Thursday, April 15, 2010
On the train to NYC tab dump
There have been some complaints about my posting frequency. My bad. I have a vast plethora of tasks, large and small, professional and personal, that demand my attention, plus I am training for an athletic event which I will disclose to you when and if I participate and finish. We beg your forbearance.
Notwithstanding that, however, here is a big throbbing heap of accumulated tabs.
The vaunted rise in consumer thrift in perspective.
The University of Michigan Law School "Innocence Clinic" reverses another injustice. Good for them. No American should languish in jail under such circumstances. Read the whole thing.
Women can be blinded by jealousy. Literally. Well, almost literally.
SEC Commissioner Peredes, a holdover Republican, slams the Dodd financial regulation bill. His general point, that some risks are worth taking, is very true. Whether it applies in this case is another matter entirely.
The New York Times notices that "tea party backers" are "wealthier and more educated." Usually, liberals are all for ideas cooked up by "wealthier and more educated" people, they being the usual source for the idea that the average person is not competent to solve his or her own problems. But not, apparently, this time.
Women, please be careful when using the Wii Fit. Or not.
Union dude writes a memo that expresses the hope that New Jersey Governor Chris Christie dies. Christie is outraged and demands the union dude's resignation. On the one hand, this sort of oversensitivity and manufactured outrage over a hope for death and violence is tedious beyond belief. My new favorite governor needs to chillax. On the other hand, the liberals started it, having predicted hundreds of the last 0 attempts to assassinate Barack Obama, for example.
A black Republican woman describes her experiences with Haley Barbour. Not at all big tentish. I'll say it: I've never found the guy to be the least bit appealing.
Glenn Reynolds notices that initial jobless claims are up "unexpectedly." Invictus blames Cesar Chavez!
A near and dear TH relative notes on her Facebook page that there has been another protest going on today:
Participate in the Day of Silence. It's a national youth movement bringing attention to the silence faced by lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people and their allies. Our deliberate silence from 6:30am to 6:30pm, April 16, 2010 echoes that silence faced by the members of the LGBT community, caused by anti-LGBT bullying, and harrassment. Think about the voices you are not hearing today. [NOTE: Date corrected on Friday morning. The day of silence is April 16, so you have not missed it yet.]
The implosion of Texas Stadium.
ClimateGate becomes WhitewashGate.
And ACLU initiative I can get behind.
Not surprisingly, TH fav liberal blogger Ezra Klein does not know anybody who has moved from one state to another because of taxes. I've known many of them. Perhaps if Ezra did know such people he would not be such a liberal.
TTYL.
14 Comments:
By 
skeneogden, at
Thu Apr 15, 06:30:00 PM:
I'd be happy to introduce Mr. Klein to my daughter and son-in-law who moved from California to Austin, Texas three years ago because they couldn't afford a median priced home even on two incomes.
Most of the people in their suburb north of Austin are from other states.
By 
, at
Thu Apr 15, 10:42:00 PM:
Excellent point, TH. I don't know how many times I have come across a lib saying "we are better (fill in the blanks) educated.....blah blah blah...than the wingnuts." Quite a few times. It seems to me that more than the wingnuts, libs revert to "my group is better than your group" types of arguments. It appears very important to the libs to belong to the "better than" group. As a wingnut, I am not as inclined to make that argument. One motive for my leaving the libs was my dislike at being labeled a member of a group instead of being looked at as an individual. As I see it , there are people better and worse than I, richer and poorer than I, better and worse educated than I , be they wingnuts or libs. What counts is the quality of the argument we make, not our demographics.
As you point out, it is more than a little ironic for the libs to make the "We are...better than" type of argument, and then to dismiss an opponent for fitting demographics which the libs consider prima facie evidence of lib superiority. OTOH, anything to win an argument- just look at lib behavior in Florida after November 2000- which is what pushed me over from third party to the Pubs.
By , at
Thu Apr 15, 10:45:00 PM:
The New York Times notices that "tea party backers" are "wealthier and more educated." Usually, liberals are all for ideas cooked up by "wealthier and more educated" people, they being the usual source for the idea that the average person is not competent to solve his or her own problems. But not, apparently, this time.
My previous comment referred to the above.
