Year: 2010

If you have income from self-employment or investment income . . . and if that income is likely to result in federal income tax of $1,000 or more . . . chances are you have an estimated tax payment due today. Here’s the form.

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Friday, I mentioned the baker with six fingers on one hand and seven on the other. I had presumed that this extra finger accounted for the ‘baker’s dozen’ 13th brioche that sometimes gets thrown in. Well, it turns out, that 13th scone, that 13th pumpernickel, was thrown in as a precaution against punishment for accidentally selling underweight bread. (Whereas, Wikipedia tells us, a banker’s dozen is one less than a dozen. Which could either be a comment on bankerly ethics or a way of describing the practice of deducting the interest at the outset of the loan – you borrow $1,200, say, but are handed only $1,100.)

This got me thinking.

Seriously: why 12? Why is ‘a dozen’ such a common unit of commerce. Do hens come 12 to a brood, naturally laying a dozen eggs a day?

(Actually, our friends Sara, the art teacher, and Pierce, the ferry boat captain, do have 12 hens, one named Andrew and one named Charles – go figure – with a rooster nearby named ‘Little Jerry’ who is separated by barbed wire to keep them chaste but laying – and Charles [the boyfriend, not the hen] did recently make an amazing gruyere soufflé with their day’s output, but none of this, however tasty, could explain the origin of the ‘dozen.’)

I do understand there are twelve months, and that is based in nature. But – hang on – the moon takes not even 28 days to orbit the earth (I used to think it took 30 or 31 but sped up in February), and so makes more than 13 orbits a year . . . and wouldn’t fingers or toes have been a lot more immediate to the ancient mathematician than the moon?

I know about counting in ‘base 7’ or ‘base 12’ – a way to show that you are smarter than the other kids, or that your eighth-grade math teacher is left-leaning* – but c’mon. How can there not be a common synonym for ten of something (‘Oh – and oranges. I’ll take a decade of them.’) as there is for twelve?

Twelve inches in a foot? What are we – crazy? ‘I’ll call the length of my enormous foot ‘a foot,” said the king – that much I can easily imagine – ‘and subdivide that measure into 12 inches.’ For God’s sake, man, look at your toes!

I know one of you will point me to an essay explaining the derivation of all this. (And that a dozen others will tell me the story of how the width of the US railway gauge derives from the width of a Roman horse’s ass – which, as it happens, is only partially true, at best.) But I couldn’t find it. Someone had twelve fingers, I feel sure of it.

*Mine went on to lead SNCC and then the Algebra Project.

GREAT DOCTORAL DISSERTATION TOPIC

Then again – who cares? A dozen? A decade? Kings with toes? That’s ‘ancient history,’ as it were. What’s important, in the few decades we have left to learn how to live sustainably on this planet, are the critical forward-looking questions. And I have one for your son or daughter the graduate student. (Or the incredibly precocious high school student.)

It is this: All things considered, which is the better system in a public restroom (‘Employees Must Wash Hands Before Returning to Work’) – paper towels or a hot-air hand-dryer?

Section One of the Dissertation would be relatively easy. You calculate the cost to the restaurant or movie theater owner of: the dispensers and dryers, their installation, the paper towels, the electricity, estimated usage, life of the hand-dryer, emptying the paper-towel trash bins before they overflow. Over time, and allowing a sensible cost of capital for the differential in the cost of the hand dryer, which system costs less?

But that allows nothing for the ‘externalities’ not currently priced into the costs. (And what about the extra time it takes from our lives to stand in front of the hand dryer?)

Section Two would examine the environmental and national security and worker safety costs of producing the energy to make and run the hand dryers . . . and to make the paper and transport it to and from the restroom.

If somehow all these things were ‘priced in,’ through things like a carbon tax, then ‘the invisible hand’ could be counted on to make the right calculations for this and trillions of other little decisions. The movie theater owner (and everyone else) would just act in his own calculated self-interest to maximize profit, and that would serve us all.

Section Three – all of one sentence – would conclude what this excellent Slate analysis did: Far better than either paper towels or electric hand dryers is to shake out your hands and then rub them against your pants.

Truthfully, it’s about more than hand-drying. It’s about everything.

Tomorrow: the President’s Remarks on Small Business

June is all about weddings. Charles and I even attended a lovely one yesterday. (Our gift: soup bowls.) So you’ll have to wait until tomorrow for the President’s speech on small business and my dissertation on dozens. Today . . . marriage.

GLEEFUL

I was late to ‘Glee‘ (well . . . it’s so gay), but as its ratings attest, it turns out to be big, big fun – not least because of Jane Lynch, who plays the brassy cheerleading coach. (‘Just because you like show tunes doesn’t mean you’re gay,’ she advises the student approaching her in the hallway for advice. ‘It just means you’re awful.’) Well, as referenced in the Frank Rich column below, Lynch (who also made ‘Role Models‘ such a fun movie), got married this month. Who could not wish these people happiness?

FRANK RICH ON MARRIAGE

What were James Carville and Elton John doing at Rush Limbaugh’s wedding? Frank Rich tells all. Or at least most. (Elton came for $1 million. Not clear why Limbaugh wanted him – maybe because he doesn’t really mean all the anti-gay stuff he says, and says it just to make his own millions? Also not clear why Carville was there, but presumably on the arm of Mary Matalin.)

