The ex-BioWare bods, Stoic, with their offices in a goat shed have released a trailer for the intriguing The Banner Saga. Revealing the traditional animation style, as well as the ye-olde-school grid-based turn-based combat, along with RPG-like dialogue options, it gives you an idea of the tone being aimed at, if not how it will feel to play. We’ve also got some rather lovely screenshots that we’ll even let you look at. If you’re good.
“I’m not here to convince people that we are right, although it would be nice if it turned out that way. I’m here to tell the truth and let readers decide for themselves.“
- Kimball Atwood. Science Based Medicine.
I had been too inarticulate to formulate what is essentially my approach to this blog: to tell the truth. That would appear to be simple enough. Of course it gets down to what constitutes the truth, and whether you can handle the truth.
What is truth, small ’t’? Truth with a big ’T’ is provided by belief systems that originate in a personal epiphany and you suddenly understand the meaning of life, the universe and everything. Or conjure up reiki or chiropractic. I suspect I was either born without the part of the brain that allows me to appreciate the mystical/spiritual aspects of human existence, or perhaps it was my upbringing. Probably a bit of both, although having raised two kids in the eternal nurture/nature debate has swayed me heavily towards the nature side of the fence. I bet I was born that way. But I am totally tone deaf to issues of spirituality and the surrounding issues of big ’T’ Truths, so I am going to stick to the little ’t’ truths.
Little ’t’ truths’, or as I like to call them, facts, consists of the approximate understanding of the reality provided by the scientific method. Note the word approximate. I have always liked Richard Dawkins metaphor of science as climbing a series of peaks (at least that is how I remember it, having read the book years ago). Get to the top of one peak, and it provides a vista of understanding, but there is always another peak to climb to offer an even more comprehensive view of the topic. Every year our understanding of reality is refined and extended. Understanding something as ostensibly simple as influenza vaccination gets more sophisticated and subtle every year. It is not as simple as give an antigen, develop an antibody and become immune to that strain of flu. It is the continuing increased understanding of the multiple facets of infectious diseases is in part what makes ID the most endlessly fascinating specialty in medicine.
There are still lots of unexplained phenomena in the universe, but mostly at the extremes of scale: the quantum level and the universe. At the approximation of the human scale, the scaffolding upon which we hang our understanding is quite well worked out. The basic sciences (physics, chemistry, biochemistry, anatomy, physiology, pharmacology, evolution, etc.) that inform our understanding of medicine do not leave any space for ‘new’ concepts. The existing concepts that underlie medicine do not support much of what passes for the underlying mechanisms that are the alleged basis of supplements, complementary and alternative medicine (SCAM’s). If is more to human existence, wondrous strange, I have yet to see it demonstrated.
Horatio:
O day and night, but this is wondrous strange!
Hamlet:
And therefore as a stranger give it welcome.
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
If there are phenomena at the human scale that exist outside our understanding of the basic sciences, it has never been demonstrated over and above the ability for humans to convince themselves that magic exists. My philosophy seems pretty comprehensive
At some level I am not a ‘true’ skeptic, since given the current understanding for the reality, the following not only do not exist, but cannot exist. Their prior probability is zero. A true skeptic would give credence to the possibility, however small, that a counterexample could be produced to confirm the reality of some bit of pseudoscience. The following incomplete list do not and cannot be true, small ‘t’, and are fictions:
It reinforces the idea that science based medicine is reality based medicine. SBM is based on facts and small ’t’ truths. While SCAM’s use the tools of science, much of the underling conceptual framework is imaginary. Dr. Hall’s idea of Tooth Fairy Science conceptualizes the idea perfectly.
There is a lot of uncertainty in medicine, both diagnostically and therapeutically. What does the patient have and how best to treat it can be very complex and the often the most reliable diagnostic intervention, the autopsy, is refused by the patient. The uncertainty in medicine is still within the framework of the sciences and the difficulty in the sorting through the great variability of disease presentation and treatments requires no understanding of CSF tides, energy blockages or Laws of Similars.
Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, CFS, is perhaps a good example where medicine fails. There are still no diagnostic or therapeutic interventions that shed light on the disease or improve the quality of life for the patients. I remain reasonably convinced that a subset of CFS patients have an infectious trigger, and that someday we will have an understanding of the pathophysiology of these patients. I do not think it is ‘all in their head’, although as Takotsubo cardiomyopathy demonstrates, there is a mind-body connection, just not the mystical connections promulgated by many SCAM providers. There are no features about CFS to suggest its etiology will not eventually be amenable to understanding. As I have mentioned before, humans operate within very narrow physiologic parameters and have a limited repertoire with which to respond to the environment and CFS appears to be variations on a theme.
