Sunday, July 15, 2012
Welfare Cliffs...
Here's a beautifully simple illustration (click to enlarge) of the problems caused by the “welfare cliffs” (reductions in welfare benefits triggered by earned wages). This is worth studying, as an example of public policy with unintended consequences (at least, I sure hope they were unintended!).
The example on the chart below starts with a single mom earning (through a job) $29,000 a year. She also qualifies for several kinds of welfare payments, which (added to her wages) brings her net income and benefits to over $57,000 a year. Now consider what happens if she gets a raise to $32,000 a year in wages: the welfare payments she qualifies for drop steeply (the “welfare cliff”), and her total income and benefits drop to about $50,000 a year. So...she gets a raise of $3,000 a year, but gets a total income cut of over $7,000 a year. If you were in that single mom's place, would you ask for a raise?
The example in the chart below illustrates a slightly different point. That same single mom would have to get a raise from $29,000 to over $69,000 before she saw higher net income and benefits. This happens from a combination of two factors: the previously described “welfare cliffs” and our progressive income tax system that confiscates larger percentages of your income as you make more.
Only the stupid welfare recipients are going to try to earn more, to make a successful career. All the smart ones have the game figured out: you win by making between about $20,000 and $29,000 in wages. Anything more than $29,000, you lose. The winners coast along, taking in those nice, free welfare dollars...
What's the solution? It isn't hard. Design our tax code and welfare system such that no matter what situation someone is in, if they earn a dollar more in wages, an interesting percentage of that goes into their pocket. Better yet: do away with the welfare entitlements altogether, and turn it back into what it was originally intended to be: a safety net. There are many ways to accomplish this, but perhaps the easiest one is what some other countries already do: gradually reduce the amount of welfare over time...
The example on the chart below starts with a single mom earning (through a job) $29,000 a year. She also qualifies for several kinds of welfare payments, which (added to her wages) brings her net income and benefits to over $57,000 a year. Now consider what happens if she gets a raise to $32,000 a year in wages: the welfare payments she qualifies for drop steeply (the “welfare cliff”), and her total income and benefits drop to about $50,000 a year. So...she gets a raise of $3,000 a year, but gets a total income cut of over $7,000 a year. If you were in that single mom's place, would you ask for a raise?
The example in the chart below illustrates a slightly different point. That same single mom would have to get a raise from $29,000 to over $69,000 before she saw higher net income and benefits. This happens from a combination of two factors: the previously described “welfare cliffs” and our progressive income tax system that confiscates larger percentages of your income as you make more.
Only the stupid welfare recipients are going to try to earn more, to make a successful career. All the smart ones have the game figured out: you win by making between about $20,000 and $29,000 in wages. Anything more than $29,000, you lose. The winners coast along, taking in those nice, free welfare dollars...
What's the solution? It isn't hard. Design our tax code and welfare system such that no matter what situation someone is in, if they earn a dollar more in wages, an interesting percentage of that goes into their pocket. Better yet: do away with the welfare entitlements altogether, and turn it back into what it was originally intended to be: a safety net. There are many ways to accomplish this, but perhaps the easiest one is what some other countries already do: gradually reduce the amount of welfare over time...
Saturday, July 14, 2012
Police Report...
From the Saskatoon Police Service (for the geographically challenged, Saskatoon is a city in Saskatchewan, Canada), this report on an incident that happened on Friday, July 13th, 2012:
I've never met a police officer who could have authored this report. I would like to. Awesome!
The Saskatoon Police Service responded to a rather curious single vehicle collision at approximately 8:05 pm July 13th, 2012. A motorcyclist, who had been travelling at an excessive speed, attempted to navigate the curve to travel westbound on Circle Drive from Boychuk Drive. The 27 year old male operator was unsuccessful and subsequently lost control of his bike.There's a lot to love in this report. If forced to pick a favorite sentence, I think it would have to be the last sentence in the third paragraph.
The motorcycle and its operator separated as both left the travel portion of the roadway and became airborne. Witnesses report the two had enough momentum that they landed in a slough some distance from where they had departed the road surface. On attending to the scene Officers did indeed locate a wet motorcyclist and nearly submerged sport motorcycle.
The operator was transported from the scene to hospital by MD Ambulance personnel. He is suffering from injuries reported to be of a minor nature and is expected to make a full recovery. Investigators believe landing in the slough prevented him from being far more seriously injured. The motorcycle, being poorly designed for both flight and marine operation, sustained significant external and internal damage.
Charges of Driving at a Speed Greater Than Reasonable and Safe and Changing Lanes When Unsafe have been laid against the motorcycle operator. The Saskatoon Police Service would like to remind motorists that excessive speed is often a major contributing factor in vehicle collisions and that vehicles should only be utilized in the manner for which they are designed and intended.
I've never met a police officer who could have authored this report. I would like to. Awesome!
Time to Leave...
Well, take a look at what the State of California is now requiring lumber stores to do:
Even in 1890!
Snopes says this is for real. Read the message in the last photo (click to enlarge). Via my lovely bride...
