Deinonychus antirrhopus

Kevin Drum linked to this article at the Washington Post and thought the title, "Tax Burdens Shift to the Middle" was reasonable. And they even present some data couresy of the CBO. And admittedly it doesn't look all that good. The "middle class" is indeed picking up more of the burden for spending when measures as a percentage of federal tax liabilities. However, one thing I learned over the past couple of years of blogging, when dealing with the media or Kevin Drum always check the source. When dealing with both this advice goes double. So I got the report from the CBO (you can look at the pdf here). Here is a handy chart of the total effective tax rates, effective federal income tax rates, and share of federal tax liabilities (i.e., I am giving you more information than either Kevin or the Washington Post).

In other words, while the "middle classes" share of federal tax liabilities have gone up, the effective tax rates have gone down. Measuring one's tax burden is not easy. There is no simple rule of thumb. There are the notions of horizontal and vertical equity, as well as looking at lifetime vs. annual income. Keep this in mind when reading about the tax cuts.

Regarding the Kerry-Cambodia imbroglio I found this interesting comment,

"John Kerry was in the Navy, his superiors recommended him for medals, he was honorably discharged. Let it go," John A. Brieden III, national commander of the American Legion, told UPI in summing up his organization's position on the issue. "George Bush was in the National Guard. He was honorably discharged. Let it go."

While my inclination is to agree with Brieden the problem is two fold.

1. The Democrats don't seem to want to let go of the Bush-AWOL story.
   
2. Kerry has made his service in Vietnam the centerpiece of his campaign, complete with his comment that he is "reporting for duty".

Of course, there is also the blatant re-writing of history on this one,

The Kerry campaign responded, initially, that Kerry had always said he was “near” Cambodia.

Then a campaign aide said Kerry had been in the Mekong Delta “between” Vietnam and next-door Cambodia — a geographical zone not found on maps, which show the Mekong river running from Cambodia to Vietnam.

And not only is it a re-writing of history, but geography as well.

Michael Meehan, a Kerry campaign adviser, told ABC Television: “The Mekong Delta consists of the border between Cambodia and Vietnam, so on Christmas Eve in 1968, he was in fact on patrol ... in the Mekong Delta between Cambodia and Vietnam. He was ambushed, they fired back, he was fired upon from both sides, from the Cambodian side of the border and the Vietnam side during that day in 1968.”

Of course those on the Left who were all over the Bush-AWOL story wont touch this.

So let me get this straight. Kerry did go to Cambodia — even though that was supposedly impossible,...--emphasis in the original

Uhhhm as far as I know nobody said it was impossible that Kerry was ever in Cambodia. The statements were in response to Kerry's claims about being in Cambodia in December around Christmas. These are now false, and the new story was it was in January and Feburary. A shift in the story like this with regards to Bush-AWOL would have produced much blogging on some sites.

....he did take CIA guys in — even though that was supposedly absurd...--emphasis in the original

Again, this is a deliberate distortion. The claims by Kerry were for December and those have now proven false, and the Kerry team has completely re-trenched. My question is, why aren't we seeing Kerry's military records. Why aren't these diaries being made available to the public? Wasn't this the kind of demands we had with Bush-AWOL?

...and he did get a hat from one of them — even though that was supposedly a sign of mental instability.--emphasis in the original

To quote the master of snark, "They aren't even pretending to be serious anymore are they?"

Considering that he's mentioned this story only twice, most recently 18 years ago, and it turns out that his only crime is to have tarted it up with a bit of holiday pathos,...

Yes, but if Bush had done it he should be impeached. Puh-lease.

I have to disagree with this idea of Kevin's,

What Saletan doesn't get is that this is exactly right. Forget the details about whether stem cell therapy is good for Alzheimers, or whether embryonic stem cells are better or worse than adult stem cells. None of that is what really matters.

What really matters is that all of these details ought to be left up to scientists, not to administration ideologues. Let scientists decide what to investigate and when. If they go down a blind alley, funding will dry up and they'll go somewhere else. That's how science works.

First a caveat: I am in favor of allowing more research into the benefits of stem cells, and I disagree with Bush's policy on this topic.

