Bob Lord

Posted by Bob Lord

I really need to find something else to watch while I'm on the treadmill in the morning.

I'm watching the gang on Morning Joe today talk about the "fiscal cliff" negotiations, and Scarborough goes into a rant about how raising the top rate won't raise additional taxes from the super rich because they have high priced lawyers, but it will impact an "accountant in Poughkeepsie" making a quarter million a year who has to let someone go because of the higher rates. I've heard him make this same argument on previous occasions, so I didn't misunderstand him.

This demonstrates either incredible cynicism on his part to push a Republican talking point that he knows is flat out false, or an utter lack of understanding of how our tax laws work at the most basic, fundamental level. I actually think it's the latter, which is mind boggling considering that he served several terms in Congress, voting on federal tax legislation.

Posted by Bob Lord

I happened upon a post by Daniel Horowitz over at Red State that trotted out an old conservative trick, which is to refer to the ratio of the percentage of total income taxes paid by those at the top to their share of the total income. Because, as one would expect, that ratio, which I'll call the TTIR (tax to income ratio) is significantly greater than 1, the conservatives view it is proof positive that the wealthy already are paying their fair share. If you have two minutes, please read Horowitz's post here before continuing, but you should be able to follow me without doing so. 

Horowitz's logic is based entirely on totally unremarkable statistics, which he reports as real eye openers. After complimenting the "extraordinary work" of the Tax Foundation, Horowitz expounds:

So what about those rich one-percenters?  Well, in 2010, with the full force of the Bush tax cuts, and including all the so-called loopholes and deductions, they paid 37.4% of federal income taxes, even though they only earned 18.9% of the gross adjusted income in the country…What about the super-duper rich – the top 0.1%?  They paid 17.8% of the pie, while earning 9.24% of the AGI.

Posted by Bob Lord

While the world has watched and with the assistance of the United States, Israel has effectively destroyed the better part of a generation of Palestinians in Gaza, as Erin Cunningham reports here. No, they're not dead, but over half the children of Gaza suffer from PTSD as a result of Israel's attacks over the years. No surprise there. Children, by the way, comprise about half of Gaza's 1.7 Million people. Factor in the huge numbers of Gaza children who are malnourished because of the limited food supply, and it's clear we've lost the better part of a generation. They may live, but their brains will never function quite right. And those who were malnourished? Their brains won't reach full development either. Cunningham relays this story:

Fatima Qortoum was just 9 years old when she saw the brains of her brother, 7-year-old Ahmed, fall out of his head. He was struck with shrapnel after an Israeli airstrike. That was 2008.

Last week, another one of Fatima’s brothers, 6-year-old Mahmoud, was critically injured when an Israeli attack knocked him to the ground, leaving a nearly three-inch-long gash in his torso and damaging his lungs.

And so it comes as little surprise that Fatima, now 13, like thousands of other children in the Gaza Strip, suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

Posted by Bob Lord

Salon posted a chilling piece today containing interviews of Israeli veterans regarding Gaza. First, the background on the suffocating control Israel exercises there:

Israeli naval blockades stop Gazans from fishing, a main source of food in the Strip. Air blockades prevent freedom of movement. Israel does not allow building materials into the area, forbids exports to the West Bank and Israel, and (other than emergency humanitarian cases) prohibits movement between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. It controls the Palestinian economy by periodically withholding import taxes. Its restrictions have impeded the expansion and upgrading of the Strip’s woeful sewage infrastructure, which could render life in Gaza untenable within a decade. The blocking of seawater desalination has turned the water supply into a health hazard. Israel has repeatedly demolished small power plants in Gaza, ensuring that the Strip would have to continue to rely on the Israeli electricity supply. Daily power shortages have been the norm for several years now. Israel’s presence is felt everywhere, militarily and otherwise.

The interviews really should be read in their entirety, but here are some of the passages I found especially chilling:

Posted by Bob Lord

Libertarian philosophy is beautiful in its simplicity. It also is ugly in its simplicity, because, well, things aren't that simple. It's a shame Libertarians are unwilling to stray from their rigid doctrine. It might allow them to capture more of a following. Certainly, on matters of civil liberty, their platform is superior to that of either the Republicans, who seek to legislate morality, or Democrats, who don't have a coherent philosophy. The Libertarian philosophy on foreign affairs also has a lot to say for itself. And the Libertarian philosophy in military affairs contains an element utterly lacking in both the Republican and Democratic philosophies — a shred of human decency and morality.

I've had significant exposure to Libertarian thinking. My sister was the Libertarian candidate for Vice-President in 1992. We've had numerous conversations on the topic. She knows her principles cold. She can apply them to virtually every policy question that arises, with dependable, predictable results. But when peppered with questions about details and nuance, she has no answers.