I’m been thinking very hard (You know: frown, furrowed brow.) about this question of double taxation. The idea is that capital gains taxes should be lower because the money has already been taxed at the corporate level. I know that Paul Krugman accepts this, but I can’t find the article. I still haven’t figured it out.

But Dean Baker notes something amazing about Mitt Romney’s taxes. On the 60 Minutes interview, Romney did something really deceptive. When asked if it was fair that regular workers pay a higher tax rate than he does on his capital gains, Romney replied, “It is a low rate. And one of the reasons why the capital gains tax rate is lower is because capital has already been taxed once at the corporate level, as high as thirty-five percent.”

That gets us to my question about whether this whole idea of “double taxation” is valid. Dean Baker, however, notes that this question doesn’t even apply to Mitt Romney:

To be fair, Romney never said that his income was taxed on the corporate level. But there is no other way one could reasonably take his statement. Regardless, Romney should be asked the question again. “Given that your income is not taxed at the corporate level, do you think it is fair that regular workers pay a higher tax rate?”

My guess is that this will lead to lots of equivocating about “job creators” and the “free market.” And maybe we’ll be treated to more information about how much he tithes to the church. That counts as a tax, right?

A few years back, Romney explained why productivity increases, although painful, are good.

This is simple stuff. He gives a hypothetical: a country with 200 people in it. Half of them farm and half of them build houses. Someone invents the plow and suddenly, all the country’s food needs can be met with only 50 people. Now, 50 former farmers are out of work.

Romney explains that this is good because those 50 people can then produce something else that is good for the country:

This is true, of course. In fact, this is kind of like Economics for Preschoolers.

The problem I have with this example is that it wouldn’t work the way Romney claims. The invention would not cause half the people to be unemployed. At first, they would just grow more food than they needed. Eventually, everyone (Including the builders!) would work less. This greater leisure would lead to people building chairs, making movies, whatever.

The point is that there would be no disruption. In a truly free society, an unemployed farmer would just start working some fallow bit of land. In our society, he couldn’t because that fallow bit of land is owned by someone else. Maybe the farmer could make a deal with the owner and maybe he couldn’t. But that is our modern problem, not the problem of a true free country.

I’m not suggesting that we abolish land ownership. However, I am suggesting that for the right of private property, society should be able to demand something from land owners to ameliorate the disruptions caused to workers.

The problem I see in modern conservatism is that private property is seen as something natural. Most of these people live in a fantasy land where if there were no government the world would turn into a libertarian utopia instead of the dog-eat-dog, roving biker gang dystopia of Mel Gibson fame. The old conservative saying is, “Rights imply responsibilities.” Somehow, they just can’t see the second word in “property rights.”

Last night, I watched O Brother, Where Art Thou? for the first time in many years.It is a perfect film, and likely the Coen Brothers’ best.

It is based upon The Odyssey, but the word is that the Coens have to this day never read it. This is not surprising, because O Brother follows the book in only the most vague way other than throwing in well known parts like the Cyclops. This is for the best. I’m not that fond of The Odyssey. To me it is unrelentingly negative and unless you really like Odysseus (I don’t) the fact that all of his crew die is a major bummer.

In O Brother, the Coen Brothers take this endless romantic struggle and turn it into a goofball comedy. The most striking change is of the Odysseus character: Ulysses Everett McGill. Whereas Odysseus only seems to be interested in getting home at times of pique, McGill is always focused on getting home and saving his marriage.

Despite moving the story from ancient Greece to Great Depression America, the film maintains the other worldly aspects of the book. The best part of this is having Satan constantly on the protagonists’ tails. This is so much better than in The Odyssey, where there is constant negotiations between the various gods. In O Brother there is no need for gods to cause turmoil, humans are good enough at that themselves. But like it or not, Death is always close behind us. “The law is a human institution.”

I find I have little to say about this movie. I could pick it apart, but as I said: it is a perfect film. Anything I could say is irrelevant, other than that it should be seen.

Afterword

The Coen Brothers claim that their main idea was to tell the story of The Odyssey in the Ma and Pa Kettle universe. When I was a kid, I hated those movies. But recently, I saw part of one on TV at my sister’s. It was funny as hell.

You’ve probably heard that Jesus had a wife. Okay, he didn’t really have a wife. There is a text fragment about the size of a business card that reads, “Jesus said to them, ‘My wife is so fat, when she sits around the house, she sits around the house. Good night Jerusalem!'” I’m kidding, of course; he was in Bethany.

The actual quote is, “Jesus said to them my wife.” It is a 4th century Coptic translation of a 2nd century Greek text containing just 33 words. So it could mean anything. Before I get into the weeds here, let me explain something akin to Platonic ideals.