However, I don't think we should let scientists research whatever they want to. Scientists are generally fine people, but there is the issue of ethics. For example, when does one stop collecting data on something? This isn't that big of an issue in something like economics which is largely observational, but with regards to medical practices it is indeed important. Here is an example from one of my stats books,

The story concerned a surgical technique designed to clear clogged neck arteries leading to the brain that was found to be effective in preventing strokes in patients suffering from a severe case of blockage. The research team was lead by Dr. Henry J.M. Barnett of the John P. Robarts Research Institute in London, Ontario. Patients, all of whom had symptoms suggestive of blockage, were randomly split into two groups: 331 patients were to be treated with aspirin and the anticoagulant warfarin, and 328 patients underwent the surgical technique known as carotoid endarerectomy. In the first group 26 percent of the patients had a subsequent stroke compared to only 9 percent in the second group. The length of the initial experiment was terminated early because preliminary results indicated that "the patients receiving surgery were doing so well that it would be unethical to continue to endorse conventional medical therapy."--Source: Intermediat Statistics and Econometrics, by Dale Poirier, page 232.

The point is that there are ethical considerations in science and I am not sure that scientists alone should be the ones to determine what is ethical and what is not ethical.

Kevin does say we should have "complete discussion" of the moral elements of things like stem cell research, but in reality Kevin does not want such a debate.

As for the moral arguments, let's insist on a full and complete discussion of those too — without the usual shilly shallying and prevaricating. The idea that a 1-week old embryo is a human being has always struck me as depressing: a nihilistically mechanical view of humanity in which DNA + miscellaneous chemicals = human life.

This is indeed one point of view, but it is only one point of view. I am in favor of keeping abortion legal. I am in favor of it because I don't know the status of a 1 week old fetus. It does seem a stretch to conclude that a 1 week old fetus is identical in terms of being human as a 1 week old baby or a 25 year old woman. It is my uncertainty on this issue that keeps me from removing the decision to have an abortion or not from a pregnant woman. However, this very same uncertainty makes me a bit squeamish about harvesting 1 week embryos so that we can destroy them for the stem cells. Kevin's insistence on an either/or approach to this problem is logically indefensible, IMO. He should be ashamed of himself.

The California Supreme Court ruled today on same sex marriages and concluded that the San Francisco mayor overstepped his legal authority.

Update: From the article it looks like the Court wanted to look at a very narrow issue--i.e., did the mayor overstep his legal authority. It didn't tackle the tougher question of the constitutionality of denying homosexuals the right to marry.

The court picked only the peripheral issue to ponder: whether Newsom had the authority to do what he did. Justices simultaneously welcomed the city to file a challenge to the constitutionality of California's marriage laws in the lower courts. Several such lawsuits were filed, and a hearing is scheduled next month.

Update II: Where else to go for information on this? The Volokh Conspiracy should be your first stop.

The second to last paragraph may be controversial, and probably should be: There's a good argument that all government officials should have an independent duty to follow the state and federal Constitutions as they understand them -- at least absent a clear court order to the contrary -- and not just do what they think (rightly or wrongly) is unconstitutional simply because no court has yet held it unconstitutional. On the other hand, the California Constitution does have a special provision on this point (art. III, sec. 3.5) that supports the California Supreme Court's position if one treats a mayor as an "administrative agency," "An administrative agency, including an administrative agency created by the Constitution or an initiative statute, has no power: (a) To declare a statute unenforceable, or refuse to enforce a statute, on the basis of its being unconstitutional unless an appellate court has made a determination that such statute is unconstitutional. . . ."

The introdcution to the ruling is also there, so check it out.

This Rueters article sur has the smell of a gross distortion. As you know Bush has nominated Porter Goss to head the C.I.A. Mikey was quick to release some comments from Goss,

A day after Bush picked Goss for the top U.S. spy job, Moore on Wednesday released an excerpt from a March 3 interview in which the 65-year-old former House of Representatives intelligence chief recounts his lack of qualifications for employment as a modern CIA staffer.

"I don't have the language skills. I, you know, my language skills were romance languages and stuff. We're looking for Arabists today. I don't have the cultural background probably," Goss is quoted in an interview transcript.

"And I certainly don't have the technical skills, uh, as my children remind me every day: 'Dad you got to get better on your computer.' Uh, so, the things that you need to have, I don't have."

