No new Insider content this week, although I had a draft blog post last Saturday on Riley Pint, Joey Wentz, Braxton Garrett, and more players I saw. I held my usual Klawchat on Thursday.
And now, the links…
- From my alma mater’s magazine, can gene editing lead to the end of malaria and other mosquito-borne diseases? What are the ecological consequences of wiping out a species to better humanity?
- My friend Lindsey Adler wrote a heartbreaking piece about her past battle with anorexia.
- A female state Senator in South Carolina has introduced a bill requiring counseling and a 24-hour waiting period for men to get a Viagra prescription to highlight the gender inequity in laws that restrict abortion access. No, it’s not an apt analogy, nor do I think Sen. Mia McLeod is trying to compare the two directly; she’s pointing out, correctly, that anti-abortion laws are largely passed by men and only affect women.
- More evidence and arguments contradicting the allergen-avoidance strategy for new parents from the NY Times.
- Nearly half of (self-described) conservative Republicans climate change is real, so why is the putative party of conservatives still in denial?
- In Oklahoma, non-consensual oral sex isn’t rape if the victim is drunk, because Oklahoma law is still stuck in the 1800s.
- The NY Times obituary of Ozzie Silna, former owner of the ABA’s Spirits of St. Louis, is an ebullient retelling of the saga of the greatest deal in sports history.
- Memphis has six identified measles cases already, several infants plus one unvaccinated dipshit adult. A woman in Washington died of measles last year, so, you know, get the damn shot already.
- I linked a few weeks ago to a story on Sci-Hub, the not-really-legal site where researchers can download copyrighted academic papers for free, and Science has a report on how everyone around the world is using it. Slate rips Science for an accompanying editorial defending the academic-journal paywall. Copyright law has a purpose, but providing huge economic rents on academic papers was not one.
- Reader Ridley Kemp passed along this link after Thursday’s chat: Nature blows up the myth of gender as biologically binary.
- FiveThirtyEight goes deep on the concept of universal basic income, a new and unproven way to address the income gap, poverty, and economic insecurity. It’s also very expensive and probably a political non-starter. My gut says it’s crazy.
- There isn’t much new in the Brigham Young University honor code scandal, but this Guardian summary of the school’s absurd victim-crushing policies is a strong read. I still do not see why this school is receiving any federal funds at this point.
Thanks for the articles Keith. I especially liked the gene drive article as in high school I wanted to be a geneticist, for a time. Our ability to manipulate the world around us is increasing exponentially, it’s amazing to see the limits of literally everything being stretched by science. I hope our ethics are capable of keeping up, but in spite of those risks, the potential rewards to society are tremendous.
Universal basic income is actually good and cool.
Supporting evidence? Facts to defend this position?? Anything???
I was disappointed the 538 basic income piece didn’t get at the costs of such programs but that’s most articles on basic income. A Canadian economist on Twitter has pointed out the proposed Swiss plan would be 25% of GDP and require roughly doubling in government revenues to pay for it. The claims savings on admin also seem dubious (at least in Canada’s case admin on social assistance is minuscule, $20/capita at the provincial level)
It’s a shame there’s a lot of noise about an unfunded unicorn when the principles of basic income could be used to improve the social assistance we have: give people cash and structure things to reduce the welfare trap.
Keith, I am also outraged that the boy in Oklahoma will not face penalty, but if you and your readers want a better explanation of why from a lawyer – Popehat
Yes, it’s the law that’s behind the times, not the state or the judges. Well, maybe them too, but in this case, it’s the law.
We should separate science academic journals from those outside of the sciences. Most humanities journals, for instance, are housed at universities, and with the massive budget cuts the country’s public higher education has experienced over the past two decades, I don’t blame them for keeping with their paywall models (especially with databases like JSTOR and Academic Search Premier), even if many articles are still floating around online. Having quality infrastructure for peer-reviewed original research isn’t free, not should it be.
Also, that Nature article is talking about sex (since biology), not gender (social/cultural constructions).
I make that gender/sex mistake all the time. Probably a function of my age.
Internalized ageism, Klaw? ?
That was supposed to be a joking smiley but drats my phone
I figure you’ll be interested in this article which talks about how the Braves have asked four cities across the south to build them and their minor league affiliates brand new ballparks after moving to the town. And it will only continue when SunTrust Ballpark opens next year. As you would expect, the expected revenue streams never materialized.
http://www.bloomberg.com/features/2016-atlanta-braves-stadium/
Yes, that’s very much up my alley.
Keith- Love the blog and read the “Stick to baseball” posts every week. You have routinely criticized the notion that changes in the tax system are the solution, or part of the solution, to poverty. I consider the universal income to be essentially a change in the tax code because the only way the government could afford that would be to hike up taxes across the board. I am not necessarily disagreeing with you, I am just wondering if you have any other ideas. It is crazy that so many people in this country live in poverty. I think everyone agrees that it’s a major problem, but there seem to be very few workable solutions. It’s interesting that Paul Ryan recently tried to add fighting poverty to the Republican platform, then asked for any ideas about how to do it without raising taxes or the minimum wage (because he apparently didn’t have any ideas himself).
Have I criticized that notion? I can’t recall doing so. I believe I’ve stated my own support for a flat or flatter tax with an enormous exemption at the bottom end so the poorest households don’t pay income tax. That’s not a solution to poverty but it would partly alleviate the problems of the working poor.
