Paul M. Jones

Why does an elite that is actually not admirable in what it does, and not effective or productive, that has added little or nothing of value to the civilizational stock, that cannot possibly do the things it claims it can do, that services rent-seekers and the well-connected, that believes in an incoherent mishmash of politically correct platitudes, that is parasitic, have such an elevated view of itself?

The old British aristocracy could at least truthfully say that they had physical courage and patriotism and cared for their shires and neighborhoods and served for free as justices of the peace. The old French aristocracy could at least truthfully say that had refinement and manners and a love for art and literature and sophistication and beautiful things. The old Yankee elite could truthfully say that it was enterprising and public spirited and willing to rough it and do hard work when necessary. This lot have little or nothing to be proud of, but they are arrogant as Hell.

Why aren’t these people laughed out of the room?

via Chicago Boyz » Blog Archive » Brooding.

By taking advantage of an asynchronous approach Starbucks also has to deal with the same challenges that asynchrony inherently brings. Take for example, correlation. Drink orders are not necessarily completed in the order they were placed. This can happen for two reasons. First, multiple baristas may be processing orders using different equipment. Blended drinks may take longer than a drip coffee. Second, baristas may make multiple drinks in one batch to optimize processing time. As a result, Starbucks has a correlation problem. Drinks are delivered out of sequence and need to be matched up to the correct customer. Starbucks solves the problem with the same "pattern" we use in messaging architectures -- they use a Correlation Identifier. In the US, most Starbucks use an explicit correlation identifier by writing your name on the cup and calling it out when the drink is complete. In other countries, you have to correlate by the type of drink.

via The Perils of Error Reduction - Business - The Atlantic.

Missouri voters on Tuesday overwhelmingly rejected a federal mandate to purchase health insurance, rebuking President Barack Obama's administration and giving Republicans their first political victory in a national campaign to overturn the controversial health care law passed by Congress in March.

"The citizens of the Show-Me State don't want Washington involved in their health care decisions," said Sen. Jane Cunningham, R-Chesterfield, one of the sponsors of the legislation that put Proposition C on the August ballot. She credited a grass-roots campaign involving Tea Party and patriot groups with building support for the anti-Washington proposition.

With most of the vote counted, Proposition C was winning by a ratio of nearly 3 to 1. The measure, which seeks to exempt Missouri from the insurance mandate in the new health care law, includes a provision that would change how insurance companies that go out of business in Missouri liquidate their assets.

"I've never seen anything like it," Cunningham said at a campaign gathering at a private home in Town and Country. "Citizens wanted their voices to be heard."

via Prop C passes overwhelmingly.

And finally, why is reasoning so biased and motivated whenever self-interest or self-presentation are at stake? Wouldn't it be adaptive to know the truth in social situations, before you then try to manipulate?

The answer, according to Mercier and Sperber, is that reasoning was not designed to pursue the truth. Reasoning was designed by evolution to help us win arguments. That's why they call it The Argumentative Theory of Reasoning. So, as they put it, and it's here on your handout, "The evidence reviewed here shows not only that reasoning falls quite short of reliably delivering rational beliefs and rational decisions. It may even be, in a variety of cases, detrimental to rationality. Reasoning can lead to poor outcomes, not because humans are bad at it, but because they systematically strive for arguments that justify their beliefs or their actions. This explains the confirmation bias, motivated reasoning, and reason-based choice, among other things."

Another "reason" (ha!) why it's not enough to be smart. Via Edge: JONATHAN HAIDT: The New Science of Morality.

... ever since the first set of federal guidelines appeared in 1980, Americans heard that they had to reduce their intake of saturated fat by cutting back on meat and dairy products and replacing them with carbohydrates. Americans dutifully complied. Since then, obesity has increased sharply ...

...

According to Scientific American, growing research into carbohydrate-based diets has demonstrated that the medical establishment may have harmed Americans by steering them toward carbs. Research by Meir Stampfer, a professor of nutrition and epidemiology at Harvard, concludes that diets rich in carbohydrates that are quickly digestible--that is, with a high glycemic index, like potatoes, white rice, and white bread--give people an insulin boost that increases the risk of diabetes and makes them far more likely to contract cardiovascular disease than those who eat moderate amounts of meat and fewer carbs. ...

In short, "government gets it wrong again." They can't even get *diet* right, and they want to control all medical care? If this were a corporation there would be lawsuits galore. Via Egg on Their Faces by Steven Malanga, City Journal Summer 2010.

Where does our sense of right and wrong come from? Most people think it is a gift from God, who revealed His laws and elevates us with His love. A smaller number think that we figure the rules out for ourselves, using our capacity to reason and choosing a philosophical system to live by.

Moral naturalists, on the other hand, believe that we have moral sentiments that have emerged from a long history of relationships. To learn about morality, you don’t rely upon revelation or metaphysics; you observe people as they live.

All emphasis mine. Via Op-Ed Columnist - The Moral Naturalists - NYTimes.com.

I have to say I am highly sympathetic to that view. So was Adam Smith, as noted by the guys as Cafe Hayek:

It’s worth noting that Adam Smith arrived at the same conclusion 251 years ago. In The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759), this brilliant scholar – who, in 1776, published an even more influential book – wrote that “Our continual observations upon the conduct of others insensibly lead us to form to ourselves certain general rules concerning what is fit and proper either to be done or to be avoided.”

Just as workable economic arrangements are not, and cannot be, designed and imposed by a higher power, so too, Smith explained, workable morality itself is the product not of any grand design but of the everyday actions, reactions, observations, and practical assessments of ordinary people going about their daily business.