My big screaming question is, are Goss' comments about getting a job at the CIA as a field agent, or to run the agency? Surely they don't expect Goss to be translating Pashtun or Farsi. If that is what is expected of the head of the C.I.A. then this country is toast as our leaders (both Democrats and Republicans) are morons.

So yeah, I don't think a man of Goss' age and current background could get a job at the C.I.A. as a spook. Hell I'd be damned worried if they were hiring men like him. As for his being able to run the C.I.A., he seems more than qualified.

As for Michael Moore, he remains an inveterate liar.

What's next, running with scissors?

Caption contest anyone?

Kerry (muttering to himself): "Now, the left, now the right, now the left, now the right..."

UPDATE:

For political balance, we have this photo.

Remember Mary Ann Knowles? No? Well she was mentioned in Kerry's speech. Kerry talked about how Knowles had to work each day during her chemotherapy out of fear of losing he health care. Well this nice story turns out to be false.

Aren't views like this supposed to make liberals have nightmares? Guess not.

President Bush could have settled this matter in a flash a long time ago and spared the country a destructive exploration of the limits of journalistic confidences before the law. He still could.

Scooter Libby, the vice president's chief of staff, has now freed at least two journalists from their obligation of confidentiality to him. Presumably, in at least those two cases, he has nothing to hide.

There must be others still relying on a confidence who do have something to hide.

President Bush could make it known either implicitly or explicitly that he wants to get to the bottom of this mystery and that anyone who is asked should free journalists in the way Libby has. If they don't feel they can do so -- which is certainly their right, working in the White House doesn't mean you lose your right to defend yourself -- they should take a leave of absence from their job or quit.

Only if you have something to hide should you be worried. Granted they always have the out of taking a leave of absence or quiting...but hey can't we say the same thing about a U.S. citizen? You always have the option to leave the country.

When I mentioned this possibility some time ago, many readers said this was wrong as it compromised the rights of possible targets of prosecution. But I don't think that's a problem here. Everyone has a right to defend themselves in a criminal probe. But there's no constitutional right to work at the White House.

The problem is that this is where the two intersect. Saying you aren't going to give such a release of confidentiality would be seen by the likes of Josh Marshall as an admission of guilt. Marshall is being a hypocrite, IMO.

In this post, I was complaining that Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. is not really a free market environmentalist. What he is the standard environmentalist who believes the Tragedy of the Commons is some sort of economic law, that a large scale government response is the solution, and the best thing to do is vote for candidates that support this view.

Part of the problem with this kind of view is that it puts things into the political world. This basically means rent seeking. Environmentalists are seeking rents (i.e., seeking benefits via the political process vs. the market process). Large firms are also engaged in rent seeking, but in the "opposite direction". All of this rent seeking is wasteful activity. Valuable resources are being directed to haggling over who gets what, vs. productive activities.

Further, the one-size-fits-all approach inevitably gives way to the one-size-fits-all-but-here-is-a-complex-myriad-of-exceptions. This too is bad in that it takes an army of attorneys to figure out how to operate within the boundaries of the regulations. This will raise the costs of doing business in that market and will inevitably push firms out.

Now some might say, "But that is a good thing, those firms obviously were the ones who were the (worst) polluters. Not necessarily true. These are the firms that were not able to cover the costs of figuring out the regulations, not the worst polluters. Now it could very well be that they are the worst polluters, but this outcome is more luck than anything else.

For example, suppose we have two firms. Firm ABC, Inc. produces a product and emits 10 "units" of pollution. Firm XYZ, Inc. produces another product and emits 2 "units" of pollution. ABC, Inc. has enough profits/revenue to pay for the legal resources to ensure it can go right on emitting 10 units of pollution. XYZ, Inc. on the other hand does not and ends up getting sued by River Guardians an environmentalist group that sues XYZ for not having the right permits. XYZ shuts down. Granted there is a decrease in pollution, but what if a revision to property rights would have resulted in ABC reducing its effluent by 50% and allow XYZ to stay in business.

The point of this hypothetical is to show that large scale government regulations don't always have the best outcome. In fact, it might make it worse.

