Shifting to a Vehicle Miles Traveled tax system serves neither the interests of good government nor the interests of personal privacy.
Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/2013/05/02/4213891/gas-tax-on-mileage-shatters-right.html#storylink=cpyThe Obamas and the Bidens released their 2012 tax returns on the White House blog today.Now that Biden’s tax returns are coming under public scrutiny, he and Dr. Jill Biden seem to be feeling a bit more charitable than the former, rather uncharitable Senator Joe Biden, whose tax returns probably received little attention, if they were even released at all.
To grasp the importance of the revolutionary change in oil and gas drilling sweeping across the United States -- and its significance for our economy -- just consider how far behind the rest of the world is lagging.
“Decriminalization of Weeds Drops Youth Crime Rate…”
Is that really the cause of lower youth crime? A chart in the article shows “California Youth Arrest Rates for Serious Violent and Property Crimes” began to fall sharply around 1975, when the War on Drugs began.
It fell from about 5,000 per 100,000 to about 3,000 per 100,000 from 1975 to 1985, rose to around 3,500 in 1990, when the U.S. had a crack cocaine “epidemic,” and then fell steadily thereafter to about 1,500 per 100,000.
Moreover, the steep rise stopped around 1975.
Is that really the cause of lower youth crime?
“Between 2010 and 2011, California experienced a drastic 20 percent decrease in juvenile crime”
Has a 20 percent crime drop in a single year since 1975 typical? I’m guess not, since if that was the case crime would have declined by 99.9675 percent since 1975.
Ken, sadly, there are too many people, who believe one independent variable and one data point are enough to explain a trend.
Peak, sadly, you dismiss out of hand anything that could indicate the currently illegal drugs aren’t the harbingers of civilization’s demise or that the illegality of drugs is the primary driver behind many crimes today and not the drugs themselves.
What are you going to say if in 2012 crime continued to drop? That two data points don’t indicate a trend, as well as simply assert that the legalization of drugs and crime rates are not correlated (as stupid a statement that I’ve seen you make on this topic)?
2. Excellent animated map of drilling and production in the Eagle Ford Shale.
It would be more useful if we had an animated map of the economics of the Eagle Ford Shale.
3. 45 Most Powerful Photos of 2012 (HT: Marginal Revolution)
I can’t speak for others found all those photos that showed the effects of the CIA’s drone war much more powerful.
http://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/AFG_dead_children_55.jpg
http://notimefortrivia.files.wordpress.com/2010/05/afghan-child-casualty.jpg
http://www.terencebunch.co.uk/articles/afghanistan-united-states-and-the-drone-war-in-pakistan/pakistani-child-injured-in-us-drone-strike-by-united-states.jpg
Here you go, some economics, profitability in Eagle Ford.
There is nothing in those pictures that confirms that those children are casualties of “the CIA’s drone wars”. There is, however, abundant evidence that our enemies routinely and deliberately kill and put at risk innocent women and children:
Taliban using women and children as human shields
Taliban buying children to serve as suicide bombers
Taliban gernade wounds 17 Afghan schoolchildren
Taliban hang 8-year-old boy
Taliban attacking more children
Children aged 5 used to plant Taliban bombs
Afghan boy suicide bombers tell how they are brainwashed into believing that they will survive
Taliban execute 7-year-old boy for spying
Yeah, you’ll say, but that’s the Taliban. What about U.S. troops?
Courageous restraint putting troops live at risk
Out of the 2,777 conflict-related civilian deaths in Afghanistan in 2010, the latest UN report blames “anti-government elements” for 2,080. In other words, the civilian death count is almost entirely Taliban, not Western … 75 per cent of all civilian deaths in 2010 came at the hands of Taliban and related jihadist forces
Close to 90,000 children who would have died before age 5 in Afghanistan during Taliban rule will stay alive this year because of advances in medical care in the country …
That was 2007, by now more than a half-million children have been saved by U.S. intervention.
I’ll bet that none of these stories ever appeared at the leftist, freak show websites that you troll.
What’s more, I’d wager almost anything that if you had been around when the world was fighting the Nazis you – and the rest of your leftist, white-trash friends – would have found some moral equivalence between the allies and the fascists.