In The Historical Jesus: Five Views, Robert Price writes a chapter called “Jesus at the Vanishing Point.” In it, he argues that any discussion of the historical Jesus is meaningless, because the actual man has been so soiled by myth as to no longer exist. What I take away from this is that the argument as to whether Jesus the man actually existed doesn’t matter because when people talk about Jesus they aren’t talking about him. Instead, they are talking about the guy in the Bible.

And given this, I tend to side with the Catholics over the Protestants. Jesus is what the religious traditions say he is not what this or that upstart claims he is—because there is no him to uncover apart from the church traditions.

Thus, when another apocryphal text shows up, I’m of two minds: “So” and “Interesting.” The “So” part relates to how it ought to affect modern Christians: not at all. The “Interesting” part relates to what it says about the evolution of the church. I know that this is explicitly uninteresting to most modern day Christians, because they want (Need?) to believe that as the word of God, the religion was born fully formed. The truth is far more interesting with various factions fighting over what the new religion would mean. For example, I find the Gnostics and their mystical beliefs far more compelling than modern Christianity.

What is interesting about these apocryphal gospels is not what they tell us about Jesus but what they tell us about Christianity. Early Christian thought was so diverse that I would not be shocked to learn of a text that read, “Jesus said to them I am a woman.” Clearly, such a text would not mean that Jesus was a woman—only that some Christians thought so.

In the end, this calls the question of what religions are good for. I believe that religions are good for helping people search for Truth. But they mostly fail miserably at this because they too often claim to know Truth. And that is as silly as Jesus saying, “Take my wife… Please!”

I caught this on The Young Turks. Joe Scarborough on Morning Joe said, “I believe conservative policies help 100% of Americans. I don’t believe it helps the 1%. I really do believe that you don’t help the waiters and waitresses, who want to get a better job, by raising taxes on the job creators. ”

Here is the problem with this comment: I don’t believe it.

There is no way a serious person can have gone through the Reagan and Bush years and still believe that cutting taxes on the rich will cause the them to create jobs. No business decides to create jobs just because they have more money. To say that they do shows a shocking ignorance of how real businesses work.

Let me give you an example. My business partner William and I might eventually hire someone to work for us. We will do that only when there is too much work for us. Otherwise, if we make more money than we feel we need, we will give the money to charity. We won’t hire someone. Business is not a charitable endeavor. And conservatives, more than anyone else, should know this.

This is why I say that Scarborough is lying.

Here is another example, every year WalMart makes billions of dollars in profit. Do they use that money to hire more clerks that they don’t need? Of course not! The very idea is ludicrous. And yet, that is the underlying assumption of the “job creator” myth.

Here is the video:

Afterword

Perhaps the best refutation of this nonsense is Nick Hanauer’s TED talk. He says, “Anyone who’s ever run a business knows that hiring more people is a course of last resort for capitalists. It’s what we do if—and only if—rising consumer demand requires it.” Check it out:

Via Ezra Klein most recently, I offer you the Tabarrok curve. It supposedly shows that some patent protection is good, but too much is bad. I agree with this. Most recently, I wrote about it in regards to Apple, which has always been on the forefront of stupid and evil patent disputes. Perhaps you’ve heard that Apple has the patent on the rectangular phone.

The patent system is broken, although I’m not clear that it ever really worked. Dean Baker is the most innovative thinker I know of when it comes to these issues. I recommend reading Robert Samuelson Shows Us How Patents Monopolies Impose Enormous Costs With Medical Technology for a very brief introduction.

This seems to be floating around the internet:

It is funny, of course, but I think there may be a darker truth underlying it and all the jokes about Mitt “The Robot” Romney and Mitt the Clueless. Could Mitt Romney be a psychopath? It’s entirely possible. We know, for example, that while only 1% of the population are psychopaths, 4% of CEOs are.

When most people think of psychopaths, they think of movie villains: murderers like Hannibal Lecter. But most psychopaths are law abiding citizens. What distinguishes them is that they lack empathy. They have little or no ability to understand others. And what are we to make of statements from Romney like, “Everything that Ann and I have, we earned the old-fashioned way.”

Romney seems to approach life like I approached Dungeons & Dragons[1] when I was a kid. When I played it, I gamed the system, doing the minimum required to advance in the game. Romney does this in real life. Two examples are telling. First, there is his constant claim that he has done exactly what the law requires—no more and no less. He pays, “Only what the tax code requires.” And, “What is required by law—the financial disclosure—has already been made.”