In medicine we have an understanding of truth, of reality, an expanding collection of facts and their interrelationship, provided by the basic sciences. At the center of medicine is applying that reality as best as is possible to ill, frightened people. The ill are vulnerable. When you are sick you often do not have the luxury to search for the best product available, like finding a TV on consumer reports. And even if you have the time, the complexity of medicine may preclude a good understanding of what the diagnosis and therapy. Hell, when I had my lipids checked, my primary said they were bad. She started to talk about LDL and HDL and ratio’s and risks and I stopped her. I didn’t care. I have better things to occupy my neurons with than lipids; I have blogs to write. What did I need to do? Lose weight. So I did. Now my lipids are fine. Just do not ask me what my numbers are or what they mean. I don’t care to learn the ins and outs of lipids; I trust my doctor.
There was a time when medicine was less standardized and reality based. At the beginning of the 20th century there were multiple competing forms of medicine and no standardization of medical education. Becoming a doctor could be as easy as hanging up you shingle, declaring that since you cured deafness with a pop of the spine, you were a doctor and a healer. Because of the hodgepodge of disparate medical practices and the lack of an organized medical education, the Carnegie Foundation financed a review of medical education in the United States. Authored by Abraham Flexner, for some unknown reason it became known as the Flexner Report, and it became the foundation for the standardization of medical education.
The Flexner Report resulted in a reorganization of medical schools and gave rise to the system of medical training in use today. Among the many changes was a clear delineation between those aspects of medicine that were science/reality based and those that were not: chiropractic, homeopathy, and naturopathy.
When Flexner researched his report, “modern” medicine faced vigorous competition from several quarters, including osteopathic medicine, chiropractic medicine, eclectic medicine, naturopathy and homeopathy. Flexner clearly doubted the scientific validity of all forms of medicine other than that based on scientific research, deeming any approach to medicine that did not advocate the use of treatments such as vaccines to prevent and cure illness as tantamount to quackery and charlatanism. Medical schools that offered training in various disciplines including eclectic medicine, physiomedicalism, naturopathy, and homeopathy, were told either to drop these courses from their curriculum or lose their accreditation and underwriting support.
The last 100 years has seen the proliferation of reality based biomedical sciences and there has been a similar proliferation of fantasy based SCAM’s that, one would think, would have no reason to be included in modern medicine. The Flexner report had put medicine firmly on the path of reality/science based medicine, which I would argue is the ethically based medicine as well. Diagnosis and therapies based upon what is, well, made up shit, should have no utility in medicine. Ill, vulnerable people should not, one would think, have their lives, their health, and their finances put at risk on the basis of fictions. This is the point in the essay where someone will mention Vioxx. Thank you. Vioxx bad. Got it. Vioxx gone. SCAMs persist. That is the important difference.
Fast forward 100 years to the Bravewell report. Many of the issues of the Bravewell report have already been discussed by Dr’s Gorski, Novella and Atwood; I might as well pile on. What is striking about the report is how many of what I would have thought of as premier medical institutions in the US have repudiated science and reality in favor of fantasy based medicine. These are what I would have thought of as top notch medical centers: UCSF, Scripps, Vanderbilt, Duke, Cleveland Clinic and MD Anderson are on the list.
As always with proponents of SCAM’s there is a spectrum from legitimate therapists and therapies to the completely wackaloon. I am going to limit myself to the 100% fantasy based wackaloon SCAMs offered by institutions who really should have known better. But that’s me. I do not think popularly and profit should trump truth and integrity. Shame, I guess, is not a concept embraced by our ‘top’ medical centers. I am using quotes; I worry that soon I will be typing in caps and using multiple exclamation marks, the sure sign on the web that the writer is unhinged.
70% of these institutions employ an acupuncturist, 62% a TCM practitioner, 38% a chiropractor, 28% a naturopath, 17% an ayurvedic practitioner, 17 % a homeopathy practitioner. Almost one in 5 think it is legitimate medical practice to offer water to treat their patients. The mind boggles. If your medical institution has so little grasp of reality that they hire homeopaths and their fellow travelers, the naturopath, time to seek care elsewhere. 38% have hired a holistic nurse, what ever that is. Probably who is doing the reiki and therapeutic touch. Other fantasy based therapists employed included energy psychologist, Feldenkrais practitioner, Qi Gong practitioner, and a reflexologist.
Of the 29 centers 15 used healing touch or reiki for cancer or chronic pain. Legitimate medical centers waving hands over patients to treat cancer. Really, there is no shame. None. Evidently they are proud of the fact; I am sure the Board of Directors is pleased. For asthma, 9 used healing touch, 4 used chiropractic, 3 used homeopathy. For cancer, 15 used reiki, 15 used healing touch, 4 used homeopathy. For diabetes, 7 used reiki, 5 healing touch, 2 homeopathy. These are real diseases with well known pathophysiologies and complications for which they offer magic.
Interestingly, for diabetes, only 24 of 29 used “food/nutrition” and 18 of 29 used “exercise/fitness” in their therapies And here I thought diet and exercise were the mainstay of diabetes treatment. Same with heart disease with 24 of 29 used “food/nutrition” and 20 of 29 used “exercise/fitness” and for obesity with 25 of 29 used “food/nutrition” and 24 of 29 used “exercise/fitness.” I wonder, rather than diet and exercise, how they treated diabetes, obesity and heart disease; the lists suggests probiotics, therapeutic touch, reiki or homeopathy.
