Paul M. Jones

[C]all for an end to the deductibility of mortgage interest above $500,000.  The burden of paying this new tax would mostly fall on people who live in high cost “Blue” states and other wealthy swells who live in districts that voted overwhelmingly for Obama.  The next order of business would be to reinstate  the excess profits tax on the  Hollywood’s movie and entertainment industry.  Make the Democrats defend Kim Kardashian over local small business people.  Continue with the theme of excess profits taxes and go after another unpopular sector of American society: lawyers.  Tax contingency fees for legal judgments over $10 million and force Democrats to defend their rich lawyer allies. Finally, end the deductibility of local and state taxes so that the vast majority of Americans in lower tax states are not forced to subsidize the reckless and profligate spending of the “Blue” state politicians and public employee unions.  If they want to persist with bankrupting their states, that’s fine, but the rest of us don’t need to help fund it.

I mean, if you really want to hit the rich, hit the ones that are your political opponents, right? Cia Waging A Scorched Earth Political War Over the Fiscal Cliff | Alan Charles Itzkoff – the Conservative Top 10.

If a country runs a deficit (as a percentage of GDP) that is equal to its growth rate, the debt level will remain constant. This year U.S. GDP will be a little less than $16 trillion, and its historical growth rate is 3.25%. That works out to what we might call a “safe” deficit of $520 billion, or even $600 billion if you allow for a little inflation. Last year, however, the U.S. deficit was $1.1 trillion -- or roughly $500 billion too much.

That gap could be closed by ending all tax cuts, tax breaks and stimulus payments for everyone, according to the Tax Policy Center. But two-thirds of the burden would fall on the middle class -- something both political parties want to avoid. All the proposed tax increases on the wealthy, however, even combined with the end of the payroll-tax cut, would raise only $295 billion. So unless there were spending cuts twice as big as the ones currently scheduled, the deficit would still be too large.

So if raising taxes on the rich nets you $295 billion on a deficit of $1100 billion, what's the point? It's like spending $11,000/year too much, and getting a job that only pays you $2950 for the year. I submit that raising taxes on the rich is not a plan to actually close the deficit hole; it is instead a ploy to encourage you to vote for them what's raising the taxes. Via Investment Advice as the U.S. Approaches a Fiscal Cliff | TIME.com.

America has an unfortunate history with secession, which led to the bloodiest war in our history and divisions that persist to this day. But, in general, the causes of secession are pretty standard around the world: Too much power in the central government, too much resentment in the unhappy provinces. (Think Hunger Games).

So what's a solution? Let the central government do the things that only central governments can do -- national defense, regulation of trade to keep the provinces from engaging in economic warfare with one another, protection of basic civil rights -- and then let the provinces go their own way in most other issues. Don't like the way things are run where you are? Move to a province that's more to your taste. Meanwhile, approaches that work in individual provinces can, after some experimentation, be adopted by the central government, thus lowering the risk of adopting untested policies at the national level. You get the benefits of secession without seceding.

Sound good? It should. It's called federalism, and it's the approach chosen by the United States when it adopted the Constitution in 1789.

via Column: A solution to secession fever -- federalism.

[T]ake Philly out of Pennsylvania, the Big Apple out of New York, the Motor City out of Michigan, the Windy City out of Illinois, Cleveland out of Ohio, Milwaukee out of Wisconsin, St. Louis out of Missouri, etc., and a lot of blue states would instantly be red. What explains this pronounced and hugely significant partisan divide between urban and nonurban areas?

One obvious explanation for the overwhelming Democratic majorities in big cities is the Curley effect with the corresponding concentration of Democratic constituencies like welfare recipients and unions, but there is more to it than that. The Curley effect has turned once-vibrant cities into economic basket cases, but what, then, can explain the perennial dominance of Democrats in such thriving, prosperous cities as Boston, Chicago, and San Francisco? Why do affluent, white-collar, highly educated citizens in these cities tend to be liberal and vote Democratic?

Sociologists could have a field day with this question, but the explanation could be something as simple as the fact that people who live in cities are relatively insulated from how difficult and challenging it can be to produce the food, energy, equipment, devices, etc., that comprise the affluence that urbanites enjoy. In their urban cocoons, city-dwellers take for granted the abundance and availability of the economic goods that they consume. For instance, many well-to-do, educated urbanites see no downside to supporting stricter regulations and higher taxes on energy producers, because to them, energy is something that is always there at the flip of a switch (except during the occasional hurricane, as some New Yorkers recently discovered). Life in the city for affluent Americans creates the illusion that all they have to do is demand something and--presto!--it will be there when they want it.

Via What Explains The Partisan Divide Between Urban And Non-Urban Areas - Forbes.

Communists: worse than Nazis.

THIRTY-SIX million people in China, including my uncle, who raised me like a father, starved to death between 1958 and 1962, during the man-made calamity known as the Great Famine. In thousands of cases, desperately hungry people resorted to cannibalism.

