I had a friend who posted an article on his Facebook about the American tax system explained through beer. Here it is and then my comments follow...
Tax System explained in Beer
Suppose that every day, ten men go out for beer and the bill for all ten guys comes to $100.
If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this:
The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing.
The fifth would pay $1.
The sixth would pay $3.
The seventh would pay $7.
The eighth would pay $12.
The ninth would pay $18.
The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59.
So, that's what they decided to do. The ten men drank in the bar every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement, until one day, the owner threw them a curve. 'Since you are all such good customers'' he said, 'I'm going to reduce the cost of your daily beer by $20.' Drinks for the ten now cost just $80. The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes so the first four men were unaffected. They would still drink for free. But what about the other six men - the paying customers?
How could they divide the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his 'fair share?' They realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33.. But if they subtracted that from everybody's share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would each end up being paid to drink his beer. So, the bar owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man's bill by roughly the same amount, and he proceeded to work out the amounts each should pay.
And so the fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100% savings).
The sixth now paid $2 instead of $3 (33% savings).
The seventh now pay $5 instead of $7 (28% savings).
The eighth now paid $9 instead of $12 (25% savings).
The ninth now paid $14 instead of $18 ( 22% savings).
The tenth now paid $49 instead of $59 (16% savings).
Each of the six was better off than before. And the first four continued to drink for free. But once outside the restaurant, the men began to compare their savings.
'I only got a dollar out of the $20,' declared the sixth man.
He pointed to the tenth man, 'but he got $10!'
''Yeah, that's right,' exclaimed the fifth man. 'I only saved a dollar, too. It's unfair that he got ten times more than I'
''That's true!!' shouted the seventh man. 'Why should he get $10 back when I got only two? The wealthy get all the breaks!'
''Wait a minute,' yelled the first four men in unison. 'We didn't get anything at all. The system exploits the poor!'
The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up. The next night the tenth man didn't show up for drinks, so the nine sat down and had beers without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important. They didn't have enough money between all of them for even half of the bill!
And that, boys and girls, journalists and college professors, is how our tax system works. The people who pay the highest taxes get the most benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up anymore. In fact, they might start drinking overseas where the atmosphere is somewhat friendlier.
I think there's a falacy in the logic of this article. It assumes that all of people's needs (the beer) are met by the bartender (the government). But that's not the economic model used in the capitalistic, free market United States. That's actually large-C Communism.
This article is actually a pretty sound illustration of why a tax break doesn't benefit the middle class. Despite paying taxes on a percentage basis, real world costs (food, housing, clothing, gas) are on a dollar for dollar basis. And the tax cut you describe gives the tenth man ten times the actual dollar for dollar benefit as the fifth man and provides no benefit for the first through fourth men.
Take college tuition for example. That is a flat cost. If you go to the University of Minnesota and are from Minnesota, you pay the same rate regardless of your ability to pay. So a middle class family who makes too much to qualify for financial aid has a penalty in sending their children to college. They have to choose on a dollar for dollar basis where their money would be better spent.
In my opinion, the great flaw in conservative fiscal policy is not giving tax breaks to the rich. Freeing money from the grandstanding whims of politicians (who gave $700B to Treasury to "I dunno. Fix the economy or somethin'," without oversight) is a good idea. Taxes can only benefit the people who are paying in, the citizens of the country. Investment capital can benefit anyone anywhere, especially in areas that are poised for rapid growth in the globalized economy aka The Third World. It is that the money doesn't end up being put in investments that benefit everyone.
The money is ending up emphasizing the investments over the capital. People are buying dot.com stock and mortgage-backed securities to get a healthy return for their portfolios because investing in government projects (in the form of bonds) have been money losers in the conservative fiscal world. There's no reason in the profit motive to do something that's altruistic.
Merck, for example, isn't going to do a whole lot of R&D on a new tuberculosis treatment in order to share that research with its competitors. It would be foolish to expect people to work hard, get ahead and then flush that advantage down the drain. But the Centers For Disease Control would.
So if you're saying that there should be tax breaks to free investment capital for use in the world economy, then I agree with you especially if that money is bringing basic needs to developing nations.
If you're saying that a tax break is a way to create wealth, I still need to be sold because it seems to me to be just moving water out of one bucket and into another.
If you're saying that the rich are going to take their ball and go home, I encourage you to tell me a better economy for the wealthy than the one we've got. You know that liberals have been waiting 40 years to say this...
Love it or leave it.
Saturday, October 18, 2008
Thursday, October 16, 2008
What's Up Goat?
