Steve Prestegard.com: The Presteblog

Presty the DJ for May 3

May 3, 2019

Music
The number one album today in 1975 was “Chicago VIII”:

The number one single that day:

(more…)
Share this on …
X
Facebook
LinkedIn
Email
Print
Like Loading…
No comments on Presty the DJ for May 3
The reality of presidential (and all other political) candidates

May 2, 2019

Culture, US politics
Brittany Hunter:

We are only a few months into 2019, and already the 2020 presidential election season is well underway. Each week, it seems that more candidates are entering the race, especially in the Democratic field. And as the country cycles through its political flavors of the week, social media has become overrun by passionate posts that read more like stump speeches in support of a given candidate.

Nearly every single person has an opinion about who this country should be supporting. And nearly every single one of them believes that their lives will be significantly better, or worse, based on who occupies the White House. But this gives politicians far too much power.

In order to truly better our lives, we need to rely less on political talking heads and more on ourselves. Only then can we begin to make a bigger difference and change the world.

Politicians Can’t Save You

Every four years, it is the same old song-and-dance as Americans make a pastime of rooting for political candidates in the same way they root for their favorite sports teams. Instead of merely holding the position of a civil servant, modern-day politicians have stepped into a celebrity role in which their brand speaks louder than their actual voting records. Beto O’Rourke and Bernie Sanders, for example, have the “cool” factor, which attracts young people willing to drop everything and campaign despite not fully understanding their stances.

These cults of personality are dangerous and they elevate politicians to an undeserved status. The more we place politicians on pedestals and believe that they can personally make our lives better, the more we relinquish our own sense of personal responsibility. And to be perfectly clear, that is the only way we can hope to better our own lives, or anyone else’s for that matter.

If anyone has any doubt of this, ask yourself if the health care system in the post-Obama world is really any better than before he came to office?

We’ve all heard the promises political candidates make when it comes to improving the lives of their constituents: Andrew Yang is going to help the little guy get ahead by providing a universal basic income. Bernie Sanders is going to be the first person in history to make socialism work and create true and lasting equality. And Elizabeth Warren is going to personally save every woman from misogyny by becoming the first female president. These are, of course, no different from the promises we have heard in the past.

Donald Trump was going to save the American middle-class and the businesses sector. Barack Obama was going to save our health care system. And, at the risk of sounding repetitive, Hillary Clinton was going to save us from misogyny and create seamless gender equality by becoming the first female president. But when the ballots have been cast and all is said and done, few people’s lives are dramatically impacted based on who sits in the oval office. And most of the problems that existed before the four-year term begins will exist afterward.

If anyone has any doubt of this, ask yourself if the health care system in the post-Obama world is really any better than before he came to office. It goes without saying that the “if you like your plan you can keep your plan” promise went out the window as soon as the realities of Obamacare made themselves known. Oh, and insurance policy premiums also skyrocketed.

Likewise, it would be equally false to believe that Trump somehow managed to save our health care by undoing all the damage caused by the Affordable Care Act with the snap of his fingers. And if you do believe this to be true, ask yourself: why were so many people shocked to find they still had to pay the individual mandate penalty on their taxes this year?

A politician cannot save us, not in the policy realm or our personal lives. But as individuals, we have nearly unlimited power to do this for ourselves.

Additionally, no matter how many promises have been made to completely withdraw the troops from Afghanistan over the years, we still hear of American military casualties occurring in regions we should no longer be occupying. Even the recent tax cuts that were supposed to help all of us were not as impactful as we had once thought they would be. While corporate tax rates were slashed—and this is a good thing—individuals saw only small decreases when it came to their own tax rates. (And a small percentage saw their taxes go up.)

From a policy front, our lives change very little depending on who is the president. But there is a deeper issue here than one of just policy. In fact, it’s almost as if we view politicians as our personal saviors.

In Utah, when Mitt Romney was a 2012 Presidential candidate, many Utahns referred to him as the “white knight,” who had come to save our country and our Constitution. While this is the extreme of the cult of personality worship, it highlights the seriousness of the problem. The “white knight” reference implies that we need someone to come save us instead of realizing that we are capable of saving ourselves.

A politician cannot save us, not in the policy realm or our personal lives. But as individuals, we have nearly unlimited power to do this for ourselves.

We’ve Got to Save Ourselves

Objectivist and renowned American psychotherapist Nathaniel Branden cautions against waiting on someone else to come rescue you from your problems. In his book The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem, Branden writes:

No one is coming to save me; no one is coming to make life right for me; no one is coming to solve my problems. If I don’t do something, nothing is going to get better.

At first glance, this might seem like a bleak statement. But in these words rests the immense personal power we need to transform our lives. No politician can save you, just like no parent or friend can save you. If you really want to fix your life and be a tool for change on a grander scale, you’re going to have to learn how to save yourself.

As a young person in my 20s, my life revolved around getting Ron Paul elected. In my humble opinion, I still believe he would have been the best president this country has ever known, but that doesn’t negate the fact that in pursuit of getting him elected, I stopped trying to work on myself and improve my own life.