ONE MORE REASON TO VACATION IN ICELAND

Now your LGBT friends and acquaintances* can get married in the shadow of a volcano. Iceland joins Iowa, South Africa, Holland, Massachusetts, Canada, Connecticut, the predominantly Catholic countries of Portugal and Spain, Vermont, Mexico City, Washington, D.C., Norway, Sweden, New Hampshire, and Belgium in embracing civil marriage equality.

California, Uganda, Syria, New York, North Korea, Maine, Russia, and New Jersey are among the many that still ban it, but several of them are getting close. For example, Maine’s legislature and governor signed civil marriage equality into law, but the good people of Maine voted by a narrow margin to overrule that law and deny their neighbors equality. And in California, where 18,000 couples did marry before the same thing happened, closing arguments begin Wednesday in a trial to assess the constitutionality of such discrimination. The case is expected ultimately to reach the U.S. Supreme Court. As described in this New York Times editorial (and the Frank Rich column above), the case for discrimination is pitifully thin. Then again, it is a conservative Republican Catholic court, so you never know.

*And by now, 77% of Americans say they have one or more gay friends or acquaintances, up from 42% in 1992.

CLOSETED REPUBLICANS TAKE NOTE

Ray Ashburn, the long-serving Republican state senator who consistently voted against gay rights – but then turned out to be gay himself, arrested recently for drunk driving on his way home from a gay bar – was interviewed by the Los Angeles Times.

In small part:

Q. A lot of people, gay or straight, are probably wondering why you voted even against issues like insurance coverage for same-sex partners.

A. The best I can do is to say that I was hiding. I was so in terror I could not allow any attention to come my way. So any measure that had to do with the subject of sexual orientation was an automatic “no” vote. I was paralyzed by this fear, and so I voted without even looking at the content. The purpose of government is to protect the rights of people under the law, regardless of our skin color, national origin, our height, our weight, our sexual orientation. This is a nation predicated on the belief that there is no discrimination on those characteristics, and so my vote denied people equal treatment, and I’m truly sorry for that.

☞ The part to note, later in the interview, is that he’s so much happier now that he’s not hiding.

IPHONE UPGRADE

The estimable Alan Rogowsky: ‘For your new iPhone 4: from your current iPhone simply dial *NEW# and you will get a text message with your status for upgrade with or without discount and when. Then, to avoid those Apple Store lines, just go to http://www.att.com/wireless/iphone/ or apple.com and order online on June 15 – tomorrow! Your new phone will show up at your door as/when available. Just plug into computer and activate. No muss no fuss.’

☞ Tomorrow? I plan to sign on seconds after midnight.

THE ELEVENTH OF MARC FEST’S 12 MOST USEFUL THINGS

At the end of this series, which doth surely approach, I’ll give you the link to all 12.

11. Think better.
Mindmapping is the use of highly visual diagrams to help with generating ideas, structuring complex subject matters and facilitating group conversations, to name just a few extremely useful applications. In other words: it’s a thinking aid. I’ve tried out various programs that help in creating mindmaps, including Freemind (free as the name implies) and MindJet Pro. None of them are as intuitive, powerful and fun as iMindmap, created by the inventor of mindmapping, Tony Buzan. I can’t recommend this enough. You might also want to check out Buzan’s books on memorizing techniques. iMindmap Elements, $99.

DCTH

Down more yesterday and may fall further – but that may be an opportunity. Guru says:

I just listened to the Jeffries presentation. The data are great. Isolated Hepatic Perfusion – the current treatment method – is a 9-hour open-liver procedure that involves 4 days in the ICU and 15 days total. Delcath’s PHP method is a 2-hour procedure, no ICU, a day or so in the hospital total. Can be repeated up to 6 times. Here is one doctor’s assessment (“there’s no question that it works”).

There were 92 patients in the trial: half in the treated, half in the control. The control was “best alternative care”: radiation plus chemotherapy, surgery, whatever the doctor thought was “state of the art” among approved therapies for patients with melanoma metastatic to the liver. Delcath has an SPA (“special protocol assessment”) with the FDA for the primary endpoint of “hepatic progression”: the time before the tumor in the liver starts growing again. According to Delcath, the FDA insisted on the crossover – allowing patients to switch from the control group to Delcath’s therapy. The group that did not cross over comprised 22 patients. Why didn’t they cross over? Because their disease progressed to the point where they were not eligible for the Delcath procedure or they died.

The data show about a five-fold increase in time to hepatic progression, p < 0.001. [P = probability it could just have been random chance and not the effect of the procedure. The smaller that number, the better. It needs to be under 5% or less – .05 – for the FDA to accept it.] They also show a three-fold increase in time to overall progression, p < 0.01. And they show a difference in tumor shrinkage: 34% among those treated with Delcath’s procedure versus just 2% in the control group, p <0.05.

