LEGAL EDUCATION UPDATE: LSAT Takers and Law School Enrollments Plunge Amidst Poor Placement Prospects.
Archive for 2012
November 23, 2012
SOME VERY IMPORTANT BREAKING NEWS: Man Escapes Death After Wife Tried To Suffocate Him By Motorboating His Face With Her 38DD Breasts.
FIZZLE: Unions Organize Walmart Protests, Rest Of The Nation Goes Shopping. Reportedly, only 50 employees participated in the protest.
REASON TV: 3 Reasons To Kill The Department of Homeland Security On Its 10th Birthday.
And here are my thoughts from ten years ago. Still on point!
WILLY STERN: How David Petraeus Mastered The Media. “Every first-rate commander knows how to cultivate the media, and use the press to his (or her) advantage. Sadly, such commanders are hard to find today. . . . As such, we are losing the media war. Al Queda is very sophisticated at telling its story. The American military is not. . . . Even if the Obama crowd doesn’t admit it, we’re at war with radical Islam. The media is an important battlefield in that war. The enemy is engaging. Many of our best commanders are not. Result: We lose.”
SOMETHING TO DO WITH BLUE HADES AND DEEP SEVEN, I BELIEVE: “We saw that our scientific maps showed there was an island there and yet the navigation charts on board the vessel showed that we had a water depth of 1,400 metres. That’s when we started getting suspicious.” Hence the “blocked” splotch on Google’s satellite view.
WALTER RUSSELL MEAD: He’s Just An Excitable Boy. “It’s OK. We aren’t asking for apologies or complaining about hurt feelings. This is the internet, and Mr. Sullivan has a shtick.”
A READER EMAILS:
I have noticed a theme running through a lot of your posts. From tax policy, to health care, to federal criminal laws, it is a constantly changing landscape that is impossible for companies and individuals to navigate. I am working with a company that is looking to start a whole new business program in the healthcare field, but they were holding off until after the election because of all the changes that will of course occur regardless of who won. Now they aren’t even sure if they will proceed with it.
Politicians will talk about helping American manufacturers, small businesses, etc. But instead they constantly change the rules of the game to “help” (of course it only seems to help big contributors who can navigate the rules or get special waivers). Businesses can handle all sorts of challenges, but they need to know that the time, money and effort they put in wont be undermined by a constantly changing rule book. Why would I sacrifice and risk if some politician is going to decide some day that I was too successful and take what I earned, or some competitor will pay enough to get an unfair advantage bestowed upon them by a politician.
At this point, most of the business people I know are truly disgusted with politicians from both parties. They go around making policies, rules and laws as if this is some game. This is my business, my family and my life, and it is constantly under attack by an army of bureaucrats.
Yes, it’s important to have good policies, but it’s also important — perhaps more important — to have stable ones. When things are constantly changing, the problem is called “regime uncertainty.” It can be quite destructive, especially if you want innovation and investment.
The problem is, stable policies offer fewer opportunities for graft and electioneering.
UPDATE: Reader Janet Shagam writes:
The email reminded me of this bit from Federalist No. 62 – “It will be of little avail to the people, that the laws are made by men of their own choice, if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood; if they be repealed or revised before they are promulgated, or undergo such incessant changes that no man, who knows what the law is today, can guess what it will be tomorrow.”
Indeed.
“THE CONSULTANTS WON.” Ban commissions on ad buys.
JOHN HINDERAKER reviews Jake Tapper’s new book, The Outpost: An Untold Story of American Valor. Bottom line: “Buy this book.”
SO YESTERDAY’S DISCUSSION OF MARGINAL TAX RATES raises a thought: In today’s freelance economy, will the impact of marginal rates on how hard people work be greater than in the past? I mean, if you have an old-fashioned full-time “job” paying X-dollars a year, you can’t easily cut back and lower your income. But if you’re a freelancer of some kind, it’s easy to say that once you’re paying 50% (or 40%) tax on your income you’d rather cut back and substitute more leisure time. With more people earning their living that way, and fewer in full-time jobs, I assume we’ll see a lot more of that than we would have, say, 20 or 30 years ago.
UPDATE: A reader emails:
With regard to your last comment on marginal tax rates, I really think that the Collins (the chiropractors mentioned in the articles lambasted on HuffPo, Slate and Mother Jones) are getting a very raw deal. There is no reason to suspect that they don’t know how marginal rates work. Given that they’re pretty much fee-for-service workers, the main way that they’ll make more money is to see more patients. If they see more patients, they have less leisure time. Hence, once they hit the higher bracket, every marginal patient is less profit to them, and the option of going on vacation is more attractive.
Weigel, Drum and Linkins all assume that the Collins don’t understand marginal tax rates because every patient brings in addition profit, simply not as much–the embedded assumption being that expansion is great marginal revenue is greater than zero. They don’t seem to understand that every hour worked (and thus taken from leisure) has an opportunity cost (and, indeed, a rising marginal cost). The Collins seem to have a perfectly good grasp of economics, and the journalists appear both clueless and, worse, cruel.
Of course, what’s odd is that they all make the same mistake.
Groupthink abounds. But yes, the more you work, the greater the value of your remaining leisure time. Set that against a declining return on additional hours worked, and it’s easy to see why people might stop working sooner than purely profit-oriented models suggest.
And another reader emails:
Please keep me anonymous if you use this.
I work in commission sales. I’ve earned a very nice income right below that $250K “threshold”. I’ve spent all of 2011 and 2012 in downsizing my expenses, paying off all debts, and conversing with my wife about how to best enjoy our now empty-nest status. A big part of our consideration is how much various taxing entities will be taking a piece of my hard-earned dollars. As a result, we will significantly reduce my income in 2013 so that I have a LOT more time to enjoy life. We’ll be very comfortable and my employer is very comfortable with me since I’m dependable and will reach my production goals that we’ve mutually agreed to. Could I earn a lot more? Yes. But I won’t because I don’t need to send any more dollars to Washington DC.