During that 2012 campaign season, I stopped talking to family and friends who disagreed with me, I routinely made excuses as to why I didn’t have to be kind to someone who supported another candidate, and I abandoned all self-improvement endeavors in pursuit of getting Dr. Paul elected. At the time, I truly believed a Paul presidency would fix all my problems.

Instead of starting small and fixing whatever I could in my own personal sphere, I looked to someone in Washington to rescue me. I made the mistake of abandoning everything right in front of me. My four-year relationship was on track to escalate to an engagement, but my preoccupation with the campaign resulted in a nasty breakup instead. Additionally, lifelong friendships deteriorated because I couldn’t seem to see past our political differences. And when it came to my family, I stopped attending Sunday dinners and holidays because I didn’t have time for anything that wasn’t centered around my political pursuits. Additionally, my own health was beginning to deteriorate because I couldn’t find the time to sleep well or eat properly.

And when the election season was over, and my dreams of a President Paul had not come to fruition, I was left with the harsh realization that my personal life was a complete mess. I had tried so hard to change things in Washington—something I truly had very little control over— that I completely neglected to fix what I could control. I did not realize at the time that I was capable of saving myself.

During an appearance on Joe Rogan’s podcast, psychology professor Jordan B. Peterson spoke of the importance of fixing your own life before you try to take on bigger tasks. He said:

…don’t be fixing up the economy, 18-year-olds. You don’t know anything about the economy. It’s a massive complex machine beyond anyone’s understanding and you mess with that your peril. So can you even clean up your own room? No. Well you think about that. You should think about that, because if you can’t even clean up your own room, who the hell are you to give advice to the world?

In my quest to elect Dr. Paul, my proverbial room had grown chaotically messy. And instead of doing what I could to fix it, I was out campaigning, attempting to tell other people what to do when I truthfully did not even know how to handle my own life. As Peterson also says,

My sense is that if you want to change the world, you start from yourself and work outward, because you build your competence that way.

Peterson’s sentiment actually echoes similar words written by Plato in a passage from The Republic, in which he writes:

But in truth justice was, as it seems, something of this sort; however, not with respect to a man’s minding his external business, but with respect to what is within, with respect to what truly concerns him and his own. He doesn’t let each part in him mind other people’s business or the three classes in the soul meddle with each other, but really sets his own house in good order and rules himself.

During that campaign season, I had ample opportunities to take small steps in rescuing myself, but I never did. Instead, I thought that I could bypass saving myself in pursuit of something greater. But this is not possible. You cannot run without first learning how to walk, and in order to be capable of great change, you have to first fix yourself. This doesn’t have to be some grand gesture, you can start small by cleaning your room, or even begin by simply organizing one small corner of your room. Eventually, as Peterson says, you can take on bigger tasks.

…and then maybe you’ll learn enough by doing that so that you can fix up your family a little bit, and then having done that, you’ll have enough character so that when you try to operate in the world, at your job, or maybe in the broader social spheres, that you’ll be a force for good instead of harm…

Imagine what you could do if you got your own life in order? This seems like a small step, but maybe by cleaning your room and getting your own life together you could start a business and create jobs for others. Or maybe you could be a more effective activist if you first did all you could to work on yourself before petitioning for larger change.

If you want to live in a world where women have more opportunities, don’t elect another woman to office; become the female who is bringing that change to pass in her everyday life. We make the grave mistake of assuming politicians are qualified to save us. But how many political candidates have actually made the effort to “clean up their own room” before attempting to save the country? The answer is probably very few.

All You Can Do Is Start With Yourself

We would each do well to remind ourselves that an election season will not make or break us as individuals. Unless you are willing to take the steps needed to clean your room and be your own savior, you cannot expect someone else to do it for you. So instead of arguing back and forth on social media in favor of this or that candidate, do something that will help you change your own life and, thus, better prepare you to make bigger changes.

As Confucius says:

To put the world in order, we must first put the nation in order; to put the nation in order, we must first put the family in order; to put the family in order; we must first cultivate our personal life; we must first set our hearts right.

No one is coming to help you, so you might as well stop waiting and start fixing your own life today.
Share this on …
X
Facebook
LinkedIn
Email
Print
Like Loading…
No comments on The reality of presidential (and all other political) candidates
Ongoing wasteful state spending

May 2, 2019

Wisconsin politics
The RightWisconsin headline of this column from two state senators is “Wisconsin’s Hidden Debt.”

The debt may be hidden; the spending is not. Long-time readers have read here about the failings of the Knowles–Nelson Stewardship Program, which buys land that almost no one can use:

In Wisconsin, our natural resources are an essential part of who we are as a state. We value our outdoor traditions and the stewardship program has helped Wisconsinites preserve natural areas and expand access to recreational activities, all of which are beneficial.

Despite being well intentioned upon enactment in 1989, the stewardship program primarily allows the state to purchase land it cannot otherwise afford, through borrowing, pushing costs onto future generations. Initially authorized for a 10 year term, the program provided $250 million in total borrowing authority to the Department of Natural Resources (DNR), but, in recent years, has grown exponentially in size and scope. Unfortunately, similar to many government programs, the stewardship fund has grown beyond its original intent, while leaving Wisconsin in a financial bind.