Second, there is the fact that Romney, even though ridiculously wealthy, appears to only give the minimum 10% tithe to his church. This strikes me as particularly telling. If you are going to treat God the way I used to treat dungeon masters, then there is something wrong with you.

What’s important about this is that Romney seems truly confused that voters might expect him to do more than the legal minimum. It shows a lack of understanding of social interactions. Most people refrain from murder and rape because it is wrong—not because it is illegal. Psychopaths don’t do it because it is against the law. “Those are the rules, right? I’m following the rules. What’s the problem?!”

I can’t say with any degree of confidence whether Mitt Romney is a psychopath or not. There are certainly troubling signs based upon his public persona. Regardless, he is a man of limited empathy who really can’t run the country in the interests of the vast majority of its citizens.

Update (Right Away)

Others have thought this same thing. And still others have argued against it. The argument goes that most psychopaths have problems when they are in school. Well, it seems that Romney was at least a bully who enjoyed tormenting weaker children. Another argument is that most psychopaths are impulsive. In Romney’s business deals, there are some signs of impetuousness—or at least carelessness. Regardless, it isn’t right to base this call on what his business did, given there would be calmer people to modulate his impulses. And finally, most psychopaths don’t form strong family bonds. This is true, but a great many psychopaths create the illusion of family bonds.

I’m not saying that any of these attributes apply strongly to Mitt Romney. But he could still be a psychopath. Arguments like this all depend upon the ridiculous (but never stated) assumption that the rich are necessarily morally superior to the poor. No one is shocked when a poor man shoots his wife, but when a rich man does it: shock! Mitt Romney can’t be a psychopath, just look at all his money!

[1] Actually, I played RuneQuest.

This always bugged me when I was a libertarian. Libertarians, almost to a man, hate unions. I, on the other hand, always thought that strong unions were absolutely essential to a libertarian utopia. If the work force could not organize themselves the same way companies do, there could be no justice. Instead, we would just have a bunch of monopolies—the great world of the robber barons. The fact that most libertarians hate unions makes me think that libertarians are not really for freedom; they are just self-congratulatory third basers[1] who only care about freedom for themselves.

One other thing about libertarians: they tend to love corporations. But the corporation is just a government provided legal status. There is nothing natural about it. If libertarians were honest about their beliefs, they would be against the corporation. But libertarians, like all conservatives, worship the rich. Thus, anything that benefits the rich, regardless how interventionist (e.g. patents, copyrights), is okay. Anything that benefits the poor, regardless of how minor the intervention (e.g. the 0.2 cent—cent not percent—per person that goes to abortions for rape victims), is tyranny. Tyranny I tell you!

And yes, Glenn Beck is very much a typical libertarian. I know there is a brand of “serious” libertarians—especially on the internet. They are even more ridiculous than the Glenn Becks of the world because they should be better able to see their obvious blind spots. I don’t know what the demographics look like, but my guess would be that Ayn Rand appeals mostly to people born of reasonably affluent people (middle class and up). I don’t mind people looking out for their own interests. I do mind when they claim what is good for them is good for everyone. And I really mind when they claim that their philosophy is “natural” and that it can be proved deductively. Please!

[1] I’ve noticed that the term “third baser” does not seem to be common. It maybe refers to Jim Hightower’s comment about George W. Bush, who was “born on third base, thought he had hit a triple.” I’ve heard similar quotes from others. Recently, it seems to be quoted, “Born on third base, thinks he hit a home run.” Romney is an excellent example of this, but I think it is more correct to say that he was born on home plate. Regardless, a “third baser” is someone who started wealthy and ended more wealthy. I think that everyone understands that the hardest thing is to get on base. It is all downhill from there.

I have been highly skeptical of the new Bing It On Challenge commercials. So I decided to try it—just to show those bastards their ads don’t work on me. I used the following five searches:

1. Frankly Curious
2. Don Quixote
3. Madame Tutli-Putli
4. Miller’s Crossing Homosexuality
5. Blond Blonde

Overall, Bing is a hell of a lot better than it used to be. The results did not diverge all that much. But still, on four of the five searches, the results were clearly one sided. But while taking it, I mistook which one was Google. In two cases, I thought I had voted for Bing. I was wrong. It was a blowout with Google 4, Bing 0.

I guess I’m not a “Bing Man.” I can’t tell you have relieved I am!

Afterword

There has been a huge increase in Yahoo! searches bringing people to Frankly Curious. This has happened over the last month. I’m not sure if it is real. There are some weird things going on like lots of people landing here because of searches for Melissa Harris-Perry. I’ll eventually figure it out.

And despite the skepticism of friend when I said I thought Yahoo! and Bing produced identical search results, I was right. Yahoo! uses the Bing search engine.