[There was no statistically significant difference in surival between the two arms. The median survival in the arm of patients who started on the Delcath treatment was 298 days. The median of those who never crossed over to the Delcath treatment was 124 days. The median of those who did cross over was 398 days. However, these “crossovers” are counted as part of the control arm, because that’s the arm they started in. Those patients who cross over are healthier than those who don’t – they lived long enough even to be considered candidates for crossover. Thus, they are expected to have the longest survival of all subgroups and they did. The crossover increases survival among those who crossed over, thus increasing the median survival in the “control” arm and reducing any survival difference that might be seen between “treatment” and “control”.]

There were three “treatment related deaths”: 2 neutropenic sepsis and 1 death from melanoma. The incidence of mortality from neutropenic sepsis on the melphalan label is 3% to 10% and these 2 cases are right in the middle of those numbers. Obviously, Delcath’s procedure didn’t cause neutropenic sepsis. The third death came from a patient who entered the treatment arm with 95% of the liver covered with melanoma. Died within 30 days. You can’t say the procedure killed him.

Delcath will complete filing for approval in October 2010. They are well funded this year. However, to get to approval in 2011, they will need to raise another $30-$50 million.

Bottom line: the procedure worked great and will get approval.

☞ I bought more yesterday at prices ranging from $8.88 to $9.36 . . . with money I could afford to lose.

AND IF YOU CAN’T GO A DAY WITHOUT POLITICAL DEBATE . . .

David D.: “In attempting to refute Sheldon Richman, you wrote, ‘But, just for the record, no liberal I’ve ever met believes “government is the source of all things wonderful” or that “nothing good happens without government.”’ Actually, I think this *does* describe most liberals I’ve met. None will say it directly but it follows from the actions they promote. They want things like ‘single-payer health care’ and ‘hate crime laws’ and Social Security and welfare; all of these say clearly that healthcare, peaceful living, basic services and a good retirement are only possible through government. I’ve never seen a liberal demand *less* regulation of something unless it is what they want to do in a bedroom. I’d say the liberal goal is to set up an external authority that they can use to enforce their vision of how people should interact. That requires government and regulation since people are notoriously unpredictable and tend to act as they feel necessary not as someone else might feel.”

☞ Oh, my.

<< I’ve never seen a liberal demand *less* regulation of something unless it is what they want to do in a bedroom. >>

In addition to opposing government regulation of the bedroom, liberals over the years have not been particularly keen on blue laws or Prohibition or dress codes or regulation of speech (see: ACLU) or of marijuana (see: NORML) – and perhaps least keen of all on government regulation of women’s bodies (see: NARAL). It’s mainly regulation of corporations you’ll find liberals keen on – the tobacco industry, say, which long held that smoking was safe and that handing out cigarette samples to high school kids should remain legal. Are child labor laws favored by liberals? Sure! And worker-safety regulations, consumer regulations, environmental regulations – and for good reason. Indeed, enlightened corporate CEO’s favor these things, too, because without them, they are disadvantaged if they spend the money not to dump their chemicals in the river and their competitor doesn’t; or if they pay their workers a minimum wage and their competitors don’t; or if only they allow family and medical leave.

Not to say regulation and red tape can’t get out of hand. But liberals recognize that, too. The Clinton/Gore “reinventing government” initiative had many successes, and the Obama team will have them as well. Wherever you see a better way of doing things, by all means chime in!

<< [Liberals] want things like ‘single-payer health care’ and ‘hate crime laws’ and Social Security and welfare; all of these say clearly that healthcare, peaceful living, basic services and a good retirement are only possible through government. >>

Well, single-payer is more efficient and would make us more competitive and prosperous, so you shouldn’t rule it out. The hate crimes law is of special significance in a nation as diverse as ours that – rightly – protects hate speech. And Social Security is hardly “a good retirement.” Like welfare (which is now “welfare to work”) it’s a bare-bones social safety net. You can propose that America, alone among industrialized nations, jettison all its social safety nets. But most Americans want one.

THE TENTH OF MARC FEST’S 12 MOST USEFUL THINGS

So far, I’ve given you the first through ninth (well, Marc has given them to us). And at the end of this series, I’ll give you the link to all 12.

10. Communicate effectively.
This is the best book on communications I’ve ever read. It’s extremely useful, even if you are not a communications professional. Learn how to make any message stick by turning it into a simple, unexpected, concrete, credible and emotional story. Invaluable. Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die, by Chip and Dan Heath

THE LIBERAL AND THE LIBERTARIAN ON MARRIAGE

If Bush v. Gore antagonists Ted Olson and David Boies can join forces to overturn the ban on marriage equality – as they have – why not these strange bedfellows?

In small part:

. . . Although we serve, respectively, as president of a progressive and chairman of a libertarian think tank, we . . . have come together in a nonpartisan fashion because the principle of equality before the law transcends the left-right divide and cuts to the core of our nation’s character. This is not about politics; it’s about an indispensable right vested in all Americans. . . .

If you think Charles and I shouldn’t have the same civil marriage option as any other couple, please read their argument. (If you think the church should be allowed to discriminate against us: I agree.)

BUDGET DEFICITS

Craig D.: “You still talk about Reagan/Bush/Bush deficits with a straight face while Obama has quadrupled the deficit in one year.”

