bloxy-moron

Tax Shift book review

I have finally finished reading Tax Shift and my First Blogging Success turned out to be everything I expected.  This book was very insightful with tons of research. I am convinced that most of the ideas in the book should implemented ASAP. Tax Shift is one of those extremely hard books to review because it is quite short (90 pages of text with an appendix and 15 pages of notes and references) and very dense.  So if I were to hit on all of the interesting points, I would end up rewriting the book.

Here is a quote from the book that wraps it up nicely:

"Tax shifts pursue liberal ends, such as ecological restoration and a living wage, by conservative means, such as relying on free markets and rewarding enterprise"

Tax Shift was written / sponsored by the Northwest Environment Watch so it concentrates on the economies of Wash, Or, BC, and Idaho with a smidgen of Cal and Alaska.  But, it's ideas could be used globally. 

The basic idea of the book is that income and business taxes hurt the economy by taxing production, but the use of natural resources is not taxed heavily.  So by shifting taxes away from production and towards resources, both the economy and the environment would be helped.  Companies like Microsoft or Boeing would not have to pay taxes but companies like Weyerhaeuser would have to pay more taxes.  This would attract companies that produce intellectual products.  As consumers, some products would become cheaper and some would become more expensive. Everyone would benefit from an improved economy and environment.

The book starts by rating the different types of taxes based on the following criteria: economy (hurt or help), equity, environment, and ease of administration. Basically all of our current taxes got bad grades and should be replaced. 

Next the book looks at the history of the different types of taxes.  I found this very interesting as most of our taxes where pushed onto us under extreme circumstances and it is very difficult to make tax changes.

Finally most of the book looks at what should be taxed.  These things include farms ( seems risky but is well explained), cars, construction, urban sprawl, energy, and natural resources.  There is substantial research on the revenue that would be collected and the consequences of these taxes.  An interesting point that was made is that companies that are charged with the new taxes may not be opposed and may benefit from them.  If a resource depleting company currently makes efforts to be environmentally friendly, then they will have an advantage over other companies that aren't as friendly.

I recommend anyone who is interested in taxes or the environment to read this book. It is short and is free to download!   In the future, I look forward to debate on some of the specifics that are written about in Tax shift.

Liberal Professor discussion

Was thinking about Peter's comment  about professors as I was falling asleep last night (blogging is taking over!)  Peter says:

"My brother has tons of stories dealing with profs in class and I've got a few more from UCSB to prove this point..."

Here is an observation that professors tend to be on one side of the "political fence". Is this a liberal conspiracy? Or is there a more clear reason?  Is this a sign that many professors are just incompetent (don't research or study all sides of their academic interests?)

My own experiences taking engineering classes have been that professors tend to be behind in terms of technology and lots of times teach technologies that are out of date. This doesn't pose a terrible problem since engineering is more about fixing problems and new technologies can easily be learned when they are needed.

One insight could be a literal definition of liberal is to embrace new ideas and discoveries.  This is the role a professor should play and a good one will pass this on to students.  So therefore by this particular definition a professor should be liberal.

Let’s also look at the current political environment. The people in power don’t seem academic or intellectual (this is a post unto itself.)  So, politically speaking professors are most likely “liberal”.

To wrap up, good professors should have experience and knowledge of all angles of their study.  They should also be open minded to academic and thoughtful discussions of ideas that they don’t agree with.  I don’t think that there is a problem of “liberal professors” but more of a problem of incompetence (all professions have incompetence) and problems with the overuse of the word “liberal”. 

Even if one disagrees with the previous paragraph and believes that there is a problem because most professors are too liberal, how does this harm capitalism?  As Peter pointed out, free market economist used to be “liberal”.  Both Edwards and Kerry unsuccessfully tried to appeal to the conservative south by appealing to issues like immigration and jobs with non-capitilist (word?) ideas.

Review of Chronicles Volume 1

Bob Dylan has shocked me with his autobiography.  I had low expectations for the book since he is a song writer and not an author.  Well Dylan has written an enlightening, entertaining, detailed book about music as it relates to himself. 

I was on vacation in Min when the book came out so I bought it at Mall of what's wrong with America.  I hate malls but they had a bookstore.  Then we drove north and finally ended up on Highway 61.  It was serendipitous to start reading the book in his home state on Highway 61! Ironically there is not a lot about Min. in the book.

I have never read an autobiography like this one.  The first shock was the level of detail.  He describes a train whistle blowing during a conversation decades ago and these types of details are displayed in ever section.  I would not be surprised if Bob used his own journal to as a reference as I was always going "how did he remember that?"  Or maybe he "added" the details to help paint the picture he saw in his head.  Or maybe he just has an incredible memory (we know that he must to remember the words and music to his hundreds of songs.)

The next peculiar aspect of the book is that you never really know when or where he is during a passage.  Dylan jumps all over the board even within a paragraph and he goes off on many tangents.  If there is a structure to the book, then it is definitely not chronological. Reading the book makes you feel you are sitting on a porch listening to old man telling stories.  The next time I read the book I think that I will try to figure out and record the time and places of the stories.  Brilliantly, Dylan leaves you with a vivid picture.  This is not a collection of random musings.  It is like the art where a picture is created out of many different related photographs.

I was also pleasantly surprised at the level of emotional detail Bob gives.  Because of his famous history of not talking about himself, I did not expect him to write in such a personal manner. Although, the one theme in the book is music.  There almost no detail about his "personal" life outside of music.  I appreciated this since I do not care about the color of his house or his favorite toy growing up.  Instead, we learn about what books, music, people that influenced his music. 