To the detriment of Wisconsinites, the stewardship program has accumulated far too much land, has incurred staggering debt, and has resulted in decreased funds for vital state needs. Currently, the DNR has either purchased or protected 1.8 million acres of land and the debt currently owed is $795 million. To put the land acquisition in perspective, that is more acreage than the entire state of Rhode Island or Delaware. Moreover, when land is owned by the state, it cannot be developed and is not on the tax rolls, impacting the ability of local communities to generate revenue. The program, in its current form, has run its course. The days of responsible borrowing are long gone.

It is incumbent upon the legislature and the budget writing committee to reform this program, to lower the risk to taxpayers, and to fund our top priorities. In 2015, lawmakers recognized the growing concern and required the DNR to sell 10,000 acres of land as a partial solution to rising costs. While a step in the right direction, further efforts are still needed to combat the excessive debt currently being incurred. The spending is so extreme that Wisconsin taxpayers are currently paying over a half a million dollars in interest every week on debt accumulated from the stewardship fund.

According to the non-partisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau, the stewardship fund, since its creation, has cost Wisconsinites approximately $871 million. Should our colleagues propose to reauthorize the program for an additional 10 years in this budget, the program would need to borrow an additional $332 million, an estimate that does not include interest. In total, with borrowed interest, taxpayers would be on the hook for $533 million. To make matters worse, that figure does not include the current $795 million in existing stewardship debt.

To be clear, if reauthorized, stewardship costs will soar to $1.329 billion dollars. In a budget in which Wisconsin needs significant investment in our roads, we need to seriously evaluate how we prioritize our spending. We must ask ourselves when enough is enough.

Enough has been enough for a long time. The program buys land for “low-impact recreational activities,” which means that your tax dollars have been paying for decades for activities you can’t partake in — sometimes fishing, often hunting, and never anything that involved internal combustion engines — unless the DNR approves.

I wonder how many Wisconsinites are even aware that these land purchases have been made not through earmarked spending, but by debt.
Share this on …
X
Facebook
LinkedIn
Email
Print
Like Loading…
No comments on Ongoing wasteful state spending
Presty the DJ for May 2

May 2, 2019

media, Music
Today is the 59th anniversary of what I used to consider the greatest radio station on the planet in its best format:

(more…)
Share this on …
X
Facebook
LinkedIn
Email
Print
Like Loading…
No comments on Presty the DJ for May 2
Tax cuts and the economy

May 1, 2019

US business, US politics, Wisconsin business, Wisconsin politics
M.D. Kittle:

The booming economy of 2019 continues to be fueled in large part by the GOP Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017.

And Badger State companies and their employees continue to reap the rewards of tax relief.

“Also, what may not be as immediate is (the tax savings) have allowed us to bank some cash…It’s a fact that there are going to be funds there for us to be able to put toward capital expenditures when the time is right,” Jung said.

U.S. gross domestic product (GDP), according to initial reports from the U.S. Commerce Department, grew by a whopping 3.2 percent in the first quarter, crushing estimates and soothing worries of a looming economic slowdown.

Companies like Pewaukee-based Trico Corp.have much to do with the U.S. economy’s impressive expansion. Bob Jung, CEO of the century-old industrial lubricants business, will tell you that the $1.5 billion tax relief package passed by the Republican-controlled Congress and signed into law by President Trump continues to benefit businesses like his — and Trico’s employees.

A year ago, Jung confirmed that, thanks to the tax cuts, Trico would provide $650 bonuses to its workforce, and the employer planned to increase contributions to employee 401(k) accounts. The company also expected to hire more full-time workers. Jung said Trico paid out those additional benefits earlier this year.

The lower tax rates for S corporations like Trico have made a big difference to the bottom line. But the reform package also included beneficial accounting changes. Jung’s company was able to change from accrual to cash accounting, allowing Trico to recognize revenue and expenses only when money changes hands, not when revenue is earned and expenses are billed (but not paid) under accrual accounting.

Jung said the tax cuts have helped the company expand products and services to customers. Trico sales are up 10 percent on the year, he said.

“Also, what may not be as immediate is (the tax savings) have allowed us to bank some cash,” the CEO said. “It’s a fact that there are going to be funds there for us to be able to put toward capital expenditures when the time is right, perhaps in the fourth quarter.”

Such sentiment bodes well for economic expansion ahead.

Economists’ consensus had pegged GDP growth at about 2.5 percent to start the year. Many are upping their full-year estimates following the latest numbers on top of a healthy 2.9 percent growth rate in 2018. On average, the U.S. economy has added 180,000 jobs in the first three months of the year, while the major markets continue to break records.

Corporate America brought back nearly $670 billion in offshore profits to the U.S. last year, according to the U.S. Commerce Department.

Grover Norquist, president and founder of Americans for Tax Reform, said the GOP tax reforms were designed to ramp up economic growth over the next three to four years. When you cut corporate income tax rates from 35 percent to 21 percent, however, that frees up a lot of capital to reinvest, Norquist said. And U.S. companies have done just that.

