LAW ENFORCEMENT: “England has 39 police forces, headed by 39 chief constables or commissioners. In the past 18 months, seven have been sacked for misconduct, suspended, placed under criminal or disciplinary investigation or forced to resign. That is not far off a fifth of the total. In the same period, at least eight deputy or assistant chief constables have also been placed under ongoing investigation, suspended or forced out for reasons of alleged misconduct. No fewer than 11 English police forces – just under 30 per cent – have had one or more of their top leaders under a cloud.”

SHELDON RICHMAN ON GERARD DEPARDIEU: Taxpayers Aren’t Stationary Targets: Raising tax rates in a struggling economy will help assure that the economy keeps struggling.

Change the tax environment by raising rates or adversely modifying the rules, and taxpayers, especially those in the upper echelons of earners, can be counted on to modify their conduct accordingly; there’s no reason to think their wish to hold on to their money has diminished just because the tax code has changed.

Economists as far back at J. B. Say and Gustave de Molinari in the 19th century understood this. As Molinari wrote in his 1899 book, The Society of To-morrow, “The laws of fiscal equilibrium set a strict limit to the degree within which it is possible to impose new taxes, or to increase the rates of those already in force. The relative productivity of taxes soon shows when this point has been overstepped, for then returns not only cease to rise, but immediately begin to fall.”

Things can work in the other direction too. Other things being equal, cutting tax rates can prompt revenues to rise. This is not to say rising revenue is a good thing. As Milton Friedman once said, if a tax-rate cut brings in more revenue, the rates weren’t cut enough. Hear, hear! . . .

Leaving recessions out of the account, for the past 60 years federal tax revenues have been rather steady at just under 19 percent GDP regardless of the tax rates. The top income-tax rate has ranged from a low of 28 percent in 1988-90 to a high of 92 percent in 1952-53, yet the flow of money has been a fairly constant proportion of the economy. This would seem to confirm the apparently controversial hypothesis that taxpayers are purposive human beings who can be counted to modify their behavior according to the incentives and disincentives that government places in their paths.

Yet most politicians don’t get it.

Two things. First, most politicians aren’t good at math. That’s one reason they went into politics in the first place. Second, it’s not so much about revenue as it is about control. Particularly in Obama’s case, it’s about punishing high-earners — or as he puts it, “fairness.”

Also, while revenue may be roughly the same at different tax rates, higher tax rates produce more distortions in the economy, and inflict deadweight losses from conduct that is driven by taxes rather than economics. That’s why research shows that GDP grows faster when tax rates are lower. But if you derive your own sense of importance from slicing up the pie, you don’t care as much whether the pie grows or not.

WE’VE BEEN ZIRPED:

Father-son talks are always difficult, but it was time to teach my teenager about how things work. I dragged him to our local branch of Wells Fargo and opened a checking account with ATM card privileges and a savings account where he deposited his hard-earned umpiring cash. Having worked on Wall Street for 25 years, I stroked my chin and provided some sage advice: Checking accounts don’t pay interest, so keep your money in the savings account and just move it to checking when you need it. None other than Albert Einstein, I noted, said, “compound interest is the most powerful force in the universe.”

His first bank statement showed interest income of $0.01​—​and a series of $35 fees for insufficient funds, wiping out all his money. I got a “You’re a financial genius, Dad,” dripping with sarcasm.

My son got ZIRPed. Senior citizens living on fixed incomes are getting ZIRPed. We all are. Since December 2008, when Ben Bernanke’s Federal Reserve started buying mortgage backed securities in order to “solve” the financial crisis, we have all been subject to a zero interest rate policy. . . .

Conceptually, ZIRP has worked. The stock market is up 12 percent in 2012. Bank stocks like Bank of America’s have doubled off their lows. Real estate investment trusts, or REITs, are up 15 percent. Yet in the real world, ZIRP is a huge FAIL. GDP growth in 2012 will come in at an anemic 2 percent after a 1.7 percent tick up in 2011. ZIRP is not growing the economy. And no growth means no jobs.