And post operative care? 3 of 29 used endurance training or Pilates. Doesn’t seem, off hand, to be the best time for endurance training. They are probably not getting the patient ready for an iron man after their hip replacement. Or I would hope. Given the approach to diabetes, obesity and heart disease, I am not so sure.
It gets worse: 38% have on site retail sales of homeopathy, 21% from their website, and 7% from pharmacy or gift shop. They are selling water and are happy to proclaim it to the world. Similarly 48% gave on site retail of TCM or Ayurvedic, 21% from their website, and 3% from pharmacy or gift shop, and 38% have on site retail of AROMATHERAPY (!!!!!!!!!) , 17% from their website, and 7% from pharmacy or gift shop.
It is a serious question: Why not have a psychic on staff to predict the patients course? Or have John Edwards visit after a patient dies so that the family can talk to their dead? Does anyone see any difference between those interventions and the ones already offered? I can’t. Major medical institutions are offering fiction to their patients.
It would be nice, or at least easier, to practice in one of those institutions. Where I work I have to justify adding new drugs to the formulary. We review the costs and benefits of new interventions and decide, based on the available data, if an antibiotic should be added to the formulary. We have to follow standards and review the literature. If I were to practice at Duke or Scripts, I could do whatever I damn well pleased. They evidently have no standards of care since and any institution that sells homeopathy should have no institutional credibility to control their pharmacy.
Flexner was a fool for thinking
Such exploitation of medical education … is strangely inconsistent with the social aspects of medical practice. The overwhelming importance of preventive medicine, sanitation, and public health indicates that in modern life the medical profession is an organ differentiated by society for its highest purposes, not a business to be exploited.
A scientific basis of medical care and medicine have a higher purpose. I love humor. As the Bravewell report says “cash remains the most frequent form of payment.” When the choice is between reality and an exchange of fantasy for money, as Las Vegas demonstrates, fantasy wins.
The humor continues in the Bravewell report. They report that clinical success is based in part on “Using an evidence-informed approach to care.” I presume for those institutions that offer the fantasy based therapies, the evidence is from billing and collections, not Pubmed.
While most of the institutions measure patient satisfaction, the results of those measurements are not mentioned. I would bet that patient satisfaction is high. Unfortunately,
higher patient satisfaction was associated with less emergency department use but with greater inpatient use, higher overall health care and prescription drug expenditures, and increased mortality.
That may be why they do report outcomes. I would postulate that high satisfaction with your alternative care would be associated with increased mortality.
My bias is that medicine should be based on the best approximation of reality that the scientific method can provide. Science based medicine is reality based medicine. The forms of therapy offered by what used to be considered top notch medical institutions are neither based on science nor reality, but I understand that popularity and profit are more important than honesty and integrity. That’s the wave of the future. I was always under the impression that you can judge of person by the company they keep.
One of the most striking, though perhaps predictable, conclusions of this study is that integrative medicine is, in fact, integrative. It integrates conventional care with non- conventional or non-Western therapies; ancient healing wisdom with modern science; and the whole person—mind, body, and spirit in the context of community.
If you integrate fantasy with reality, you do not instantiate reality. If you mix cow pie with apple pie, it does not make the cow pie taste better; it makes the apple pie worse.
I had long thought that the laws of thermodynamics prohibited perpetual motion machines. No longer. If we can some how harness the kinetic energy of Flexners corpse, we would no longer have to import oil. At the rate it must be spinning, it is probably going to rotate forever.
The Economist uses a recent report (pdf) to advocate for economic reform in the Mideast:
The Middle East has strikingly few private companies, less than one-third of the number per person in eastern Europe. Everywhere the state dominates the economy. In Egypt the public sector accounts for 40% of value-added outside agriculture—an unusually large share for a middle-income country. Such private firms as do exist tend to be large and closely connected to the state. The average Middle Eastern company is ten years older than in East Asia or eastern Europe because new entrants are kept out by pervasive red tape. The authors reckon it costs roughly 20 times the average annual income to start a firm in Syria and Yemen (assuming anyone would want to), just over twice the average globally.
Ryan Avent adds:
The resource curse is frequently blamed for disadvantages in trade, but other barriers—tariffs, regulations, and poor infrastructure among them—add needlessly to the remoteness and the poverty of the region.
Car: Red Bull Racing – Renault RB8
Concept
There’s not a lot left to be said about Red Bulls incredible run of pace since 2009. Despite not winning the 2009 championship, the RB5 rewrote the text book on F1 design. Since then, the two subsequent cars have both pioneered new ideas and followed a few others. Each time the car has been ever more dominant. If the team have an achilles heel, then its reliability, split between the; chassis, the engine and KERS. With pace in hand, the team do not need to make bold steps with the cars design, as they need to maintain reliability. With the RB8 taking risks was not on the agenda, the evolutionary car uses detail design and a small few unique features to keep a step ahead on pace.