In 1990 Elinor Ostrom published an influential book, Governing the Commons, suggesting that Hardin's analysis did not apply generally, since local communities often had ways of self-organtization and self-governing to prevent over exploitation of the commons, and that government policy often exacerbated rather than ameliorated the problem by undermining the social connections on which local regulation was based.--Source: Game Theory Evolving by Herbert Gintis (page 257)

Further, this idea that we elect politicians that cater to one set of special interest groups (environmentalists) can lead to the very outcome that Kennedy is railing against. When the other part is in power it might listen to a different set of special interest groups. Further, it isn't at all clear that the Democrats will be dramatically better. For example, the Democrats like being power (just as the Republicans like being in power). To stay in power they might sacrifice some of the goals of the environmentalists to appease other special interest groups (like consumers who also tend to be voters). People like electricity for example and higher bills because of increased reliance on expensive alternative sources might not sit well with the voters. So just as Republicans are often out comassioned by the Democrats and thus lead Republicans to adopt more "compassionate" and expensive social spending programs, the Democrats might move more towards providing the electorate with cheap power. Government intervention can be a double edged sword, and Kennedy isn't bright enough to have figured that out.

Kennedy also complains that unfettered capitalism leads to corporations capturing the government. However, I have to wonder about this given that prior to the progressive movement in the early 1900's there was very little government to capture. The progressive movement created the more intrusive government that industry could use. With a minimal government, then the government's impact is lessened, IMO. For example, the some of the first uses of the anti-trust laws (the Sherman Anti-Trust Act) were against labor unions not the trusts they were supposedly designed to bust.

Kennedy is also opposed to most forms of fossil fuels and nuclear energy. It should make one wonder what will replace natural gas and coal for producing electricity? Solar, wind, and geothermal? Forget it. There is no way to get the amount of electricity needed out of those sources. Nuclear energy has many benefits over fossil fuels such as low emissions. The problem of nuclear waste while a problem isn't insurmountable. So what form of energy is acceptable to Kennedy and will allow the U.S. to meet its current and future needs?

Kris Kobach won the Republican primary, and will face incumbent Dennis Moore in the general election.

This should be fun, a (what passes for these days) conservative Democrat who voted for the Iraq war and maintains a healthy distance from JFKerry vs. a Republican who thinks GWB is too liberal.

I hope they come to talk at church again this year.

Via Matthew Hoy comes this account of what Kerry did when he (and others heard about the WTC attacks).

I was in the Capitol. We’d just had a meeting—we’d just come into a leadership meeting in Tom Daschle’s office, looking out at the Capitol. And as I came in, Barbara Boxer and Harry Reid were standing there, and we watched the second plane come in to the building. And we shortly thereafter sat down at the table and then we just realized nobody could think, and then boom, right behind us, we saw the cloud of explosion at the Pentagon. And then word came from the White House, they were evacuating, and we were to evacuate, and so we immediately began the evacuation.

Time spent sitting there looking at each other: 40 minutes.

Now granted Kerry is only a U.S. Senator and not the President of the United States, but sitting around looking at colleagues for 40 minutes seems to compare rather badly to Bush's 7 minutes. Would Bush getting up excusing himself 7 minutes earlier have made any difference? Unlikly. Should this be an issue? Well I guess, but considering the complaint is coming from the Democratic Party's nominee who can't seem to make it to intelligence briefings about terrorism it seems comparing Kerry to Bush is only fair game.

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. has been hawking his new book, Crimes Against Nature: How George W. Bush and His Corporate Pals Are Plundering the Country and Hijacking Our Democracy, which according to the Grist appears to the environmentalists version of Fahrenheit 9/11.

What caught my eye the most in that interview was Kennedy's attempt to dress himself as a "free marketeer". The fact is that Kennedy is nothing of the sort, not even close. Kennedy has this to say about himself,

Grist: So is the culprit free-market capitalism?

Kennedy: No! The best thing that could happen to the environment is free-market capitalism. In a true free-market economy, you can't make yourself rich without making your neighbors rich and without enriching your community. In a true free-market economy, you get efficiencies and efficiency means the elimination of waste. Waste is pollution. So in true free-market capitalism, you eliminate pollution and you properly value our natural resources so you won't cut them down. What polluters do is escape the discipline of the free market. You show me a polluter, I'll show you a subsidy -- a fat cat who's using political clout to escape the discipline of the free market.

Grist: So you're saying free-market economies have to be controlled by regulations and strong central government?

