Education Pondering

We seem to have a real problem with education in this country. Specifically we seem to have a problem of lots of people saying that there is a problem, then coming up with some complex "solution" that fits in nicely with their point of view. Different methods of teaching, ways to evaluate teachers/schools, charter and/or private schools, vouchers, punishment, reward, ...

There are good and bad teachers. There are good and bad schools. There are good and bad parents. There are easier and harder students.

We can't fix parents. But people love trying to deal with the other three.

Personally, I think that one thing that has been happening over the past few decades is that women have had increasing opportunities outside of schoolhouses. There are still plenty of good teachers, but we tend, as a society, to see teaching as a career of last resort, and we further see teaching as being less...glamorous?...as the students get younger. I'm not sure that we can really offset that, largely because the knowledge/education necessary to teach college is much greater than it is to teach kindergarten.

This isn't to say that teaching college is harder. It requires more knowledge but less patience and less of other things. College instructors don't (need to) care if a student doesn't show up to class or fails a test, or even understands the material. Kindergarten teachers are instrumental in developing not so much knowledge, but behavior. But we tend to compensate people based on their level of education more than their level of skill or talent (pro athletes withstanding). And we tend to see prestige in a profession as parallel to how much people in that profession get paid.

I think my best solution would be to dramatically increase the pay of teachers, say 50% across the board, with special incentives for under-served communities. Yes, that would reward some current teachers that are not as good, but it would mean more coveted positions and more resulting candidate competition going forward.

WikiLeaks

The guy is a bit out there in terms of views, and I'm not sure that the WikiLeaks dumps are entirely productive--lots of useless crap, and potentially some things that could endanger "field agents" though evidence that that is really the case seems to keep NOT coming up--but our own news media has become so horrible over the past 30 years that WikiLeaks is about the only game in town that is willing to hold the feet of the powerful to the fire.

Granted sometimes it isn't powerful that are grabbed, and it's possible they are a little to eager to burn and not so much to improve, but right now it's the closest thing out there to journalism that speaks truth to power. If the media would do their job better, then WikiLeaks would disappear.

The US Government is NOT a Household

NPR managed to piss me off again this morning. I don't remember who was talking but they were painting a doom and gloom image of the US debt, and how it would suddenly hit us and we would be like Greece and Ireland and Spain, and how we could fix this by cutting the deficit NOW and by keeping the federal books like a responsible homeowner. But that's a whole load of crap.

First: Greece, Ireland, and Spain would not be such big problems if it weren't for the Euro. We don't have that problem. We aren't sharing our fed with Germany, so if a real problem develops we have a solution that the other nations don't: print money. Yes, wealthy people don't like that because higher inflation eats at their wealth, but for the rest of us, and our nation, it would solve any "debt crisis" fairly painlessly.

Second: The government is not your or my or anyone's household. We have fiat currency (which, no matter how much you hear otherwise, has been far more stable and beneficial to the economy than gold or silver or other commodity backed currency). If the government has too much debt interest rates go up (which, actually is similar to if I have too much debt and ask for a loan), but the US government can't actually default on debt because...IT CAN PRINT MONEY! If people start worrying that the US will resort to printing money...interest rates will go up. Inflation will also go up, and inflation makes debt smaller! A household cannot do anything that will cause inflation and shrink it's effective debt.

Third: "Addressing the deficit" now will make things worse, not better. What we need is to kick start the economy, then worry hard about our future deficit. Boosting the economy costs money which means more spending and bigger deficit, but a economy back on track produces more jobs, stuff, gdp, revenue...everything! If we can get the economy back up, then that will do more to help the deficit/debt picture than would cutting the military budget by 50% and eliminating social security! Again, this is not like a household. When a household is in debt, and having income issues, then cutting back is probably the best thing...because it is the only thing. If a household member decides to buy a 50" 3D LED television it isn't going to help that person improve their financial situation. If the government pours the percent equivalent into the economy boosting consumption, that does improve the government's financial situation.

The Tax Cut Argument

I'm really, really, sick of hearing about tax cuts for rich people meaning more jobs from small businesses. There is no reason to suspect those things are connected. In fact, it makes much, much more sense for the opposite to be true. Just think of what can happen with more/less money...

When people get tax cuts:

1. Poor tend to spend the money: food, clothing, bills, entertainment, whatever. They don't have much so giving them more will increase what they spend.

