Tuesday, January 14, 2003

Interesting ideas from my step-brother

This comment in its totality can be accessed at Radley's site, where Brian, the person to whom Matt is responding, posts his comment.

Firstly, almost all tax cuts favor the wealthiest tax payers in absolute dollars due to the fact that we have a progressive tax system where the wealthy pay almost all taxes almost every tax cut will benefit the wealthy more than the middle and lower classes due to the fact that you are merely giving them back there money in proportion to the inordinate amount they paying into the system anyway. Your emotional argument that the tax cut in absolute dollars favors the rich will always be correct and dangerous from the standpoint that those who preach this motto can incite emotion from the uneducated majority who take that statement at face value.

Back to the merits of eliminating taxing dividends twice. The taxing of dividends twice-first at the corporate level and then when distributed-should be eliminated most importantly because it is not fair PERIOD. S Corp.'s, REITS, LLC (all forms of corporate/company ownership) all can distribute their profits to their owners i.e. shareholders, tax free. Why then should a public corporation be subject to a tax at the corporate level and then when distributed to its owners? Quite simply it is social engineering. The govt thinks it knows best when it comes to how business' should invest their money. In addition to trying to find any way they can to pay for their spending (look for prosperity and you will find an easy and predictable target for govt to attack and it will be easy to sell-look you have bought into it), the govt.felt that it would encourage corporations to invest and spend their profits (like itself) instead of distributing the profits to the true owners of those profits (the shareholders). Of course the govt. not individual owners, know what is best for them and where they should be investing their money. What have corporations done as result; they have bought back their stock at highly inflated prices, (further enriching inside management who has adjusted their compensation to be most benefited by this tax law i.e. lucrative stock option programs) and they have overinvested in capital equipment (see the telecom sector such as Worldcom, Lucent, Winstar, Global Crossing etc.).

Paying dividends also will reduce corporate accounting fraud. If you are not making money you can not distribute money in the form of dividends. In the past fast growing company's have used the excuse that it would be irresponsible of them to distribute profits in the forms of dividends that were subject to the penal tax code. Many could not have paid dividends if they wanted to-their was no money to distribute. Accounting gimmicks can give the false impression of profitability. If it became en vogue to pay dividends, which it would if double taxation was eliminated, accounting fraud would be tougher to pull-off.

In closing, this tax should be eliminated because it is the moral thing to do. Forget who benefits in the short term, in the long term the people you are most concerned with will benefit by less fraud, higher pay, enjoyment of dividends that are not taxed and ultimately better investment of capital which ultimately raises the standard of living for everyone. I believe your real problem is with President Bush and how he selling this as something that will stimulate the economy. It will stimulate the economy by allowing corporations and individuals the freedom to deploy capital where it is most needed and where it will be most profitable. All of these gimmicks of giving money back to the middle class so that they can go out and buy DVD's, TV's and Cars is a short term solution to a long term problem. How does this help the middle class long term? If these people would save some of the tax cuts they have received in the past they would not be out of money right now and could still be spending in a more regular, consistent, smooth fashion.

Economic growth is not spending more money on things that people do not need, it is creating things that people really do want and need (sometimes as killer applications in the tech world i.e. the internet, cable TV, airplane etc.). If people save (invest) instead of spend on things that do not excite them, products will be produced that more quickly and efficiently that will excite them. This is economic progress all of the rest is short term garbage fed to the public who bites off on this junk, repeats to everyone they know and after many years is treated as fact. Pretty soon everyone is hypnotized and then govt. can manipulate for their benefit. The more people buy-in without thought the deeper govt. becomes entrenched.

Eliminate this tax because it is right and forget tax credits like child credits. Why should anyone get credit (further incentive to have more) for having more children? This is an immoral concept and should be eliminated. What is wrong with our country that this could be acceptable thinking?

Sunday, January 12, 2003

Get your war-game on.

Now, more than ever before, it seems that the Pentagon's dreams of an IT-based war strategy nears fruition. The new emphasis on war games is indicative of future tech trends in how wars might be fought and won. For a recent war exercise, war gamesOperation Internal Look", Gen. Franks and about 50 of his senior intelligence and operations personnel crowded bleachers in the most secure part of Qatar's As Sayliyah army base, where U.S. Central Command has set up a state-of-the-art mobile command center, the likely headquarters in the event of an attack on Iraq. From there, they watched new war games on a giant IMAX screen.