Che – why is it so hard for you to accept the U.S. military kills children? Every military conflict in the world has killed innocents – buck up and be a man – that’s what war is.
..not implying they do it intentionally!!
“Buck up and be a man?” — Moe
Really? Give me a break douche bag.
Nowhere have I suggested that children have not been the victims of war. So, pull your head out of your ass. I simply reject the idea that the U.S. and our allies deliberately target innocents, which is what “Vag” has argued repeatedly.
Innocents are killed everyday in the absence of “war”. They are still uncovering mass graves in Iraq. The loss of innocent life does not become tragic only upon the effort to liberate people from tyranny. There is no moral equivalence between liberator and persecutor.
Our enemies, on the other hand, do deliberately target innocents. They do this without even a passing condemnation from the likes of “Vag” and, it appears, you.
How sad that the West has become home to so many parasites, who live their lives in the light of the liberty that other, better men have purchased with their blood and who have absolutely no understanding or appreciation of that cost.
The U.S. armed forces goes to great lengths to protect the innocent, but liberty has a price and that price has to be paid.
Che:
No, you didn’t suggest that children have not been victims in war – neither did I – and neither did Vangel that I saw. He simply commented on how powerful the pictures were and you went ape-shite with personal attacks.
I gather you two have baggage from days gone by – I’ll be at home with the missus…
Che
“How sad that the West has become home to so many parasites, who live their lives in the light of the liberty that other, better men have purchased with their blood and who have absolutely no understanding or appreciation of that cost.”
Nice sounding rhetoric, but my liberty is under much more of a threat from the US government than from any rag tag bunch in Iraq or Afghanistan. If I were directing military operations there would be several divisions marching on Washington DC right now.
“The U.S. armed forces goes to great lengths to protect the innocent, but liberty has a price and that price has to be paid.”
The price of *my* liberty is the deaths of innocents in Iraq? What nonsense. The Iraqi people were handed their liberty from Saddam 9 years ago. Why are innocents still paying the price?
Don’t get me wrong, I’m all in favor of defense, but that means just that – defense. There has been no military attack on the US since 1941. I find it hard to justify all the many US military adventures around the world since then.
And for the record I support the US decision to respond to the 9/11 attacks with military force, but that means targeting the perpetrators, get in, destroy them, and get out. There’s no earthly reason to have remained in Afghanistan after al-Qaeda was long gone. And it’s hard to remember why the US ever attacked and occupied Iraq in the first place.
From the Afghanistan International Security Assistance Force on Tactical Directives vs. Rules of Engagement:
“…tactical directives tell troops what they should do while the rules of engagement instruct them what they can do. In an example he describes the difference between the two directives.
“If our troops are fired upon from a compound, under the laws of armed conflict…international law, that compound is a legal target,” the general said. “However, the current tactical directive will ask our troops to consider the minimal level of force that’s required to handle the situation.”
So, there are rules on what soldiers can do, overlaid with rules on what they should do which is “minimal”.
btw, see Rules of Engagment blog entries from CaptainsJournal.com
conrad makes some valid points about buffet’s wrongheaded and self serving claims about taxes. (buffet is just talking his own book and seeking to make life insurance relatively more attractive as a wealth management tool)
but i think he left somehting important out of his discussion of the 90′s. the boom in the 90′s followed a tax cut, not a tax hike.