The toll was more than twice the number of fallen in World War I, and about six times the number of Ukrainians starved by Stalin in 1932-33 or the number of Jews murdered by Hitler during World War II.

After 50 years, the famine still cannot be freely discussed in the place where it happened. My book “Tombstone” could be published only in Hong Kong, Japan and the West. It remains banned in mainland China, where historical amnesia looms large and government control of information and expression has tightened during the Communist Party’s 18th National Congress, which began last week and will conclude with a once-in-a-decade leadership transition.

Those who deny that the famine happened, as an executive at the state-run newspaper People’s Daily recently did, enjoy freedom of speech, despite their fatuous claims about “three years of natural disasters.” But no plague, flood or earthquake ever wrought such horror during those years. One might wonder why the Chinese government won’t allow the true tale to be told, since Mao’s economic policies were abandoned in the late 1970s in favor of liberalization, and food has been plentiful ever since.

The reason is political: a full exposure of the Great Famine could undermine the legitimacy of a ruling party that clings to the political legacy of Mao, even though that legacy, a totalitarian Communist system, was the root cause of the famine. As the economist Amartya Sen has observed, no major famine has ever occurred in a democracy.

Via China’s Great Shame - NYTimes.com.

[Hostess Brands], which previously survived one multi-year Chapter 11 bankruptcy process, when it operated as Interstate Bakeries, has just made a splash at the NY Southern Bankruptcy court, for the last time, with a liquidation filing. The reason: insurmountable (and unfundable) difference in the firm's collective bargaining agreements and pension obligations, which resulted in a crippling strike that basically shut down the company.

In other words, the labor unions representing 18,000 workers fought the company, and the unions won... A very pyrrhic victory. Sadly, they are all now out of a job as the unionized victory just happened to lead to the terminal winddown of their employer.

Finally, those 18,500 new initial jobless claims next week? Sandy's fault.

Love that final line. And guess who's going to pick up the tab on their pensions? Mr and Mrs Taxpayer, via the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. See Twinkies, Ding Dongs Maker Hostess Liquidates Following Failure To Resolve Labor Union Animosity | ZeroHedge.

[T]ry this thought experiment on for size:

The fat wife of an alpha male is the SAME THING as the unmotivated, dull, needy husband of an alpha female.

If you would be hard pressed to place full blame on the alpha female for her succumbing to infidelity, then so should you think twice before placing full blame on the alpha male for his succumbing to infidelity.

If you cannot grasp this elementary logic, then you are either a raving feminist loon, or a very feminine woman who confuses feelings for reason.

... Feminists often sputter angrily when they see a much older, powerful man with a younger woman, a reaction which arises because they are aware that what they are seeing is an asymmetrical power relationship, but even worse, that the subordinate woman in the relationship ENJOYS IT! The man likes having a pretty girl look up to him, and the woman likes having a powerful man to look up to.

Be sure to read the original article for a pic of Mrs Petraeus and Ms Broadwell. Draw your own conclusions. Via Petraeus And The Infidelity Risk Curve « Chateau Heartiste.

[T]here's a mantra that criticism must be constructive - that is, don't criticize someone if you cannot also tell them what to do about the problem.

I think that is a harmful norm, for two reasons. First, once a feature of your product is identified as weak, people other than the identifying party may come up with a solution. ... [E]ven if no one can think of a solution, having a weakness pointed out leads to a more realistic appreciation of your product, which by itself can be very helpful. When several people in your movie production company report vague feelings that a specific screenplay would not make a good basis for a movie if the aim is to make money, you may not want to produce it. If tests show that the brakes on a new car are not working properly, you may not want to start selling it. These are cases where nobody points out how to solve the problem, yet knowing that the problem exists is very important.

via The Church of Rationality: Criticism Need Not Be Constructive.

[C]onventional wisdom, especially among progressives, is that money can buy elections. The Citizens United case was supposed to be the end of democracy since it meant unlimited corporate spending on elections.  If money really did buy office, 2012 should have been great evidence for the hypothesis.  

Instead 2012 looks like a case study in the powerlessness of money, in the triumph of the autonomous voter.  For instance, the Sunlight Foundation reports that 2/3 of outside cash was spent on losers.

via Money Has Little Influence on U.S. Politics, Garett Jones | EconLog | Library of Economics and Liberty.

It's not just that many voters are socially liberal and prioritize social issues, causing Republicans to lose a portion of the electorate every Election Day based on those issues. Of course, that's true, but Republicans have a broader problem: their positions on social issues are turning off many voters from the very idea of agreeing with them on any issue. Conservatives like to bring up "the law of unintended consequences." Well, how many professional Republicans are willing to face the fact that their party's retrograde positions on social issues have been inadvertently holding economic conservatism hostage?

via Jaltcoh: How can Republicans win after 2012?.