100 days of Obama

Given the popularity of rating the progress of our new president, I figured 'what the heck', I'll jump onto this band wagon and throw in my two cents. So, in no particular order, my thoughts on the first 100 days of the 44th president of these United States.

The Bailouts - Here I give him a resounding 'meh'. No better or worse than I would have expected from a politician. I would have greatly preferred that he move instead to protect investors and provide a fallback lending program to insure businesses could get credit, and then just let the wall street firms collapse. There may be good reasons that this could not be done, but I get the impression that it has more to do with the strength of the lobbying groups than anything else. Lower ranking for the auto bailouts. These are companies that were marginal when the economy was good, they need to be replaced with something better. I would prefer to see this handled by letting them fall and providing assistance with rebuilding whatever rises from the ashes. I would say he is doing a little worse on this than I would have expected.

The Stimulus - I am neutral on this. If I understand the theory here, the notion is that we need to spend a buncha money to get things moving, and as long as we are spending it may as well be on Democrats dream list of improvements. I don't agree with all of their projects, but I am not offended by most of them either. Here I would have to say he is doing what I would have expected him to.

The Budget - This ties in heavily with the previous two. There is little arguing that he is spending at a level not seen in generations. As far as I can tell nearly all of the increase is the bailouts and stimulus, so I will not deal with that separately. His long term budget relies heavily on expected savings from programs not yet implemented to show things will get better, this is a classic case of 'counting your chicks before they hatch'; Before the eggs are even laid in this case. I could knock him for that, but this is pretty standard fare. He's dealing with an emergency situation; I do not think we can fairly judge his normal behaviour from this.

Foreign Policy - Here is where I think he really shines. Never mind that he is not getting instant results from his practice of showing respect to smaller countries; We are in this for the long game. Will someone mistake this for weakness and try to push us? Maybe, maybe not. If he caves when pushed, we have a problem, but I do not see him doing that. Countries that flat out hate us will not be won over by this, but they are largely a lost cause at this point anyways. It is the ones on the fence that are going to be affected. We have the most offensively capable military in the history of humanity, and the most powerful economy to go with it. Kudos to him for realizing that acting tough is not necessary when you are tough. This is one area where he has exceeded my expectations.

Inexperience - This is a mixed bag. The way he handles himself, and some of the errors made clearly show his lack of experience running things. Then again, so does his simply ignoring trivial attacks and his general tendency to not act like a politician sometimes. I like this. Whether I agree with him or not, I see him focused on doing what he thinks needs doing more than on playing at politics for it's own sake. The small errors are the price for this, and well worth it. (As a practical matter, I think he had better stay on target with what he does - the general public is willing to overlook small errors because he is seen as above the trivia, let him stoop to lower tactics just once or twice and they will turn on him with interest.)

Executive Power and Transparency - The big failure. Moving to expand protections for domestic surveillance and the moving of Gitmo operations to Afghanistan are unacceptable and the only area where he has really disappointed. Apparently things look different from the big chair. If the Republican party had not decided to go with an 'attack everything' strategy, they could hammer him hard on this; as things stand it is getting lost in the poutrage. Respect must be given to the grassroots Left for calling him on this, but the parties are not paying enough attention to keep it on the news, and that is what it takes to change stuff like this.

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I am sure I missed stuff, but that is all I feel like typing for now.

My general impression? Pretty damn good for a Democrat.

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Practical Application of the Silly Putty Theory of Society

Having built a base with my last post, it is time to look at the practical applications of the theory. In the end any model is only as good as the utility it provides.

The main conclusion that I draw is that focused regulations will always result in undesired consequences. While one can point out specific flaws in individual regulations, that it not the true cause. The real cause it that a fluid system moving towards equilibrium of the forces acting upon it will always adapt around localized obstructions. The individual mechanism may matter in the details, but in a macro sense, not so much.

This should not be taken to mean that no regulation can work. It is rather an assessment that only actions that act as a force on a significant 'volume' of the system will ever achieve their desired goals.