Corporate America brought back nearly $670 billion in offshore profits to the U.S. last year, according to the U.S. Commerce Department. That’s a considerable amount, even as Bloomberg and other media outlets chortled that it was a far cry from the $4 trillion President Trump predicted would return post-tax reform.

“We saw the growth immediately from the first year, so imagine what will happen over the next two, three, four or five, six years (with) the most powerful, pro-growth, pro-wage increase” tax reform law, Norquist told MacIver News Service in a recent edition of the MacIver NewsMakers podcast.

U.S. businesses continue to pass along their tax savings to employees, to consumers, and to their communities.

Americans for Tax Reform has tracked some 800 examples of new hires, pay raises, benefit increases, bonuses, facilities expansions, and utility rate reductions directly related to the tax cut package. This incomplete list, which only notes firms that have made public announcements, includes the largest corporations to the smallest shops — including dozens of Badger State companies, like Trico.

And Madison-based Musicnotes, Inc.

Last year, the worldwide leader in digital sheet music, announced it was giving 3 percent salary increases to its 55 employees, thanks to the corporate tax cuts. Tim Reiland, the company’s executive chairman, said Musicnotes intended to expand its workforce.

“We definitely benefitted from the tax reform and we have passed some of that along and continue to do that,” Reiland said.

It has done that and more.

“This is a really positive story for us and it continues,” Reiland told MacIver News last week. “We definitely benefitted from the tax reform and we have passed some of that along and continue to do that.”

Musicnotes has added six positions, boosted salaries by an average of 10 percent, and expanded office space by about 15 percent since the beginning of 2018, Reiland said. He calls it the “virtuous circle.”

A lot of the company’s growth has to do with its products and the people behind them, Reiland said, but a significantly lower corporate tax rate certainly helps.

“It’s very real. It’s cash flow. That’s what you need to grow a business,” he said. “It has been a significant benefit to us, and we’ve shared, we’ve rewarded, we’ve plowed back and we continue to do that.”

Beyond business expansion and employee bonuses, a lot of companies have used a portion of their tax savings to benefit their communities. Case in point, CUNA Mutual Group. The Madison-based mutual insurance provider was able to make the largest contribution ever — $20 million — to its philanthropic foundation, thanks in part to tax reform.

“The reform benefit is helping us,” said CUNA Mutual spokesman Phil Tschudy. “The reason we did this is so we could ensure that our foundation is funded for years to come, regardless of economic situations.” The foundation turned 50 this year.

Consumers, too, continue to benefit from the 2017 tax reform law.

State regulators announced last year that WE Energies’ electric customers would receive a one-time credit in July and a slight decrease in rates “from a portion of the savings from the company’s lower federal corporate tax rate.” The Milwaukee utility’s customers received a combined $374 million in refunds, through bill credits, in 2018, according to WE Energies spokesman Brendan Conway.

“We have also lowered the amount of debt customers would have had to repay us $47.2 million,” he said in an email.

On top of that, the utility’s recent filing with the state Public Service Commission proposes to use an additional $111.3 million in tax savings to lower customer costs in 2020 and 2021.

Democrats, led by Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer called the benefits delivered by the tax cuts “crumbs.” But employers and workers nationwide have been able to keep a lot more bread — and impressive economic growth shows the power unleashed when taxpayers are freed from the burdens of taxation.
Share this on …
X
Facebook
LinkedIn
Email
Print
Like Loading…
No comments on Tax cuts and the economy
When “free” isn’t and shouldn’t be

May 1, 2019

US politics
Nick Gillespie:

So now college should be free in the same way K–12 education is. That’s what most (though not all) of the Democratic presidential candidates are saying, with Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren offering the most-detailed plan to make tuition at public universities free, forgiving “95 percent” of existing student debt, and increasing the amount of money for Pell grants and historically black colleges and universities. Ironically, the push for “free” college is coming at a time when a historically high percentage—about 70 percent—of recent high-school graduates are already enrolling in college. College has somehow become so unaffordable and remote that more and more people are attending.

“This is the kind of big, structural change we need to make sure our kids have opportunity in this country,” says Warren in a video she posted at Twitter. But just like Bernie Sanders’s routine and misleading invocation of “people with $300,000 in student debt,” Warren’s plan doesn’t just misrepresent the impact of student loans on the individual level and the historically high availability of access to higher education; it’s one more step toward an America where the people who benefit from something get somebody else to pay for it. Above and beyond any financial considerations, that’s a bad attitude to inculcate.

Warren would pay for her plan with an “Ultra-Millionaire Tax” on the 75,000 richest households in America, which she says would raise $2.75 trillion over a decade. As Peter Suderman has noted, “European countries that have imposed wealth taxes have largely given up on them; of the dozen OECD nations that had wealth taxes in 1990, just four still have the tax on the books.” Warren also keeps promising to spend her new revenue on all sorts of things, to a degree that there isn’t enough money to cover her growing list of giveaways.

Warren’s plan is of a piece with progressive Democrats pushing for more and more goods and services to be provided by the government regardless of citizens’ ability to cover their own costs. From a financial perspective, this sort of reflex is flatly unsustainable in a country that has already run up a $22 trillion tab and whose rising debt service will cost more than Medicaid next year and more than military spending in 2023. But there’s also a moral argument to be made here: Why shouldn’t we expect people who can pay for their own education, health care, and retirement to do so? And why shouldn’t we expect people who benefit from something to fund all or most of their activity?