☞ Clinton handed Bush what everyone called “budget surpluses as far as the eye could see” and urged the nation to “save Social Security first,” meaning “don’t blow the surplus on tax cuts for the best off, use it to shore up the nation’s finances.”

Bush handed Obama record deficits, $4 trillion in additional debt, two wars, and an economy teetering on the edge of complete collapse, with tax revenues plunging and safety-net payments soaring (which alone would have ballooned the deficit) that required a massive stimulus to avert. (What would Craig D. have done, had he been President? Just let the economy collapse?)

So the 2009 and 2010 budget deficits were/are pretty much a gift from President Bush, not Obama creations. Even conservatives agree.

THE NEED TO ADJUST

Michael Gardner: “Your suggestions in Monday’s column make complete sense, yet what I’m not hearing, from you and other financial pundits, is how do we deal with an issue that is far more fundamental than personal expenditures and taxation. I’m no economist, except in the most micro sense. I’m a small business owner who happens to live in Colorado Springs, a city now too often cited in the national press as a tarnished example of what happens when the don’t-tax-me crowd gets public voice and runs amok. Our parks are withering for lack of a water budget while trash accumulates – no budget for trash cans. The city grows dark as street lights are being unplugged. City pools are closing and being sold off to private ventures. Schools are in a desperate financial squeeze guaranteeing that tomorrow’s children won’t have nearly the meager educational opportunities afforded this already short-changed generation. And yes, I could go on. Is the answer increased taxation? Why yes, of course. But more fundamentally, we wouldn’t need to dramatically increase taxation if our community’s productive capacity were greater. If business after business hadn’t shut their doors; if local merchants, who typically take leadership roles in the community and personally invest in the community’s future weren’t so readily displaced by mega stores; if small businesses weren’t prematurely handicapped by lack of credit and regulatory overhead, then we would have an economic robustness which would render our lamentations mute. I don’t know what the answer is on a macro level. I only know that a community prospers not from increased taxation (although at this point that is needed) but by putting people to work in jobs that generate sustainable local income and wealth. I’d like to hear a lot more about how as a community, as a state and as a nation we can revitalize our productive spirit and capability and then maybe this talk of taxation won’t seem like such a one-sided burden.”

☞ Amen. I don’t purport to have all the answers, either. But one way to create future economic strength is to consume less now and invest in education and infrastructure for later – which is what a shift to somewhat higher taxes can help to do. Another is to improve the nation’s health and the effectiveness of its health care system. Encouraging energy efficiency and conservation and reducing our reliance on imported oil will help, as will encouraging the scientific breakthroughs that will lead to the industries of tomorrow. Winding down the expense of our two wars will help. Getting credit flowing again will help. Importing less and exporting more will help.

It’s going to be a long process, but at least we’ve begun moving in the right direction on pretty much all fronts. Hats off to the Apples and Googles and biotech firms and Caterpillars – and farmers and Hollywood and others – who will be selling the world things the world wants from us, so we, in turn, will have the dough to buy things we need.

IPHONE 4G

Get out of my way – I have to pre-order this before anybody else June 15, for June 24 arrival. I . . . can’t . . . wait.

DCTH

Oops. Down 26% yesterday.

Guru explains:

They presented their data over the weekend. At these presentations, there is an independent reviewer who gives his opinion of the data. On the plus side, the data on the primary endpoint – progression of the melanoma in the liver – was better than expected and there was a statistically significant benefit in delaying progression overall. Also, statistically significant difference in response rate. There was no difference in survival – because they allowed half the patients to cross over [from the placebo]. If you compare survival for those who didn’t cross over to those who did, there was a doubling in survival – but the numbers were so small it didn’t reach statistical significance. There were also a couple of patients in the treated arm who died very soon after the treatment – none was actually caused by the procedure, but because they happened so rapidly, they had to be counted as “treatment related.” Because of this survival data – and the trial was not designed to show a survival benefit – the independent reviewer said the didn’t see that DCTH was providing any benefit. That is why the stock was down so much.

The reality is that this product met its SPA, will get FDA approval on a single trial, and will be widely adopted for those patients with this condition – melanoma spread to the liver.

☞ It might go lower (and there’s always the chance Guru just proves to be wrong and Independent Reviewer, right). But at least for the shares I hold in my taxable account, I had planned to hold for a year and a day anyway, so what matters is where it will be next year. Guru thinks: higher. As of now, it’s still about double what we paid, so all is not lost.

LESBIAN MOMS

I linked yesterday to the Florida Republican gubernatorial candidate’s push to make sure no gay or lesbian can adopt. Today, US News & World Report offers this write-up on a 20-year study finding lesbian moms to be superior. George Rekers’ view, which the Republican, Bill McCollum, valued so highly, is not included. Since the flap over his hiring a male prostitute for 10 days of luggage handling and naked massage, Rekers’ family-oriented credentials have diminished.

. . . Compared to the traditionally reared teens, adolescents with lesbian parents rated significantly higher in social, academic and total competence, according to the study. The teens with lesbian parents also rated significantly lower when it came to social problems, rule-breaking and aggressive behavior than teens raised in more traditional families. . . .