In the comments in my last post Tao raised the question of the FDIC. At first I would have considered this a limit, but really it is a force. It creates a vector the magnitude of peoples faith in the governments ability to meet the guarantee, placed in precise opposition to their fear that money in the bank could simply vanish if the bank collapsed. The existence of the FDIC is probably the single most important difference between this recession and the great depression.

Social security, food stamps, and various 'here's your money' programs act to prevent those who fail to succeed in society from going into unrecoverable free fall. Even from a purely economic sense, it is hard to deny the importance of this. People with nothing to loose are dangerous. The proper balance between this type of assistance and programs oriented towards providing an upward impetus is a question not yet fully answered.

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A truly blatant example if what I don't like about focused legislation is here (by way of the Coyote Blog) . The response may be to say that policy can be better designed. I would disagree. Anyone who has ever tried to get management types to do a use case scenario analysis for software design will understand why. Even people whose main job is to look at the big picture are incredibly bad at envisioning all the ways a system may be needed to act. Rarely can you get them to come up with more that half a dozen cases. And of course they complain the software has a bug when it does exactly what they asked for and yields a bad result.

(An unrealated observation. It is hard to type while on an excercise bike. But is easy to pedal a long time when typing. Go figure.)

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Societal Inertia

As those of you who have been so patiently following my musings know, I have been doing a lot of research lately on statistics about the economy,government, and society over the last however many years I can get data for. And I have finally come to one important conclusion.

The government has a lot less control than most folks think. There are underlying currents in society that have a vastly larger affect than any set of policies or any political party.

Something changed in the behaviour of society in the mid to late 1970's. People started to save less and spend more. Credit went from being a necessary evil to be used only when absolutely needed, to a way to buy conveniences and luxuries.

I would guess this to be a generational change. This was the point at which people who had not lived through the Great Depression began to economically 'outnumber' those who had not.

Government changed also. Government spending, which had been increasing steadily, levelled off. We went from a steady budget surplus to consistent deficits, following just a few years after personal expenditures did the same.

What strikes me about this is that Government followed the public, not the other way around. It is popular to talk about Reagan as the start of this change, but I think that he was a symptom, not a cause.

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Loosing By Winning

For most of my life, one defining characteristic of the Republican party has been their political effectiveness. Not necessarily at accomplishing anything, but at winning. They developed the concept of party unity and discipline to an extent that the Democrats never did. It kept them winning elections, and to a large extent controlling congress even when they did not win elections.

And it is what is killing them now. The current crop has learned a pattern of behaviour that has been successful their entire careers, but that is all it is. A pattern of behaviour. The ideas and ideals have long since been replaced with talking points and dogma. It's not enough anymore, but the party structure has no room for new ideas.

But because it has always worked, they cannot adapt. They lash out in frustration, doing the same things they have always done, and they cannot understand why it doesn't work anymore. Look at their 'budget' proposal. That has to be the most pathetic thing I have ever seen. Lower taxes but then expect the deficit to fall because people will voluntarily pay more than required? Seriously? Freeze spending? Oh, yeah, and then I'll make my car run better by cutting off 20% of the fuel. They attack Obama for everything but breathing, and hell they will probably start in on that next. This is particularly bad because there are some things he is doing that do deserve some serious scrutiny, but no one is listening to chicken little anymore.

The Republican party needs to grow the f$%! up and start looking at what they can learn from Obama. It is not about strategy. It is not about tactics. It is about having a real plan about policy and a real goal for the future.

And the Democrats should probably be looking closely at the failure of the Republicans. This is the long term risk success brings.

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Measuring Sucess

So a little bit ago, I posted a question about how we would measure the success or failure of our society and government. The silence was deafening. The only direct response was regarding health care, and I while it is a worthwhile area of study, it is certainly not enough by itself. Later I have received comments rejecting the concept of quantitative measurement as a means of assessment altogether. This does not work for me either.