When it comes to college, high-school grads are enrolling at historically high rates, a sign that they have access to higher education. Using three-year moving averages (which smooth out minor fluctuations) the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) reports that a record-high level 69.5 percent of “recent high-school completers” are enrolled in college. In 1975, the first year for which data is presented, the figure was 49.1 percent. In 1980, it was 50.8 percent. Warren can rhapsodize about how much cheaper college tuition used to be, but the reality is that far higher percentages of people are attending college than ever before. In fact, according to NCES, a record high level of students from low-income households are attending college right out of a high school. The three-year moving average for low-income students in 2016, the latest year for which data is presented, was an unprecedented 67.1 percent—more than double the figure in 1980.

And despite claims that “we’re crushing an entire generation with student-loan debt,” the typical undergrad borrower is doing fine. About 70 percent of the Class of 2018 graduated with some debt, and their median monthly payment is $222. The overall amount of student debt is gigantic—about $1.5 trillion—but when you break it down to what the typical borrower is actually on the hook for, the picture changes dramatically.

If college students have skin in their own game, they’ll think more seriously about going to college in the first place and be more motivated to be serious and to finish. Also, one reason why tuition hikes have outpaced the general rate of inflation is that government-guaranteed student loans have helped to goose the costs. Meanwhile, the returns to a college degree remain immense even if they have flattened a bit in recent years. In a 2016 paper for the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, Robert G. Valletta found that in 1980, the average worker with a high school degree made $16.33 per hour while the average worker with a college degree made $22.85. In 2015, the high school grad made $17.98 per hour while the college grad averaged $30.93. (All those figures are in 2015 dollars.) While studies of the effect of college on take-home pay vary, all show large gains and lower unemployment rates. If you’re going to make as much as a million extra dollars over your working lifetime by getting a B.A., you should be the one footing the bill.

There’s nothing wrong with asking people who benefit from something to shoulder all or part of the costs. Our national finances are falling apart largely because we keep insisting that all benefits be universal and that nobody pay their own way when it comes to big-ticket items such as health care, education, and retirement. One result in those areas are markets that don’t function as efficiently as they would otherwise. Another is a pervasive belief that we can always pass the costs of our choices onto other people. Our government is trying to be all things to all people It would be better to let it focus on helping people who can’t help themselves, and let the rest of us get on our with our own lives.

I am still waiting to hear why (1) people who didn’t and won’t go to college and (2) people who went to college and paid their own way (including paying off their own college debt) should pay for college students to go to college. If you believe that college graduates make more money than those who didn’t finish, or didn’t start, college, then college students should be able to pay for college themselves.
Share this on …
X
Facebook
LinkedIn
Email
Print
Like Loading…
No comments on When “free” isn’t and shouldn’t be
Presty the DJ for May 1

May 1, 2019

Music
The number one single today in 1965:

Today in 1970, the Jimi Hendrix Experience played the first of its 13-show U.S. tour at the Milwaukee Auditorium:

(more…)
Share this on …
X
Facebook
LinkedIn
Email
Print
Like Loading…
No comments on Presty the DJ for May 1
The real danger of guns

April 30, 2019

US politics
Dan Wos looks at the constitutional-carry debate in Alabama:

While the citizens of Alabama seek to regain their God-given right to defend themselves, anti-gun politicians use delusional arguments to thwart their efforts. Senator Vivian Davis Figures accused the Alabama citizens she represents of having mental problems for wanting Constitutional Carry in their state. After a clear understanding of the bill in question, it would seem the Senator is a bit misguided and may have some mental problems of her own.

SB4, (otherwise known as a Constitutional Carry Bill) is welcomed by gun-owners across the state of Alabama, primarily because of the way it would prevent good people from being cornered by over-zealous gun-grabbers. The handgun permit system currently in place requires a permit in vehicles but not outside vehicles often turning law-abiding citizens into law breakers for simply traveling to the grocery store.

Paul Arnold from BamaCarry (an organization defending gun rights in Alabama) said, “SB4 makes the permit process optional but does not do away with the permit system or background checks at the time of purchase.”

Arnold also said, “98% of BamaCarry members would still acquire a handgun permit for reciprocating purposes while traveling or purchasing a new firearm.”

This doesn’t stop the rhetoric from the agenda-driven Senator as she laid on a heaping helping of fearful, misleading anti-gun propaganda. Let’s look at what Senator Vivian Davis Figures said in a committee hearing on SB4.

Senator Figures said, “Why would you want to do certain things that really put people at greater risk?”

Clearly, Senator Figures doesn’t understand that SB4 does not eliminate background checks and in no way puts people at risk, but in typical anti-gun fashion, she uses the fear-campaign as a desperate attempt to get people on board to oppose the bill. Her statement also implies that anyone who votes for SB4 would be “putting people at greater risk.” A typical shaming tactic often used by the gun-grabbers. This is similar to the “blood is on your hands” accusation often thrown at gun-owners.