☞ Two sources cited in the article said they expect gay dads, if studied, would also have ranked high. Said one: “Good parenting makes for healthier children, regardless of your sexual orientation. Whether you’re gay, straight or lesbian, good parenting is good parenting.”

THE REAGAN/BUSH/BUSH DEBT

Don Szostak: “It seems to me your mantra about not returning the government back to the folks who got us where we are only serves to satisfy those of your readers who think like you. Fair enough, but it seems there is a lot of fact-bending going on. Check this link, for example. The conclusions are directly opposite to your own.”

☞ The link makes the case that the Democratic Congress forced Bush to cut taxes on the most affluent and incur the enormous cost of occupying Iraq. And the Republican Congress forced Clinton to raise taxes on the affluent and balance the budget. Why am I not buying this?

THE NEED TO ADJUST

Tina Amonn: “Completely agree with yesterday’s column . . . with one important exception. There is no such thing as a pair of shoes that you do not need.”

Tom Paine: “I don’t understand your suggestion that ‘government labor contracts’ need to be renegotiated before they ‘bankrupt our states and municipalities.’ Your anecdote mentions one person in one city, but you generalize the problem to all states and municipalities. For what they’re worth, here are a couple of other anecdotes. I know a number of Virginia state government employees who have not had a raise in four years. I’m a local government employee who has not had a raise in two years. We are not members of unions. We are still working and in our sixties. Please don’t contribute to the angry public mood that government workers are overpaid obstacles to good government whose benefits need to be cut. Didn’t we have enough of that from Reagan, Bush, and Bush? The immediate cause of the public-sector difficulties is the collapse in tax revenues that came with the 2008 Wall Street crash and the credit crisis, and was not the fault of government workers unless you want to count Reagan, Bush and Bush.”

☞ Tom links to this overview of the controversy – worth reading – and the first thing I want to say (apart from acknowledging that of course every situation is different, and not all government employees retire at 40 with $70,000 inflation-indexed lifetime pensions!) is that this is not about “fault.” Most public employees work hard and well, and don’t, in any event, negotiate their own pay packages.

If it were up to me, everyone would get a job, a raise, and a tax cut. But we haven’t figured out how to do that, so in the real world, we have to make some adjustments. I’d rather pay somewhat more in taxes and see renegotiation of some government pay and pension packages (as is already happening) than see massive lay-offs and public service cuts.

More of your thoughts on yesterday’s column tomorrow.

You don’t really need to click through to the first three; they more or less speak for themselves:

‘This is not an environmental disaster, and I will say that again and again’ – Republican Congressman Don Young of Alaska, speaking of the situation in the Gulf.

This is Nick Kristof’s recent column about the Catholic Church excommunicating a nun for saving a woman’s life – but not excommunicating priests for child abuse.

This reports that Florida’s Republican attorney general – running for governor – personally overruled his staff, spending $120,000 of taxpayer money for George Rekers’ expert testimony that no gay or lesbian is fit to adopt. (Rekers, you will recall, is the Family Research Council co-founder who hired a male prostitute for luggage handling and naked massage on a 10-day trip to Europe.)

As to the fourth . . .

This is David Einhorn’s take on our challenging economic times. It is a worthwhile, sobering read.

My own take, playing off his, is that we need – both personally and governmentally – to make every dollar count. Not just this week, but for a long time.

The challenge we face is to ‘stay within the lines’ of what will need to be a decades-long recovery. (It took 35 years to shrink the National Debt built up after winning World War II from 121% of GDP back down to just 30% when Reagan/Bush took over and reversed that trend, pushing it back up toward 100% by the time it was handed to Barack Obama.)

By ‘staying within the lines,’ I mean:

• If we all stop spending too abruptly in order to boost our savings (which, over time, we badly need to do) . . . or if the government cuts its spending too abruptly in order to reduce its deficit (which, over time, we also badly need to do) . . . we throw ourselves into a depression – which could, perversely, increase the deficit further as tax revenues fell and safety-net entitlements rose.

• But if we don’t make enough adjustments, a collapse is just a matter of time.

Success is absolutely doable – but hardly a no-brainer.  There are no quick fixes or pain-free solutions to the ditch we’re in.  (Which is why it would be such a bad idea to hand the keys back to the Party that drove us into the ditch.)

What I’d like to see on a personal level is a shift toward spending on things like weatherization, which make our homes more efficient and reduce our collective energy use, and less on luxury items, that don’t.  This is easy for me to say, but what if you really want a pool in your back yard?  (With its ongoing monthly maintenance and energy expenses and water consumption.)  What if you really want a new pair of shoes you don’t need?  (To go with the new dress you didn’t need – in the literal, physical sense of the word “need” – either.)  And what does it do to the swimming pool industry, pool-boy employment, or to the Italian shoemakers and our department stores if we pull back?

So I’m not saying everyone should suddenly, drastically go into disaster mode and never take another trip to Disney World.  But on the margin, that’s what we need to do: live lighter on the land, in wonderful (but somewhat smaller) homes, driving wonderful (but more fuel efficient) vehicles . . . walking somewhat more, wasting somewhat less, caulking more, overeating less (and eating less meat), using things longer before buying replacements . . . watching amazing things on TV and our computer screens – but turning them off when no one’s watching.  Somewhat more reliance on ceiling fans, somewhat less on air conditioners.