Worst Job Evah!
The toshers of Victorian England. There are a lot of candidates for the worst job ever. This is certainly amongst the top tier, if not the outright winner...
Modern Olympics Started in ... England?
Read about the father of the modern Olympics: Dr. William Penny Brookes of Much Wenlock, in Shropshire, England...
Intellectually Stimulating Web Sites...
Starting with:
Many more listed in the comments...Videos and Lectures
Learn New Things
Testing Knowledge
Teach Yourself Something
Youtube Channels
EDIT:
Subreddits
Fear...
Via McSweeney's...
Reasons to Fear Canada.
BY Sean Carman
- - - -
Ninety percent of population is massed within 100 miles of northern American border.
Seems not to mind that one of its provinces has turned almost entirely French.
Excessive politeness only makes sense as cover for something truly sinister. But what?
Citizens seem strangely impervious to cold.
Decriminalization of marijuana and acceptance of gay marriage without corresponding collapse of social institutions indicate Canada may, in fact, be indestructible.
Has infiltrated entertainment industry with singers, actors, and comedians practically indistinguishable from their American counterparts.
Consistently stays just below cultural radar yet never quite disappears.
Parliamentary government and common-law judiciary appear to function acceptably yet remain completely inscrutable.
Never had a “disco phase.”
Seemingly endless supply of timber, donuts, and Scotch-plaid hats with earflaps.
Keeps insisting it “has no designs on America” and “only wants peace.”
Plays a mean game of pond hockey.
We Are the Hopeychange!
Mark Steyn at his best:
Thus, in 2008, Barack Obama, being the preferred choice of America's youth, was, by definition, the candidate of progress and the future. In humdrum reality, his idea of the future doesn't seem to be any more futuristic than the pre-Thatcher statist wasteland of Britain in the Seventies, but that didn't stop the massed ranks of fresh-faced youth chanting "We are the Hopeychange!" in adoring if glassy-eyed unison behind him at every campaign rally. Four years later, half of recent graduates can't find full-time employment; Americans' college debt is now larger than credit card debt; the number of young people with summer jobs is at a record low; and men in their late twenties and early thirties trudge upstairs every night to the same bedroom in which they slept as a kindergartner.He goes on to talk about the youth in the “Arabian Spring” – read the whole thing...
And that's before they're permanently buried by interest payments on the multitrillion-dollar debt and unfunded liabilities from Medicare. Yet in 2012 the rubes will still vote for Obama and be congratulated by the media for doing so. Because to be young is to vote for hope and change.
What a Waste!
But the dominance of drug-related “crime” is actually much worse than this chart depicts. Why? Because a significant fraction of the non-drugs crimes at right were committed by drug users to fund their habit. Depending on whose numbers you want to believe, something between 25% and 60% of all property crimes committed in the U.S. are indirectly drug-related. The main reason drug users commit crimes to fund their habit is because of the extraordinarily high price of the drugs they crave. Those drug prices are high only because they are illegal. Precisely the same thing happened with alcohol during Prohibition. It's happening here, too.
Many people aren't aware that drug regulations are a relatively recent “innovation”. The very first law of any kind regulating drugs in the U.S. was passed in 1892, to regulate opium use (restricting it to designated “opium dens”. This was aimed mainly at Chinese immigrants, and driven by widespread American disdain for Chinese culture. Very little else happened in the way of regulation until the 1920s – before that, any American who wanted any drug – coffee, alcohol, opium, cocaine, heroin, hashhish, marijuana – was free to purchase and use it. Drug stores kept opium, cocaine, and heroin on the shelf. Marijuana was readily available, especially in the American south. Alcohol and coffee were available nearly anywhere. There were users of these drugs all across the U.S. Some abused those drugs (like some abuse alcohol today). Most did not. American society didn't fall apart. In fact, one could make persuasive arguments that our high incarceration rates today (10 times what they were 100 years ago) are more damaging to our society than drug abusers were when drugs were completely unregulated.
I'd sure like to see us going back to our former libertarian approach to drugs: let the use of them be by personal choice, and punish only those that through their irresponsible use of drugs cause harm to others. In other words, let's treat all drug use the way we treat alcohol use today. If we did so, we'd “repatriate” tens of thousands of productive citizens, and likely cut our prison populations by two thirds (some think more!).
This is one topic where I'm 100% in agreement with the libertarians (and there aren't many like that!)...
Friday, July 13, 2012
The Blond and the Ventriloquist...
Via my mom:
A young ventriloquist is touring Sweden and, one night, he's doing a show in a small fishing town. With his dummy on his knee, he starts going through his usual dumb blond jokes.
Suddenly, a blond woman in the fourth row stands on her chair and starts shouting,"I've heard enough of your stupid blond jokes. What makes you think you can stereotype Swedish blond women that way? What does the color of a woman's hair have to do with her worth as a human being? It's men like you who keep women like me from being respected at work and in the community, and from reaching our full potential as people. Its people like you that make others think that all blonds are dumb! You and your kind continue to perpetuate discrimination against not only blonds, but women in general ... pathetically all in the name of humor!"