Kennedy: Laissez-faire capitalism does not work, particularly in the commons. Individuals pursuing their own self-interest will devour the commons very quickly. That's the economic law -- the tragedy of the commons. You have to force companies to internalize costs. All of the federal environmental laws are designed to restore free-market capitalism in America in this regard.--bold in the original

Now it should be obvious that Kennedy has basically contradicted himself. Further, Kennedy is also prevaricating when he talks about both the tragedy of the commons as well as firms internalizing costs.

First, there is no law in economics that says a common resources has to result in the tragedy of the commons scenario. In fact, there are instances where common resources are managed just fine with little or no government internvention. This is the whole point behind the book, Governing the Commons : The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action. The book's description:

The governance of natural resources used by many individuals in common is an issue of increasing concern to policy analysts. Both state control and privatization of resources have been advocated, but neither the state nor the market have been uniformly successful in solving common pool resource problems. After critiquing the foundations of policy analysis as applied to natural resources, Elinor Ostrom here provides a unique body of empirical data to explore conditions under which common pool resource problems have been satisfactorily or unsatisfactorily solved. Dr. Ostrom first describes three models most frequently used as the foundation for recommending state or market solutions. She then outlines theoretical and empirical alternatives to these models in order to illustrate the diversity of possible solutions. In the following chapters she uses institutional analysis to examine different ways--both successful and unsuccessful--of governing the commons. In contrast to the proposition of the tragedy of the commons argument, common pool problems sometimes are solved by voluntary organizations rather than by a coercive state. Among the cases considered are communal tenure in meadows and forests, irrigation communities and other water rights, and fisheries.--emphasis added

So we can see right here that not only is Kennedy contradicting himself, but is also clueless. He has an outdated mode of thinking on these kinds of problems. We can see this with later statements in his interview. Here are some examples (please click on the link and read the entire thing so you can be sure of the context),

Industry wants us reading those books that say "50 things you can do to help the environment" because it distracts you from what you ought to be doing, which is joining an environmental group and voting for politicians who support the environment and fighting against the lobbyists on Capitol Hill. I mean, you can go out and buy a car that gets 40 miles per gallon, but it's not going to change the planet. What's going to change the planet is if we have somebody standing up to the auto-industry lobbyists on Capitol Hill to pass standards that require that every car in this country gets 40 mpg.

But consumers buying Priuses is not going to change the globe nearly as much as a law that says you cannot market a car in this country unless it gets 40 mpg. And that's going to happen on Capitol Hill.

Above all, government has a role, which is to say: There's a limited amount of fish out there. It's a shared resource and we're not going to let corporations exploit it in a way that's going to destroy it. We're going to use science and our regulatory authority to make sure that there is sustainable yield.

But government has to say to the automobile industry: Of course they want it, but you've got to make 40 mpg. And if we had that law, within a year, Detroit would be producing SUVs that have the same performance and the same comfort and safety as the ones they're making today.

If your choice is to buy a Prius or go work for a politician who is going to implement the CAFE standards, you better work for the politician. The most important thing you can do is participate in the political process. Support the environmental groups that wage legal action and lobby for these bills.

There you have it. The most important thing is a big government response. No it isn't sufficient to have a tax on SUVs if they are imposing an externality on those without SUVs, we need to have a nationwide standard that forces everybody into the same outcome. It doesn't matter if you literally need an SUV for some completely valid reason...you will drive a 40 MPG vehicle or...who knows, Kennedy might want to make SUV driving a capital offense.

Further, it is not clear that the best way for firms to internalize costs is to force them to meet a uniform standard. There are alternatives to simply enacting a regulatory standard. For example, when the polluting activity is highly inelastic it might be a good idea to resurt to a standard, but when elastic a per unit tax. Even this kind of subtlety seems completely lost on the addle-brained Kennedy. He sees regulation as a hammer and all environmental problems as nails.

It is too bad that a boob like Kennedy is getting so much press. I was watching him on CNN and it was almost painful to watch. He was actually comparing running power plants that burn coal to bank robbery. To him the former were as bad as the latter. The fact that power plants, even if they are polluting and in violation of government standards, produce something useful was completely lost on the lunkhead. Bank robbery as far as I know has nothing at all about that is socially beneficial. For many being able to have electricity is a "good thing". Sure it would be better to have that electricity without the pollution, but the pollution does not negate the social benefits of electricity. And needless to say the simpleton interviewing him let it slide right on by her as if it made perfect sense.