And reader Paul Stueck emails:
If I am the marginal consultant, the answer is yes.
My plan is to either raise my rates, so that there is less demand for my services (resulting in more leisure time between assignments), and\or to not take overlapping contracts as I’ve done previously.
(This from someone who worked from 3:00 AM to 11:30 PM to help out a client on Thanksgiving…)
I think we’ll see a lot more of this than many anticipate.
UPDATE: Reader Roger Bogh writes:
Regarding your discussion on the effect of increasing marginal tax rates on a consultant economy (http://instapundit.com/158226/) I have a point to be made on we salaried slugs. Namely, that many of us have spent the last four or five years getting out of debt and increasing cash flow. I was going to enjoy my new financial clout and freedom. Now I have to assume that various government entities will be grabbing at my new found assets. What is one to do? Well, I am number crunching the various tax increases I am about to be challenged by. My goal is to absolutely Zero Out those tax increases by increasing my 401(k) contributions, increasing my Health Flexible Savings Account, donating more to charity, and grinding on all of my potential deductions.
The end result is that I will have a backup Winnebago and a boat in my golden years. Maybe I’ll hire a couple of drivers for my Winnebagos rather than a boat and captain. I really don’t want all that stuff in my golden years but you have to do what you have to do.
Right now, I have mathed out the increase in my 401(k) required to zero out Kalefornea’s Proposition 30 and Proposition Z. Since I am not in the upper crust I am only going to have to zero out $150. I will time that for my first paycheck in January. The bummer is that zeroing out Governor Moonbeam’s tax increase will result in the Feds taking a cut in their revenue. Hope our Economic Black Swan President doesn’t let us fall of the cliff. If he does Kalefornea will wonder where all their money went.
Bring it on. If nobody on Capitol Hill will starve the beast I will…
Funny, I’m now reading James Scott’s new book, and he says (on page 14):
One need not have an actual conspiracy to achieve the practical effects of a conspiracy. More regimes have been brought, piecemeal, to their knees by what was once called “Irish Democracy,” the silent, dogged resistance, withdrawal, and truculence of millions of ordinary people, than by revolutionary vanguards or rioting mobs.
This response seems to me to be something like that — with the added aspect that it is actually encouraged by the regime’s own policy approaches.
PAGING DOCTOR WHO: Pelosi: Obama May Be Most Famous Person ‘In the Whole Galaxy.’
IN THE MAIL: From Andrew C. McCarthy, Spring Fever: The Illusion of Islamic Democracy.
HOW’S THAT ARAB SPRING WORKIN’ OUT FOR YA? Egypt’s President Morsi Assumes Supreme Power. “An absolute Presidential tyranny.” Another Arab tyranny is born.
Related: “Increasingly likely that post Arab Spring romanticism & absence of broader strategy led US to bet too heavily on Morsi.” Ya think? Must’ve been more of that “Smart Diplomacy” we were promised.
THE WASHINGTON POST FANS THE FLAMES OF RACISM AND SECESSION with this execrable editorial on the Susan Rice confirmation battle:
Could it be, as members of the Congressional Black Caucus are charging, that the signatories of the letter are targeting Ms. Rice because she is an African American woman? The signatories deny that, and we can’t know their hearts. What we do know is that more than 80 of the signatories are white males, and nearly half are from states of the former Confederacy.
Could it be that the Editorial Board of the Washington Post is a pack of pathetic political hacks who’ll engage in racial hate speech in order to advance the White House’s agenda? Apparently, whole swathes of the electorate are illegitimate just because of their birth. If you really believe that, you’re doing more to promote division than anyone who signs a dumb White House petition for secession. Disgraceful.
Related: Remember When Condoleezza Rice Was Called a ‘House Nigga’?
PROF. JACOBSON: Berkeley economics Professor J. Bradford DeLong and not counting every vote. “He can call me any names he wants, and I’m sure he will, but I’ve never attempted to disqualify legitimate votes.”
NO BUDGET? NO DEBT LIMIT? NO PROBLEM. Tom Blumer on Runaway Government.
THE WEINER SCANDAL AND Patterico’s SWATting.
JUSTICE: Assistant U.S. Attorney exposed as online troll behind abusive comments about local officials and businessman. “Jan Mann, who was First Assistant U.S. Attorney in New Orleans, doled out personal abuse and even offered opinions on cases she was working on, all under a ‘sock puppet’ pseudonym. This is the second time this year that someone in the office of U.S. Attorney Jim Letten has been caught trolling online, and could endanger the senior prosecutor’s position.” She looks like a troll. And I have to say, “professionalism” sure is taking a beating these days.
YOU’RE JUST A RESOURCE TO BE TAPPED: “The timing of yellow lights on traffic signals at many intersections is purposely set to a minimum so more drivers can be ticketed for running red lights.” And this is certainly true: “It is a violation of the public trust, and it jeopardizes motorist, cyclist, and pedestrian safety.”
The public trust isn’t what it used to be.
WHO COULD HAVE SEEN THIS COMING? Employers Using Loopholes In Affordable Care Act. “Because more people will be forced into part-time positions and into working multiple jobs, then less people will have the time to go to college, have benefits like vacation and sick days, and will have little time for rest, relaxation and spending time with family. The Affordable Care Act was designed to benefit, not burden, millions of Americans without health care.”
Well, see, there’s your mistake.
UPDATE: Sow crap policy, reap crap policy. Plus a musical soundtrack.