I think the problem with settling on a set of quantitative measurements is that one will quickly discover that the most tightly held beliefs are often not supported by the evidence. Two obvious examples would be 'tax and spend democrat' and 'rising cost of living'. A review of the deficit will quickly sink the first, the consumer price index the latter.

It is simply the nature of how the brain works that we easily accept information that matches our world view, and we challenge or outright reject information that contradicts it. Humans are incredibly poor at weighing the costs and benefits of actions in a rigorous fashion; it is an ability that must be consciously and rigorously developed. Witness the popularity of video poker. A few seconds thought will make it obvious that as the lottery turns a consistent profit, the players must turn a consistent loss. And yet ask those who play and 99 out of 100 will tell you they are 'even or maybe a little ahead'. The emotional impact of winning and loosing is not a linear affect, so many small losses will be outweighed by the rare large win, even though the net over time is always a loss.

Likewise, the benefits of policies we agree with are easier to see and have more emotional impact than the costs. The opposite is true of policies we disagree with. Attached to this is the tendency to apply a binary 'good'/'bad' label to the policy. The reality is messy and unattractive; all policies have costs and benefits. There are vanishing few pure gain or pure loss actions.

So I conclude that an objective quantitative means of measuring society is necessary to make any kind of informed decision. As a matter of practicality, some of the means will slant one way, some will slant another. As long as they balance out reasonably well, the imperfections of any one indicator are not a huge problem.

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Not Democratic?

The whole gay marriage issue has resurrected a perennial complaint on the right about judicial activism, now focused on how it is 'not democratic'.

Many people, most of them better writers than me, have addressed this, but I have seen none that mentions what is to me the key response.

Yes, it is undemocratic. It's supposed to be.

Some things are simply not to be decided by a vote. Democracy is the best government system humanity has found. That does not mean it is perfect. That is why we have a constitution, and more specifically a bill of rights. These are the things that are not negotiable.

Or to put it most simply, when the courts strike down a democratically enacted law to protect the rights of a minority, they are doing their job. No more, no less.

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What is 'Fair'?

There has been much use of the word 'fair' floating around recently. I personally do not generally use the word; 'Fair' seems like a childhood concept to me. Since I do not use it myself, and given my awe inspiringly poor grasp of implicit arguments, I am curious what people mean by 'fair'.

Since it is being used in the context of taxes lately, I will discuss it in those terms. All these stats are pulled from here.

As of 2006, the top 20% of people make 55.7% of all the money, and pay 69.3% of all Federal taxes. The rest of us make 44.3% of all the money, and pay 30.7% of the taxes.

For a more stark comparison, the top 10% make 41.6% of all the money, and pay 55.4% of all Federal taxes. The rest of us make 58.4% of the money, and pay 44.6% of the taxes.

The average tax paid (per household?) is $18,800. The average tax paid by the bottom quintile is $700. The average tax paid by the second quintile is $4,000. The average tax paid by the middle quintile is $8,600. The average tax paid by the fourth quintile is $15,700. The average tax paid by the top quintile is $64,000. (all numbers federal taxes for 2006).

The extent to which the majority of people in America are subsidized by the wealthy is difficult to overstate, at least in tax terms. Is this 'fair'? It is certainly hard to argue that the wealthy are not paying their 'fair' share. On the other hand, they can afford it. And the simple fact that their portion of the overall income is increasing proves rather handily that this is not a crippling burden.

I do wonder about the inevitable effects of this on policy however. The 'payocracy' effect (he who pays makes the rules) is nearly unavoidable. If they are paying for the Federal government, is it not 'fair' that they have more say in how it works? And 'fair' or not, is it in the best ineterests of the country if they do effectively control the government? Come to that, whether or not it is in the best interests of the country, can it be avoided?

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Obama Disappoints

Those who have spoken to me here and there in my blog travels know that I am not generally big on criticizing Obama. I dont often agree with him, but I generally accept that he is doing what he was hired to do, the way he was hired to do it.

But this is seriously disappointing. He is actually acting worse (at least by some measures) than Bush with the whole domestic surveilance thing? And closing Guantanamo is looking less and less like a good thing. Are we just moving prisoners to somewhere less visible?