2. Middle class is a broad ranging group, but some will spend more, some will save more (debt reduction counts for saving so far as the economy is concerned). Middle class small business owners (the vast majority of small business owners) that operate debt free may be able to expand business somehow, say marketing or more R&D. There is an outside possibility that they could afford to directly hire, but probably not. Still this is a group that can really help out the economy if given tax cuts.

3. Rich is tricky for a few reasons. First, pinpointing where "rich" begins is a bit tricky, but I'll go with the $250k/year group. Second, many, many rich people are just rich. They don't own business, many don't even work! Some rich, however, are business owners and do "create jobs" so the question becomes what is the utility of giving them extra money...

It's important to note first that when the above $250k tax bracket is cut by say 1% that someone making $260,000/year only sees a tax reduction of $100/year. That's not enough to do anything meaningful with and is likely to disappear into some savings/investment account without any notice by the tax payer. So there isn't any real meaningful difference until you get to people making significantly more than the break point. Then, you have to figure what the incentives are.

If a very successful business owner is receiving $500k/year compensation, and they get an extra $25k back in taxes (that same 1%), then they could, arguably, hire a worker ($12.50/hr full time). But if that was worthwhile, wouldn't they already be hiring that worker with some of the take home they are already receiving? What kind of crappy successful business person would see investing in a new employee as worthwhile but refuse to do so when they are already getting $500k compensation? If it is worthwhile (that is, it will pay off) then it is the proper business decision anyway, and the individual clearly has the wherewithal to do it as is!

More, if a business person is really motivated to make as much money as possible, (and this is the assumption) wouldn't raising their taxes, then, force them to work harder to bring their after tax income up? Wouldn't tax increases mean that they would need to invest more, hire more, expand more so that they could make the same as if taxes were lower?

It makes less sense every time I hear it. If business owners become successful due to that combination of smarts and greed, then higher taxes should force them to work harder. Lower taxes would mean they need to work less/expand less/hire less.

I feel the same way about cap gains taxes: if cap gains taxes go up people need to invest more to earn the same rate of return...higher taxes should be an incentive to invest more, not less.

I wish someone could explain to me why this thinking is wrong and cutting taxes for rich people means unicorns for everyone, but it looks like the history of tax cutting for rich people actually bolsters my position.

Rule Number 1:

People are stupid.

While this is true of all of us (myself included, and anyone else who finds it funny), it is more true of some than others. Take the GOP controlled Texas legislature's response to a common problem...

Problem: not enough money coming in from taxes due to economic slump and excessive tax cuts.

Not the smart solution: cutting funding for education.

Really not the smart solution: cutting funding for education when your state is already LAST IN THE NATION!

Education is the only thing that can make us great. It is our future. You want a strong economy in 20 years? You need a well educated population to make it. Stupid, thy name is "Texas Legislature." In all fairness, this seems to be the response of most state legislatures, but particularly ones controlled by Republicans.

Prediction...

I predict that if the Republicans take control of the House, that they will not care one bit about the deficit, but will care very deeply about cutting the taxes of the rich...and probably impeaching the president on some made up crap.

Doctor Pay

As a followup to my neat idea from the other day is medical doctors' salaries. We have very expensive health care in the US. One of the reasons is we must pay very high salaries to doctors.

People generally don't mind MD's making lots of money. But in this country MD's pretty much need to make a lot of money to justify the insane outlay that is paying for medical school.

Ok, Neat Idea

I think so anyway. Of course, it is mine (posted as part of a comment on this Ezra post), so...

The "problem" with quantitative easing is that it doesn't directly create jobs. It just makes money more available, and the idea is that those who have access will start spending more, which will increase demand, which means that companies will need to hire more to boost supply making nice positive feedback.

So how about doing things that more strongly encourage extra spending?

I would like to see a quantitative easing program that bought people's debt (especially student loans), then continued accepting payments as before but refunded some fraction--say 50-100%--into an account tied to a government issued debit card. The account would be cleared away each billing period, so if someone didn't spend it all, it balance would revert to the government.

Now, this isn't a dollar for dollar increase, as people could easily shift their normal spending to this account, but it has a few advantages. First, it allows people to have extra money each month, some fraction of which they are likely to sepend. Second, the account clearing out means that people will be motivated to spend more and faster so that they do not lose it. Third, and this is my favorite point, it directly helps people over banks...particularly if student loans are the purchase of choice.