Layout
With the evolutionary concept, no obvious changes have been made with the cars layout. The retains a steeply raked attitude, Newey mentioned at the launch that the loss of EBDs will affect their ability to angle the car into the nose down attitude. But the evidence of the car on-track suggests that obtaining laptime with a lot of rake is not an issue.
Nose
As with many teams, the nose grabbed most attention when the car was launched. But rather than the shock from the awkward looking 2012 noses, there was curiosity over the letter box slots in the nose. There was one more visible slot on the upper section of nose and one less visible one below it.
Rumours circulate that the upper slot is used for some form of F-duct or (non driver) cooling. In my opinion, it is a simple solution to keep the airflow attached over the step in the nose.
Faced with the 2012 rules, Red Bull took the obvious route of a raised chassis and nose. The car now eschews the “V” shape nose and chassis, so the top of the chassis and nose are flat. With the rules forcing a 75mm step between these two surfaces, the airflow doesn’t want to run along the nose and then step up without separating from the chassis top.
So the team has sought to offset some of problems with this design. Red Bulls solution is to create an aero effect to aid the transition between nose and chassis. This starts with the letterbox inlet, which as Newey explained at the launch is ‘primarily’ for driver cooling. The rules permit one opening to the nosecone for the purposes of driver cooling. Normally this is an oval hole in the tip of the nose. But on the RB8 this is a 25cm wide narrow slot and probably only 5mm or so high. As Newey admits, some of this airflow does pass into the cockpit to cool the driver. But what Newey would probably describe as the secondary effect of the slot, is to allow for the rounded leading edge above the inlet. When airflows runs up the nose it hits this leading edge and curls under it, forming a bubble of recirculating flow. This rotating cylinder of airflow helps to keep the upper airflow aligned and attached to the flat top of the chassis. This is a simple and copyable solution. I believe this would work with or without the slot. As the upper section of nose cone bodywork is largely a cosmetic panel and not part of the crash structure. It could be changed without re-crash testing. Sauber have found a similar solution on their nose.
Below the nose there is yet another slot. This in line with the bottom of the chassis and runs the full width of the nose. While I can offer some explanation for the upper slot, this lower one is more of a mystery. Again its use has been rumoured as KERS cooling or blowing the floor, whatever its function I believe it may have been on the car last year. Although the slot was not externally visible on the 2011 car, when the nose is removed the slot was evident below the front bulkhead (pictured below). Presumably this was fed from the driver cooling inlet, which was placed on the nose tip on the RB7.
Clearly the duct formed is very small, which limits it use. I doubt it’s to cool KERS, as the KERS is mounted towards the rear of the car and the small duct would not adequately cool batteries or the like. Its position does suggest the flow could pass down to the splitter, so some clever use for blowing or loading the splitter could be within the realms of possibility. More likely is the use to cool the electronics or power steering rack, which are sited much closer to the duct and would require a smaller amount of cooling air.
One detail of the RB8 and to an extent with the RB7 was the advantage it takes of the radius that is allowed to be applied to the edges of the chassis. This 25mm radius is rounded over to keep the cross section of the nose as small as possible. Within the minimum 300mm x 275mm rectangle the nose must fit into. The top corners of the chassis are clearly a near 3/4 cylindrical section.
Front wing
In common with their rivals the front wing is a derivative of the 2011 wing. Albeit restructured to meet the newly doubled deflection test. Red Bull were late to the endplate-less wing design. Although they created slot in the endplate over the past few years, it’s relatively recently they upper section of endplate has been added on to the tips of the wings, rather than use a conventional separate endplate.
Behind the wing the turning vanes continue the mid 2011 ‘curled’ design. The vanes hang from below the chassis and are larger this year and sport a split in the middle.
One odd feature visible on the front wing is a small section of removable bodywork in the neutral centre section of wing. I’ve idea of the purpose of the purpose of this panel, perhaps its to access a sensor or allow ballast to be fitted?
Roll hoop
While retaining the same engine and with the general evolutionary theme of the car, the roll hoop area is indistinguishable from the 2011 car. No doubt there are structural changes under the skin, but these aren’t visually apparent or announced by the team.
Sidepods\Cooling
Moving onto the sidepods, the general concept of the sidepod shape is also similar to 2011. Slightly triangular inlets feed the radiators, which are mounted horizontal across the car and tilted upwards towards the front. Their flow passes up and around the heat shielding on the engine\airbox and most of it exits through the tail funnel. In cross section the sidepods retain the outwardly-tapered ‘jelly mould’ appearance, with only the area under the inlet being undercut. Again as with the RB7 the sidepods merge seamlessly into the gearbox fairing.
Exhaust
Traditionally Red Bull have switched their launch exhausts to their Melbourne spec in the last days of testing. It’s been mentioned by the team that there is a new exhaust system coming. This is no doubt partly the reason for the team delaying the last test and having a near private test (shared with Ferrari) on the last day.
