 new IRS employees to manage certain monitoring and collection functions. I have not been able to find an estimate of just how many new federal employees will be hired so I am just going to guess and say its about one cubic butt load. For those readers unfamiliar with that term, I assure it is very large.

Those pesky admin costs really had me not liking this bill until I was reminded today of the Tanning Tax. Wow, this is what really put me over for this bill. I hadn’t thought much of the Tanning Tax recently since I had completely written it off as stupid and inconsequential when it was first proposed. I personally thought that the “Botox” Tax was a much better idea as a revenue generator since it would levy a tax on all elective plastic surgery. Living in Southern California, I can tell that this would result in a ton of annual money. No matter what the rate, these people will not give up their plastic surgery! Unfortunately, the “Botox” Tax was not included in the final bill. Apparently the plastic surgeons have a better lobbying group than the tanning salon owners. No big surprise there really. We still have the Tanning Tax though, and its inclusion is really the key to making this whole thing work. Will a ten percent tax on each and every tanning session pay for all the admin costs in this bill? Oh, hell no! But it doesn’t have to. And that is the real beauty of it all.

The justification for the Tanning Tax is fairly simple. People who use tanning booths are more likely to get skin cancer and thus should have to pay some extra fee in order to help defray the costs of treating those cancers later in life. To be honest, I have no idea how much a typical tanning session costs. I live in Southern California and drive a convertible, so I pretty much get my daily Vitamin D for free. Lets assume for this scenario though that the tax will amount to $2.00 per visit. If a person were to tan once a week for 30 years, that would generate $3,120 (not adjusted for inflation) in taxes. Now I am also not familiar with how much it costs to treat skin cancer after 30 years of UV exposure, but I think its likely more than the tax will generate. However, since these people will now be taking advantage of their brand new super whamodyne health care packages and seeing the doctor much more often, most of these cancers will be detected early enough that they can be excised right there in the doctor’s office for a mere pittance! That leaves the rest of that tax money to go towards paying the admin costs! A recent study shows that as many as 30 million people a year use tanning salons. Even cutting the total in half to account for people who only use them seasonally, this tax provides over $700 million a year! That will pay for a veritable army of admin types.

And it doesn’t end there. Once people realize what great revenue generator the Tanning Tax is, it will be easy to add in new taxes to pay for all those other risky behaviors. Tired of paying for other peoples weight related health problems? There’s a tax for that! Want to make sure Uncle Fred pays his fair share for laying around on the couch eating chips all day and then needing a coronary bypass? There’s a tax for that! How about stupid drivers that cut you off on the freeway? They are most likely going to use up more emergency medical care than you. There’s a tax for that! Studies show that unhappy people get sick more often than happy people. So you better turn that frown upside down buddy because there’s a tax for that to! The amount of money that we can generate using this amazing process is virtually limitless. How about skydivers? They like to claim that compared to the number of jumps per year, their accident rate is actually very low. That may be true, but if that chute doesn’t open and Mr. Jumpoutofaperfectlygoodplane happens to survive, he is going to be in the hospital for a long time. And besides, it just looks dangerous. YOU ARE JUMPING OUT OF A FREAKING PLANE FOR GOD’S SAKE!

Of course we have to work out all the details of exactly how to assess and collect these taxes, how much the rate will be, and a few other minor details but in the end it should be obvious that it is all paid for and we will still have funds left over. By my calculations (which I am performed in my bathroom with the lights off so nobody could see, and no I am not going to share the numbers with you) we will completely erase the national debt within 3 years. Yes, that’s right three short years. Damn I am excited. Being a liberal is so much more rewarding than hanging out with those stupid redneck tea-partiers.

So I am on your side now guys! Just as long as you are going to let me wear my gun to the next coffee party. What’s that? Oh, you’re uncomfortable around armed people… Well never mind then, it was a nice thought though.