On top of this, it could be done in a way to maximize spending. My student loan payment minimum is ~$350 /month, but I tend to pay it off faster than that would do. If the government plan stipulated that the accounts would only be active for one or two years, and that balances remaining would not be forgiven (i.e. you pay off the remaining debt as you would normally) then there would be an added incentive to pay it off even faster. This is true even at the expense of savings. With deposit interest rates low, I am much better off paying off extra student loan debt than I am saving extra. If the government were to buy that loan then pay me back my own payments that would become even more true. The incentive would be to pour as much money as possible into that debt, and then to spend as much of the return that I could manage. This would reduce my debt load much faster than I can afford to do now, and would also dramatically increase my spending.

The only real problems I see with this are 1) that it won't do as much to help rich people (they don't have loans because they can afford college) which I like, but the current political environment seems to equate not giving rich people more money with socialism, and 2) that it would not help many poor people (they don't have loans because so few go to college). It also doesn't help much for people that are unemployed as they don't have money to spend. Of course on those last two points: if it works well and leads to a large increase in demand, jobs would return.

These same things could be applied to other debt forms, but I have more of an issue with the fed buying people's (including my) houses than I do with them buying educations, which I think the government should provide anyway.

Load of Crap

Also, not presented with any meaningful commentary of course. But part of a NY Times article on Obama courting liberals is this turd:

Third Way, an organization of centrist Democrats, produced a study showing that liberals are the smallest share of the electorate and not enough to keep Congress in Democratic hands. Citing Gallup polling data, the study said self-described conservatives made up 42 percent of the electorate, compared with moderates who make up 35 percent and liberals who make up 20 percent, a shift of several points to the right in the last two years.

That, of course, has no meaning. It would be one thing if how people self-identified actually lined up with how U.S. congresscritters legislated, but it doesn't. My mom self-identifies as a moderate. She is more liberal than probably 80% of the House and 90% of the Senate. She is, however, exactly as she describes, pretty much dead center of the nation.

This horseshit pushed by Third Way is largely responsible for the clusterfuck in DC. People are mostly moderate so they say so. The words "Conservative" and "Liberal" don't mean politically conservative or liberal. This is pretty easy to figure: a large majority wanted a public option, a large majority likes social security and medicare, a large majority believes the rich should be more heavily taxed than they are, a large majority believes we should pay workers honest wages and make sure their work environments are safe, a large majority believes that companies should not be allowed to pollute. Those are all "Liberal" political opinions held by people who statistically must describe themselves as liberal...and moderate and even conservative. (No, I'm not looking up all the polling data to link.)

That someone would describe themselves as conservative, while taking advantage of medicare and not wanting to see it cut should tell politicians that the political designations of conservative vs liberal are pretty fucking meaningless. Unfortunately it seems not to work that way.

People want what they want, but rather than find that out and see about giving it to them we obsess over designations that are almost completely disconnected from their meaning on another level. Probably 90% of my political beliefs fit with the majority in this country. The remaining 10% is probably 70:30 left:right, but if I were to position myself in the US Senate it would probably be about where Bernie Sanders is (way left of "center") and in the House probably between Nancy Pelosi and Dennis Kucinich (again, way left of "center"). In the U.S. as a whole, however, I'm probably at about the 65% point overall (I balance out some pretty hard left beliefs on tax policy with some pretty right ones on personal responsibility).

Quick Guide

Just a handy little rundown of how the left is being fucked over by the Obama administration--and some "Democrats" in the Senate (comes from this post).

Healthcare advocates are disappointed because of the lack of a a public option; women's rights advocates seethe at the very mention of the name of Stupak; environmental advocates have their own issues regarding the administration's handling of the crisis in the gulf; the LGBT community is incensed by the repeated mixed messages of a president who claims to want to end DADT, but fails to take the numerous opportunities available to him to do just that; advocates for the Latino community are disappointed about the inaction on immigration issues and the DREAM act; peace activists are dumbfounded by the escalation in Afghanistan; civil libertarians are outraged by the fact that the administration is claiming executive powers that in some cases seem to surpass those demanded by President Bush. If you have a pet issue and you lean to the left, chances are that the administration has done something to tick you off.

Still no explanation as to why this is the way things are, or if people with the power really believe that punching hippies is so worthwhile that they should do it at the expense of the nation (and at the expense of popular positions).

Finally!

DOJ is going after war criminals!

...Unfortunately, they are still ignoring the (alleged) ones in the George W. Bush administration. Fortunately for all of us, they are looking for help:

How to Report a Human Rights Violator

The Human Rights and Special Prosecutions Section actively seeks out information that may assist the U.S. Government in identifying human rights violators who may have entered the United States.