I admit-- it kind of sounds like fun. Even Penthouse has jumped in to cover the new trends in war gaming! And now, American servicemen get to play these games more often, as the games become part of curriculum. At the Airforce Wargaming Institute, located at Maxwell Airforce Base, war games are played and played and played. As usual, my curiosity got the best of me, as I decided to scavenge the web for some war games that I might be able to play (and win, of course).

"Ah, ah, ah-- not so fast, little taxpayer", grumbled Uncle Sam, "You may have paid for these games, but you can't play them..." When trying to play the "addictive" game Gobase, the "Access Denied" sign grew across my screen. The same thing happened when I tried to play Primewarrior.

Is this really "as real as it gets"? And if so, why can't I play? Can I not handle the truth? As if any of the poor young men preparing for war in Iraq by playing those games "know" the truth. As if they would feel like playing video-games if they did.

Sunday, January 12, 2003

Love and marriage.

The Alternatives to Marriage Project raises the blood pressure of many a demure conservative. Recently, the AMP questioned the results of the much-debated CDC report which linked cohabitation to increased likelihood of divorce. So why the increasing hostility to marriage? And is it justified?

Skepticism about the marriage has increased as families, no longer characterized by the male-breadwinner structure, evolved to accomodate the high-stress lifestyles of two working parents. One of the most interesting results of this new economic equality (or equality of responsibility) in American families is a worsening of sex between married couples. Caitlin Flanagan writes a must-read on this issue for the latest Atlantic Monthly, in which the irony of increased female sexual liberty and awareness is revealed in the fact that women want less sex from their husbands.

The reason abortion rights hold such a sanctified position in American political life is that they are a critical component of the yuppie program for maximum personal sexual pleasure. But let these inebriates of nooky enter marriage, a state in which ongoing sexuality often has as much to do with old-fashioned notions of obligation and commitment as it does with the immediate satisfaction of intense physical desire, and they grow cool and limp as yesterday's Cobb salad.

Men, no longer solely responsible for the economic support of a family, have lost their last bargaining chip. A wife who comes home from her high-stress job only to find her husband has not fed the kids, done the laundry, or helped on the domestic front, is more likely to feel anger than desire. After all, she works just as hard as he does-- so why does equality seem to saddle her with more of the child-rearing expectations and household duties? Why have women changed and adapted to the so-called "man's world" of the workplace while men have failed to similarly change and adapt to the "woman's world" of wallpaper and ironing?

The modern wife just doesn't feel like seducing her husband anymore. As Flangan remarks, "to many contemporary women, the notion that sex might have a fucntion other than personal fulfillment is a violation of the very tenets of the sexual revolution that so deeply shaped their attitudes on such matters". Indeed, the husband faces a tremendous challenge if he hopes, at the end of the day, to secure a little sexual healing from his wife. In her acerbic style, Flanagan phrases the conundrum thus:

He must somehow seduce a woman who is economically independent of him, bone tired, philosophically disinlcined to have sex unless she is jolly well in the mood, numbingly familiar with his every sexual maneuver, and still doing a slow burn over his failure to wipe down the counter-tops and fold the dish towel after cooking the kids' dinner. He can hardly be blamed for opting instead to check his email, catch a few minutes of Sportscenter, and call it a night.

So is the answer resorting to traditional one-worker homes? Jane Greer, Redbook's online sex therapist who also has a thriving business in Manhattan, says that if a couple is not having sex because of job pressures, and one of the partners quits working, the couple "absolutely" has more sex. Flanagan concludes:

It turns out that the "traditional marriage" which we've all been so happy to annihilate, had some pretty good provisions for many of today's most stubborn marital problems, such as how to combine work and parenthood, and how to keep the springs of the marriage bed in good working order.

I confess I do not know what to do about the problems of modern marriage. Clearly, sex and the desire to seduce one another is one of the most important apsects of keeping a marriage together, as it brings a couple closer and answers unspoken fears about marital fidelity, etc. Marriage without hot sex is like prison, add the mortage payments. A couples' sex life also matters for the development of their children's emotional and sexual maturity. I want my kids to see me kiss my husband in ways that indicate there is more between us than a shared mutual affection. Kids who grow up around affectionate, passionate parents tend to be more comfortable and less repressed with in their own adult sexual lives.

As for whether or not marriage is "worth" it anymore, I fall on the side that believes it is. There mere fact that married couples have less sex has more to do with increased careerism than it does with the marriage contract. After all, the average American marriage ain't exactly hard to end-- the divorce industry, contra the tech sector, has done particularly well in the economic recession.