Senator Figures said, “You even want to repeal a part of the law that’s in place now about carrying weapons into a demonstration, where everyone knows that the emotions are high,”

This statement was particularly disturbing because it reveals very little about Alabama gun-owners and more about Senator Figures herself. This was her Freudian slip moment. The implication here is that “when emotions are high, people will shoot each other.” When Freud talked about “Projection” he explains it as a way of people placing their own innermost personal thoughts onto others. He said it was a way for people to blame others for thoughts that were occurring in their own mind. In this case it appears that Figures believes people will be unable to control themselves when emotions are high. Maybe Figures is revealing more about herself than she would like her voters to know. How would she be able to assume others would act out in an emotionally-reactive way if she wasn’t already intimate with that very problem? Maybe Senator Figures doesn’t trust others with guns because she wouldn’t trust herself with a gun.

The idea that someone would think a gun could make people do violent things is a disturbing look into their thought-process and may expose more about them than the people they are accusing.

Senator Figures said, “I’ve always gotten an ‘F’ from the National Rifle Association and that’s a proud ‘F’ that I receive… I just don’t understand the mentality of what you guys or – or what you guys continue to push to do,” she said. “Particularly, with all the gun violence that is happening, to allow a person to be able to get a gun who has mental problems – to me that says the person who’s pushing that has some mental problems. They don’t understand why people with mental issues shouldn’t have a weapon.”

This statement rambled a bit but a few key points practically jump off the page. When she states she just doesn’t “understand the mentality of you guys,” she seems to be saying that she has her view and all else is irrelevant. Then she threw in the ever-popular “gun-violence” term just to remind everyone that guns are the cause of violence. This is often used to redirect anyone who might want to actually place the blame on the person pulling the trigger. Can’t have that. If people realized violence is a human thing, we might force politicians to look at some of their own failed policies.

Then Figures attacks the citizens of Alabama again by restating they have mental problems but she also implies that SB4 would allow mentally-disabled people the ability to purchase guns. The Bill, does not do that but like all true anti-gun politicians, Figures doesn’t let those pesky facts get in the way of her mission to disarm the people she works for.

16 States already have Constitutional Carry in place without incident. That’s the part the Anti-2nd Amendment Radicals hate, because it shows their argument for gun-restrictions to be irrational.

In the world of this state senator, all mass shootings would end when the shooter ran out of bullets, instead of what happened Saturday, as reported by the Daily Caller:

The man who fired a semi-automatic weapon inside the Chabad of Poway synagogue in San Diego on Saturday froze, dropped his gun and sprinted to his car when he saw Oscar Stewart come barreling toward him, yelling so loud the priest at a neighboring church could hear.

“Get down!” Stewart yelled, according to his wife and others who were at the scene. “You motherfucker! I’m going to kill you!”

Others who were there later told him it sounded like four or five people were shouting. He thinks maybe an angel was standing behind him and speaking through his voice. When the shooter ran, he immediately gave chase.

Stewart, 51, told The Daily Caller on Sunday he doesn’t remember any conscious thought from the moment he heard the gun shots until it was all over — he just acted on instinct to stop the shooter and prevent him from leaving so he couldn’t hurt more people somewhere else. The Iraq combat veteran said his military training kicked in.

“I knew I had to be within five feet of this guy so his rifle couldn’t get to me,” Stewart said. “So I ran immediately toward him, and I yelled as loud as I could. And he was scared. I scared the hell out of him.”

Stewart served in the Navy in explosive ordnance disposal from 1990 to 1994, then enlisted in the Army in 2001 because of the Sept. 11 terror attacks.

“Looking back, it was kind of a crazy idea to do, but I did it.” He was deployed to Iraq in 2003 and left the military in 2004, as a staff sergeant. He’s now in construction work.

When the gunman opened fire, he was in the back of the synagogue. By the time he got to the lobby, the shooter had killed one woman, blown the finger off of a rabbi, and injured two others.

“I heard gunshots,” Stewart said. “And everybody got up and started trying to get out the back door, so I — for whatever reason — I didn’t do that. I ran the other way. I ran towards the gun shots.”

“When I came around the corner into the lobby area, I saw the individual with a gun, and he fired two rounds. And I yelled at him and I must have yelled very loud, and he looked at me, and I must have had a really mean look on my face or something, because he immediately dropped his weapon and turned and ran. And then I gave chase.”

Stewart said he chased him all the way out to his car and began pounding on it — the shooter had managed to lock himself in. When Stewart saw him reach for a rifle, he punched the side of the car as hard as he could, intending to figure out a way to drag him out of the car. That’s when a Border Patrol agent who attends the synagogue came running out to the parking lot, yelling for Stewart to get down because he had a gun.

Stewart says this man may have saved his life and pointed to his use of a civilian’s gun as evidence that gun control isn’t the answer to these kinds of tragedies. Stewart was off-duty and was apparently handed the weapon by someone else on the scene.

“It takes a good guy with a gun to stop a bad guy with a gun,” he told the Caller.

The agent fired several rounds into the lower part of the vehicle, intending to disable it, but the shooter managed to drive away. The two of them then grabbed a phone from someone and called the police to report his license plate. The shooter later turned himself in.