In the wake of dropping the journo-style and not yet ready to start talking about the really personal stuff, I was racking my brains trying to come up with an interesting topic. I was standing at the mirror brushing my teeth when I saw the perfect topic staring right back at me.
One of the things that I've done a pretty good job avoiding in my lifetime [1] is making questionable choices with my appearance. I've adopted a very Lutheran "don't do anything at all to keep from sinning" approach to long or dyed hair, piercings, tattoos, etc. I even dress conservatively to keep from getting singled out. My philosophy is this. I'd rather not be labelled as a freak based upon my appearance. I'd rather that someone has to get to know me before they figure out that I'm a weirdo.
The one weak spot in my plan [2] is facial hair. I will wear the shit out of a beard. I'd like to say it's because I subscribe to an earlier model of masculinity which endorsed facial hair. That wouldn't be truthful. [3] It's more that sometimes I go a few days without shaving and I just kind of keep on going not shaving. Sometimes it becomes a really sweet beard, sometimes it becomes an excellent Sunday Stache. [4]
So with my current office-less employment and the early hour I have to be "there", I had a full palate of facial hair to work with last Sunday. First I cut off the underside. Then I went long the jawline. Finally I cut the cheeks because they always get itchy. Then I stopped. What it left me with is a goatee. [5]
Now there's really only one reason to wear facial hair that still requires the maintenance of regular shaving. You want to look cool. Which isn't always the case. When it's done right, it's very right. When it's done wrong, it's very wrong. There is no middle ground. You either look awesome or like a total tool. [6] But, like I said, my current employment is office-less so my Sunday Goatee became a Why Not All Week? Goatee.
Now I have two lengths of facial hair. There is the goatee which is now two weeks old and the rest covering the cheeks and jawline which is a week old. [7] I'm thinking I'll keep it for now and let it grow. It's going to turn cold here in Minnesota soon and having a beard is a good thing in the winter. Also all of my friends are sporting beards and this will give me a lead on Grow-vember. I mean, growing a beard is normally what people do while rededicating their lives, right? You're damn right. [8]
[1] Along with low door frames and tiger attack.
[2] Save for an earring I had for a year and then forgot about.
[3] Actually my model of being a man is more like this.
[4] When you don't shave for a whole week and then make hilarious shapes in your facial hair as you shave it on Sunday, especially when you wear it that way all day to be funny.
[5] Which is actually a Van Dyke. Like the word "irony", the dictionary definition of "goatee" differs from its real world application.
[6] Dumas, Ariel. "Don't Grow a Goatee, Mike." (1998)
[7] Still shaving the neck. Ladies, if you think in-grown hairs suck on your legs, imagine them on your throat.
[8] You should see the html of this entry. It's a little busy.
One of the things that I've done a pretty good job avoiding in my lifetime [1] is making questionable choices with my appearance. I've adopted a very Lutheran "don't do anything at all to keep from sinning" approach to long or dyed hair, piercings, tattoos, etc. I even dress conservatively to keep from getting singled out. My philosophy is this. I'd rather not be labelled as a freak based upon my appearance. I'd rather that someone has to get to know me before they figure out that I'm a weirdo.
The one weak spot in my plan [2] is facial hair. I will wear the shit out of a beard. I'd like to say it's because I subscribe to an earlier model of masculinity which endorsed facial hair. That wouldn't be truthful. [3] It's more that sometimes I go a few days without shaving and I just kind of keep on going not shaving. Sometimes it becomes a really sweet beard, sometimes it becomes an excellent Sunday Stache. [4]
So with my current office-less employment and the early hour I have to be "there", I had a full palate of facial hair to work with last Sunday. First I cut off the underside. Then I went long the jawline. Finally I cut the cheeks because they always get itchy. Then I stopped. What it left me with is a goatee. [5]
Now there's really only one reason to wear facial hair that still requires the maintenance of regular shaving. You want to look cool. Which isn't always the case. When it's done right, it's very right. When it's done wrong, it's very wrong. There is no middle ground. You either look awesome or like a total tool. [6] But, like I said, my current employment is office-less so my Sunday Goatee became a Why Not All Week? Goatee.
Now I have two lengths of facial hair. There is the goatee which is now two weeks old and the rest covering the cheeks and jawline which is a week old. [7] I'm thinking I'll keep it for now and let it grow. It's going to turn cold here in Minnesota soon and having a beard is a good thing in the winter. Also all of my friends are sporting beards and this will give me a lead on Grow-vember. I mean, growing a beard is normally what people do while rededicating their lives, right? You're damn right. [8]
[1] Along with low door frames and tiger attack.