My faith that he was at least trying to do the right thing as he knows it has taken a serious hit here.

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So, Gun Control

I have avoided gun control on my blog, mostly because it is an area where I have some very strongly held opinions, but an honest discussion is needed somewhere, so here goes nothing...

The whole 'Obama is/isn't going to take away your guns' is a meaningless distraction. Period.

Those of us who pay attention to gun control / gun rights are well aware that an all-at-once gun seizure is not going to happen. That was a one-time trick, New Orleans used up the free pass.

What we are watching for is the slow erosion.

Before I go to far into this, a question for the non gun owners who read this:

What do you think Obama's policies on gun control are?

(EDIT 4/10/09: I am going to abandon gun control for bit here. Not because I don't want to continue the discussion, I just have an idea on how to do it without hijacking this blog. Will update when I get somewhere, probably this weekend)

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Health Care, an Alternate Proposal

OK, we have been going around about health care, so I thought I'd throw my two cents in here in my little playground.

I support a health savings account(HSA)/ high deductible insurance plan.

Here's why:

Insurance is a form of gambling. When you play the lottery, you balance the near certainty that you will lose a small amount of money against the possibility of winning a great deal of money. Insurance is exactly the same. As a group, you always pay more than you get. Therefore the goal should be to use insurance as little as possible.

Some major catastrophes are simply too expensive to save against, so we pool the risk with insurance, and accept the inevitable loss. This would be a high deductible/ high benefits plan that covers only major problems, but covers them more-or-less completely. This should be pretty inexpensive, as it would be rarely used.

To cover regular, predictable costs, you save money against need. This is the only system that removes the administrative costs and overhead associated with insurance. No one but you needs to decide if it is a reasonable expense.

The benefits would be reduction in overhead, first. Also, people would pay attention to how much their treatment costs. Going to the doctor is the only service I can think of where people do not expect to know what it costs ahead of time. Often, if you ask, they cannot even tell you. I think that it is not coincidence that this is also the only service I know of with uncontrolled cost increases.

Right now, we treat medical care as a cost no object service, and place a premium on speed of service, options, and quite frankly a 'magic cure' mentality. So that is what we get. If we apply a cost/benefits analysis every time we see a doctor, some of them will respond and gain a competitive advantage. Prices will go down for everyone.

If I am right and prices do go down, that will solve a lot of the coverage problem by itself. Also, the oft touted 'x million without coverage' is a bit of an exageration. It is not a measure of how many lack coverage at any one point in time, but rather how many lack coverage for some span within a time frame, usually a couple of years. This is caused by relying on employers to provide insurance. A HSA is not reliant on employment, so a substantial portion of those without coverage now would be eliminated.

If we eliminate the temporary coverage gaps, and reduce or at least contain costs, then medicaid can be expanded to cover the poor at a sustainable cost.

With this system, the concern about who decides what treatment is rendered moot - there is no longer a gap between who pays and the patient, they are one and the same.

Note that hybrid systems would also be possible. Making catastrophic coverage a universal system with a mild progressive tax support would fix the 'dying from lack of coverage' issue, without eliminating the cost benefits of value shopping.

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Government Control

With the liberals so strongly in ascendance right now, the push to implement many long cherished plans to improve the welfare of the public. It's what liberals do, and that is as it should be, at least in my eyes.

Attendant to this is the resistance of conservatives, who are concerned with what the consequences of these programs will be, both in what they intend to accomplish, and in the unintended side effects. It's what conservatives do, and that is as it should be, at least in my eyes.

The usual game of straw arguments is being played out right before all of our eyes, with liberals pointing out the great successes of some programs while ignoring the failures, and conservatives pointing out the failures, while ignoring the successes. Preach to the choir, pat each other on the back and go flame the other side. We all think the other side is stupid, greedy, lazy.

Enough.

I will attempt here to take an honest view of the great concern of the conservatives when we talk about government programs, and that of course is government control.