So if you are going to buy a book about common resource problems buy Governing the Commons. It is written by people who actually know things about common resource problems as opposed to an elitist know-nothing.

Lately with the high gasoline prices the local radio talk show pundits have been going on about how much we need to be drilling in the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). They say this as, if it would somehow magically lower oil prices. While it might have some effect, this notion points to a lack of economic understanding on the part of these pundits.

Let us suppose that drilling in ANWR is allowed. Why would we expect a big drop in oil prices here in the U.S.? Suppose this were true, that the oil companies can sell the oil in the U.S. at a price of say $25/barrel or they can sell on the world market at a price of say, $43/barrel. Which would these oil companies rather do? Sell on the world market.

Thus, the U.S. would still have to pay the current high price. Now of course, the increase in supply, ceteris paribus, would mean a decrease in the price, but how much? Five dollars? That would seem rather large to me and that still wouldn't make a big dent in the price. Considering that the Saudi's have much more oil and are already increasing production and the price is still staying high it seems the idea of drilling in ANWR wont do much.

Also, we have to factor in the time component as well. How long will it take for anything in ANWR to come on-line? One year...two? So the effect over the next few months would likely be minimal at best.

I think it is pretty clear that the economy is now slowing. The July Employment Report is out from the BLS and it is rather grim. While the unemployment rate has dropped a tenth of a percent to 5.5% the payroll survey recorded only 32,000 new jobs. Far less than necessary to keep up with population growth and also lower than the approximately 200,000 many analysts were expecting to see. Add to this downward revisions to the May and June numbers and the picture is indeed not good.

The Conference Board is reporting that the U.S. Leading Indicator Index is also down 2 tenths of a percent as well. Also there is ECRI's Weekly Leading Index which has been trending down for months now, although last week it edged up a bit.

It seems like the handwriting is on the wall: the economy is slowing.

After noting the goings on in Kansas where creationists have gained ground on the Kansas Board of Eduction, I decided to post some more on neo-creationists and the rather deceptive arguments that are used. One fine example is this article written by William Dembski. It is called, "The Five Questions Evolutionists Would Rather Dodge".

High- and lowlights of some of the elections in KS and MO.

KS 3rd District.

(Note: as I live in KS, this is the only issue I actually got to vote on). It's a virtual tie between Kris Kobach and Adam Taff for the Republican nomination. Kobach has 87 more votes, but:

Election officials reported about three-thousand provisional ballots in Johnson County, and unknown numbers in Douglas and Wyandotte counties.

If Kobach winds up being the winner, I expect that incumbent Dennis Moore will be dancing a jig of glee. Kobach's social conservatism doesn't play well in Lawrence, or, for that matter, with a lot of fiscal-conservative / social-moderates in Johnson County.

MO Governor

In a stunning (but not surprising) upset, State Auditor Claire McCaskill defeated incumbent Bob Holden in the Democrat primary. McCaskill will face Treasurer Matt Blunt in the general election.

McCaskill received 52 percent of the vote, compared to Holden's 45 percent, in complete but unofficial election returns.

I'm just speculating, but I think she will probably win in November, and might provide enough reverse-coattails to pull MO into Kerry's column.

MO Amendment 1

Riverboat casinos being the panacea to all that ills a community , Rockaway Beach in SW Missouri wanted one on the White River. The state constitution only permits casinos on the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers, so proponents got this measure on the ballot. Included in the amendment were changes to school financing, requiring all of the state revenue from the casino to go to "priority" schools, whatever that means.

Having been sold down the river (npi) several times already on how great casinos are, the voters wisely rejected this amendment.

MO Amendment 2

If only their wisdom had continued on to amendment 2, the gay-marriage ban. This passed overwhelmingly.

I've already heard speculation that the amendment will be challenged in court as violating parts of the US Constitution.

I hate that this amendment passed. I also hate that it's going to be challenged in court. If the federal courts strike it down, they will add fuel to the "judicial activism" argument.

The amendment does nothing to prohibit same-sex civil unions. While I consider civil unions to be an inferior, separate-but-equal, institution, they are a step in the right direction. The people of MO can pass a civil union statute, then in a few years when passions have cooled and they realize this amendment was a mistake, they can repeal it.