[2] Save for an earring I had for a year and then forgot about.
[3] Actually my model of being a man is more like this.
[4] When you don't shave for a whole week and then make hilarious shapes in your facial hair as you shave it on Sunday, especially when you wear it that way all day to be funny.
[5] Which is actually a Van Dyke. Like the word "irony", the dictionary definition of "goatee" differs from its real world application.
[6] Dumas, Ariel. "Don't Grow a Goatee, Mike." (1998)
[7] Still shaving the neck. Ladies, if you think in-grown hairs suck on your legs, imagine them on your throat.
[8] You should see the html of this entry. It's a little busy.
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
A Challenge From A Friend
A friend recently challenged me to give up the journo-style of writing I've used writing this blog and the last one. Part of the reason I used that style is because I can generate a lot of it really easily. (Just being honest.) More importantly I used it because I wanted to write about what I thought about things that were happening in the world instead of talking about what's happening with me.
Usually things that are happening with me fall into two categories. Either they're stuff that is too personal to talk about (I have about three of those things right now) or they're things which aren't really that interesting. I think that makes sense and is probably the case with most people. So even when I do talk about my own life, it's because I participate in it. I present it like a reporter who wanted to make sure all of the facts were right over talking about the experience of being there.
So I'm using this post as a declaration of dropping the journo-style and with it the detached subject matter. If you want to know what I thought of the Broken Social Scene show last night or the Presidential election, you'll have to ask me directly. I'm going to migrate into a different style for a while and see what's over there. This will no longer be a blog of ideas. It will be a blog of Mike Herman.
Usually things that are happening with me fall into two categories. Either they're stuff that is too personal to talk about (I have about three of those things right now) or they're things which aren't really that interesting. I think that makes sense and is probably the case with most people. So even when I do talk about my own life, it's because I participate in it. I present it like a reporter who wanted to make sure all of the facts were right over talking about the experience of being there.
So I'm using this post as a declaration of dropping the journo-style and with it the detached subject matter. If you want to know what I thought of the Broken Social Scene show last night or the Presidential election, you'll have to ask me directly. I'm going to migrate into a different style for a while and see what's over there. This will no longer be a blog of ideas. It will be a blog of Mike Herman.
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
Thoughts Before A Debate
The general consensus this election cycle is the Obama campaign needs to be careful about not being a bully, especially towards Sarah Palin. Let's set aside general politicking for a minute. I find it more interesting that bullying is considered the natural order of the Obama campaign if not politics in general.
It's odd to me because what one side perceives as bullying is often just criticism by the other side. Since the two-party system works best when the two sides are collaborating (because then it really is the will of the people and not just the ruling party), the necessary first step is to collect the consensus of the other party. Part of this consensus-building is defining and then mediating the differences between your viewpoint and that of your collaborator.
What has changed in America in the last 15 years is things have gotten really tight, really negative and really focused on winning. There is so much at stake in each race because of the former that candidates are willing to do the middle to because they are the latter. More and more candidates are doing it and will continue to do it because it works. People respond to clear, simplified black and white more enthusiastically than muddled greys.
Which flies completely in the face of the necessary first step of collaboration and actually harms American politics. Everything is so amped up and focused on ripping out the other guy's jugular what's lost that governance is really supposed to be about moving the whole country together into prosperity. That comes with making some sacrifices especially in the "always needing to be right" arena.
You need to slow things down, think about the three fingers pointing back when you point one away and use your reasoning to criticise yourself. If you were going to fight to the death, would this be the issue? Is this really something that you really want to be your legacy, the thing people think of when they think of you?
Each of the candidates for President this year are promising change. Obama has been known as a man who focuses on change since he gave the keynote address at the Democratic convention four years ago and John McCain's allure to voters on both sides of the aisle since 2000 springs from his deserved reputation as a bipartisan worker. I hope whomever wins in November stays true to his roots and he knows the way to really create change is through grace.
Our country has endured bullying as the modis operandi of politics for too long, almost a whole generation. It's time to begin collaborating again, not berating the other side into deep-held anger. The necessary first step in collaboration is to collect the consensus of the other party. Our focus should be on how we're the same and how we all can get better and not how we can win by pointing out the other side is wrong.
So that's why I was really saddened by the news this week. For all of the talk of change and maverick reformers by these two men I deeply respect, it's going to be politics as usual in the last month before the election. And that hurts even more than if it had just been another two Ivy League-educated, wealthy white men duking it out.