After he sped off, Stewart ran back into the synagogue and found a woman he knew, 60-year-old Lori Gilbert Kaye, unresponsive on the floor in the lobby. He began CPR and continued trying to bring her back to life as a couple of doctors arrived and began to assist him. She didn’t make it. The two had talked occasionally, and he remembers her as a passionate and kind woman.

“She had different political views, so we had interesting discussions when we talked,” he said. “We didn’t just talk about the weather. It was kind of cool. She was a very loving woman.”

Stewart considers her the real hero. Eyewitnesses said she jumped in front of the rabbi to save his life.

“People in the aftermath here have been saying it’s important to be strong and defend ourselves. I also think it’s important to know that being strong and defending ourselves requires a lot of sacrifice too.”

“I don’t know if I consciously made the choice to potentially sacrifice myself,” he added. “But I did. And this lady, she stood and she jumped in front of the shooter and she saved the rabbi’s life. When somebody said I was a hero, I’m like, she was a hero. I just did it instinctively, like an animal. There was no conscious decision. I just did it.”

He may not call himself a hero, but Stewart believes his actions effectively stopped the shooter. He doesn’t think reports of the shooter’s gun jamming as the reason he fled are likely to be true, because he was using a semi-automatic rifle. “Full automatic weapons will jam,” he said. “Semi-automatic weapons do not jam.” He thinks maybe the shooter had emptied his magazine. Whatever the case, the shooter let the slung weapon drop and fled.

“He was in the act of shooting when I saw him,” Stewart said. “When I yelled at him he turned and looked at me, and he like froze. And then the look on his face was one of amazement at first, and then one of fear. He saw me coming, and I was ready to do whatever I had to do to stop him.”

For his part, Stewart doesn’t attribute the shooter’s actions to a larger agenda and was reluctant to connect him to a larger political context. He doesn’t blame President Donald Trump and expressed hope that people don’t try to blame anyone else for the man’s actions. “He was an individual acting alone,” he said.

“If you’re ignorant and you don’t know what people are like, you don’t know that I’m a person just like you. I go to work every day in a manual labor job. I’m not some, you know – supposedly he said in his manifesto that the Jews control this and that — I don’t control anything. I go to work just like you every day. He didn’t know that.”

“If he had gotten to know me, he would know that I’m a great person, that I’m a nice guy, that I’m a very caring person,” he continued. “My apprentices — they all love me. They say that I’m the best teacher in the world, you know, that I care, that I try to teach them, and if he had known any of these people, like the lady Lori who died. She would go give Easter baskets to kids and that’s not even a Jewish thing, you know. … She was just a warm person.”

If anything’s to blame, he says it’s social media and the increasingly disconnected world we find ourselves in. “The whole media thing — people don’t get to know people, and they get to sit in a cocoon, and sit and make opinions on what somebody writes. It’s not good. We need to interact more.”

“The most important thing I want to share is that we need to know each other,” he said. “If you make an opinion on anyone, you need to know what they’re about, and who they are. You can’t generalize and say every blue person is evil because they’re blue. That’s ridiculous.”
Share this on …
X
Facebook
LinkedIn
Email
Print
Like Loading…
No comments on The real danger of guns
Athletes and their taxes

April 30, 2019

US politics
Dan Mitchell:
My friends on the left hold two impossible-to-reconcile views about taxation.
- First, they say taxes don’t really have any effect on incentives to work, save and invest, and that governments can impose high tax rates and punitive double taxation without causing meaningful economic damage or loss of national competitiveness.
- Second, they say differences in taxes between jurisdictions will cause massive tax-avoidance behavior as jobs and investment migrate to places with lower taxes, and that national and international tax harmonization is required to prevent that ostensibly horrible outcome.
Huh?!? They’re basically asserting that taxes simultaneously have no effect on taxpayer behavior and lots of effect on taxpayer behavior.

Well, they’re half right.

Taxpayers do respond to incentives. And when tax rates are too high, both money and people will escape high-tax regimes.

In other words, people do “vote with their feet.”

And it seems pro athletes are not “dumb jocks” when contemplating the best places to sign contracts.

Looking at baseball, taxes presumably had an effect on Bryce Harper’s decision to play for the Phillies.

For Major League Baseball players, three teams are at the bottom of the standings on state taxes: the Los Angeles Dodgers, San Diego Padres and San Francisco Giants. That’s because California is in a league of its own on personal income taxes. We’ve got by far the highest state rate in the nation, topping out at 13.3%. By contrast, Pennsylvania has a low flat rate for every taxpayer regardless of income. It’s just 3.07%. That’s one reason why superstar slugger Bryce Harper signed an eye-popping 13-year, $330-million contract last week with the Philadelphia Phillies, spurning the Dodgers and Giants. …Harper will save tens of millions in taxes by signing with the Phillies instead of a California team. …“The Giants, Dodgers and Padres are in the worst state income tax jurisdiction in all of baseball,” Boras adds. “Players really get hit.” …To what extent do California’s sky-high taxes drive players away? “It’s a red light,” agent John Boggs says. “I’ve had players in the past say they don’t want to go to certain states because they’re going to get hammered by taxes. Obviously, that affects the bottom line.”