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Well, it is beginning to look as if you are going to get your way.  Under intense pressure from party leadership and organized labor, the last Democrat holdouts are about to buckle under and vote yes on the largest expansion of the Federal Government since the “New Deal”.  I can’t say that I blame them.  Faced with a virtually guaranteed no win situation, I guess I would probably go ahead and vote the way I really wanted to all along and hope for the best.  A “yes” vote only likely means getting voted out of office while a “no” vote means definitely losing party support and millions of dollars in contributions form Big Labor.  Pretty easy decision when you think about it.

At least this entire fiasco has made the voting public more aware of what their elected representatives are and are not capable of.  We have seen that the vast majority are incapable of simply voting their conscience.  And by conscience, I mean listening to the people that elected them and actually representing their best interests.  We have seen people that we trusted to make informed decisions vote on massive pieces of legislation that they could not possibly have had time to read and fully comprehend.  Even if you allow for a large staff reading the bill and thoroughly briefing said elected official, several votes occurred too fast for even that to happen.  Perhaps most importantly we have learned that parliamentary process is no more than what the party in control wants it to be.  There are no standards, only rules that can be twisted and changed to best suit whichever party has the power to make those rules.  This goes for Republicans and Democrats alike.

Before this issue was thrust upon us, the lines drawn between you and me were much less clear.  We have all been forced to view this spectacle through polarizing lenses shaded in the colors of Republican and Democrat.  I have always considered myself to be a fiscally conservative, constitutional Republican.  That definition allowed me the freedom to occasionally step into that not-so-clear zone between you and me and sometimes even meet you there for a cup of coffee and a nice chat.  That just isn’t so easy anymore.  It seems now that anytime I decide to venture into that fuzzy intersection on ideas, I have to go farther over to your side to get you to talk.  I just can’t do that anymore.

So, as we all sit here on the edge of history waiting for the American political landscape to change forever, I have one thing to ask of you.   When you begin to chafe under a 50-60% tax burden, when you can’t get that new cancer drug because it’s just too expensive, or you finally realize that maybe the government has gotten a little too big,  don’t let me hear you complain.   You can gripe and bitch all you want, I just don’t want to hear it.  If you can do that for me, then I promise I will never say “I told you so”.

Please don’t take this to mean that our friendship is over my liberal brothers and sisters.  We can still be part of each others lives.  I am sure we will find new things to discuss, new ideas to argue about and maybe we will even solve a few problems along the way.   And we will have many problems to solve.  Even if this current piece of government expansion fails, there will be other attempts.  We still have to come together in the never never land between our ideals and decide how our children will ever be able to repay the massive debt we have already bestowed upon them.  Our Grandparents are already remembered in the history books as “The Greatest Generation”.  I wonder how history will view our generation.

Your Conservative Friend,

Rich

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I have made many efforts to alleviate this problem.  I have two drawers in my desk with hanging file folders neatly labeled for every concievable subject I may need to file under.  I use a personal planner from Franklin Covey where I can keep schedule information, phone numbers, and lots of other information that I wasn’t even aware I needed to keep track of until I bought the planner.  And yet, I still end up with piles of stuff cluttering my desk.  Due to having so many drawers and piles, finding any specific item usually takes awhile.  Sometimes, I can’t find the item at all even though I am sure I did not throw it away.  If I threw things away, I doubt I would have so many large piles.  I am convinced that once a certain mass density is reached on a desk, small black holes are formed.  These black holes are not large enough to be immediately noticed but do have enough gravitational pull to suck in one or two pieces of paper before disipating.

Being the good manager that I am, I decided to evaluate all of the above problem areas and then develop and implement a workable solution.  And so I am proud to present to you the optimum filing system for the chronically disorganized, the “Monocolumnar Administration, Information and Data System” or MAIDS.  Implementation is simple; take everything on or in your desk and put it in one big pile on the corner.  Finding any item is now simply a matter of excavation, the search phase has been eliminated.

Jim – “Hey Rich, where did you put the schedule for next week”

Rich – “Right there” (points to MAIDS)

Jime – “Hey Rich, do you have laste weeks TPS report?”

Rich – “Yep, right there” (points to MAIDS)

I still haven’t figured out how to solve the black hole issue.  I requisitioned a particle accelerator yeaterday.  I’ll let you know how that works out next week.