The launch spec exhaust places the outlet pipe inboard and relatively low. This bows in line with the plane of the rear upper wishbone. The bodywork over the gearbox and rear crash structure is curved and creates a neat channel for the flow to pass through. This then sees the exhaust plume pass under the beam wing. In this position the heat is affecting the upper wishbone, even at its launch, the car sported heat shielding over the wishbones. During testing this protection has grown, albeit with temporary looking solutions, suggesting the new exhaust system will not blow in this area.
Rear suspension
The RB8 has a high mounted upper rear wishbone, which places its rear leg in line with the beam wing. In keeping with the recent RBx cars, the gearbox sports a tall spine that functions as the wishbone and beam wing mounting. Although this shaping is partly hidden by the way it merges into the tail funnel.
With such a high top wishbone the lower rear wishbone is able to mount higher too. This wishbone is now effectively at the same height as the driveshaft. Not only is it inline, but the wishbone forms an shroud ahead of the driveshaft to offset the negative aerodynamic effect of the rotating shaft, in the critical area above the diffuser (Note: Fully shrouded driveshafts are banned). While this all appears to be logical, the lower wishbone is not a splayed as the upper wishbone. Having the inboard mountings very close to each other is not so good from a loading perspective, so there must be a reason to make the wishbone in such a compromised shape. Again this might suggest the new exhaust needs the wishbone in a certain position to work effectively.
Diffuser\rear impact structure
With the tapered sidepod, the Red Bull encloses the centre of the diffuser inside the gearbox fairing. Other teams leave this exposed beneath the crash structure, to allow flow to pass through and out of the starter motor hole. Last year Red Bull introduced a duct in the floor to send flow directly to the starter motor hole. This year the duct appears to have gone and doesn’t look like it’s been replaced with something. In line with the gearbox and the current exhaust set up, the impact structures forms a spine along part of its length. Once the beam wing is mounted to the spine, the crash structures returns to a normal rectangular cross section and sweeps upwards towards the tail light. This spine format keeps the gearbox and suspension mountings nice and stiff, plus it mounts the beam wing with very little obstruction to it slower surface.
Gearbox
Red bull have used pull rod suspension since 2009 and introduced their carbon fibre gear case in the middle of that year. Keeping the construction and general shape, the gearbox set up appears only have detail revisions over this period.
Aerodynamic features
Every team has exploited the 12cm of space inboard of the rear wheel for aerodynamic bodywork. Red Bull have added particularly large upper vane to the brake ducts this year. Above the top wishbone mounting two large flap can be seen.
The rear wing also exploits a small window that allows bodywork, this makes it possible for Red Bull to fit vanes placed behind the diffuser, to aid the expansion of the flow out of the diffuser.
KERS
It was a bold decision in 2011 for Red Bull to develop their own Battery system for the Renault Marelli KERS. Not wanting to sacrifice wheelbase and fuel tank volume with under-tank mounted batteries, instead Newey mounted the batteries near the gearbox. In fact three batteries packs were fitted, one larger pack either side of the gearbox and a small array inside the top of the gearbox case. Exposed to more heat and vibration the KERS caused problems throughout 2011 and led to the driver having it unavailable at critical points in qualifying and races. I understand the battery positions remain for this year. It was never clear if Red Bull actually had a full power KERS in 2011. The rumours persisted of a Mini-KERS, suggesting the system discharged nearer 40Kw, rather than the maximum allowable 60Kw.
Engine
Announced in mid 2011, Red Bull are now the official ‘factory’ team for Renault. With the success of the team and the Renault F1 team being rebadged to Lotus, This allows Red bull to take a more direct involvement in developing the RS27 engine and the exhaust mappings to maximise what is allowable in the rules.
Greg Ip analyzes Obama's "framework" (pdf), which would cut the corporate tax rate to 28 percent and close certain loopholes:
Mr Obama’s proposal is better than what America already has, but not by much. His well-intentioned goal of broadening the tax base is betrayed by the preferences he insists on maintaining for manufacturing and “green” energy whose economic merits have been questioned, even by former members of his own administration. By maintaining many of the current tax breaks but apportioning them more variably, the tax code would become more complex rather than less so.
Scott A. Hodge criticizes Obama for adding new loopholes:
The plan creates a new 25 percent tax rate for manufacturing - perhaps, even a lower rate for "advanced" manufacturing. We can only imagine the feeding frenzy this would generate from lobbyists to get their industry declared manufacturing. As it is, the current "199" manufacturing deduction that was enacted in 2004, is available to architects, companies that grind hamburger, software firms, and companies that produce rap albums.
Annie Lowrey takes a closer look at the case for and against treating manufacturing differently. Len Burman wants a fuller plan:
You’d be hard-pressed to find any economists who are not industry lobbyists who think that the manufacturers’ deduction is a good idea. It should be abolished, not reformed. If there are flaws in the rules governing multinationals, fix them. We don’t need another minimum tax for multinationals. And instead of presenting a “framework,” present a proposal. The Administration should have a fully articulated plan that shows how the pieces fit together and the numbers add up. Clearly something like that exists behind the doors of Treasury. Let’s see it.