Marriage, in this young ladies' opinion, is about tying your fate and your dreams to those of another, binding yourselves together knowing that sometimes the temptation to cut loose will be agonizing, but that your union is more important than your individual recklessness. Don't blame marriage for a bad sex life-- if you must blame anything at all, blame the notorious Wittle Wabbit. Boys, you've got competition. All the more reason to lobby your government for that classic French right to a 2-hour lunch break...

Sunday, January 12, 2003

Peace doesn't sell magazines.

Ariel Dorfman expresses the desire to see more stories and photos and writing about the beauty of peace, the perfection of various methods of local conflict resolution, as opposed to the disgusting bravado of war. In the first place, peace doesn't create heroes, or myths, or History Channel documentaries. In the second place, there is reason to believe this grostesque seduction will never change. Steven Pinker makes me think such rubber-necking is part and parcel of what some might call "the human condition".

Sunday, January 12, 2003

Romanian artist Gheorghe Constantin

Sunday, January 12, 2003

Ethnic minorities in Iraq.

One of the most serious problems with expanding the war on terrorism into a mandate for regime-change in Iraq is the precarious ethnic balance threatens to degenerate into competing tribal territorial claims. The scenario is roughly reminiscient of Afghanistan and postcommunist Yugoslavia. BBC Middle East correspondent Jim Muir describes the Kurdish extremist group, Ansar al-Islam, which poses potential problems for a Washington-Kurd alliance against Iraq.

The presence of the violently anti-American group, known as the Ansar al-Islam (Partisans of Islam), is likely to attract increasing attention as US moves to overthrow Saddam Hussein's Iraqi regime gather pace. A number of Washington's regional adversaries - including both Baghdad and Iran - appear to have a finger in the Ansar pie.

The Ansar are largely made up of Iraqi Kurds belonging to several radical Islamic groups which merged late last year. They control a string of villages in the plains and mountains between the town of Halabja and the mountain ridge which marks Iraq's border with Iran.

But many of the Ansar's Kurdish members are believed to have returned from Afghanistan, where they had gone for training and to wage jihad (Holy War) alongside al-Qaeda and the Taliban. Kurdish leaders who run the rest of Iraqi Kurdistan, and who have suffered heavily at the Ansar's hands, say that at least 20 or 30 Arabs linked to al-Qaeda have also come from Afghanistan to join the Islamist pocket.

For those interested in the perspectives of Kurdish and Turkoman Iraqis, the following links, provided by a favorite friend who knows much more about all of this than humble ole me, are useful.
Washington Kurdish Institute
The Iraq Foundation
The Kurdish National Congress of North America
Kurdistan Observer
Islamic Republic of Iran's Foreign Ministry
Iraqi Kurdistan Dispatch
United Kurdish Voice

Sunday, January 12, 2003

Love Work by Gardner McFall

My love, travel to me quickly for time
strikes like a ruler slapped on a pupil's hand.
Put work aside, worry, too, all the Midwest
Presbytarian principles I once loved you for
and still do. I have learned there's more
to our being here, so tenuous and brief,
than securing sums for retirement. After that, we'll be
past caring about all we own save each other,
hand to hand, and what we may have stored
from the grind, grit, from gratifying sweet
instances, compounded through desire and will.
Tick tick goes the time clock. I hear it
in the recent statements of our industry,
collected fast in a binder like a rebuke.

Sunday, January 12, 2003

Fine lines and other such dubious prospects.

Good article by Michael J. Glennon for The Wilson Quarterly, where he attempts to find the fine line between situations best approached by law and those best approached by power, or through use of power as a negotiating chip or a means of state-actor behavior modification.

Sunday, January 12, 2003

I love a man who can make me cry.

And cry I did while reading P.J. O'Rourke's "The Louse in in the House" in the print edition of The Atlantic Monthly January/February 2003 issue. In fact, I laughed so much that I felt compelled to call my grandparents in Romania recount O'Rourke's swing-dance with "bourgeois propriety"-- not to mention his brilliant plan for dealing with Islamic fundamentalism. By far, the funniest thing I have read this year. Forking out the $4.95 newsstand price bought me a break.

It also bought Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s somewhat strained defense of his cousin, Michael Skakel, convicted last year for the murder of Martha Moxley. This is as sordid as it gets.

"GIVE BACK MY BOOK AND TAKE MY KISS INSTEAD.
WAS IT MY ENEMY OR MY FRIEND I HEARD,
"WHAT A BIG BOOK FOR SUCH A LITTLE HEAD!"
-Edna Saint Vincent Millay

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