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From Article I -

All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives.

From Article II -

He shall from time to time give to the Congress Information of the State of the Union, and recommend to their Consideration such Measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient; he may, on extraordinary Occasions, convene both Houses, or either of them, and in Case of Disagreement between them, with Respect to the Time of Adjournment, he may adjourn them to such Time as he shall think proper; he shall receive Ambassadors and other public Ministers; he shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed, and shall Commission all the Officers of the United States.

So nowhere does the Constitution discuss the President writing bills and presenting them to Congress.   I really don’t care how others may interpret the above phrases either.  That is not how the Founding Fathers intended things and it is not how it should work.   There are many, many good reasons for the three branches to have separate and equal (at least as equal as possible) powers and we all know the reasons our government was established in that manner.   Remember, power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.  I would also add that surrendered power is rarely returned without bloodshed.

Rich

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Since Veteran’s Day also leads us into the Holiday season, I thought it might be appropriate to re-post a poem I first read many years ago.  I have always loved this poem since it not only expresses the sentiments of most civilians but also explains how we verterans really feel about serving.  After nearly 20 years of service, I am eternally greatful to thos who have allowed me to serve this country and have made it all worthwhile.  And now for the poem. If you haven’t seen this before, you may want to have a tissue handy.  To the best of my knowledge, the original author is unknown but is reportedly a marine who was stationed in Okinawa at the time and only requests that the poem be sent to as many people as possible.

Happy Veteran’s Day!

TWAS THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS,
HE LIVED ALL ALONE,
IN A ONE BEDROOM HOUSE MADE OF
PLASTER AND STONE.

I HAD COME DOWN THE CHIMNEY
WITH PRESENTS TO GIVE,
AND TO SEE JUST WHO
IN THIS HOME DID LIVE.

I LOOKED ALL ABOUT,
A STRANGE SIGHT I DID SEE,
NO TINSEL, NO PRESENTS,
NOT EVEN A TREE.

NO STOCKING BY MANTLE,
JUST BOOTS FILLED WITH SAND,
ON THE WALL HUNG PICTURES
OF FAR DISTANT LANDS.

WITH MEDALS AND BADGES,
AWARDS OF ALL KINDS,
A SOBER THOUGHT
CAME THROUGH MY MIND.

FOR THIS HOUSE WAS DIFFERENT,
IT WAS DARK AND DREARY,
I FOUND THE HOME OF A SOLDIER,
ONCE I COULD SEE CLEARLY.

THE SOLDIER LAY SLEEPING,
SILENT, ALONE,
CURLED UP ON THE FLOOR
IN THIS ONE BEDROOM HOME.

THE FACE WAS SO GENTLE,
THE ROOM IN SUCH DISORDER,
NOT HOW I PICTURED
A UNITED STATES SOLDIER.

WAS THIS THE HERO
OF WHOM I’D JUST READ?
CURLED UP ON A PONCHO,
THE FLOOR FOR A BED?

I REALIZED THE FAMILIES
THAT I SAW THIS NIGHT,
OWED THEIR LIVES TO THESE SOLDIERS
WHO WERE WILLING TO FIGHT.

SOON ROUND THE WORLD,
THE CHILDREN WOULD PLAY,
AND GROWNUPS WOULD CELEBRATE
A BRIGHT CHRISTMAS DAY.

THEY ALL ENJOYED FREEDOM
EACH MONTH OF THE YEAR,
BECAUSE OF THE SOLDIERS,
LIKE THE ONE LYING HERE.

I COULDN’T HELP WONDER
HOW MANY LAY ALONE,
ON A COLD CHRISTMAS EVE
IN A LAND FAR FROM HOME.

THE VERY THOUGHT
BROUGHT A TEAR TO MY EYE,
I DROPPED TO MY KNEES
AND STARTED TO CRY.

THE SOLDIER AWAKENED
AND I HEARD A ROUGH VOICE,
“SANTA DON’T CRY,
THIS LIFE IS MY CHOICE;

I FIGHT FOR FREEDOM,
I DON’T ASK FOR MORE,
MY LIFE IS MY GOD,
MY COUNTRY, MY CORPS.”