Capt. Fogg over at Human Voices has written an amusing article about a telephone survey he did. I suspect that you’ve had one of these that appear not to be a survey but an advertisement. “Would you vote for Representative Popular if you knew that he ate live kittens? What about if you knew that he wore ear plugs so he wouldn’t have to listen to them scream? Did I mention that his reelection is the seventh sign that will herald Armageddon?”

You get the idea.

Capt. Fogg mentions that he knew the call must be from a conservative group because they always referred to the “Democrat” Party, rather than the “Democratic” Party. This is a dead give away. But he goes on:

I think that Capt. Fogg is wrong about these people being too smugly stupid to think he would notice. I think these kinds of idiosyncratic pronunciations start off as a signaling device, but they don’t stay that way. (Geoffrey Nuremberg has written about this, but I don’t own any of his books right now, so I can’t be all learned and shit.) I think people in these subgroups only ever hear people pronounce these things one way, so they think they are only pronounced that way.

This is illustrative of the biggest difference between conservatives and liberals. Even the most extreme liberals live in the regular world where people get most of their news from Scott Pelley and Ellen DeGeneres. But conservatives live in an alternate reality and they don’t get out much. This has major negative consequences like being able to more easily dehumanize other people. But it also affects their language. And them’s fightin’ words!

This is unbelievable.

I fully admit that economics makes my brain hurt and that I find it profoundly confusing. But I understand the fundamentals. The same cannot be said of Jeffrey M. Lacker, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond. In its infinite wisdom, NPR put this idiot on the air with no one to counter him.

The kicker was that Guy Raz ends the interview by asking Lacker if, after all is said and done and QE3 works, Lacker will admit that he was wrong. Lacker says, “Course!”[1]

But there’s a problem here: the data are long in. Joseph E. Gagnon, Senior Fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, explains:

More to the point, this is QE3, as in “three,” as in, this is the third time we’ve done this. The other times, Lacker and his cronies said there would be inflation. Greece! Weimar Germany! Zimbabwe! Wheelbarrows of cash just to get a loaf of bread! Instead, the inflation rate is less than 2%—half the rate it was a year ago.

As Lacker states in the NPR interview: he is against the Fed doing anything about the economy and he is against the government doing anything about the economy. Lacker is an advocate for the rentier class and only the rentier class. How it is he is on the Fed Board is obvious enough. How it is NPR gave him a platform for his repudiated economic beliefs is more of a question.[2]

[1] Actually, I don’t think QE3 will work either. It may be somewhat helpful, but it certainly won’t cause inflation. With inflation less than 2% and unemployment over 8%, the Fed should not be thinking about inflation.

[2] I’m just kidding! I know exactly how he got on NPR!

This morning, Paul Krugman notes that Mitt Romney has come out against QE3, with Romney saying that the economy “doesn’t need more artificial and ineffective measures.” He goes on to say that we shouldn’t be “printing dollars.” It is ridiculous, of course. This is the same kind of nonsense that we always hear from conservatives—things like, “At a time when so many families are tightening their belts, [I’m’] going to make sure that the government continues to tighten its own.” Oh, wait: that was Obama. But I’ve never said anything but that Obama is conservative and the point is the same. These reasonable sounding platitudes are just wrong.

Krugman seems to think that Romney is blinded by ideology. He writes:

I think he’s wrong. Romney isn’t against the Fed helping the economy for ideological reasons; he’s against it because a Democrat is in the White House.

It is a major mistake to think that conservative elites have what we would normally consider an ideology. Their entire organization is dedicated to getting and keeping power. I know that I have sometimes claimed that they are ideologically committed to tax breaks for the rich. But I think I’ve been wrong. They are committed to tax breaks for themselves and their friends. This is just selfishness; it doesn’t rise to the level of an ideology.

We’ve seen this on display in Romney’s response to the attack on our Libyan embassy. The logic is very simple: we’re against it if they are for it. That ain’t no ideology. And I’m surprised that Krugman doesn’t see that.

Afterword

Krugman along with most of the rest of the economics profession is always very careful to show respect for Greg Mankiw and other prominent economists on the Romney team. This is pure in-group politics. The truth is that whatever Mankiw once was, he is simply an apologist now. His response to the Tax Policy Center study (along with two other “respectable” economists and one wingnut) shows this. It isn’t wrong so much as evasive and highly misleading. The same, I fear, can be said for fellow Harvard economist Martin Feldstein. When his analysis of the TPC study found that it was correct, Feldstein simply wrote a deceptive WSJ OpEd where he made it sound like his analysis contradicted the TPC. This is not the kind of intellectual honesty that we should accept from Harvard professors.