Posted by Marc Hodak on November 7, 2008 under Practical definitions | 
Will our first black president bring back involuntary servitude, i.e., requiring certain people to work for no pay in jobs they don’t choose?
I’m not sure this is serious, since Obama was careful not to mention mandates in the context of National Service, but this is what it says on Change.gov, which appears to be a bona fide Obama web site:
The Obama Administration will call on Americans to serve in order to meet the nation’s challenges. President-Elect Obama will expand national service programs like AmeriCorps and Peace Corps and will create a new Classroom Corps to help teachers in underserved schools, as well as a new Health Corps, Clean Energy Corps, and Veterans Corps. Obama will call on citizens of all ages to serve America, by developing a plan to require 50 hours of community service in middle school and high school and 100 hours of community service in college every year. [emphasis mine]
I wonder what that massive youth vote that propelled BHO to victory will think about being sentenced to 100 hours of community service per year in college as a result of electing him.
HT: Coyote, who is mining this great find to the hilt
Update: Well, Change.gov is living up to its name by changing the last sentence quoted above to:
Obama will call on citizens of all ages to serve America, by setting a goal that all middle school and high school students do 50 hours of community service a year and by developing a plan so that all college students who conduct 100 hours of community service receive a universal and fully refundable tax credit ensuring that the first $4,000 of their college education is completely free.
Posted by Marc Hodak on under Revealed preference |
One of the most important questions in any society is: where do your brightest minds go? I would argue that in a healthy society, those minds would go to our most productive sectors. In that context, I’m pretty pleased about what this chart says about the U.S.:
The libertarian blogs are chuckling about the chuckleheads at the bottom with a “That explains it” attitude. I look at it with a slight twist: it feels right that the lower the average IQ represented by this chart, the more likely the holder of that IQ is aiming for a government job. That’s as useful a place to store our less brilliant minds.
HT: Coyote
Posted by Marc Hodak on November 2, 2008 under Executive compensation |
There is a growing outrage about the possibility that Wall Street employees might get paid anything this year. This outrage is translating into a demand to rob bankers of their legitimate savings, and the elimination of pay-for-performance in the banking sector.
To begin with, critics are complaining that banks “owe billions to their executives.” But the vast majority of those billions represent past compensation that executives have chosen to save inside the company. And those critics are further outraged that these savings are accruing interest. Imagine that? And they are further clucking about the fact that these deferrals are mainly for the purpose of deferring taxes. Can you believe that anyone would actually try to structure their affairs to delay paying taxes? Goodness, how greedy can one get? How…unpatriotic?
So, imagine for a moment that one of those bad, bad people decides to defer some of their compensation, essentially saving it within the firm. Under what conception of fairness or justice would one accept the company, reacting to government pressure, confiscating those savings? That is precisely what the ‘companies-owe-executives-billions’ crowd is implicitly advocating. Why else would this particular form of savings register as a front page headline?
Next, the scolds are complaining about new bonuses that many of bankers are set to get for 2008–upwards of $20 billion. New bonuses in a year like this? How dare they?
Read more of this article »
Posted by Marc Hodak on November 1, 2008 under Practical definitions |
At a rally yesterday where Senator Obama promised all sorts of goodies to the crowd, he said that as president:
I’ll help pay for this by asking the folks who are making more than $250,000 a year to go back to the tax rate they were paying in the 1990s
He’ll ask them?
What if they don’t all accept his request? Oh, yeah. In political new-speak, “ask” doesn’t mean “request,” it means an request you can’t refuse.
Here’s what I don’t get. There is probably not a single person in the crowd who would really mistake “ask” for “force” in this context. Yet, the good Senator, who is extraordinarily careful with his words, uses “ask.” Why is that?