Unemployment is still a nasty 7.7 percent. And talk in hushed tones to Wall Street hedge funds, and they may explain the dollar carry trade, the one where you borrow or even short U.S. dollars and buy currencies, bonds, and stocks in higher yielding, emerging market countries​—​yes, the Fed is stimulating, but in places like India, South Africa, and Brazil. . . . Savers are getting ripped off. Interest rates are near zero, yet the inflation rate as of October 2012 was 2.2 percent, which means real interest rates are negative 2 percent, so savings are being diluted by 2 percent a year. It’s a stealth, non-voted-on tax, maybe as much as $200-300 billion a year.

It’s behind the Senior Squeeze.

IN BRITAIN, A DAWNING REALIZATION: The truth is that politicians are telling lies: Government is simply unaffordable. “The immediate emergency created by the crash of 2008 was not some temporary blip in the infinitely expanding growth of the beneficent state. It was, in fact, almost irrelevant to the larger truth which it happened, by coincidence, to bring into view. Government on the scale established in most modern western countries is simply unaffordable.”

Something that can’t go on forever, won’t. Debt that can’t be repaid, won’t be. Promises that can’t be kept, won’t be.

MEDIA HYPOCRISY UPDATE: David Gregory Mocks LaPierre for Proposing Armed Guards, but Sends Kids to High-Security School. Same school where the Obama kids go.

UPDATE: Did NBC’s David Gregory Violate D.C. Gun Law on National TV? That 30-round magazine he held up is illegal in DC.

STACY MCCAIN WONDERS what happened to all that “new civility” stuff?

Related item here. “I notice that Mr. Farrell did not respond to my most serious charge against Crooked Timber: that they systematically left out Professor Loomis’s most-vile comments. This omission probably gained many signatures for their statement but cost Crooked Timber some credibility.” Meh, it’s not like they had much to lose.

UPDATE: Henry Farrell responds.

MY MENTION THE OTHER DAY of the Orgreenic Frying Pan produced this email from reader Scott Boone:

I know you probably don’t want to do a whole big bleg on cookware, but I saw your post earlier on the Orgreenic frypans. Of course, you’ve used them personally, so that’s a pretty strong endorsement, I wanted to throw a hat in the ring for SCANPAN too. I’ve been using mine for years and it is awesome! They were one of the first ceramic-coated nonsticks, I believe. (ceramic titanium…oooooh) They’re more expensive than the Orgreenic, but have a lifetime warranty (a Danish company that’s been around) and you can use METAL UTENSILS with them! And I do, regularly–forks, knives, turners–never a problem. Can cook a steak tonight and do an omelet or fried eggs tomorrow morning. Really fantastic cookware.
http://amzn.com/B0000CDUUH

Also, another kitchen essential that I think NO chef should be without, a good silicone spatula/spoon.

(I don’t personally like the black color, I have white…and a red one, for tomato sauces. But looks like Amazon doesn’t have those in stock right now.But this design is great; all enclosed construction with no wood or stick-hole to trap nasty bacteria. Yuck.)

Maybe I’ll try the Scanpan out next time I’m looking for nonstick cookware. It’s pricier, but the construction quality seems higher.

AMY ALKON’S RADIO SHOW STARTS IN TWO MINUTES: Find And Keep Love Through Attachment Science.

JANICE FIAMENGO: Manufacturing Racism: Academic Hiring and the Diversity Mandate.

NEW JERSEY TOWN FOLLOWS THE NRA’S ADVICE: “We’ve made a collective decision as a town that we need armed security in each of our schools.”

UPDATE: Reader Mark Simon points out the political genius of the NRA: “NJ will have cops at every school for one reason. UNIONS. The cops are being driven back in their Over-time and the schools just provided justification as well as another local need for those hundred of so township police departments.”