It's odd to me because what one side perceives as bullying is often just criticism by the other side. Since the two-party system works best when the two sides are collaborating (because then it really is the will of the people and not just the ruling party), the necessary first step is to collect the consensus of the other party. Part of this consensus-building is defining and then mediating the differences between your viewpoint and that of your collaborator.
What has changed in America in the last 15 years is things have gotten really tight, really negative and really focused on winning. There is so much at stake in each race because of the former that candidates are willing to do the middle to because they are the latter. More and more candidates are doing it and will continue to do it because it works. People respond to clear, simplified black and white more enthusiastically than muddled greys.
Which flies completely in the face of the necessary first step of collaboration and actually harms American politics. Everything is so amped up and focused on ripping out the other guy's jugular what's lost that governance is really supposed to be about moving the whole country together into prosperity. That comes with making some sacrifices especially in the "always needing to be right" arena.
You need to slow things down, think about the three fingers pointing back when you point one away and use your reasoning to criticise yourself. If you were going to fight to the death, would this be the issue? Is this really something that you really want to be your legacy, the thing people think of when they think of you?
Each of the candidates for President this year are promising change. Obama has been known as a man who focuses on change since he gave the keynote address at the Democratic convention four years ago and John McCain's allure to voters on both sides of the aisle since 2000 springs from his deserved reputation as a bipartisan worker. I hope whomever wins in November stays true to his roots and he knows the way to really create change is through grace.
Our country has endured bullying as the modis operandi of politics for too long, almost a whole generation. It's time to begin collaborating again, not berating the other side into deep-held anger. The necessary first step in collaboration is to collect the consensus of the other party. Our focus should be on how we're the same and how we all can get better and not how we can win by pointing out the other side is wrong.
So that's why I was really saddened by the news this week. For all of the talk of change and maverick reformers by these two men I deeply respect, it's going to be politics as usual in the last month before the election. And that hurts even more than if it had just been another two Ivy League-educated, wealthy white men duking it out.
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
My Five Favorite Time-Travel Movies of All-Time
Travel through time is suprisingly a common plot device in movies. Army of Darkness, Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, Terminator 2: Judgement Day, Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me and of course the Back to the Future trilogy are all movies where the plot centers around a character or characters moving through time. However in each of the cited cases, the time travel is not as important as the characters being a fish out of water. The movie is not about time travel as much as time travel is a mechanism to create the plot.
I like movies that are centered on time travel itself. The time travel needs to be integral to the plot with the additional treat of questions of causality woven into it. The central metaphor is then not a fish out of water but a fish in the current of a river. The current may normally push the fish in a specific direction. But the fish is able to swim in many directions and not just where the current takes them. Since I like these types of movies, I've seen quite a few and these are my favorite five.
Groundhog Day
Probably the most popular movie on this list, it's the one which is 100% centered on time travel and it does it in a very innovative way. The idea is causality is not being something fluid where small changes have large impacts. Instead causality is something that you repeat over and over until you get it "right", a kind of destiny forcing your hand. Free will is out the door but except in your capacity to learn.
Add on to its uniqueness that this story could only have been a movie. If you tried to tell "Groundhog Day" as a short story, it would've been almost unreadable. The consistent hiccups in the The medium of film and the audience's familiarity with film editing makes this movie not only possible but also very enjoyable.
12 Monkeys
I liked this movie because it posits that everything that will happen will happen. It's not just regardless of the involvement of time travelers either but in some cases because of those time travelers. It puts a different spin on causality than the normal "butterfly effect."
According to 12 Monkeys, you can't go back in time and kill your grandfather because you didn't already. At the same time, there are things that happened in the past that are better understood from the perspective of the time-traveler. Once you know X precedes Z but follows Y, the entire story is changed. The time travelers' role is no longer God-like with a prescient knowledge but as a cog in the machine that serves a role in advancing history to where it was going all along anyhow.
Donnie Darko
Donnie Darko is largely indecipherable on its own. Richard Kelly's strength is what is in his head, not putting what's in his head onto the movie screen. Which is why a quick plunge into the extra material on the DVD is important to understanding this movie. This is especially useful if you get your hands on the director's cut.
Once you find out about the tangent universes, artifacts and the living receiver stuff, the movie makes a great deal of sense. One of the assumptions of most time-travel movies is that there is one true time stream and we can make tangential changes in it by traveling through it to another point. This movie is different by positing that making a tangent universe is actually a bad thing.
Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure
Okay, this movie is on here for two reasons really. First, it was a movie I watched as much as any other when I was an adolescent. My mom figured out how to use our video camera to play videotapes we rented from the videostore through the VCR and dub them. So I had a copy of this movie before owning your favorite movies was common.
Second, it's a goofy movie. It's not a heavy-handed "Going back to kill your own grandfather" time travel story. They can and do come both with and without existential dread. Bill and Ted are traveling through time to collect historical figures to come speak at the final history presentation of the school year. Even Camus would've cracked a smile at something as absurd as that.
Primer
There was a brief couple of months in early 2005 where this movie made me lose my mind. I rented it from CinemaRevolution, watched it by myself and then promptly showed it to anyone who I could get to watch it with me. It's not a movie that you can really figure out in the first time through and also gets better with repeated viewings. I was so enthralled I literally watched the movie like an addict.
It was addicting because it has the most believable mechanism for time-travel in any movie I'd seen. Normally it's a device like a flux capacitor and we're asked to suspend our disbelief that this device is the reason time travel is possible. "Primer" used a version of realistic physics to explain how time travel could actually be possible in real physics. Seeing "Primer" was, for me, like having a dream that you wake from and are convinced that it was real.
I like movies that are centered on time travel itself. The time travel needs to be integral to the plot with the additional treat of questions of causality woven into it. The central metaphor is then not a fish out of water but a fish in the current of a river. The current may normally push the fish in a specific direction. But the fish is able to swim in many directions and not just where the current takes them. Since I like these types of movies, I've seen quite a few and these are my favorite five.
Groundhog Day
Probably the most popular movie on this list, it's the one which is 100% centered on time travel and it does it in a very innovative way. The idea is causality is not being something fluid where small changes have large impacts. Instead causality is something that you repeat over and over until you get it "right", a kind of destiny forcing your hand. Free will is out the door but except in your capacity to learn.
Add on to its uniqueness that this story could only have been a movie. If you tried to tell "Groundhog Day" as a short story, it would've been almost unreadable. The consistent hiccups in the The medium of film and the audience's familiarity with film editing makes this movie not only possible but also very enjoyable.
12 Monkeys
I liked this movie because it posits that everything that will happen will happen. It's not just regardless of the involvement of time travelers either but in some cases because of those time travelers. It puts a different spin on causality than the normal "butterfly effect."
According to 12 Monkeys, you can't go back in time and kill your grandfather because you didn't already. At the same time, there are things that happened in the past that are better understood from the perspective of the time-traveler. Once you know X precedes Z but follows Y, the entire story is changed. The time travelers' role is no longer God-like with a prescient knowledge but as a cog in the machine that serves a role in advancing history to where it was going all along anyhow.
Donnie Darko
Donnie Darko is largely indecipherable on its own. Richard Kelly's strength is what is in his head, not putting what's in his head onto the movie screen. Which is why a quick plunge into the extra material on the DVD is important to understanding this movie. This is especially useful if you get your hands on the director's cut.
Once you find out about the tangent universes, artifacts and the living receiver stuff, the movie makes a great deal of sense. One of the assumptions of most time-travel movies is that there is one true time stream and we can make tangential changes in it by traveling through it to another point. This movie is different by positing that making a tangent universe is actually a bad thing.
Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure
Okay, this movie is on here for two reasons really. First, it was a movie I watched as much as any other when I was an adolescent. My mom figured out how to use our video camera to play videotapes we rented from the videostore through the VCR and dub them. So I had a copy of this movie before owning your favorite movies was common.
Second, it's a goofy movie. It's not a heavy-handed "Going back to kill your own grandfather" time travel story. They can and do come both with and without existential dread. Bill and Ted are traveling through time to collect historical figures to come speak at the final history presentation of the school year. Even Camus would've cracked a smile at something as absurd as that.
Primer
There was a brief couple of months in early 2005 where this movie made me lose my mind. I rented it from CinemaRevolution, watched it by myself and then promptly showed it to anyone who I could get to watch it with me. It's not a movie that you can really figure out in the first time through and also gets better with repeated viewings. I was so enthralled I literally watched the movie like an addict.
It was addicting because it has the most believable mechanism for time-travel in any movie I'd seen. Normally it's a device like a flux capacitor and we're asked to suspend our disbelief that this device is the reason time travel is possible. "Primer" used a version of realistic physics to explain how time travel could actually be possible in real physics. Seeing "Primer" was, for me, like having a dream that you wake from and are convinced that it was real.
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