By , at
Thu Apr 15, 11:33:00 PM:
Gateway Computers. Relocated from Sioux City, Iowa, to North Sioux City, South Dakota. I understood at the time that it was due to the difference in corporate income tax rates. I can't verify that now, though.
By , at
Fri Apr 16, 12:49:00 AM:
My wife and I moved from California to Henderson, Nevada, in 2007, precisely to move from California's 10+ percent income tax to Nevada's 0% income tax. We were retiring and knew that our investment income would last a lot longer in Nevada than it would in California.
By Andrew Hofer, at
Fri Apr 16, 06:16:00 AM:
I know three self-employed entrepreneurs who moved from NJ and NY to New Hampshire (they have business interests all over the northern hemisphere). They know many more, traveling in those circles.
By , at
Fri Apr 16, 06:56:00 AM:
mgd,
I grew up in Sioux City, Iowa (at the time that Gateway was growing up and was called Gateway 2000 - becuase that was way in the future), and I can verify the truth of your statement.
But there is another reason that Gateway moved from Iowa to South Dakota (and all of their executives moved into South Dakota as well) and that is NO INCOME TAX in South Dakota as opposed to aobut 7-8% in Iowa.
So, move yourself and your company (and all of its jobs) from Iowa to South Dakota and save 7-8% in income taxes. They did it.
I'm going to comment on Ezra Klein's post now...
By Diane Wilson, at
Fri Apr 16, 08:03:00 AM:
As an LGBT person, I spent the "Day of Silence" talking my head off. What, exactly, is the point of deliberately ostracizing yourself?
Of course, I didn't know about the "Day of Silence" since nobody told me. But it wouldn't have changed anything.
wv: dephydo, what you do when you have to give away the dog.
By Bomber Girl, at
Fri Apr 16, 10:10:00 AM:
I think Paredes makes fair points about key issues (liquidity and capital requirements in particular) and the benefit of risk taking to the overall system. It is certainly not clear that a "supra" agency adds any positive value; it would be more useful to have competent people in the existing organizations (Fed, SEC) whose job, however, would be aided by more transparent financial reporting by the market players, especially in the area of derivatives and any type of off-balance sheet maneuvering. I like the idea of moving towards exchange traded derivatives although given the volume of the OTC market and their profitability, this would be a momentous shift. Not addressed in his comments is the role of government in the mortgage market. Another issue that needs looking into.
By , at
Sat Apr 17, 02:26:00 AM:
Yeah, your posting frequency has had me wondering whether you still have a blog. Further, your blog has become less substantive, TH. You've recently resorted to tab dumps?? I mean . . . come on (Southpark reference). You're a midwestern, moderate conservative who works in a friggin' medical products company soon to be enjoying an excise tax. For God's sake man, if you don't have something to say right now, when are you going to have something to say??
By TigerHawk, at
Sat Apr 17, 09:01:00 AM:
No question my posting frequency and content are way down -- I have been traveling much more at work, remodeling one house and preparing to move in to it, and juggling no end of other personal and professional obligations and ambitions. As for the excise tax and other device industry issues, I generally avoid posting on this (much as I would like to) for fear of political blowback against my company.
By Neil Sinhababu, at
Sat Apr 17, 04:13:00 PM:
Another thing is that Ezra is in his mid-20s, and his social circle doesn't include many people rich enough that moving for tax reasons makes any sense. Mostly it's young DC journalists, including some libertarians.
By Brian, at
Sun Apr 18, 04:41:00 PM:
Myron Ebell, of the WhitewashGate claim, is one of the many climate skeptics who make money from his skepticism, but won't put his money where his mouth is:
http://julesandjames.blogspot.com/2005/05/more-betting-on-climate.html
Ebell, or one of the many skeptics here, could try betting Al Gore at Intrade. The market wisdom is that Gore is right:
http://backseatdriving.blogspot.com/2010/04/scott-armstrong-losing-skewed-bet-his.html
No, I don't take Ebell's opinion on climate change issues very seriously. Apparently he doesn't either.
By , at
Sun Apr 18, 11:07:00 PM:
Tax avoidance: I know 100s of people who choose to live in Virginia rather than (particularly DC) or Maryland because of tax rates.