Via The Origins of Moral Sentiments.

Three waves of new taxes are coming. And what the hell is the "Economic Substance Doctrine"?

Resurrection of the death tax, however, isn't the only tax problem that will be ushered in Jan. 1. Many other cuts from the Bush administration are set to disappear and a new set of taxes will materialize. And it's not just the rich who will pay.

The lowest bracket for the personal income tax, for instance, moves up 50% -- to 15% from 10%. The next lowest bracket -- 25% -- will rise to 28%, and the old 28% bracket will be 31%. At the higher end, the 33% bracket is pushed to 36% and the 35% bracket becomes 39.6%.

...

But even more tax headaches lie ahead. This "second wave" of hikes, as Americans for Tax Reform puts it, are designed to pay for ObamaCare and include:

...

- The Medicine Cabinet Tax. Americans, says ATR, "will no longer be able to use health savings account, flexible spending account, or health reimbursement pretax dollars to purchase nonprescription, over-the-counter medicines (except insulin)."

...

- Brand Name Drug Tax. Makers and importers of brand-name drugs will be liable for a tax of $2.5 billion in 2011. The tax goes to $3 billion a year from 2012 to 2016, then $3.5 billion in 2017 and $4.2 billion in 2018. Beginning in 2019 it falls to $2.8 billion and stays there. And who pays the new drug tax? Patients, in the form of higher prices.

- Economic Substance Doctrine. ATR reports that "The IRS is now empowered to disallow perfectly legal tax deductions and maneuvers merely because it judges that the deduction or action lacks 'economic substance.'"

- A third and final (for now) wave, says ATR, consists of the alternative minimum tax's widening net, tax hikes on employers and the loss of deductions for tuition:

- The Tax Policy Center, no right-wing group, says that the failure to index the AMT will subject 28.5 million families to the tax when they file next year, up from 4 million this year.

...

- The deduction for tuition and fees will no longer be available and there will be limits placed on education tax credits. Teachers won't be able to deduct their classroom expenses and employer-provided educational aid will be restricted. Thousands of families will no longer be allowed to deduct student loan interest.

- Then there's the tax on Americans who decline to buy health care insurance (the tax the administration initially said wasn't a tax but now argues in court that it is) plus a 3.8% Medicare tax beginning in 2013 on profits made in real estate transactions by wealthier Americans.

All emphasis mine. Via The Tax Tsunami On The Horizon - Investors.com.

Through the highway camera system, it was hoped that an additional burst of revenue would roll in. Instead, it became a massive drain on the state's budget. Not only did it not bring in the hoped-for revenue, it didn't even make enough money to pay for expense of installing and maintaining the cameras.

The citizens simply ignored the tickets that arrived in the mail. The state of Arizona doesn't have the money nor the resources to follow up on the unpaid tickets. To top that all off, a group of activists went around vandalizing the traffic cams '" icing on the cake.

...

Another quote from Lt. King was, "If everyone was to drive the speed limit, the cameras would never flash." As if the flashing light was the real problem, and strangers with guns watching the through cameras is of no concern.

Sorry, Lt. King, but our American culture was built on the idea that we can '" and should '" tell the political class to piss off. The Founders refused to comply with political thuggery, and they revolted against the insolence of an elitist political class.

via Non-Compliance Topples Arizona Traffic-Cam Program - Associated Content - associatedcontent.com.

Let's go back to our humble friend, the pencil. They're cheap. They're everywhere. But nobody knows how to make one. It is mentally and physically impossible. Think that through for a minute.

You would have to chop and cut the wood yourself. If you use an axe, you'd have to mine, smelt, and process the iron ore in the blade. And make the tools to do so. You'd have to find rubber trees to make the eraser -- hopefully you happen to live in a tropical climate. You'd have to extract and process the rubber yourself, and make all the tools for that yourself.

Then you'd need to mine and mold the aluminum for the little bit that holds the eraser to the shaft. And you'd need to know how to make yellow paint, and have access to all the ingredients. And how to make the paintbrush you need to apply it. Then there's the matter of finding graphite for the pencil lead...

You get the point -- even the everyday is way beyond the capacities of any individual. It takes thousands of specialists coming together from all around the world just to make a simple, cheap little thing you can buy at any convenience store for less than a dollar.

Insights like that are why I became an economist.

via The American Spectator : Economists vs. Economics.

So every time a member of the public sells more than $600 worth of gold to a dealer, Piret said, the transaction will have to be reported to the government by the buyer.

Pat Heller, who owns Liberty Coin Service in Lansing, Mich., deals with around 1,000 customers every week. Many are individuals looking to protect wealth in an uncertain economy, he said, while others are dealers like him.

With spot market prices for gold at nearly $1,200 an ounce, Heller estimates that he'll be filling out between 10,000 and 20,000 tax forms per year after the new law takes effect.

"I'll have to hire two full-time people just to track all this stuff, which cuts into my profitability," he said.

An issue that combines gold coins, the Obama health care law and the IRS is bound to stir passions. Indeed, trading in gold coins and bars has surged since the financial crisis unfolded and Obama took office, metal dealers said.

The buying of actual gold, as opposed to futures or options tied to the price of gold, has been a particularly popular trend among Tea Party supporters and others who are fearful of Obama's economic policies, gold industry members such as Heller and Piret said. Conservative/libertarian commentators, such as Fox News Channel's Glenn Beck, routinely tout precious metal on the air as being a safe, shrewd investment in an environment in which the financial system -- and paper money backed by the rest of the world's faith in the U.S. government's credit -- is viewed as increasingly fragile.

via Secret Gold Coin Tax Embedded in Health Bill.