I wanted to keep this abstract, not touching on any actual current issue to avoid entrenched positions, but I find that it will not coalesce without a real world example. So (deep breath) I will go with a single-point example from health care.

One common criticism of our current system of health care is the relatively low life expectancy, especially compared to how much we spend. Nobody really has a good explanation for this, I suspect because the obvious is too uncomfortable to talk about. Obesity. Obesity in the US has reached levels unprecedented in history. And it has health implications, serious ones. If we go to a government controlled health care system, the pressure will be immense to show gains in health and life expectancy. That cannot be done without reducing obesity.

But how? Forcing excercise? Banning high-fat foods? Taxing the overweight? Or doing a sneaky tax - this is a 'credit' for being a healthy weight, which has the exact same effect as taxing being overweight, while calling it a tax cut (the last is not an abstract example, the UK is considering it last I checked).

Are we willing to accept this sort of control over our lives? Let someone tell us that we have to excercise. What we can and cannot eat? Obesity is over represented among the poor. Are we going to tax them for it?

And can it work? Solutions applied to literally millions of people are either going to be one-size-fits-all or else riddled with rules and loopholes. Will that be outweighed by the benefits?

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Infinite?

So a recent post I did that was really just a temper tantrum put down in words turned into a full on debate, with me supporting the side I was pissed at to start off with. By a wide margin, the most comments any post I have done has ever had, even if better than a third were mine.

I'm not really a fan of debate, I much prefer discussion. But it is easy to fall into when people have different views, especially when the difference is about the basic state of current reality. I am no more immune than others, and such things quickly develop a momentum of their own.

I am currently spending an excessive amount of time doing research on all sorts of economic data, trying to get a feel for trends, testing what I thought I knew against cold hard numbers. When I figure out a good format, I will try and make what I find accessible online.

A couple of requests for anyone who reads this:

1 - How do we measure success on a societal scale? Please try to step back from policy focus and think large scale. For example, equality is good, but everyone starving would be equality. It is not enough by itself. How do we evaluate the health of a system overall?

2 - Anyone know a good flexible way of generating graphs to present data in an easily readable format. I would like to be able to post both graphs and raw tables. The FRED graphs come with shaded bands that show recessions. I would like to be able to mark administrations, congressional majorities, perhaps add lines to show when particular legislation occurred.

And a final thought that created the title for this post. Every major political group, every big name analyst, every budget proposal has one thing in common. They all assume that the goal is infinite growth.

Nothing grows infinitely.

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The Future of the Republican Party

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

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Lets move the discussion...

Well, I have been working on a new post, but then Pamela posted this wonderful post which has the potential to be so much more interesting than my abstract musings.
I'll put up a real post later today probably, but for now I heartily encourage anyone who stops by to join in at Pam's.

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For Contrast

An interesting contrast. The last graph implied that unemployment gets worse each recession. This shows a different result. So each recovery we end up with less and less people unemployed for longer and longer.

I have no idea what that means, although the nasty side of me says we have filtered down to the real losers. They would be first to go and last to be rehired. But let's be honest, I am a bit of a work snob, so we can't take that too seriously.

Also, I always thought that the 2001/2 recession could be laid at the feet of 9/11, these graphs suggest that we were just 'due'. Maybe any trigger would have done.

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Insert Tiltle Here :)

OK, anyone got any ideas what this means? Note how unemployment (or at least time to get re-employed) drops like a rock, and then bam! Recession.

Um, why is this?

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Abortion

So, to stick with social issues, why not stick my... hand ... into the moral bear-trap that is abortion?

As usual, I have pretty much no use for any of the standard arguments from either side. In just about every case, they are not real reasons, they are just that, arguments. A real reason applies to more than just one issue. And neither side is inclined to apply "choice" or "life" to any other issue. The abortion 'issue' is barely even about abortion any more. It is about 'women's rights' on the one hand and 'traditional values' on the other. All the talk is just noise, as far as I am concerned.

So I will start from scratch.