The book is broken into 5 sections about significant periods of his life.  They are not in chronological order and he does jump all over the place in each of the sections.  Here they are:

1. Making up the score - description of NYC when he was getting started.
2. The lost land - mainly talks about influences from Minn to NYC.
3. New Morning - living in Woodstock while trying to get isolation. Talks about NOT being the "spokesman of a generation" that he didn't even understand.
4. Oh Mercy - How he was "lost" in the 80s and how he got it back.  Extreme detail in the recording process of Oh Mercy.
5. River of Ice - Details of the time in Min right before going to NYC.  Talks about learning folk music and learning about Woody Guthrie, Jack Elliot, Joan Biaz.  Very flattering descriptions of the later 2 (attempt to clean some laundry?).

I would very much recommend this book to obviously any Dylan fans but also to anyone interested in American music.  It is quite a history lesson.  I am not so naive to think that Chronicles is the gospel of Bob or even that it is %100 historically accurate, but what I find the most interesting is the topics that Dylan chooses to talk about.  This is book about what Bob Dylan thinks has been important in his musical career.

Enemies of Capitalism

Peter quoted Milton Friedman as a response to a previous post. To paraphrase: "Businessmen and college professors are the biggest enemies to capitalism".  Never heard this before and it fascinated me.  I found irony in the fact that "liberals" characterize businessmen as evil conservatives and "conservatives" characterize professors as evil liberals (ughh I hate those two words "conservative" and "liberal". I shutter to think I used them both repeatedly in one sentence)

The aforementioned post spells out the businessmen side of the quote.  It is the professor side that I find more interesting.  My first thought was professors are liberal and liberals hate capitalism and that is what he meant.  Well this is far too elementary and also bad logic depending on how one defines liberal.

Professor liberal = free thinking person in search of academic truth.
Capitalism hating liberal = socialist.

Even if one believes both these "liberals" are the same person, how are they a threat to capitalism just because they hate it?

Here is my second theory:

Professors are highly intelligent, educated, and also dedicate their lives to teaching and learning about an academic subject that most often furthers society.  When thinking of solutions for society outside of their own domain, professors might forget that it is rare for a person to posses all three of these traits. A society structured around smart, educated, hardworking, people working towards the common good would look a lot different then one structured towards selfish lazy uneducated people. Capitalism might not be fair or efficient for the former where it works very well for the later.  So educated hard working unselfish people (i.e. professors) influencing politics while forgetting that most people are not like themselves could damage capitalism. 

I can see that one might see argument 1 being the same as argument 2 but it is the subtlety between the two that I find important.

Move On Democrat Party

MoveOn.org has reportedly sent an email to the democratic party leaders saying that they now own the party. Reportedly they called the party "professional election losers" and said "We bought it, we own it, we're going to take it back."  I think this is a great sign for US politics since we have a grass roots organization flexing their muscles against the political establishment.  When talking purely about the issues (political issues not social issues like abortion, gay marriage, etc.) I don't see a huge difference between Republicans and Democrats. This might move the Democratic party more to the left and then we might have more political debate.

I also like this event because it may get more people involved in politics.  MoveOn has gotten a lot of support from people who where not participating in politics. 

I find the best part of this scenario is that it causes a shift of power from corporate sponsors back to citizens.  Now I can only hope that other grassroots organizations start to grow and give a voice to other under represented citizens. This might start to break down the walls of the 2 party system.  There are more than 2 political sides and we need more than 2 political powers!!

FareStart

  Went to a school party last night at FareStart in Seattle.  This is a non-profit organization/restaurant that gives homeless and disadvantaged adults training in the food service industry.  We had great food last night and I would recommend it to someone looking for a place to eat in downtown Seattle. Great cause and yummy food.

Name change

My blog has finally taken some direction and I can drop the boring generic "Erik's Public Journal".  This was the most accurate title I could come up with when I started my blog. 

When I noticed that I followed my conservative post with a Moore rock video post, then I knew seattleWilco has found a moral direction:  breaking down the walls of the two ideological towers.  Or just make sure I offend both my conservative and liberal ( I hate those two words) friends equally. Although I will make no attempt to be "fair and balanced". I will always just post what interests me.  Who knows what direction this will take next month.  I just hope it doesn't run out of gas.

First blogging success!

A previous post on taxes, generated a comment from jeffy that pointed me to a book titled Tax Shift. Wow three link in one sentence. Well, I am about half way through the book and it has turned into one of those treasures where you start with an idea that seems original and then you find a book that takes your idea and does all of the research for you and expands it to realms that you never thought of.  Well this happened to me. 

Lately I have been thinking how consumption and not work should be taxed as a way of encouraging work and investment while discouraging the waste of resources.  Well, Tax Shift lays out how this might work in the Northwest.  I will be giving a much more complete review when I am done with the book.  Thanks jeffy!!

So, my Utopian dream of blogging (see about) came true within a few weeks.

Are companies Red or Blue?

Here is a site that will tell you how much money companies contributed to political campaigns:
http://www.choosetheblue.com/main.php

I would rather the site was non-partisan but I have no reason to doubt this data.  Since we live in a capitalist society, which I think is a good thing, one of the best ways to "vote" is with your check book.  Some interesting observations:
Toyota was the only automaker who gave more to Dems.  Honda is not listed and the rest are American automakers.  Coors is Repub and Guinness is Dem.  Have fun with this.

Rockin in the free world video

Neil Young and Michael Moore have teamed together to create a rockin in the free world video.  If link doesn't work, you can go to michaelmoore.com Great song and powerful video using Farenheight 9-11 clips. 

Here is a great Neil blog: http://www.thrasherswheat.org/wheatfield.html