Pretty Great
Written on 7 November 2008 by Michael
VOTE NOW!
Written on 4 November 2008 by MichaelDon’t let anyone stop you! Vote Now! Right Now! Get up and go vote. Now.
Ok, had enough of me bitching at you? Enjoy this funny little video then… Unless you didn’t vote.
We’re in Contract!
Written on 2 November 2008 by MichaelOn what we’re calling “Macduff 2.”
Check out this post here for the already posted details on the house. We’re set to close November 25 if all goes well… Wish us luck. In this market nothing is certain.
So Long Red States!
Written on 2 November 2008 by MichaelDear Red States:
We’ve decided we’re leaving. We intend to form our own country, and we’re taking the other Blue States with us. In case you aren’t aware, that includes California , Hawaii , Oregon , Washington , Minnesota , Wisconsin ,Michigan , Illinois and all the Northeast. It may even include Florida and Ohio, they are seriously considering it. We’ve given them until Nov. 4th to decide. We believe this split will be beneficial to the nation, and especially to the people of the new country. Since we’re dropping the middle states we’re calling it United America, or simply the U.A.
To sum up briefly: You get Texas , Oklahoma and all the slave states. We get stem cell research and the best beaches. We get the Statue of Liberty. You get Dollywood. You can take Ted Nugent. We’re keeping Bruce Springsteen and Billy Joel. You get WorldCom. We get Intel and Microsoft. You get Ole’ Miss. We get Harvard and 85 percent of America’s venture capital and entrepreneurs. You get Alabama. We get two-thirds of the tax revenue, you get to make the red states pay their fair share.
Since our aggregate divorce rate is 22 percent lower than the Christian Coalition’s, we get a bunch of happy families. You get a bunch of single moms, and the highest concentration of pregnant unwed teenagers. Please be aware that the U.A. will be pro-choice and anti-war, and we’re going to want all our citizens back from Iraq at once. If you need people to fight, ask your evangelicals. They have kids they’re apparently willing to send to their deaths for no purpose, and they don’t care if you don’t show pictures of their children’s caskets coming home. We do wish you success in Iraq, and hope that the WMDs turn up, really we do, but we’re not willing to spend our resources in Bush’s Quagmire. We’d rather spend it on taking care of sick people, and educating our children.
With the Blue States in hand, we will have firm control of 80 percent of the country’s fresh water, more than 90 percent of the pineapple and lettuce, 92 percent of the nation’s fresh fruit, 95 percent of America’s quality wines, 90 percent of all cheese, 90 percent of the high tech industry, most of the U.S. low-sulfur coal, all living redwoods, sequoias and condors, all the Ivy and Seven Sister schools plus Stanford, Cal Tech and MIT. With the Red States, on the other hand, you will have to cope with 88 percent of all obese Americans (and their projected health care costs), 92 percent of all U.S. mosquitoes, nearly 100 percent of the tornadoes, 90 percent of the hurrican es, 99 percent of all Southern Baptists, virtually 100 percent of all televangelists, Rush Limbaugh, Bob Jones University, Clemson and the University of Georgia. We get Hollywood and Yosemite ,thank you.
Additionally, 38 percent of those in the Red states believe Jonah was actually swallowed by a whale, 62 percent believe life is sacred unless we’re discussing the war, the death penalty or gun laws, 44 percent say that evolution is only a theory, 53 percent that Saddam was involved in 9/11 and 61 percent of you crazy Redies believe you are people with higher morals then we Bluies.
Finally, we’re taking the good pot, too. You can have that dirt weed they grow in Mexico.
Peace out, Blue States
(I wish I could take credit for this, but I can’t. I don’t know who wrote it originally, but I want to give them a big hug.)
FiveThirtyEight.com
Written on 2 November 2008 by MichaelHave you seen this site yet? Interesting stuff.
This one is my favorite.
Sarah Palin Debate Flow Chart
Written on 14 October 2008 by Michael
Happy (1st) Anniversery to us!
Written on 13 October 2008 by Michael
The first anniversary gift is supposed to be paper (with the modern alternate of a clock)… but thats lame. I’ll think of something.
