Warren Buffet and Me

Warren Buffet is an evil man, and alas, a sycophantic Ben Stein doesn't seem to realize it. The latter's NYT op/ed promoted me to post this over at the American Scene:

I read Ben Stein's Op/Ed. He lost me here:

"[The rich] don’t pay a lot of taxes as a percentage of what they can afford to pay . . ."

What does that mean? Seriously, Ben Stein should know that "afford to pay" has little economic meaning. At best, when it is used colloquially, as in "I can't afford a new 'Vette," it means that my $60K provides better marginal utility when spent on other goods (house payment, good food, 401K, high-speed internet) than on a sports car. I can't imagine how the term applies to taxes, where my choices are to pay or go to jail.

Assuming that he isn't outright lying when he writes that "the rich" pay a lower average tax rate than their housekeepers, Stein is practically lying when he leaves out how he got that result: adding in Social Security contributions, also known as payroll taxes. True, the payroll tax only applies to earned income below $75K/year, so in that sense is steeply regressive. But since benefits are tied to contributions, "the rich" will receive no more benefits than "the poor" who make the same contributions.

So you wanna change that? Come clean and admit that the present Social Security system is nothing more than a transfer program that taxes young people to pay old people. Bush himself it last year, and we know how that turned out.

So Buffet's income presumably consists entirely of dividends and realized capital gains. As an investor, this gives him huge latitude in minimizing his taxable income long before he so much as looks at a 1040. But considering that corporations pay their stockholders dividends after they have paid corporate taxes, Buffet is, in effect, paying more taxes than he gives himself credit for.

But okay, I'm all for taxing the Buffets and the Gates of the world as much as we can without creating perverse incentives. But I am not in favor of raising taxes on people whose families scrimped and saved from modest incomes so that they could invest their way to a measure of prosperity. And I fear that this will be the result, and possibly the intent, of Buffet's advice.

Predictions

Jonah Goldberg on Trent Lott as the new minority whip. His thinking almost exactly mirrors my own, but I have a vague sense that Goldberg dislikes Lott more than I do.

Now that the Democrats have retaken Congress, herewith are my predictions:

1. This will be the do-nothing Congress. The Democrats will owe their victory to public dissatisfaction with the war in Iraq and a string of scandals bearing GOP fingerprints. Other than two excellent SCOTUS justices, the only accomplishments of the GOP in the last six years have been a flood of red ink and an unfunded border fence authorization. About these, the Democrats can do nothing substantive that they are likely to do. Their refrain is that the war is being "mismanaged," but they will not try to "defund" it in a way that will put their imprimatur on a policy of "cut and run." Nor will they weaken the iron triangle of K-street lobbyists, bureaucrats, and congressional staffers; after, their view is that there are no bad processes, only bad Republicans.

2. The name of the game will be avoiding responsibility. Other than, say, human cloning, the Democrats will not launch any bold new initiatives. There is no mandate for them, and they know it. Instead, we will watch them consign any conservative initiatives to subcommittee hell, as one pundit put it. The border fence will not be funded and will not be constructed. Appelate court nominees will not receive hearings, nor votes. The Child Custody Protection Act will disappear from the Congressional calendar. But the flip side of this is that there will be no new gun control laws passed. (The Dems learned this lesson in '94.) Kyoto will not be implemented. Healthcare will not be further nationalized. And, if I may go way out on a limb, the President will probably NOT be impeached.

3. So what CAN we expect from a Democrat congress? Its primary function will be to harass the executive with endless hearings and subpoenas, all in an effort to embarrass the president. They will conjure "scandals" at every move the President makes. His every enforcement of the law will be portrayed as its violation. Every military and covert operation will generate its own set of hearings. Every effort to defend America's security will be criticised.

4. Congressional Republicans may recover their soul, but the odds are, at best, 50/50. They can't criticize the war without making themselves and their party even weaker. They can criticise runaway spending, but unless Bush, who has never shown the least resistance to it after six years, joins them in their criticism, this, too, only serves to highlight the party's disarray.

Link Love VII

John Derbyshire reviews Mark Steyn's America Alone.

Via Ross Douthat, John Derbyshire on religion and society.

Ross Douthat on Saddam's death sentence.

Frederick Turner rebuts arguments against God. A good read, but I think he may overstate Hume's case against the efficacy of empirical evidence (which I have not read but will accept Turner's account of it). Whatever stochasticity in the evidence collected, we can and do make causal inferences from it when the evidence is from designed and controlled experiment. But otherwise, many good points.

I comment on a post on the minimum wage over at Half Sigma. I know: shameless self promotion.