Ezra Klein likewise requests more specifics:
Both Romney and Obama’s plans rely on closing, capping or otherwise reforming various deductions and tax breaks. But neither plan is specific about which deductions and tax breaks would come under the knife, nor about what would be done to them. So the Tax Policy Center can’t fully assess either proposal. And that means we can’t, either.
John Tozzi points out that changing the corporate tax rate won't help many small businesses:
The lower rate would only apply to companies organized as C corps, which pay corporate income taxes. They make up less than 6 percent of business tax returns, according to IRS data. (They account for closer to two-thirds of all business revenue and income.) For the rest of the business world, including partnerships, sole proprietors, S corps, and limited liability companies, their business earnings flow through to owners’ personal income and are taxed at individual income tax rates.
Edward Alden wishes for bolder reforms:
What this proposal primarily does is to highlight the difficulty of trying to move discretely on any single aspect of tax reform. A tax system that is both more competitive and more fiscally responsible would require an array of changes. There are many ways reform could be sliced (which is why it’s so hard to do). My preference would be for significantly lower corporate tax rate to encourage investment, coupled with a Value Added Tax to raise revenue, discourage consumption, and boost exports, and a more progressive income tax system to offset the regressive VAT. Yet in the current political environment, two out of the three are deemed topics not worthy of serious debate.
And, after lowering expectations, Howard Gleckman manages some optimism:
In all, Obama’s plan is a modest but useful step in the direction of reform. We now have all the major presidential candidates on record supporting lower rates and a broader base. House Ways & Means Committee Dave Camp (R-MI) will have his own proposal very soon. By recent Washington standards, that is progress.
But what we need is a 1986-style Big Bang. I truly wish Obama would run on Bowles-Simpson. The only thing stopping him is the Democrats and his usual caution. I just think the oomph you need to get real change requires a populist movement that is as clear as it is simple. Otherwise, the lobbyists nibble you to shreds. Incrementalism won't work here.
If Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) is elected president, she
promises to install two security fences wherever the land of the
free meets the land of the
willing-to-work-for-less-than-minimum-wage. And just in case you
doubt Bachmann’s commitment to redundancy, she says this double
shot of steel-and-concrete contraception will cover “every mile,
every foot, every inch” of our border with Mexico. Another GOP
hopeful, Newt Gingrich, is doubling down on a border fence too, and
like Bachmann he promises to complete it by 2013.
You can understand the urgency. In fiscal year 2011, the U.S.
Border Patrol apprehended just 340,252 illegal immigrants, a mere
20 percent of its catch in 2000, when the agency nabbed 1,676,438.
It was the lowest total for alien snatching since 1971. In April
2011, the Los Angeles Times reported that parts of the
border have gotten so tranquil that agents are “encouraged to walk
around or take coffee breaks” to keep from nodding off on the job.
By 2014 there might not be enough aspiring day laborers to justify
even one fence, much less two.
Which of course means there’s a good chance two fences will get
built, and possibly three. The war on illegal immigration is
characterized by chronic uncertainty; no one knows exactly how many
illegal immigrants reside in the U.S. or precisely what causes
their numbers to wax and wane. What is clear, however, is that
eliminating illegal immigration creates more and more bureaucratic
infrastructure.
Currently there are two main agencies that deal with illegal
immigration, both divisions of the Department of Homeland Security.
One is U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP). With 58,000
employees, including 43,600 sworn federal agents and officers, CBP
is the largest federal law enforcement agency. In less than a
decade, its budget has nearly doubled, from $5.9 billion in fiscal
year 2003 to $11.9 in FY 2012. In FY 2011 it devoted $3.5 billion
just to border enforcement. The U.S. Border Patrol, a component of
CPB, has grown fivefold since 1992, from 4,139 agents to about
21,444 in 2011.
The other bureaucracy is U.S. Immigration and Customs
Enforcement (ICE). With more than 20,000 employees, ICE is the
federal government’s second largest investigative agency. It has an
annual budget of more than $5.7 billion, up from $3.3 billion in FY
2003. In FY 2003 it had the capacity to detain 18,500 illegal
aliens on any given day. Today, operating six detention facilities
of its own and renting space from approximately 250 state and local
jails, it can house 33,442.
In concert with the declining number of Border Patrol
apprehensions, which the agency attributes to more manpower, better
monitoring technologies, and the 650 miles of fence that already
exist, annual deportations are going up. In October, ICE announced
it had given the boot to 396,906 illegal immigrants in FY 2011,
“the largest number in the agency’s history.” It must have been an
easy press release to write, as the agency has been fine-tuning it
for years now. In 2010 ICE announced it had removed “more illegal
aliens [that year] than in any other period in the history of our
nation.” The year before was record setting too, as were 2008,
2007, 2006, 2005, 2004, and 2003. According to the Department of
Homeland Security’s Office of Immigrant Statistics (OIS), 2002 was
the only year since 1992 that the federal government failed to set
a new record for illegal alien removals.