THE SOLDIER ROLLED OVER
AND DRIFTED TO SLEEP,
I COULDN’T CONTROL IT,
I CONTINUED TO WEEP.

I KEPT WATCH FOR HOURS,
SO SILENT AND STILL
AND WE BOTH SHIVERED
FROM THE COLD NIGHT’S CHILL.

I DIDN’T WANT TO LEAVE
ON THAT COLD, DARK, NIGHT,
THIS GUARDIAN OF HONOR
SO WILLING TO FIGHT.

THEN THE SOLDIER ROLLED OVER,
WITH A VOICE SOFT AND PURE,
WHISPERED, “CARRY ON SANTA,
IT’S CHRISTMAS DAY, ALL IS SECURE.

ONE LOOK AT MY WATCH,
AND I KNEW HE WAS RIGHT.
“MERRY CHRISTMAS MY FRIEND,
AND TO ALL A GOOD NIGHT.

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I currently drive a 2001 Toyota Mr2 Spyder.  This car already gets pretty decent gas mileage, but every little bit counts right?  So, on my last tank of gas, I followed all the tips and tricks that I could reasonably follow from this website  http://www.hypermiling.com.  Several of the suggestions really didn’t seem too necessary to me so I chose not to use them.  I really didn’t think I needed a chilled vest since I rarely use the AC anyway, and my tire pressure is usually dead on.

For those of you who have never heard of hypermiling and were to lazy to read the website, here is a short summary of what this change of driving habits entails.  Basically you drive more sensibly and with a constant mind set of increasing your mileage.  I figured I would see great gains in mileage as I normally drive like wild raccoon on crack, so this part was easy.  The hard part is when you get into the more “advanced” techniques such as coasting up to red lights in hope that they will change before you have to make a full stop, taking exit ramps while slowing down as little as possible, driving at or just below the speed limit, and generally pissing off everyone around you.  This has proven to be most difficult here in Southern California, garnering me far more attention on the freeway than I ever wanted.

So, after a full tank of dodging red lights, avoiding road rage on the freeway, and basically driving like grandma after a trip to the dentist, the little light came on and I went and filled it back up.  I pretty much knew the results based on how many miles I got out of the tank, but I wanted to do the calculation anyway to get the most accurate numbers.  And the net gain for all my hard work and painful foot restraint?  Three lousy freakin miles per gallon!!

I don’t who these freaks are that talk about getting 150 miles per gallon, but they must live at the top of a hill and push the car home at the end of the day.  Granted, the guys getting 150 mpg are driving hybrids, but there are guys driving regular little 4 cylinders like mine claiming to get 60 mpg.   They should be thrown into a fiery pit of burning oil, liars!  They can have their damn hypermiling, I don’t think the lousy three mpg is worth the bullets I will have to dodge on the freeway if I keep driving like this.  In fact, I think I need to put a bigger engine in my car so I can use even more gas!

So keep the pedal to the metal and don’t let granny pass you!

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While I do not feel that the enemy is “infiltrating” our military, the possibility is there.  The fact that this man was able to rise to the rank of Major shows that we are perhaps not doing as much screening as we should and in the right places.  Those of us who have held a security clearance know that the screening process for thes clearances is fairly thorough, but not until you get up to the higher clearance levels.  There is no indication that Nidal Hassan ever had any type of clearance and as a psychiatrist I would not necessarily expect him to.  So what processes are in place to ensure that a muslim-american with these types of religous beliefs does not slip through the cracks again?  And should our men and women in uniform trust those muslim-americans they currently serve with?

This could have been much worse.  Had Nidal Hassan been something other than a psyciatrist, he could have caused far more damage than he did.  Of course, he would have gone through more screening to get access to that kind of firepower so maybe the system would have prevented him.  We will never know.  But can we even screem out people based on religous beliefs?  I believe under current law, we cannot.  I think we need to take a harder look at just how much “political correctness” is going to end up costing us in the future.

Rich

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