this is an excerpt from one of out letters to investors. (note that i can actually use capital letters if forced)
The narrative we often hear is that Clinton’s increase of the marginal rate for top earners drove increased tax revenues and nearly closed the budget deficit and that this tried and true idea is just what we need now. The facts, however, tell another story. The tax hike was in 1993. Income tax revenue as a percentage of GDP was 7.7%, in 1993, essentially identical to the 7.6% the year before and lower than any year in the 80′s. In 1994, it was 7.8%, tied with 1984 for the lowest year in the 80′s, and 1995 was 8% tied with 1988 for the second lowest year in the 80′s. Thus, we see that the tax hike had little if any effect on revenues and levels were stubbornly at very low absolute levels. What is being left out of this revisionist Clinton history is that in 1997, a major tax cut was pushed through. Capital gains fell from 28% to 20%. This drove a large jump in tax revenues. 1997 saw 9% income tax as % of GDP, 9.6% in 1998 and a peak of 10.2% in 2000. And this is only half the story as increase in overall revenues is not just a function of the % of GDP but the growth of GDP as well. Revenues grew 33% from 1992-6, and 39% from 1996-00, a 20% increase in growth rate. If we truncate the Clinton administration into 2 parts, pre 1997 tax cut and post, we see a very clear distinction. Post the cut, business investment skyrocketed and the economy grew at a 4.4% annualized rate, 33% faster than the period before the tax cut and real wages grew 1.7% a year reversing their decline in the pre tax cut portion of Clinton’s administration. This same trend is clear in Reagan’s cap gains tax cut. In light of this data, we think the case is quite convincing that the current proposed hike in the top tax rates will produce nothing but economic friction and that a hike in cap gains (from 15% to 23.8%, a 59% rise) will probably reduce revenues and will certainly harm investment and growth. DC appears to have mistaken the brake for the gas in their tax policy. This set of proposed changes look to be extremely harmful economically and unlikely to generate additional revenue. We have long passed the point where it could. The tax base needs to be broadened, not further focused. In the 80′s, 12% of Americans paid no net federal income tax. That number is now about 50%. That is the source of the recent revenue decline, but paying taxes again is a tough sell to voters who are enjoying a free ride. This populist instinct is likely the greatest threat to recovery past 2012. As Pogo said “We have met the enemy and he is us.”
conrad is correct to focus on investment as an engine for growth. with cap gains taxes soaring by roughly 2/3 under the current tax plan, such investment is going to be reduced. as mark is fond of saying, if you tax somehting, you get less of it. this is as true of investment as anyhting else.
and warren is simply lying through his teeth and misremembering/misrepresenting his own past.
taxes sure seemed to matter to him when he was starting out.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2012/11/30/buffetts-billions-cant-buy-him-exemption-from-his-tax-averse-past/
PEAK OIL…
…is proving to be PEAK BULLSHlT.
Peak what?
John Hofmeister, former President of Shell Oil (Nov 12, 2012):
“The fundamental problem is that the annual decline rate of existing fields is 4 to 5 million bpd, so each year we need 4 to 5 million new barrels per day of production just to stay even.
Demand growth requires additional supplies on top of that, and if the supplies don’t come online to meet demand growth, higher prices are the inevitable result.
We have not been able to keep up with demand growth and the decline rate simultaneously.”
I agree with Hofmeister, but I don’t see any reason for alarm. I do not see the shortfall he describes to be a crisis.
If energy prices increase 30%, demand will drop. Petroleum users will become more efficient and will develop alternatives.
John Dewey, so, oil rises to $120, new tech is implemented, oil falls back below $100 quickly, and everything is peachy.
How about this scenario: The U.S. economy recovers, oil rises to $200, the U.S. economy falls back into recession/depression, and oil falls back below $100 quickly.
Peak, I do not believe that oil shocks cause sustained recessions. It’s a convenient excuse. But recessions are caused by government interventions, sometimes which are foolish reactions to events such as oil shocks.
Consider the very short-lived the Arab oil embargo of 1973. Some economists have argued that the spike in gasoline prices caused consumers to reduce demand for domestic goods, and that caused the 1973-1974 recession. IMO, though, that recession was caused by the Federal Reserve’s increases in interest rates in 1973. Those interest rate increases were aimed at the inflation – inflation which I believe was caused by the very same Federal Reserve after it slashed interest rates by 50% in 1971.
Take out coal (down due to the shift to natural gas) and grain (due to drought), and rail shipments are up +5%. No recession indicator there.
i’m not sure you can really look at those 2 factors the same way mark.
a shift from coal to gas i get. that’s just substitution.
but drought or no, the drop in grain is a drop in real output which seems like somehting that contributes to a potential recession.
you could call it one time etc but so are lots of things that set off recessions. the dotbust, the housing crash, volcker hiking rates to break inflation, etc…
that does not make them non contributors to recessions.
We can forget grain then. If you just take out coal, rail shipments are still up almost 3% YTD. So while coal shipments by rail might “suck,” that’s not really an indication of a recession. That’s an indication of a switch from coal to natural gas. The strongest gains this year for rail shipments are for petroleum, motor vehicles and lumber, suggesting some strength in energy, cars and housing.