Under President Barack Obama’s direction, ICE has removed
1,179,313 illegal aliens in three years. George W. Bush presided
over 2,012,539 removals during his eight-year reign. Despite this
expensively enforced exodus of more than 3 million individuals
since 2000, the estimated number of unauthorized immigrants living
in the U.S. hasn’t changed much. The OIS reports that this
population peaked at 11.8 million in 2007, dropped to 10.8 million
in 2009, and stayed at 10.8 million in 2010. According to many
experts, the drop-off from 2007 to 2009 was due in large part to
the recession rather than enforcement efforts. With fewer American
jobs available, fewer immigrants have chosen to make the
increasingly arduous journey here.
Sinking Mexican fertility rates may also play a role. In 1960
the average number of births per woman in Mexico was 6.8. By 1990
that number had dropped to 3.4, and in 2011 it’s down to 2.3. Soon
there won’t be enough young Mexicans to fill all the jobs in
Mexico, much less in America. But 2012 is an election year, and
long- shots such as Texas Gov. Rick Perry and Bachmann can’t afford
to let nature take its course. The former is promising to “detain
and deport every illegal alien who is apprehended in this country.”
The latter is a little more judicious. “It is almost impossible to
move 11 million illegal immigrants overnight,” she told radio host
Laura Ingraham in November. “You do it in steps.”
Forget moving 11 million illegal immigrants overnight. During
the last three years, Obama has demonstrated that it’s damned hard
to move just 400,000 illegal immigrants out of the country over the
course of 365 days. Even with the costly expansion of CPB and ICE,
the system is under strain. While illegal immigrants do not enjoy
the same due process afforded to U.S. citizens, they do have some
legal recourse. When CPB or ICE apprehends someone who may be an
illegal immigrant, he is entitled to his day in one of the nation’s
53 immigration courts. In the end, the most crucial component of
the war on illegal immigration isn’t border fences or surveillance
cameras; it’s paperwork.
So while ICE has been achieving record numbers of deportations,
its enforcement efforts have set other records as well. According
to Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, a research
organization affiliated with Syracuse University, the number of
deportation cases awaiting resolution reached an all-time high of
297,551 on September 30; the average wait time was 489 days. Not
surprisingly, ICE didn’t issue a press release to celebrate this
milestone.
One result is that the federal government is running up huge
tabs housing detainees waiting for hearings. According to the
National Immigration Forum, a pro-immigration advocacy
organization, the “current cost to detain an immigrant is
approximately $166 per day.” To save space and money, ICE releases
thousands of suspected illegal immigrants on their own recognizance
each year while they wait for their day in court. Many,
unsurprisingly, vanish long before their hearings occur.
Consequently, unexecuted deportation orders “have increased from
558,000 to 1.1 million” during the last three years, according to
Mark Metcalf, a former immigration judge now affiliated with the
Center for Immigration Studies, an advocacy organization that wants
to tighten current immigration policies. This is another
record-breaking statistic that ICE has little interest in
trumpeting.
Last summer the Department of Homeland Security formed a joint
committee with the Department of Justice to review all pending
immigration cases with the intent of weeding out “low priority”
deportations and thus reducing the backlog. Meanwhile, ICE and the
private companies it contracts with are busy building new
facilities. The GEO Group, for example, is building a 650-bed jail
at a cost of $70 million in Adelanto, California, and a 600-bed
jail for $32 million in Karnes City, Texas.
Such measures will merely help better process the current load
of 400,000 deportees a year, which represents just 3.7 percent of
the 10.8 million illegal immigrants. If Bachmann, Gingrich, and
Perry want to surpass Obama’s record-setting enforcement efforts, a
double fence is just a start. We will also need an exponential
increase in CBP and ICE personnel, detention facilities,
courtrooms, and judges. According to a March 2010 study by the
liberal Center for American Progress, it would cost $285 billion to
remove 11 million illegal immigrants in five years.
That’s a hefty price tag, and it doesn’t even address the
ongoing costs of maintaining the supersized agencies and
institutions that would persist once the purge was completed.
Federal employees are even harder to remove than illegal immigrants
once they’ve gained a foothold. But who knows? After they’ve
vanquished every unauthorized worker in the land and have nothing
left to fill their hours, maybe immigration-enforcement bureaucrats
will be willing to pick strawberries.
Contributing Editor Greg Beato writes from San
Francisco.
YOU can handle one more post on Charles Murray, can't you? Mr Murray argues in Time that we should honour a distinction between people who are "just rich" and "people who run the country". I think he's on to something.
Mr Murray envisions a chap named Hank who builds a chain of auto-repair shops that make him very rich, but not particularly powerful:
[Hank] is not just in the 1%; he’s in the top fraction of the 1%—but he’s not part of the new upper class. He went to a second-tier state university, or maybe he didn’t complete college at all. He grew up in a working-class or middle-class home and married a woman who didn’t complete college... He has a lot of money, but he doesn’t have power or influence over national culture, politics or economy, nor does he even have any particular influence over the culture, politics or economy of the city where he lives. He's just rich.