THE PARANOID STRAIN IN AMERICAN POLITICS via Michael Mann. “The return label says COSTCO Photo Center, not Heartland, not Koch Brothers World Headquarters, and not ‘Skeptic Lair’. I guess Dr. Mann really is out of touch with the common man, because all he had to do was visit COSTCO photo center to see for himself that ANYONE can create and order calendars, and have them sent to friends or family, just like I did. No Koch Brothers credit card needed.”

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LARRY CORREIA: An Opinion On Gun Control. (Reposted).

JAKE SHIMABUKURO: Bohemian Rhapsody on ukelele. “You know, this is the underdog of all instruments.” He’s the Stevie Ray Vaughan of the ukelele. No, really.

THE ARCHIES: Sugar, Sugar.

MARIO LOYOLA: The Federal-State Crackup.

For decades, Democrats and Republicans alike have invested heavily in governance schemes that erode the Constitution’s separation of powers and mar its proper functioning. The Federal judiciary has uniformly rubber-stamped these schemes. The consequence has been an unsustainable spree of borrowing, spending and overregulation at the Federal level, cyclical fiscal crises at the state level, and less accountable and less representative government at every level.

These governance schemes are generally of two kinds: one erodes the separation of powers between Federal and state governments, while the other erodes the separation of powers within the Federal government. In the first category is “cooperative federalism”, whereby the Federal government uses monopoly powers to coerce and subvert the prerogatives of state governments. In the other is Congress’s delegation of vast rule-making authority to administrative agencies.

These two categories of concern are often treated as being entirely distinct, but they share profound similarities. Both are methods for Congress to escape accountability by hiding its power in other institutions of government. Cooperative federalism allows Congress to hide its power within the decision-making of state governments, while its delegation of rule-making authority allows it to hide its power in the far-flung bureaucracy of the Executive Branch.

The Federal judiciary has a crucial role to play in maintaining and policing the boundaries of America’s basic institutions of state. It is a role it abdicated when confronted with the popular nationalist programs of the New Deal. The constitutional doctrines the judiciary has invoked to let Congress blur these critical separations of power are deeply flawed as a matter of constitutional law, and they have ultimately become unsustainable as a matter of political economy.

Yes. And a “living constitution” approach will recognize that the New Deal doctrines are poorly adapted to a changing world, and return to limited government.

AT AMAZON, Top Holiday Deals in Kindle Books.

Also, 99 cent songs on MP3.

And, today only: I Love Lucy: The Complete Series, $84.49 (64% off).

JUST A REMINDER OF ANOTHER CRUSADE TO IMPROVE PEOPLE: The zealous drive by politicians to limit our salt intake has little basis in science.

It’s about control. It’s always about control.

ANN ALTHOUSE: Scenery chewing in the Theater of Outrage over Wayne LaPierre’s unremarkable news conference.

So many violent metaphors from the Apostles Of Nonviolence. And may I note that if teachers are too dumb and undisciplined (“mobs”) to be trusted with guns, then why, exactly, are they to be trusted with our children?

TRIUMPH OF THE NERDS: The internet has unleashed a burst of cartooning creativity.

Well, yes.

THE NEVERENDING SCOURGE OF Ever-Present TVs In Restaurants. “So while we diners polish off our pepperoni, we get to hear about a body being unearthed from a serial killer’s basement in Iowa.”

UPDATE: Yes, there is a technical solution. But is it right?

NEWS YOU CAN USE: What to Expect When You’re Expecting (Your College Kid Home for Christmas).

WHAT TURNED JARON LANIER AGAINST THE WEB.

VIDEO: Ukulele weeps by Jake Shimabukuro. “This guy is a god on a ukulele.”

WELL, THOSE UCLA LAWPROFS ARE A WILD AND CRAZY BUNCH: UCLA Law Prof Lets Needy Strangers Live Rent-Free in His House: Cool or Crazy?