California Girls

I recently made a business-related trip to San Diego, CA, where I stayed at the Paradise Point Resort. Herewith a few observations:

1. San Diego girls are flirty.

Okay, maybe that's not fair. It may be that nice beaches and warm sunshine make So. Cal. women more open and relaxed. But, full disclosure: most of the women I had occasion to interact with were on the staff of the resort, so my sample was hardly representative. In all probability, these women have been selected for and/or trained to exhibit those qualities that make guests feel welcome.

How these women, all of whom were young and beautiful, succeed at this so well is difficult to pinpoint, but I think mainly in comes down to eye-contact. More full disclosure: I tend, fairly reliably, to creep out women just by showing up. (I've never figured out exactly why this is so, but it nonetheless has always been true. My devoted wife has told me that her friends have admitted as much.) In the day-to-day life of an engineering instructor, most of the women I interact with are service-industry workers (waitresses, cashiers, etc.) and my (few) female students; in other words, people who are pretty much obligated to be polite. And so they are polite. But I observe that they nonetheless limit direct eye-contact with me to the minimum amount necessary to conduct the required transaction. The more attractive the female, the more this appears to be the case. I suspect that many if not most men would experience this interaction very differently. And, in fact, I have had male friends whom I have watched interact with attractive women, and who clearly enjoy much better eye-contact and overall social response. Or so I hope, for their sakes. But in my case, this is what I see.

So imagine my surprise at spending two days in a world where the women actually smiled at me and looked me in the eye! And not just in a way that said, "Yup, there's a customer," but in a way that said, "there's a fellow human being into whose day I can bring good cheer."

Why can't all women be like that?

Of course, I know the answer: attractive women, by necessity, become adept at non-verbally discouraging unwanted attention from men (or at least from this one). Smiles and eye-contact might give men "the wrong idea." This is legitimate, though unfortunate, fear. Indeed, had I not been happily married, I might have received my first "San Diego smile" and thought: "hey, maybe I could, you know, start a conversation with this girl." Well, maybe not me. But maybe some alternative version of me that didn't become a traumatized omega-male chickensh1t in the presence of beautiful women.

I am not a frequent customer at high-end resorts; however, I do remember making this observation once before, about ten years ago. I went with three male friends for dinner in the Penrose Room at The Broadmoor Hotel. The Penrose Room is arguably the finest (and most expensive) restaurant in the city: a coat-and-tie-expected kind of place. Anyway, while we were waiting to be seated, a lovely young lady came out to take our coats and drink orders. Her name (I remember it to this day) was Jule. I surrendered my coat and ordered an Irish Coffee. (We would consume $600 worth of alcohol before the evening was over.) Anyway, in the course of this transaction, I saw it: eye-contact! The look! I have to admit, it's impact (I was still single back then) was pretty powerful. I toyed with the idea of, you know, starting a conversation, but Jule seemed so obviously out of my league, and the Penrose Room not really an accurate representation of my actual means, that I punted the opportunity. Probably just as well. I didn't realize at the time that high-end staff are trained to create this effect, and I would almost certainly have embarrassed myself.

Anyway, back to San Diego:

2. Paradise Point is expensive.

Paradise Point is on an island connected to the surrounding area by bridges. Since I didn't have a rental car, we were semi-captive, and so the resort felt free to rape us over extras. Vending machine coke: $2.25. Two pieces of french toast: $9.95. Internet service: $10/day. Access to fitness room: $15/day.

But the staff made it all worth it.

The Wit and Wisdom of Laura Ingalls Wilder

"Well, son, you think about it," said Father. "I want you should make up your own mind. With Paddock [the wheelwright offering an apprenticeship to Almonzo], you'd have an easy life, in some ways. You wouldn't be out in all kinds of weather. Cold winter nights, you could lie snug, in bed and not worry about young stock freezing. Rain or shine, wind or snow, you'd be under shelter. You'd be shut up, inside walls. Likely you'd always have plenty to eat and wear and money in the bank."

"James!" Mother said.

"That's the truth, and we must be fair about it," Father answered. "But there's the other side, too, Almanzo. You'd have to depend on other folks, son, in town. Everything you got, you'd get from other folks.

"A farmer depends on himself, and the land and the weather. If you're a farmer, you raise what you eat, you raise what you wear, and you keep warm with wood out of your own timber. You work hard, but you work as you please, and no man can tell you to go or come. You'll be free and independent, son, on a farm."

Christians in Iraq

A solid (but depressing) article by Doug Bandow in The American Conservative on the deteriorating religious freedom of Christians in Iraq. To sum up: we invaded Iraq to find WMD that weren't there and create a democracy that can't be sustained, while at the same time freeing up Muslims to target Iraqi Christians for kidnapping, extortion, and murder.

