That’s something that was floating around, with respect to the minimum wage: “the true minimum wage is zero, because the higher you increase the minimum wage, the greater the unemployment rate will be, particularly for individuals who neither have skills nor experience, even the basic experience of working at a job at all.” But here’s something else I was thinking of: if you’re self-employed, there is no minimum wage. Yesterday, for some reason, I ended up at a post by... Read more
My fellow Illinoisians will be aware that one of the proposals of new governor Bruce Rauner that’s in the news is his proposal for a two-year freeze in property taxes. Now, as you know, I’m not a fan of property taxes, because they penalize one specific type of consumption (a large home) over others (e.g., spending the equivalent amount of money on luxury cars), but I at least find the Illinois method of determining taxes to be a reasonable one:... Read more
According to the WHO, Immunization, measles (% of children ages 12-23 months): US UK France Germany Mexico Honduras Guatemala 1980 86 53 25 35 31 23 1981 97 55 50 33 34 8 1982 97 58 50 37 48 12 1983 98 60 15 47 23 49 9 1984 98 63 26 48 21 44 24 1985 97 68 35 50 64 53 23 1986 97 71 39 70 60 60 55 1987 82 76 45 75 54 57 24 1988... Read more
Here’s a thoroughly unsourced comment (sorry, I have only a couple minutes to write): The media is hopping onto the bandwagon the the Republicans are anti-vaccine and the Democrats are the Party of Science. You’ve most likely seen articles complaining that the true anti-vacciners are liberal Democrats: Jenny McCarthy, Marin County, and so on. Their anti-vaccinism is part and parcel of a belief in “natural treatments” and organic food, and a distrust of the “vaccination industry” as a sort of... Read more
So the other day I wrote up some initial thoughts on tax reform, and what kinds of differential-treatment in the tax code could be removed as a part of an overall reform project. And this morning I observed that the president’s budget plays lots of games with taxes in the budget (that is, moving government “spending” from a tax deduction to a benefit targeted at lower-income groups, e.g., with respect to child care). But here’s one thing I did find... Read more
Yes, it’s dead on arrival, so perhaps not worth spending too much time with. But, via Forbes, here’s the administration’s spin, “Tax Reform That Promotes Growth and Opportunity.” This seems to be a document which gives he highlights of his “budget” (which contains so many new tax policies it doesn’t seem right to call it a “budget” at all), without specific details, but it’s still instructive. Doing a quick skim: Child care: Everyone’s talked about, and the administration had to... Read more
Reports are that, Islamic State having brutally killed a downed Jordanian pilot, Jordan is eager to strike back. CNN’s expert “said it’s possible that Jordan could retaliate by executing al-Rishawi, the convicted terrorist. But he believes the United States and others will encourage Jordan to not take that step, and instead to take the fight directly to ISIS.” Reuters says that, according to a source, “Rishawi would be executed ‘within hours’.” So the WWJD, is of course, meant both as... Read more
This was featured in The Atlantic, based on a report in the Detroit Free Press: in order to get to his job in a suburban Detroit factory, a man spends most of his non-work waking hours walking (and gets virtually no sleep, either). The trip is 23 miles each way; much of that is travelled by bus but he walks 7 miles from the closest bus stop to his workplace, to get to work; and, for the return trip, walks... Read more
The other day, I griped in the comments section of The Atlantic about Obama treating the removal of the tax exemption for investment income in 529 plans and a bump in the “refundable tax credits” as effectively equivalent, and I got replies to the nature of “they’re all tax expenditures, and all equally worthy or unworthy.” So I thought it would be useful, in the context of a tax reform that hopes to simplify taxes by swapping special benefits in... Read more
That’s the key quote from an article in New York Magazine entitled, “The Real Reason Women Freeze Their Eggs.” The reason offered is this, as quoted by the fertility specialist the author, a woman in her late 30s, sees to freeze her eggs: “It isn’t you,” he said. “All day long, I see patients like you. You’re smart, beautiful, accomplished, nice. It makes no sense. I go home to my wife and I say, ‘There’s something wrong with the men... Read more
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