If you know of anyone in the United States or of any U.S. citizen anywhere in the world who may have been involved in perpetrating human rights violations abroad, please contact HRSP either by email at hrsptips@usdoj.gov or by postal mail at:

Human Rights and Special Prosecutions Section (Tips), Criminal Division United States Department of Justice, 950 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W., Washington, DC 20530-0001

You do not have to identify yourself when providing information. Please provide as much detail as possible, such as:

* the suspect's name, place and date of birth,

* physical description, and current location;

* the suspect's alleged human rights violations including the locations and dates of those activities;

* how you learned of the suspect’s alleged activities and when and where you saw the suspect.

We are unable to reply to every submission; however, your information will be reviewed promptly by HRSP.

Information on non-U.S. citizen suspects living in the United States may be provided to Immigration and Customs Enforcement in the Department of Homeland Security, at 1-866-347-2423 (a toll-free call).

So do your patriotic duty (Asst Attorney General Lanny Breuer said "It's something we have to do. We owe it to our citizens and we owe it to the world.") and report Human Rights Violators. And remember: torture is a violation of human rights.

Professional Left Writer Done With Washington

How long until someone in the administration comments on what an irresponsible whiner this damn hippie is?

Dead Animals Mean Food

Moral and health hazards abound when looking into what to eat. That we eat too much meat in this country, is not controversial. That we have a lot of industrial agriculture that is not good for the environment or for animals is also pretty well understood. It has become an increasingly commonly held belief that farm subsidies are antiquated and mostly neither a good use of money nor a producer of good results.

One of the moral issues that I tend to get prickly about is vegetarianism...particularly veganism. Our health would be better if we ate more veggies, and it would probably be better still if we were all vegetarians subsisting on legumes, whole grains, fruits, veggies, dairy and eggs. Of course, that doesn't mean that a vegetarian diet is best for the world or the environment, and certainly not one that results in no dead animals for our food. Even vegan diets are responsible for the killing of many millions of animals as the direct result of farming.

More subtle is that meat can actually be a very ecologically efficient food source. The way much of it is produced in the US, it is not, however. There are a couple reasons. One is we eat too much meat, and so need to produce too much, and the cost/time efficient methods to do so are not ecologically efficient and so we are where we are. Another reason (outline in the post, which is reviewing this book) is that we have made some of the ecologically efficient methods illegal--particularly feeding waste to pigs.

Until we fix industrial agriculture, it will be hard to determine what is the "best" diet for us to have. Still, that doesn't mean we should just keep on as is. Strong pushes to increase fruit and vegetable consumption and to reduce meat consumption are very good ideas. Moral grandstanding by vegans is probably counterproductive, particularly when done by the poorly informed.

Yea, but No...

I really don't like arguments that are true, but so incomplete that they may as well be false, which is why I'm not so fond of this Orszag article in the NY Times. I think my biggest gripe is with this line (and his subsequent arguments):

Yet no one wants to make an already stagnating jobs market worse over the next year or two, which is exactly what would happen if the cuts expire as planned.

The problem, of course, is that it's kind of garbage. Yes, if the tax cuts expire demand could go down a bit more, but it also might not. Savings rates have jumped dramatically, and if people are already saving as much as possible, then there might not be much cutting back to do, and ending the tax cuts will only reduce savings rates. Not that anyone has actually studied anything here. The problem is that it seems everyone takes the "ending the tax cuts will make the economy worse" meme at face value. People who want to end the tax cut point out that other stimulus would be much better.

I'm hardly Greenspan in terms of my views on fiscal discipline or the economy, and I don't think that ending the tax cuts would have no effect, but it is not clear to me that it would be more than a blip. If our economy is already pricing the tax cuts ending into it's behavior, then there will be no difference. If uncertainty is making things worse, then it is better to end them now (that would be more certain than a temporary extension).

Capital Gains and Inflation

Stealing the title from Matt. Also commenting on that theme; this is also a followup on the last post...

Inflation is a double edged sword. Higher inflation reduces the value of any saved cash, but it also reduces the real value of any debt. Investments that hedge against inflation are, therefore, things that have a value that is linked to inflation.

Real estate is an inflation hedge because if inflation happens, my house gets more expensive in dollar terms, even if it's "value" remains the same, but the amount that I paid for it and my monthly mortgage payment so long as I have one don't change a bit.

The downside of inflation is that the cash I have stashed in the bank is worth less.

Taxing Capital Gains

I'm pretty sure that I understand capital gains tax arguments in exactly the opposite way that they tend to be presented--i.e. that low cap gains tax stimulates investment thus spurring the economy. The way I see it, the higher the cap gains tax is the more an individual must invest to have the same dollar return on investment, and it is the dollar return that people want and need. The percentage is only relevant to the extent that larger percentage returns equal more dollars.