Because our anniversary coincides with G’s grandparents leaving for Florida, we’ll be celebrating with her family in Urbana tonight. Looking forward to seeing everyone!
Last Night’s 2d Presidential Debate
Written on 8 October 2008 by MichaelAt first I thought so little happened last night that that I would not think any more about it after I woke up this morning… Unfortunately I was wrong: In the shower I recalled what Senator McCain proposed regarding the nation’s glut of failing home mortgages. He said:
As president of the United States, Alan, I would order the secretary of the treasury to immediately buy up the bad home loan mortgages in America and renegotiate at the new value of those homes — at the diminished value of those homes and let people be able to make those — be able to make those payments and stay in their homes.
see this post from the LA Times.
So far no one has talked about doing this and if the nationalization of our financial sector troubles you then this should scare the hell out of you. What scares me is that the government; the “lender of last resort”, is already involved in the daily balance sheet activities of many small businesses now by agreeing to guarantee certain portions of the commercial paper market, but Senator McCain now wants us writing monthly mortgage checks to the US treasury? This was a massive proposal. An unheard-of intrusion of the government into hundreds of thousands of private contracts between mortgage lenders and individuals. And what is also really odd? Read that last paragraph and remind yourself as you do that I’m a Democrat! I know, right?! Freaky.
I was happy to hear Senator Obama talk about another one of Senator McCain’s revolutionary ideas:
Now, Sen. McCain has a different kind of approach. He says that he’s going to give you a $5,000 tax credit. What he doesn’t tell you is that he is going to tax your employer-based health care benefits for the first time ever.
But I wish he would have said more. Senator McCain’s health care proposal is preposterous. So much so that, should he be elected, I doubt that he actually intends to implement it. Senator McCain talked often last night about the refundable tax credit of $5000 that his plan would give families that can be used to purchase health insurance… Below is what he didn’t say:
Here’s how the McCain plan works. Every family receives a refundable tax credit of $5000 that can be used only to purchase health insurance. Individuals receive $2500. McCain’s advisers say the cost of this tax credit is $3.6 trillion dollars over ten years. They also say that their plan is revenue neutral because they introduce a new tax on employer-based health insurance that the Joint Committee on Taxation scores as raising $3.6 trillion over 10 years.
Currently, employee compensation in the form of employer-provided health insurance is exempt from both the personal income tax and FICA payroll taxes. Most employee payments for employer-based health insurance are also tax preferred. McCain’s plan would eliminate these and other health-related tax expenditures.
The fact that the plan is revenue neutral means that the tax savings for families receiving tax cuts are exactly balanced by the tax increases for families whose taxes go up. But because the tax cuts are front loaded, after just a few years most American families will see their tax bills go up under the McCain plan.
What does this mean for a typical family? In 2009 the average premium for a family health insurance policy will cost about $13,600. With McCain’s new tax on employer-provided health benefits, families in the 25 percent federal income tax bracket (which starts at taxable income of $65,100) will pay additional income tax of $3400, additional payroll tax of $1040, and will have their earnings cut by $1040 as their employers pass on the increase in the employer portion of the FICA tax. So the total tax on health insurance will be $5480, $480 more than the value of the new health insurance tax credit.
Because the McCain tax credit would be indexed only to inflation while the cost of health insurance has been rising at around 7 percent a year, the net tax increase will rise rapidly over time. By 2012 this typical family would receive a tax credit from the McCain plan of about $5337. But with premiums rising in that year to over $16,600, the new McCain health insurance tax would reach $6699 - for a net tax increase of $1362. By 2016, the tax credit would be $5823, while the new tax would be $8782 - a net tax increase of almost $3000.
Families in lower tax brackets will initially receive a tax cut from the McCain plan, but after a few years, they too will pay higher taxes. And millions of families with better than average health insurance plans or living in states with higher than average health care costs will see their taxes go up under the McCain plan by substantially more than is illustrated in the example above. In effect, the McCain plan punishes families with good health care by raising their taxes the most.