(One hot, humid afternoon last week I went for a drink at the rooftop bar of the Gramercy Park Hotel in New York.  Way up there, the breeze was welcome, the Diet Coke refreshing, and only about twenty minutes into it did I realize that the breeze was coming not off the river – or from fans or the kind of mist-ers you see in Palm Springs – but from actual air conditioners.  They were air conditioning the outdoors.)

What I’d like to see on a government level is somewhat higher taxes on those fortunate enough to have jobs in order to employ others to teach our kids, keep our streets safe, and – especially – put private companies to work shoring up and modernizing our infrastructure.

Ideally, of course, no one would pay any taxes on anything.  Roads and schools and police protection and our vast military and the monthly checks our grandparents get so they don’t have to live with us would all be free.*  But that’s a fantasy – or Somalia.  I’d rather live here and pay taxes.

*And the interest on the $8 trillion or so in additional debt that Reagan/Bush/Bush racked up (notwithstanding Clinton’s having handed the second Bush “surpluses as far as the eye could see”) would not have to be paid each year – we’d just default.

The other reason to pay a little more in taxes is to shore up our national finances.  “Our national finances” may sound like a vague concept, but if not tended to – as  discussed in the Einhorn op-ed – their continued deterioration could have brutally tangible consequences.

We also need to find a way to renegotiate government labor contracts before they bankrupt our states and municipalities – or as part of the bankruptcy proceedings, if they do.  Not drastically, I hope; but realistically.  (A friend of mine put in 20 years as a New York City cop, doing mostly desk work, and retired at 40 with what could well be 50 years’ contractual pension payments ahead of him that I think are running around $70,000 a year indexed to inflation.  It’s hard to see how municipalities can make good on all the commitments they’ve made.)

No one likes higher taxes – or rationing or “the draft” – all of which we embraced as necessary to win World War II.  With Iraq and Afghanistan, by contrast, the choice was made to finance the wars with tax cuts, and the sacrifice we were called on to make was to “keep shopping.”

So now, as Einhorn notes, it is we, and not our grandchildren after all, who will have to deal with the consequences.

The challenge, as I say, is to gradually grow our way out of the problem and gradually shift toward a more efficient economy.  Tea Partiers are right to be concerned about the colossal mess the Reagan/Bush/Bush deficits have left us in, but wrong to think the solution is yet lower taxes.  Or, for that matter, more crowded classrooms or more unpatrolled streets or more bridge collapses.  What we need is more pulling together as one society, enjoying our immense blessings, our freedom, a healthy environment, first-world universal health care, and the security of a (bare-bones) social safety net.

Oh, my.  Who put a nickel into me?

HEALTH

Doug Olson: ‘I’m all for the health care reform bill if the benefits you mention in yesterday‘s column are realized. But you know the insurance companies have armies of lawyers reviewing the law to determine how to deny pre-existing conditions and practice rescission after a claim is made, while still staying within the letter of the requirements. How do we know the benefits AARP lists will actually come to pass?’

☞ We have a President and an HHS Secretary deeply committed to making this work, with a few lawyers and levers of their own. The bigger threat, it seems to me, are Republicans hell-bent on repealing it.

UNDERWATER MORTGAGES

Re Wednesday‘s strapped California homeowners:

Kevin Knopf: ‘If someone knowingly defaults on their house rather than go through bankruptcy aren’t they taking advantage of the structure of society? So, isn’t it unethical/immoral to default on your mortgage? Doesn’t it hurt the rest of us who struggle to make our mortgage payments no matter what?’

☞ Well, if the lender prefers a deed in lieu, so it loses less money than it would going through the considerable expense and delay of bankruptcy, that’s at least some concession to ‘doing the right thing.’ And, look: a nonrecourse loan (as most home mortgages are in California) is a nonrecourse loan. The lender knew that going in.

What some people are doing – as referenced here (thanks, Kia) – is immoral, in my view. They’re living rent-free, making it as hard as possible for the lender to kick them out. I’m sorry, but I think that’s really low.

LIBERTARIANISM

Michael Martin: ‘I hesitate to belabor the point but it is so common and you don’t seem to recognize it. Sure the libertarians believe that government should protect THEIR property, but they do not recognize that the existence of their property is entirely a consequence of society. So, sure they expect that other people should protect their property but what do they offer in recompense? What do they offer to support and sustain the society that creates their wealth? . . . The more enlightened rich have different views. Warren Buffett, for example, or even Bill Gates’ father. They understand that individual rights may be inalienable, but they also know that to secure those rights governments are instituted. Government in a democracy has more to do than protect the rich; as I recall the preamble to the Constitution that instituted our government, it asserts it is to promote the common welfare of all people in that society. Libertarians believe they are free from any obligations to society or to the common welfare of those in that society. Maybe you don’t consider that immoral, but for libertarians to insist that they have no obligation to a society that sustains them, but insist that the society has obligations to sustain them seems grossly asymmetric to the point I don’t know how to describe immorality without including it.’