The embarrassed ventriloquist begins to apologize, and the blond yells:
"You stay out of this! I'm talking to that little shit on your lap.."
Ya Think?
Via my mom:
THE HILLBILLY VASECTOMY
After their 11th child, a South Carolina couple decided that was enough, as they could not afford a larger bed.
So the husband went to his veterinarian and told him that he and his cousin didn't want to have any more children.
The doctor told him that there was a procedure called a vasectomy that could fix the problem, but that it was expensive..
"A less costly alternative," said the doctor, "is to go home, get a cherry bomb, (fireworks are legal in South Carolina) light it, put it in a beer can (COORS), then hold the can up to your ear and count to 10."
The man said to the doctor, "I may not be the smartest tool in the shed, but I don't see how putting a cherry bomb in a beer can next to my ear Is going to help me."
"Trust me," said the doctor.
So the man went home, lit a cherry bomb and put it in a beer can.
He held the can up to his ear and began to count!
'1'
'2'
'3'
'4'
'5'
(you'll love this...)
At which point he paused, placed the beer can between his legs and continued counting on his other hand.
This procedure also works in Tennessee, Kentucky, North Carolina, Alabama, Louisiana, Arkansas, Mississippi, and parts of Georgia, Missouri, and West Virginia and...ALL of Washington DC.
Thursday, July 12, 2012
The Fourth Time...
I just finished reading The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings trilogy for the fourth time in my life. The last time was about 15 years ago; the first time in the late '60s. It was just as fresh and enjoyable to me this time as it was the first time, and just as terrific an escapist piece. This is the first time I've reread the books since I first saw the Lord of the Rings movies, and finding the differences between the movies and the books added another bit of interest.
Mozilla Persona...
Another attempt at a universal online identity. This is one of those easy-looking problems that is awesomely difficult when you start looking at the details...
One Web Site to Rule Them All...
Some months ago, I was taken completely by surprise when Amazon rather suddenly stopped battling with various states (including California) over the collection of sales tax, and instead started signing agreements to phase in sales tax collection. I couldn't figure out what Amazon would voluntarily give up the enormous advantage they had over brick-and-mortar stores.
Now I know, thanks to this article. Amazon realized they had another opportunity, and one that they didn't share with every other web store: they have achieved the scale (or at least, they believe they have) required to put the infrastructure in place to enable them to make same-day deliveries to most of their U.S. customers.
That makes for a very compelling online shopping experience. While drinking your morning coffee at your kitchen table, you can browse Amazon's enormous “catalog” for something you need, order it, and have it delivered to your door in a few hours – or the next day at worst. At the same time, you're going to get it at an excellent price, and you're going to get Amazon's famous customer service (including return privileges). Why would you shop in a brick-and-mortar store, if that experience was available to you? The reasons for doing so just got significantly fewer.
Then think about what Amazon did to its online competitors with this move. First, by “capitulating” to the states with regard to sales tax collection, Amazon establishes a precedent that will make it enormously easier for the states to go after all the other web sites for sales tax collection – thus leveling the playing field for Amazon on the price front. Second, damned few of Amazon's competitors – quite possibly none of them – have the ability to put up competitive delivery infrastructure. The existing retail chains might be able to pull off a reorganization around that theme, but that will be very challenging even for them. One could imagine someone cobbling together a consortium or cooperative effort – perhaps even something akin to an open source effort – but such will not be easy. Amazon will be starting off with a huge, huge head start.
If Amazon manages to pull this off, it will be brilliant. Simply brilliant...
Now I know, thanks to this article. Amazon realized they had another opportunity, and one that they didn't share with every other web store: they have achieved the scale (or at least, they believe they have) required to put the infrastructure in place to enable them to make same-day deliveries to most of their U.S. customers.
That makes for a very compelling online shopping experience. While drinking your morning coffee at your kitchen table, you can browse Amazon's enormous “catalog” for something you need, order it, and have it delivered to your door in a few hours – or the next day at worst. At the same time, you're going to get it at an excellent price, and you're going to get Amazon's famous customer service (including return privileges). Why would you shop in a brick-and-mortar store, if that experience was available to you? The reasons for doing so just got significantly fewer.
Then think about what Amazon did to its online competitors with this move. First, by “capitulating” to the states with regard to sales tax collection, Amazon establishes a precedent that will make it enormously easier for the states to go after all the other web sites for sales tax collection – thus leveling the playing field for Amazon on the price front. Second, damned few of Amazon's competitors – quite possibly none of them – have the ability to put up competitive delivery infrastructure. The existing retail chains might be able to pull off a reorganization around that theme, but that will be very challenging even for them. One could imagine someone cobbling together a consortium or cooperative effort – perhaps even something akin to an open source effort – but such will not be easy. Amazon will be starting off with a huge, huge head start.
If Amazon manages to pull this off, it will be brilliant. Simply brilliant...
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