McCain’s advisers understand the perils of campaigning for President on a platform of middle class tax increases. So they have started describing the plan differently for different audiences. When speaking publicly, they continue to describe the plan as revenue neutral with $3.6 trillion in tax increases to offset the tax credits. But when describing the plan privately to tax policy groups capable of calculating the extent of its middle class tax increases, they change the plan so that health benefits would be subject to the personal income tax but not the payroll tax. This sleight of hand allows them to avoid the accusation of raising taxes on the middle class, but it leaves the McCain plan $1.3 trillion short over 10 years. Given the current fiscal situation of the country and the fact that Senator McCain’s proposals for new corporate tax breaks would cost at least $2 trillion over 10 years, adding an additional 1 percent of GDP a year to the deficit for his health plan would be a rather stunning development.
The McCain plan makes one improvement to the Bush administration plan on which it is based. By using refundable tax credits rather than an increased standard deduction, the McCain plan is more favorable to low- and middle-income families. But this income redistribution scheme comes with efficiency costs. The new McCain tax on health insurance, like a tax on any other good, reduces the incentive to work. This occurs because a tax raises the price of the newly taxed good and reduces the purchasing power of incremental earnings. Because health insurance makes up a relatively large portion of expenditures, the adverse incentive effects in this case are quite large. In an analysis of the almost identical provision in President Bush’s health proposal, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that extending the Bush tax cuts would reduce the economy-wide effective marginal tax rate on labor income in 2012 from 33 percent to 31.6 percent, but that taxing health insurance benefits as Senator McCain proposes would take this tax rate back up to 33.1 percent. Since Senator Obama would extend some of the Bush tax cuts, the effective marginal tax rate under his plan will be below 33 percent and therefore lower than under McCain’s plan.
Just because the McCain health care plan increases taxes on the middle class and raises marginal tax rates doesn’t necessarily make it a bad idea. For years, some economists have complained that the tax exclusion of employer-provided health insurance causes people to consume too much health care. In the McCain model of deregulated health care, employer-provided health insurance will gradually wither as price-sensitive consumers instead purchase high-deductible policies from the individual market. In this brave new world, consumers will come closer to facing the true marginal cost of their care and over consumption of health care will decline.
But embarking on such a radical change in our health care system presents many risks. First, premiums are likely to rise rather than fall under the McCain plan. Today premiums in the individual market average 17 percent higher than those for employer-based insurance due to higher screening, marketing, and underwriting costs. Second, consumers shopping for insurance in this market would face a bewildering array of insurance options. In many ways, health insurance is an even more complicated product than a mortgage. Third, McCain’s plan to let insurance companies sell across state lines will lead to a race to the bottom as insurance companies shift their headquarters to states with the fewest protections for policy holders.
In contrast, employers in the existing employer-based health insurance system have strong incentives to act as faithful agents for their employees in selecting a limited number of well-designed health insurance options and in encouraging insurance companies to adopt innovative approaches to cost control. Less radical reform approaches, such as Senator Obama’s, that build on the existing employment-based system strike me as a much more prudent approach — and one that is less likely to lead to government takeover of yet more insurance markets.
http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/10/06/senator_mccains_new_tax_on_hea/
MacDuff2
Written on 5 October 2008 by Michael1 in 4 Chance McCain will die in his second term
Written on 30 September 2008 by MichaelEven a 1 in a million chance for Governor Palin to become President Palin is enough to make me want to permananatly crawl under my desk… So this is horrifying.
McCain would be the oldest president to begin a first term in office=By the end of a second term, Jan. 20, 2017, he would have a 24.44 percent chance of dying, compared with 5.76 percent for Obama, the firm estimates.
An Atlanta actuarial company specializing in individualized estimates of life and health expectancy has run the numbers for McCain, 72, and Obama, 47. The firm, Bragg Associates, calculated the odds of the candidates dying in office, adjusted for their known health problems.
The firm estimates that McCain has a health expectancy of 8.4 years, while Obama can expect another 21.9 years of good health. The calculations are from January, 2009, covering two terms in office for either candidate. McCain, if he’s like others in his age group, would have a cushion of just about five months.
By no means am I wishing any harm to Senator McCain. Quite the opposite in fact. If he gets elected I’ll be happy to do whatever I can ensure he lives long and healthy life… Because the alternative is terrifying… I’m just so sick of being ashamed of “my” President.