I agree much more strongly with the idea that it is largely people who live off capital gains (i.e. the rich) who want who want lower cap gains taxes, and this is because at that level of wealth, there is a pretty good chance that near 100% of wealth is already tied up in investments and that no additional diversion (or at leas not a substantial one) can be made to offset higher capital gains taxes.

Basically: higher capital gains taxes should create more investment (from working people saving for retirement), boosting the economy, and that it will come at the expense of people who are living off of capital gains.

New (to me) Idea from a Politician!

Interesting proposal here. Similar to cramdown (bankruptcy modification of a mortgage to a lower principle value) but with an added benefit to banks to help them offset the immediate loss. I think it will work in places where people would like to stay but can't afford. It wouldn't work so well in places where there are no jobs and people want to relocate.

As an aside, however, I would like to say that upping the duration of a mortgage from 30 to 50 years really doesn't help much. For a $150k mortgage at 5.25% interest the mortgage payment on a 30 yr loan is $828.31, at 50 years it only goes down to $707.82. Now an extra $100 a month is a fair amount to a lot of people, but the extra 20 years it takes to pay off is, to me anyway, much bigger. The main reason is that interest alone is $656.25, so if you got a 10,000 year loan you would still be paying $656.25 per month.

For very long term loans a small increase in the payment can make a large difference in the time to pay it off. In the example above, an extra $50 per month on the 30 year loan would reduce the total time to pay off by nearly four years.

President Obama = Charlie Brown

And he just keeps thinking that Lucy isn't going to pull the football away. At least, that's the message I get from this.

The White House is struggling with whether to propose ideas that would appeal to Republicans, and thus get support on Capitol Hill—such as tax cuts—or whether to promote ideas that officials believe could have more economic impact but might hit political resistance, such as more aid for states and more infrastructure funding.

It's really simple, and I thought Obama was supposed to be smart: he can send the most right wing bill in the world to congress and he will receive ZERO Republican votes for it. They don't care what's in the bill. They are fighting him.

Iraq War Over...Still Killing Troops and Civilians In Afghanistan

So now that we pacifists have won the day and no more war evah*, I just wanted to put a handful of links to various retrospectives.

Someone who was right.
Someone who was wrong and admits it.
Someone else who was wrong and admits it (longer winded).
Someone who was wrong and is trying to excuse it.
Along with someone who is calling that bullshit.

As for me. I was pissed as hell back in 2002-3 that the entire of our government and the vast majority of media was so gun-ho to go to war in Iraq. I wasn't entirely up on the history of the region, I didn't care for Sadam, and I was even willing to concede that he maybe had some chemical or biological weapons. I still thought it was a bad idea, a distraction, a waste of money, and likely to cause a great deal of suffering. Mostly, I was pissed at how my opinion was deemed fringe and wrong by so many "Serious People" who were wrong wrong WRONG!

Now many of those who were right back then are pretty keen to get the hell out of Afghanistan, while many of those who were wrong and have since admitted it are pretty keen to...get the hell out of Afghanistan. Of course, we aren't going to do that, because the "Serious People" in government, even those, like Obama, who thought Iraq was wrong, think that we must stay in Afghanistan...I guess because there are people there who don't like us that we haven't killed yet or something.

*by "evah" I mean we will constantly be at war for the rest of my life, but we are going to pretend that we are a peaceful nation because we have (probably) stopped killing people in Iraq.

I Don't See Any There There

I know that Democrats generally love pointing out when some GOPer or other right-winger fights hard against something but then, after it gets through anyway, takes advantage (lots of US Reps that voted against stimulus at ribbon cuttings paid for by stimulus, and now the Koch brothers).

I understand a level of frustration with that, but I don't really think it's terribly wrong. Frankly, with zero GOP support, there was no real reason for Dems to have any of the stim funds go to GOP districts (to the extent that funds could be diverted). It would have been wrong, but so was the unified GOP opposition. As for the Koch brothers? I oppose the mortgage interest tax deduction, but I will certainly get all of my tax refund that results from it. I would be very happy if it were to end, or at least be limited, but I will take full advantage while it exists.

Taking advantage of a system that you don't like is not, necessarily hypocritical. It's fair. I would be perfectly happy paying higher taxes, but only if everyone else is subject to the same tax system. What is done with tax dollars has some lesser relevance.

I neither feel obligated to disregard advantages that I don't like, nor do I see anything wrong with that sentiment, in myself or others.