All granted. And yet:

1. The article leads off with the proposition that American evangelicals ignored their duty to Iraqi Christians in their (in general) support for the Iraqi invasion. But isn't The American Conservative the magazine that complains about how American Jews supposedly put the interests of their co-religionists (or co-ethnics) in Israel above the interests of the nation in which they actually hold citizenship? So isn't it a trifle hypocritical for it to object when American Christians don't let similiar considerations distort their calculation of American interests? And the primary American interest was that Saddam had WMD! Why, exactly, should any American let his solicitude for Iraqi Christians (alas, not exactly conspicuous in opposition to Baathist butchery) paralyze his resolve?

2. While the quotes of various evangelical leaders provided by Mr. Bandow are no doubt accurate, they are a trifle out of context. Falwell, Dobson, et. al. were not debating TAC when they spoke these words. Indeed, TAC, VDare.com, Steve Sailer, and other conservative voices of caution were barely visible in the national discussion. Who was visible? Michael freakin' Moore! Plus various left-wing organizations transparently motivated by hatred of America. Plus various Democrat politicians engaging in naked political calculations. Let's be honest: opposition like this made supporting Bush abudantly easy. This is the context.

3. Please keep in mind that war supporters fully expected that life in a post-Saddam Iraq whouldbe characterized by democracy, tolerance, and all things good. Granted, this expectation looks daft in hindsight, and overly optimistic in foresight given what we knew about Islam. But Liberal Universalism is a daftness shared by All Right-Thinking People, including especially American evangelicals. And if anyone had asked them about Iraqi Christians, evangelicals no doubt would have replied that they would also be better off.

Bandow's characterization of Kurdistan surprised me. People who have visited Kurdistan, to whom I have spoken, have reported that both Assyrian Christians and foreign missionaries operate with a high degree of freedom and security, largely a function of the Kurds own national identity, which generally is a-religious. "Ask a Kurd if he is Shia or Sunni, and he will reply, 'Neither; I'm Kurdish.'" If this is true, the best hope for Christian religious freedom in Iraq lies in an autonomous Kurdistan region. Which seems (as of this writing) to be the direction we are going.

Better yet, how about a "prisoner exchange": let's trade every Muslim in America for all the Christians in Iraq. What? No one wants to go live in Iraq? Then let's hold the lives of American Muslims hostage to the lives of Iraqi Christians. We can trade them off, one at a time. An eye for an eye. Until both of us run out.

Dennis Dale on Imperialism

From Dennis Dale:

Rove and Bush have long benefited by the sense of unrelenting cultural siege felt by those who have no place in the Democrats' hierarchy of grievance, those on whom it is always open season: traditionalist white Christians. People generally too immersed in the day to day business of work and family (that is to say, perpetuating the life of the nation) to be expected to invest the necessary time to unravel the ever increasing layers of Fox News bullshit disguising the true nature of current foreign policy. They trusted their leaders; that is, the ones who weren’t telling them they were hopeless troglodytes consigned to historical obscurity because they have misgivings about the post haste dismantling of any and all moral tradition.

Bush addressed their most exigent concerns, not with substance certainly, but with words. Then again, where else were they to go? The Democratic Party has abandoned them to the predations of corporate power and globalization with as much enthusiasm as the Republicans and, when it isn’t ignoring them completely, portrays them as the bogeyman with which they stir up the fears of their rubes. And all the while, the global designs of imperial conquest abroad and cultural dissolution at home proceed unheeded.

Well said. But the rest of the post tediously pretends that Bush launched a program of imperial expansion ex nihlo. Such ignores that Bush entered office on campaign promises to curb the military deployments of the Clinton administration. And then, September 11. The imperative to go after Islamic terrorists and their sponsors took us into Afghanistan, and the [mistaken] belief that Saddam was actively pursuing WMD in violation of the terms of the 1991 cease-fire took us into Iraq. Now, if Mr. Dale wants to characterize our "nation building" efforts in Iraq as "imperialism," I would point out that this is a novel definition of imperialism as it has been historically practiced. But, okay, whatever. It's a definition, so who cares? But surely Mr. Dale has the decency to admit that Bush, more than anyone, wants the popularly elected government of Iraq to assume responsibility for its own internal security and otherwise govern as humanely and rationally as possible?

Which of course, it cannot do, for "humane" and "rational" are not means equal to the end sought. Bush's project for Iraq is animated by the same Liberal Universalism that constrains the entire debate on the Iraq war and our foreign policy toward the Muslim Middle East in general. Which is why our failure there is inevitably described as a failure of "planning," and "competence," and, in the case of the left, "Bush lied," "Bush is evil," "Bush is an imperialist," "Bush is enriching Haliburton," "Bush didn't have the U.N.," and all manner of either outright misrepresentations of the facts or irrelevencies.

Mr. Dale, I gather, is skeptical of Liberal Universalism as a matter of first principles. He shouldn't need to resort to this kind of thing, and it is a shame that he does.

Update: Damn! Chris Roach already said all this, and better.