The notion that life begins at conception has no justification that I can see. The notion that life begins at birth is just as unsupportable. And nobody that I know of supports the notion that there is any definable point in between where one tick of the clock, it's just a collection of cells with no rights, the next tick it is a baby and killing it would be murder. We could go with viability, but that creates a weird system where the definition of a human being changes with advancements in medical science. So, this isn't really getting me anywhere.

If there was an overwhelming agreement amongst the people as to when life began, we could go with that. Many laws are based on that alone. Public nudity, for example. But there is no agreement. Thus the whole argument. So this does not help much either.

I could, I suppose turn to religion, but since I am non-religious to an extent that is hard to overstate, no help there.

Personal liberty is the only argument left. One of my most core beliefs is that personal liberty is a default state - that is, it needs no reason. Rather, it may only be limited where a compelling reason exists to do so. Since I can find no such reason, I can only view this as the final word.

Those who oppose abortion are best served by addressing the reasons for abortion, rather than the act itself. Not only is this morally superior in my eyes, it is just flat out more likely to work.

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Morality, Homosexuality, Liberals, and Conservatives

For the purposes of this post, I am going to talk about liberalism and conservatism in a broad sense, separate from the political dogma that has attached itself to each. This may be a bit jarring, but try and bear with me.

A basic, undeniable truth : Change has consequences. Some of those consequences will be desirable, some will not. Some will be intentional, some will not. Some will be predictable, some... well, you get the picture.

Liberalism can be defined as a tendency to see the desirable effects of changes, and a relative lack of concern with the unpredictable effects.

Conservatism can be defined as a tendency to see the undesirable effects of changes, and a focus on the unpredictable effects.

Each has it's place, each is necessary. Taken too far, each gets ugly. Used together with a healthy dose of moderation, they create balance, and balance is damn near the key to all things.

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To leap sideways a bit, homosexuality, most specifically homosexual marriage, has been in the news and all over the blogs lately. It is drawing a deep and bitter divide between two groups; religious conservatives who see their way of life under attack, and homosexuals who are tired of being treated as non-people and see no reason to tolerate it anymore.

Myself? For the life of me, I really find it hard to believe that this is actually an issue. How it could possibly be my concern if any two (or twelve, for that matter) people decide to get married completely escapes my comprehension.

The most effective argument I have seen mustered against homosexual marriage is something about 'How do I explain to my kids when they see two men out holding hands and they call themselves Mr & Mr So-and-so?". But, to loosen my normal rule against snarky statements : That whole answering kids tough questions? It's called parenting. Look it up. Sorry about the lapse, back to being polite.

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And now to tie this together.

We are in the midst of a sea change. As a society we are stepping away from a dogmatic system of morals, where some things are just immoral because that is just how it is, to a functional system of morals, where right and wrong are based on the consequences of a behaviour.

You can still see the remnants of the old system. . The courts have in numerous cases used the simple fact that something is traditional as justification that it is therefore valuable, and within society's mandate to regulate, encourage, or even enforce. To some extent, this is really an appropriate thing for the courts to do.

We are in a process of change now that can be likened to rebuilding the foundation of a house. You can do this by propping things up, removing a footing, replacing it, and moving to the next. You'll get a few cracks in the walls, but nothing that can't be fixed. What you cannot do is rip out all the footings at once. The house will simply collapse.

I am in my mid-thirties. The generation before mine saw equality as a struggle, that might or might not happen. My generation saw it more as a process, something to work towards. The generation that follows sees it as a given, that just hasn't been fully implemented yet.

The whole fight over marriage will, in the end, just be a footnote, the last gasp of dogmatic morality. This is really the last identifiable 'issue', and it will end not with homosexual equality, but with people equality. It is just a matter of time.

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The EFCA Looks Dead

Well, it looks like the ... questionably ... named Employee Free Choice Act is going to die. I have to say I am of two minds about this.

For the act itself, well, I opposed it pretty much from the get-go. The change to allow bypassing the secret ballot simply has too much potential for abuse. Really, that's all there is to say about it.