☞ Not all libertarians are rich, and many do feel, and fulfill, an obligation to society – but voluntarily, which they believe is the moral way this should be organized. That said, while we might differ around the edges, I’m with you.

PARETO

Rob: ‘A quick comment regarding your May 28 piece, in which a reader cited the Pareto Principle (80% – 20%) to explain wealth distribution. Probability “laws” only work when the game hasn’t been rigged. So the Pareto Principle is only a diversionary tactic when attempting to discuss the US economy. Paul Krugman effectively covered this here.’

☞ In part:

. . . the 80-20 fallacy. It’s the notion that the winners in our increasingly unequal society are a fairly large group – that the 20 percent or so of American workers who have the skills to take advantage of new technology and globalization are pulling away from the 80 percent who don’t have these skills.

The truth is quite different. Highly educated workers have done better than those with less education, but a college degree has hardly been a ticket to big income gains. The 2006 Economic Report of the President tells us that the real earnings of college graduates actually fell more than 5 percent between 2000 and 2004. Over the longer stretch from 1975 to 2004 the average earnings of college graduates rose, but by less than 1 percent per year.

So who are the winners from rising inequality? It’s not the top 20 percent, or even the top 10 percent. The big gains have gone to a much smaller, much richer group than that.

A new research paper by Ian Dew-Becker and Robert Gordon of Northwestern University, “Where Did the Productivity Growth Go?,” gives the details. Between 1972 and 2001 the wage and salary income of Americans at the 90th percentile of the income distribution rose only 34 percent, or about 1 percent per year. So being in the top 10 percent of the income distribution, like being a college graduate, wasn’t a ticket to big income gains.

But income at the 99th percentile rose 87 percent; income at the 99.9th percentile rose 181 percent; and income at the 99.99th percentile rose 497 percent. No, that’s not a misprint.

. . . The idea that we have a rising oligarchy is much more disturbing. It suggests that the growth of inequality may have as much to do with power relations as it does with market forces. Unfortunately, that’s the real story. . . .

☞ And the Republicans saw to it that their tax burden would be slashed, to boot. The Bush years – with the perhaps unwitting support of Joe the Plumber, et al – were a positively grand time to be rich and powerful.

Tomorrow, your thoughts on yesterday’s deeply underwater homeowners. But today:

THE AARP’S “10 THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT THE NEW LAW”

Here, from their May bulletin:

1. Helps 32 million more Americans get insurance.
2. Makes preexisting conditions a thing of the past . . .
3. Guarantees basic benefits for everyone in Medicare, makes preventive services free for most, and gradually closes the “doughnut hole” . . .
4. Sets up a temporary program in July to help people with pre-existing conditions . . .
5. Provides new benefits for most people who already have insurance . . .
6. Leaves medical decisions in the hands of you and your doctor.
7. Requires most people to have coverage by 2014 . . .
8. Creates state-run insurance exchanges offering a menu of private insurance plans . . .
9. Offers immediate tax credits to help small businesses buy insurance for employees.
10. Keeps Medicare financially sound for nearly 10 more years . . .

☞ To which I would add:

11. Launches a myriad of pilot programs that, over time, will improve efficiency, care, and bend the cost curve down.
12. Pays for the added benefits and expanded coverage mainly by higher taxes on income over $250,000 (filing jointly, $200,000 singly) while still keeping those tax rates well within the range of what upper-income families paid pre-Reagan/Bush, when the nation’s finances were sound.

The whole feature is worth reading, even if (like me) you are decades away from retirement.

For example, did you know that, members of Congress will be required to buy health plans through the state-run insurance exchanges? They voted to eat the same dog food as the rest of us.

Forward this to a well-intentioned Tea Partisan you may know who was sold a bill of goods by such deep thinkers as Joe the Plumber and Sarah Palin?

Not to say that the reform bill is perfect. But there’s a lot to like – and a lot to be proud of if your income exceeds $250,000 and you’ll be kicking in a little extra to help to make it all possible.

WHAT JESUS WOULD HAVE DONE

I was searching for a verse that would make those Tea Partisans who happen to be serious Christians feel good about chipping in a little extra of their income above $250,000 to help the sick.

Well, the Bible is a wondrous document, as you know, and open to interpretation.

Here is the first thing Google gave me:

Wealth

In Mark 10:25, Jesus says:

“It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God.”

Some scholars think that the word “camel” in this statement resulted from an accidental mis-copying of a very similar word which meant “rope”. Thus, Jesus may have actually said “It is easier for a rope to go through the eye of a needle …”, which is a more natural metaphor.

But whether he said “camel” or “rope”, his point was that it is very hard for a rich person to go to heaven. In fact, Mark 10:17-22 indicates that the only way a rich person can go to heaven is, in Jesus’ words, to “sell everything you have and give to the poor.” Some people try to avoid this conclusion by pointing to Mark 10:27, which says “all things are possible with God.” Thus, God can make it possible for a rich man to go to heaven. Certainly this is true. But the context of the statement indicates that God would accomplish this by inspiring the rich man to reform his life and willingly give his money to the poor.