Another argument for states to join the flat tax club!

If we cross the Atlantic Ocean, we find lots of evidence that high tax rates in Europe create major headaches in the world of sports.

For example, I’ve previously written about how the absence of an income tax gives the Monaco team a significant advantage competing in the French soccer league.

And there are many other examples from Europe dealing with soccer and taxation.

According to a BBC report, we should highlight the impact on both players and management in Spain.

Ex-Manchester United boss José Mourinho has agreed a prison term in Spain for tax fraud but will not go to jail. A one-year prison sentence will instead be exchanged for a fine of €182,500 (£160,160). That will be added to a separate fine of €2m. …He was accused of owing €3.3m to Spanish tax authorities from his time managing Real Madrid in 2011-2012. Prosecutors said he had created offshore companies to manage his image rights and hide the earnings from tax officials. …In January, Cristiano Ronaldo accepted a fine of €18.8m and a suspended 23-month jail sentence, in a case which was also centred around tax owed on image rights. …Another former Real Madrid star, Xabi Alonso, is also facing charges over alleged tax fraud amounting to about €2m, though he denies any wrongdoing. Marcelo Vieira, who still plays for the club, accepted a four-month suspended jail sentence last September over his use of foreign firms to handle almost half a million euros in earnings. Barcelona’s Lionel Messi and Neymar have also found themselves embroiled in legal battles with the Spanish tax authorities.

Let’s cross the Atlantic again and look at the National Football League.

Consider Christian Wilkins, who was just drafted in the first round by the NFL’s Miami Dolphins. He’s very aware of how lucky he is to have been picked by a football team in a state with no income tax.

The Miami Dolphins picked Clemson defensive tackle Christian Wilkins with the 13th overall pick in Thursday night’s first round of the NFL draft. …He’ll be counted on to help usher in a new era of Miami football under first-year head coach Brian Flores. …Wilkins said he “knew they were interested” in him and is happy to be headed to Miami. He also joked that he’s happy he’ll be playing football in Florida, where there is no state income tax. “Pretty excited about them taxes,” he said. “A lot of guys who went before me, I might be making just a little bit more, but hey, it is what it is.”

As he noted, his contract may not be as big as some of the players drafted above him, but he may wind up with more take-home pay since Florida is a fiscally responsible state.

College players have no control over which team drafts them, so Wilkins truly is lucky.

Players in free agency, by contrast, can pick and choose their new team.

And if we travel up the Atlantic coast from Miami to Jacksonville, we can read about how the Jaguars – both players and management – understand how they’re net beneficiaries of being in a no-income tax state.

Hayden Hurst got excited after he received a phone call from someone he trusted who told him the Jaguars were targeting him with the No. 29 overall pick. …Though Hurst…was happy when the Baltimore Ravens took him four slots before the Jaguars, he also knew in advance of the financial consequences that most rookies don’t notice. Since Florida is one of four NFL states (Tennessee, Texas and Washington being the others) with no state income tax, Hurst, who played at South Carolina, understood he’d see a big chunk of his $6.1 million signing bonus disappear on the deduction line when he received his first bonus check. …“I thought about how much of my money was going to be impacted depending on which state I played in,” Hurst said. “I’m paying a pretty hefty percent up in Maryland. To see the amount get taken away right off the bat kind of hurt, it was pretty sickening.” With the NFL free agent market set to open Wednesday, Hurst’s situation illustrates a potential competitive advantage for the Jaguars of being in an income tax-free state when they court free agents.

Yes, the flat tax club is good, but the no-income-tax club is even better.

I’ll close with an observation. Way back in 2009, I speculated that high tax rates could actually hurt the performance of teams in high-tax states.

It turns out I was right, as you can see from academic research I cited in 2017 and 2018.

The bottom line is that teams in high-tax states can still sign big-name players, but they have to pay more to compensate for taxes. And this presumably means less money for other players, thus lowering overall quality (and also lowering average win totals).

P.S. I normally only cheer for NFL athletes who played for my beloved Georgia Bulldogs, but I now have a soft spot in my heart for Christian Wilkins (just like Evan Mathis).

P.P.S. I also have plenty of sympathy for Cam Newton, who paid a tax rate of almost 200 percent on the income he earned for playing in the 2016 Super Bowl.

P.P.P.S. Taxes also impact choices on how often to box and where to box.

P.P.P.P.S. And where to run track.

P.P.P.P.P.S. And where to play basketball.

P.P.P.P.P.P.S. While one can argue that there are no meaningful economic consequences if athletes avoid jurisdictions with bad tax law, can the same be said if we have evidence that high tax burdens deter superstar inventors and entrepreneurs?
Share this on …
X
Facebook
LinkedIn
Email
Print
Like Loading…
No comments on Athletes and their taxes
Presty the DJ for April 30

April 30, 2019

Music
The number one single today in 1960:

The number one British album today in 1966 was the Rolling Stones’ “Aftermath”:

(more…)
Share this on …
X
Facebook
LinkedIn
Email
Print
Like Loading…
No comments on Presty the DJ for April 30