I am all for ensuring that people who want to join a union can choose to. But I oppose in the strongest terms any system for forcing a union on those who do not want one.

So, on the one hand, this is pretty much a win.

On the other hand... many people who's opinions I have reason to respect tell me of systematic abuse of the current system, effectively preventing unions from forming where they are needed. Some of the abuses sound a bit contrived to me, especially the attitude that an employer who believes a union will be bad for the business has no right to say so, and that anything they do to try and talk employees out of joining is automatically abuse. Others however, sound entirely believable, and should be addressed.

So why aren't we? The Republicans have made it very clear that the 'card check' is what they oppose, and staked a lot of political capital on it. But that is not the entirety of the bill. Why not just remove that part, pass the rest, and see how it turns out? Can it really be better to get nothing than to get half of what they want?

I suppose the possibility of getting stabbed in the back by the unions if they 'sell out' is a real fear for the congresscritters. But Obama could do it, and get away with it. Barring some disaster, no Democrat is going to be any threat to him next election, and that's going to be his last one.

It is a sad state of affairs when the parties cannot compromise for fear of the interest groups, but there you have it. Maybe we should not tolerate this.

(Edit : Where are my manners? Got my start on this from Born at the Crest of the Empire)

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Arguing for Progressive Taxes

I am a Republican. From the libertarian end of the spectrum, no less. And I support progressive taxation. As a matter of fact, I think that taxes should be changed to be far more progressive than any Democratic party proposal I have heard.

How can this be?

To understand why I see it this way, the absolute first thing you must do is completely forget all the normal arguments. I do not think the wealthy owe anything to the rest. I do think they deserve their money. I do not think we have any right to take their money. From every ethical perspective I see no reason why we deserve what anyone else has.

But...

It is the nature of money to attract more money. This requires no name calling or accusations of greed. I suspect for many of the most wealthy, it is almost an accidental side effect. They just make so much money they can't spend it all, so their wealth (as opposed to income) keeps increasing. Well, and good for them. Thing is, this concentrates more and more of the total wealth of the country into the hands of a very small group. Often this is called the top 1%, but in truth it is a much smaller group than that. I believe that if someone tabulated how much of America was owned or controlled directly by the top 3000 or so richest people (.001% of the population) the number would be... disturbing. And it's growing, constantly. Inevitably.

If this trend is allowed to continue to it's logical conclusion, the end is a handful of people owning everything. Well before that, they will achieve effective control, of everything. At which point the country will effectively have ceased to be a representative democracy, and instead become a feudal society with pretty window dressing.

This requires no greed, no evil intentions, heck, no intent at all. It is just the natural result of the current system.


So, what to do about it?

This of course, brings us back to progressive taxes. But how to apply it? The first thing I think is that the Dems plan to have it kick in too low. I would have it as a separate tax. It would kick in at a million or so, and increase linearly up to 100% at around 20 million, taxing only income over the first million. Understand, this is not in any sense an attempt to gain revenue, it is an unapologetic plan to place a hard limit on how much money any one person can make. In that vein, there would be a 110% deduction for charitable donations. If they donate a million, that makes an extra 1.1 million before the tax starts. So by donating more money, they get to keep more money.

The benefits I would expect from this plan:

1. Containing wealth concentration.

2. Since they can get more by donating, most of these people will probably donate enough so that they don't pay the tax at all. That's fine, it's not like we deserved their money anyways. I think that since they effectively have to donate, they will almost certainly develop a keen interest in finding the best return for their money. By definition, these people are good with money, I think they'd do good things.



Of course, they will look for ways to game the system, and to a certain extent, so what? It's their money. As long as they don't get too blatant, why worry about it? And they will do stuff like 'charitably' widening the road to their business, or other infrastructure to benefit their interests. Again, so what? All that stuff will create jobs, pour money into the community, and in most cases the new infrastructure will still benefit more than just them.

Of course, this will essentially create a class of people who act as a sort of nobility. But really, that ship has sailed. I don't care what the law says, Bill Gates is not the same kind of citizen the rest of us are.

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