Our history with various types of “handouts” – direct aid to the poor – is mixed. It helps reduce the immediate symptoms of poverty, but it doesn’t lift enough people out of poverty because it can’t create jobs or other economic opportunities. I’m more of the Hayek school of encouraging overall growth by creating an economic environment that favors innovation and development, which will in turn create more jobs. But you can’t centrally plan innovation – you can only till the soil and hope the right seeds germinate – which I think is a very frustrating solution for people who want to end all poverty right now via government action.
“I believe I’ve stated my own support for a flat or flatter tax with an enormous exemption at the bottom end so the poorest households don’t pay income tax.”
That’s not really so far from what we have now, as roughly 45% of people pay no income tax, and the highest end of the tax is far lower than it was decades ago.
45% of households, but that also includes non-filers. And they do pay payroll taxes, which are highly regressive.
It’s depressing that “rape culture” is now one of the meta tags.
” believe I’ve stated my own support for a flat or flatter tax with an enormous exemption at the bottom end so the poorest households don’t pay income tax. ” A flatter tax system is really at the root of almost all our economic problems in this country. Over the last 60 years we’ve been going in that direction, and every step we’ve taken has worsened the problems of income inequality, which is ENTIRELY unsurprising, because taxes can only do 2 things. Redistribute wealth, or destroy it. Flattening taxes lessens the redistributive aspects of taxation, which means you concentrate wealth in the hands of the upper wealth tiers.
“Our history with various types of “handouts” – direct aid to the poor – is mixed. It helps reduce the immediate symptoms of poverty, but it doesn’t lift enough people out of poverty because it can’t create jobs or other economic opportunities.” The history of programs that just gives people money and doesn’t attach strings to it is decidedly UNmixed. Its good for the individuals involved, and it creates jobs in the surrounding communities, because people without money suddenly have money to spend, so they spend it, which makes businesses profitiable. Most money of this type also, oddly enough, if it is brings the people involved to a point where they don’t have to worry about paying bills or feeding thier family, goes to improving the earning potential of the people who receive it, which means you end up with a economy that has more creative types in it, which is exactly how we need to be moving our economy right now.
Sure, SNAP and such programs have mixed results… all they do is make sure that people get moralized at about the food choices they make, and subsidizes companies that want to pay their workers less, which means it works out to being about as much of a direct handout to the poor as it is a direct hand out to the most wealthy individuals in our society. If we handed people 140 dollars a month instead of giving them a “food” credit for 140 dollars a month, we’d be doing much better with that program.
We’re talking a bit past each other here. In practice, federal tax revenues aren’t flat at all; they’re convex, with the highest sliver of earners paying a lower effective rate because of unusual (and ridiculous) deductions and lower tax on investment income. Taxing capital gains the way we do income is a fairly easy, revenue-positive step that I doubt we’ll ever see the federal government take, even though it’s about as progressive a tax hike as you can find.
Yes, at the very highest sliver they go convex, but they have flattened significantly in the 40-99% of income range.
Our current GDP is right around 17 trillion dollars. The US federal budget is about 4 trillion. Something close to half of that goes to social security, income security, and health care programs. At about 210 million adults over the age of 18, you could do a 10000 per year handout to every adult in the US, and replace all our other income security programs, and virtually break even. I’d go higher, something like 15000 regionally adjusted for cost of living, and make up the difference with a 60% tax bracket on income over 500,000 per year, a significantly expanded estate tax, and a MASSIVE increase in the capital gains tax rate.
It’s a little unnerving to see the cavalier way in which you’re willing to spend other people’s money.
Paul, how embarrassing for you
Meh. Define “other people’s money.” The assumption that the money people have is somehow something they deserve to have is certainly a common assumption,but its not a well justified assumption. Hard work? Nope. Merit? Nope. Intellect? Nope. Business accumen? Nope. Really, about the only grounds on which the assumption is warranted is simple possession. Not a good grounding for the foundation of our economic structures.
“Paul, how embarrassing for you”
I’m not embarrassed in the least to have a better understanding of our countries economics than you do.
I would be fine with a flat income tax if we stripped out all credits and exemptions except for the bottom tier of earners. The lower rate would make a huge difference for the middle class and we’d likely see a significant jump in revenue as the highest earners start paying more than their current loophole induced (and ridiculous) 0%.
I’ll grow a tail before that happens though.
Almost nobody pays “0” that is a top earner. What example of that is there? Any table of where income tax revenues actually come from show they are unbelievably tilted toward top incomes. To fund a lot more benefits or basic income, you can tax higher incomes more, but to really yield a lot of revenue, you’ll have to dip into the “middle class.” Who do you think gets the bulk of those exemptions (eg mortgage interest) that you want to strip out? They already phase out for the highest earners you are so envious of.
Sorry, in this case I was referring more to corporate income tax than I was individual. Taxing corporations at 18%, no exceptions, would raise revenue a ton. But I stand by my assertion that the tax code favors the wealthy by a great deal. Multi-millionaires and billionaires have purchased lawyers, lobbyists and legislation to litter the tax code with exemptions that get their contribution rates down into the single digits. Warren Buffett routinely pays a little under 10% by his own admission.
The WSJ editorial page long claimed that the corporate tax cost more to collect than it brought in as revenue, although they used that fact to argue for eliminating the corporate income tax entirely. There is some economic merit to this as well, as it results in a sort of double taxation because it’s passed on to consumers, but a simple no-exemptions corporate tax at 18% or even 10% would probably be revenue-positive without being high enough to inhibit economic activity or send it out of the country.