The new upper class is different. It consists of the people who run the country. By “the people who run the country,” I mean two sets of people. The first is the small set of people—well under 100,000, by a rigorous definition—who are responsible for the films and television shows you watch, the news you see and read, the success (or failure) of the nation’s leading corporations and financial institutions and the jurisprudence, legislation and regulations produced by government. The second is the broader set, numbering a few million people, who hold comparable positions of influence in the nation’s major cities.
What makes the new upper class new is that its members not only have power and influence but also increasingly share a common culture that separates them from the rest of the country.
Mr Murray, a sociologist, is very interested in the details of the putative cultural chasm between the merely rich and the people who really run things, but I want to pause to reflect on the idea, implied in Mr Murray's analysis, that wealth and influence come apart.
When I worked at the Cato Institute, I became accustomed to hearing from certain corners that the organisation was a tool of imagined plutocrats, and therefore so was I. What I found amusing about this was the notion that the best America's malignantly moneyed classes can muster is to hire nerds like me to maybe shift public opinion at the margin by writing widely ignored policy papers and op-eds. Arrangements like these seem to be predicated on the idea that far-from-rich wonk types are endowed with certain capacities that make them especially likely to exert an influence on the culture. If the money of think-tank patrons makes a difference, it's because the people who work in think tanks make a difference. Where exactly is the locus of power?
When I parted ways with Cato, I thought it would be nice if there was a lavishly endowed think tank that better fit my increasingly idiosyncratic politics. Alas, there is not. But this led to me to think about what I'd do if I were a multi-millionaire with idiosyncratic politics and wanted to start a think tank to make the public case for my peculiar creed. Who would I hire? Think tanks and donor-supported ideological publications are already shot through with principal-agent problems. At places like Cato, the principals pay to restore the sacred ideals of the founders and the agents spend to abolish the status-quo patent system, end the war, and legalise weed. If I were rich, I don't know if I would trust anyone to run the Institute for the Free-Market Welfare State according to my wishes instead of theirs.
As I've argued elsewhere, financing the operations of political-action committees, campaigns, think tanks, advocacy organisations, and money-losing ideological publications is likely the best most wealthy Americans can hope to do in converting their money into political influence. And beyond relatively small-scale giving to campaigns and causes, most rich folk don't actually spend their money this way. Even when they do, the ideologically-motivated rich are limited by the menu of preexisting organisations, prevailing ideas, and the supply of ideologically congenial labour. No amount of money can buy you a think tank with your politics if there is no one with your politics to work in it.
Reader, I almost surely make less money than you do. But, for some reason, thousands of people read what I write on a number of important subjects several times each week. Sometimes, strangers will write to me to report that I've altered their opinion or attitude regarding some weighty matter. This is gratifying. Yet I'm a minor player at best in the opinion-shaping game, unworthy to touch the hem of Paul Krugman's or George Will's garment. Still, I suspect I qualify, functionally and culturally, as part of Mr Murray's "new upper class", my middle-class background and third-tier university degrees notwithstanding. I'm paid to tell people what I think. I love quinoa. I am disgusted by the obesity and religiosity of Americans. I drive my vizsla around in a Honda Element listening to Bon Iver. Please don't hate me, merely rich Coors Light drinkers of little influence. I'm doing it all for you.
by Chris Bodenner
There appears to be a spate of satirical stunts by Democratic lawmakers recently. This one is right out of Monty Python:
Oklahoma legislators introduced a bill yesterday that says "the life of each human being begins at conception." But state Sen. Constance Johnson, a Democrat, decided that the bill, SB 1433, didn't go far enough to protect unborn children. Johnson added an amendment to the bill, posted online by The Lost Ogle, that says life actually begins at ejaculation: "However, any action in which a man ejaculates or otherwise deposits semen anywhere but in a woman’s vagina shall be interpreted and construed as an action against an unborn child."
From Virginia:
Irked by abortion bill, Va. senator adds rectal exams for men
The state Senate this afternoon gave preliminary approval for legislation that would require pregnant women to undergo ultrasound imaging before an abortion, but not before rejecting a Democratic senator’s attempt to add what she described as "a little gender equity" to the bill. Democrat Janet Howell of Fairfax County proposed requiring men to undergo a rectal exam and a cardiac stress test before getting prescriptions for erectile dysfunction drugs such as Viagra. "This is a matter of basic fairness," Howell said.... "It’s requiring [women] to have unnecessary medical procedures, it’s adding to the cost and it’s opening them up for emotional blackmail," she said on the Senate floor today.
And now Mississippi:
Mississippi State Rep. Steve Holland, a Democrat, introduced a bill in the state’s lower chamber calling for the part of the Gulf of Mexico that borders his state to be renamed the "Gulf of America." A local Latino GOP organization called on Holland to withdraw the measure. "If this bill passes the legislature and is signed into law, perhaps it is time to rename the Mississippi River," wrote Bob Quasius, Café Con Leche’s president, in the letter. "After all, sharing a name with a state that wants to rewrite maps out of disdain for Mexicans would be a disgrace to the rest of the nation."
A winner has been selected for the first signed book! I'll be giving another away next week. I'll keep you posted.