I hate my own argument, since it's not very idealistic. I know that civil rights aren't something that should be subject to majority opinion, but I also know that a slow, evolutionary approach is less likely to provoke a backlash (e.g., the FMA).

Kansas City Question 1

Now I'm really getting parochial. This was a hike on hotel and car rental taxes to pay for a new 22,000 seat arena downtown. Despite a massive campaign from Enterprise Rental Cars, this issue passed.

I'm ambivalent about it. The arena could revitalize downtown KC, but only if it's done right. It needs adequate parking, a lot of commercial space in the area for new restaurants and bars, and easy pedestrian access.

Unfortunately, the city has a poor track record with these kinds of projects. Witness the Union Station / Science City debacle.

Right now the arena will be financed by AEG, Sprint, and the hotel/car rental tax. If the city holds true to form, in a few years there will be a call for a bistate sales tax to pay for maintenance or cost overruns or bribes incentives to lure a pro basketball or hockey team here.

Johnson County Sheriffs race

Just kidding. I'm not that parchial.

Looks like there was a gain for the creationists on the State Board of Education in Kansas. It must be embarassing to live in the state that continually has dubious flirtations with such nonsense.

Update: This article isn't too bad in that it gives pretty good balance to both sides of the argument. However, this part is egregiously wrong,

And the peer review process isn’t perfect.

Thirty years ago, Stephen Hawking’s theories on black holes helped make him the world’s most famous living theoretical physicist.

Two weeks ago, Hawking announced he was wrong.

The problem here is that this idea that the peer review process is about allowing only the "Truth" to be published. The peer review process is not about that, but about ensuring that papers meet a certain standard to be accepted for publishing. The standard is in how the research was done. This is why you see nothing on Intelligent Design in the peer reviewed literature. There is simply nothing to write about. You cannot expect to be taken seriously when the main point of your paper is, "I can't see how this could have come about naturally, so therefore a super-natural force is the only possible explanation."

This part was a mistake by Prof. Neuburger,

Neuberger is willing to allow for the possibility that evolutionary theory is wrong but said nothing in current science undermines it.

“I tell my students at the beginning of the semester that we’re going to talk about evolution as if it’s true,” he said. “Science does change.”

At the same time, he said, “people have been trying — with great motivation — for over a century to show evolution isn’t true, and they haven’t succeeded.”

Evolution is true and it is a fact. It has been observed. Mutation of genes has been observed (and no, most mutations are not harmful, but are benign). It has been observed both in the field and in the laboratory. The theory of evoultion--i.e., the explanation for the diversity of life is "just a theory". Anything that replaces that theory will have to account for the fact that evolution occurs.

The section at the end of the article on faith is also rather good. I like the idea that Intelligent Design could undermine one's faith in God. In fact, I wonder about the need of those who support Intelligent Design to show what would essentially be the finger print of God. Is their faith that weak that they need proof? Kenneth Miller has a great comment on this as well,

“I think, and lots of scientists who are Christians think, the Darwinian model of evolution through common descent, using the laws of chemistry and physics — the notion of the single of life on Earth starting from a single spark fits much better with the story of Genesis than intelligent design does. There have been 23 different species of elephants in the past 5 million years. If you take the designer model, you have a designer that designed 23 species, 21 of which have gone extinct. Two for 23 won’t even get you into single-A baseball.

“This makes you think, ‘What is He thinking?’ or ‘How incompetent can He be?’ and you have a designer who’s constantly having to putz around with his creation.”

Sounds like a classic case to me.

In all, a dozen people from the FEC attended the Boston convention at an estimated cost of $18,000, commission spokesman Bob Biersack said. The commission expects travel costs for the GOP convention to be about the same.

I really like this quote as well,

"We're up here in theory as ambassadors for the FEC," Commissioner Scott Thomas said of his trip to the presidential nominating convention in Boston with fellow Democratic Commissioners Ellen Weintraub and Danny McDonald.--emphasis added

Usually when I hear the phrase, "in theory", I think that somebody is saying that whatever they are referencing is in reality somewhat different. This leaves me wondering, "Okay so 'in theory' you are there as 'ambassadors', so what is the reality?"

So posting, as you may have noticed, has been light. Hopefully I'll have some time later.