Jesus also warned against the accumulation of wealth on several other occasions. In Matthew 6:19 he says “do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth”, and a few verses later, in Matthew 6:24, he says “You cannot serve both God and Money”. In Luke 6:24 he says “woe to you who are rich.” Jesus disapproved of wealth because he thought it was wrong for some people to live in wasteful luxury while others starved.

According to the Book of Acts, his original followers tried to live by these teachings after he left them. They formed a community in Jerusalem, known as the Nazarenes, in which everyone “had everything in common” (Acts 2:44), and any new member had to sell his or her possessions and give the proceeds to a common fund.

But many modern Christians disagree with these ideas. They see nothing wrong with acquiring money and wealth. And people who do become wealthy are often admired by others.

☞ How convenient. (And, of course, I happen to agree with them.)

Given the very next topic, I had to keep reading:

Non-Marital Relationships

In Matthew 5:28-30, Jesus says:

“But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell.”

In an effort to follow this teaching, some people have become hermits, or found other ways to live in total celibacy. Some of the men in the Heaven’s Gate cult even castrated themselves. But most people aren’t willing to take such drastic measures, and many doubt that it’s really necessary.

☞ I am one of those doubters.

But especially as it is only the Old Testament that marks the eating of shellfish (or the touching of a football, or the laying down together of two gay men, or the wearing of a cotton-wool blend) “abominations,” I have to ask the good Christian Senators and Congressmen who live over at the C Street house – and anyone else who may see the Bible as justification for slavery (Colossians 3:22; Ephesians 6:5) or for female subservience or for discriminating against gays and lesbians . . . really?

It’s 2010. If it’s okay to be rich (and vote solidly against the minimum wage or extending health care coverage to more children) . . . if it’s okay not to gouge out your eye if you look lustfully at a woman (or hike the Appalachian Trail with one in Argentina) . . . why is it not okay to extend hate crimes legislation to cover hate crimes against gays along with everyone else?

Why is it not okay to extend employment and housing antidiscrimination protections to gays along with everyone else?

Why not recognize – for civil purposes, like Social Security benefits – same-sex marriages legally performed in Iowa or Canada or Massachusetts or South Africa or Connecticut or Spain or Vermont or Holland or our nation’s capital or Mexico City?

Really.

WONDERFUL McDONALDS AD

Here. En Francais. I love this ad. (Thanks, Zac.)

FACTORY TOURS!

I will never forget touring the Wonder Bread factory when I was 8 (or the Havana cigar factory 50 years later). It’s fascinating to see how things work. Here’s a terrific site to access 548 different “factory tours” (loosely defined) that you and the family might want to explore all over the country this summer. Corning Glass! Chalet Suzanne Soup Cannery! Fermilab! The Intercourse Pretzel Factory! American Whistle! The guide dog operation in Boring, Oregon! America’s last remaining washboard factory!

WHAT SHOULD THEY DO?

Tania: “I haven’t seen you write anything about ‘strategic defaults.’ I hate to say we’re considering it, as it goes against the values I was raised with, but here in a nutshell is our situation: My husband and I bought our first home (with no money down!) in 2003 in California for $250,000. A year later he was offered a job with free housing in New York! We rented out the house and had a blast in New York for three years, refinanced in 2006 when the home was appraised at $420,000. We had a baby in the hospital at the time so my brain wasn’t really thinking clearly apparently. We signed on for a ten-year interest-only loan, so in 2016 our mortgage payment goes up by $1000, which we can’t afford. We currently sink about $500 on top of the renter’s $$ to pay for mortgage, taxes, insurance etc. The house is now valued at $155,000. Ouch. We have great credit (about 800). If we walk away now, our credit is screwed for say 5 years, but we have $500 per month we can invest, which in 5 years would be a decent down payment once our credit would allow us to buy again. If we stick with it, there isn’t much chance the house will get back up to the $270,000 we owe (we pulled an additional $12,000 out of it) when we refinanced. So in 6 years when the mortgage goes up we’d still lose the house, and then have to deal with not much in savings and bad credit then. We currently rent a house in California, as when we moved back it was to a different part of the state. So we are landlords and tenants at the same time, and therefore appear to be investors even though it is our only home loan. We don’t qualify for a short sale as we make enough money for the current payment, and Wells Fargo won’t refinance since we don’t live in the house and it is so underwater. I can’t seem to see a logical reason why we shouldn’t walk away… so, back to my original question, what do you think about strategic defaults???”

☞ Wow. Doesn’t that ever speak to our times. I suppose the likeliest right answer is . . . walk away. And/or save your bank the expense of a foreclosure and simply give them back the deed “in lieu” of foreclosure. The obvious downsides are the credit situation and the morality/your feelings about doing this – although my recollection is that California is a “nonrecourse state,” meaning that the bank knew going in that you were not personally liable for the loan (except for the extra $12,000, which falls into a separate category) – that it was secured only by the value of your property. And boy: from an appraised value of $420K down to $155K? Ouch. Welcome back to reality.

(That house next to mine that sold for $105,000 in 1998 and $765,000 is 2005? It just traded hands at $265,000 last week.)