Here is another article from NBER that has a very interesting conclusion: increasing taxes increases the incentive to work.

The idea is this, since we live in a second best world where the government doesn't have access to first best policy tools, the result of a tax on gasoline might be to increase individuals work incentive. Traditionally, a tax on a good reduces the incentive to work. Part of the issue with regards to gasoline depends on how the price of gasoline affects an individual's valuation of leisure time. If the higher gasoline price means less leisure driving and hence lowers the value of leisure time, then that would make work look relatively more attractive.

The bottom line of all of this is that the "optimal" tax for gasoline is too low.¹ The article says this,

Raising the gasoline tax thus has the triple benefit of lowering fuel consumption, decreasing pollution, and providing an incentive for people to work at a more socially optimal level.

However, this is also true of any price increase. A price increase will have the same effect of lowering gasoline consumption, decreasing pollution, as well as increasing the incentive to work.

Of course, the problem that is ignored in this analysis (at least in the synopsis article) is that it doesn't look at welfare. While there in an enhancement in the overall efficiency of the economy it does not mean that people will experience a welfare gain with a higher gasoline tax. For example, the increase level of work comes at the expense of leisure time. While incomes may also rise, there is the income effect of higher gasoline prices that may offset that. So while there are benefits to raising the gasoline tax, there are also costs.
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¹An optimal tax is one that equates the social marginal cost with the social marginal benefits (i.e., it takes into account both positive and negative externalities that are present).

This is an interesting little article on some research that looks at how a presidential candidate's platform impacts equity prices.

For this sample of 70 politically sensitive firms in the United States, Knight confirms that favorable policies play a key role in determining a firm's total value. During periods in 2000 when the prospects of a Bush victory were increasing, Bush-favored firms outperformed Gore-favored firms. Likewise, during periods in which prospects of a Gore victory were increasing, Gore-favored firms outperformed Bush-favored firms. All told, under the Bush administration, relative to a counterfactual Gore administration, Bush-favored firms were worth 3 percent more and Gore-favored firms were worth 6 percent less, representing a transfer of roughly $100 billion from Gore-favored firms to Bush-favored firms. The most sensitive economic sectors include: tobacco, worth 13 percent more under Bush; Microsoft competitors, worth 15 percent less under Bush; and alternative energy companies, worth 16 percent less under Bush.

This is a bit surprising in that it can take months or even years for a president to get policies enacted, yet these potential policies can have an impact on equity prices before the election.

This weeks Carnival is up and open for business. So head on over to Business Evolutionist and check out all the posts.

Looks like another poll that shows little or no boost for Kerry due to the convention.

In the survey, taken Friday and Saturday, Bush led Kerry 50%-46% among likely voters. Independent candidate Ralph Nader was at 2%....

But Matthew Dowd, chief strategist for the Bush campaign, said "history doesn't bode well" for Kerry. Since World War II, the three challengers who have unseated presidents held clear leads after their conventions.

Not good, IMO. While are often turn out to be wrong in terms of the exact numbers, they can give an idea of which way the wind is blowing.

Update: Of course, Rasmussen is showing Kerry as the winner based on the electoral college, so maybe it isn't all that bad. Still you'd expect a bigger bounce.

Well the second quarter advanced estimate for GDP was 3%. The ECRI weekly index is also down again, and has been heading downwards for the past couple of months. So keep an eye out for this Firday's release of the payroll data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Update: See this Christian Science Monitor article for the possible negative consequences for the President and the possible benefits for Kerry. If job growth stalls and the unemployment rate starts to rise that will be good news for Kerry, IMO.

Kerry is starting to test the waters on an exit strategy for Iraq saying that he will start bringing troops homw during his first term. So far the plan is light on specifics...like all of Kerry's plans, and it seems to involve getting more allies involved.

The thing about the European allies is what help can they give besides token help? The Europeans can barely take care of matters on their continent let alone several hundred miles away.¹ So what help will be given will be token help for the most part. A few hundred there, maybe a thousand there. But beyond that there isn't much help they can give, in my view.

With regards to the $87 billion appropriations bill, I thought Kerry's reason for not supporting it was the Bush tax cut. Now it was to get more international cooperation. What will it be next week?
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¹Save for the British and even they couldn't "go it alone" in Iraq.