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It is comforting to know how many kind, local people we have who truly care about such lost creatures. God bless them all.
Google has updated its Gmail app for Android, which includes a new slate of features predominantly for Honeycomb tablet users. Essentially what the update does is bring the Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich Gmail experience to Android 3.0 Honeycomb.
This means it gives users the ability to use swiping gestures to move between new and old conversations, as well as the ability to tap for access to recently accessed labels. In addition, for Honeycomb tablets, 30 days of messages will now be cached for offline reading.
As for those with an Android phone, on version 2.2 and 2.3 this update also gives access to labels for the API for third-party developers. All in all, it's a nice minor update for Honeycomb users who want to get a taste of Ice Cream Sandwich.
A volcanologist speaks with Scientific American about the rare case of Iceland's disruptive volcanic eruption and how long it might last.
A volcanologist speaks with Scientific American about the rare case of Iceland's disruptive volcanic eruption and how long it might last. "Fire and ice have created a doubly dangerous and disruptive volcanic disaster in Iceland that is being felt around the world as locals are evacuated and thousands of flights to and from Northern and Western Europe have been grounded. At least 800 people have been evacuated from the area around the Eyjafjallajokull glacier (about 120 kilometers outside of the capital Reykjavik and from under which the volcano is erupting), to protect them from rushing floodwaters."
Kudos to Tyler Cowen for stimulating public debate on an important policy option. Now if someone will just move away from the popular distortions and dysfunctional politics to confront the merits or flaws of the issue, we might be on the verge of an important debate.
On 7/22, Dean Baker at the Center for Economic and Policy Research weighed in with Tyler Cowen Is Worried About Wealth Taxes, dismissing the concept by suggesting “If we give people a large incentive to hide their wealth, it is reasonable to assume that they will.” He went on to say “we need not worry about taxing wealth if we reverse the policies that have redistributed so much income upward over the last three decades´.
Also on 7/24, Joseph Thorndike of the Tax History Project offered Wealth Taxes to Cure Inequality? How About Tax Reform Instead published on the Huffington Post. He argues that history favors “more tepid reforms” and dismisses wealth taxes as “a full-throated campaign to soak the rich with some sort of new levy on wealth.” The most pointed observation in his article was its title which suggests that a structural shift to incorporate a tax on wealth wouldn’t even qualify as reform.
Unfortunately, as suggested by the extracted quotes (I don’t think I’ve misrepresented them, but I encourage you to examine the articles yourselves) there are no advocates of wealth taxes engaging in this mini-debate. Indeed, there is precious little discussion of the merits or flaws of a direct tax on wealth appearing in any of these articles. Cowen subtly equates wealth taxes to robbery. Thorndike characterizes the very topic as a populist revolt aimed at soaking the rich. Baker apparently believes regulating the nuts and bolts of economic activity would be more effective than directly attacking the preferences embedded in tax policy. And Kwak implies he believes wealth taxes are a good idea, but is evidently so discouraged by the political obstacles he deems it futile to even share his rationale or logic toward the substance of the concept.
While I thank Mr. Cowen for raising the topic, unless someone steps forward as an advocate to address the merits I think the battle he foresees will be neither long nor particularly interesting. So let me take a shot at reframing the issue.
I perceive our tax and monetary policies have been jointly responsible for destabilizing our economy. I further perceive that structural tax reform, specifically replacing investment income taxes with an annual wealth tax (to tax the investment potential of capital at a constant rate) has the potential to correct the flaws of current policy.
First, I suggest we subordinate the subjective debate over what is fair and address tax policy as preeminently a matter of efficiency. Though even my own initial examination of the concept of wealth taxes was triggered by the question of equity: “How is it fair that Warren Buffett and Mitt Romney and their billionaire peers pay marginal tax rates half as high as their less fortunate fellow citizens?”, the far more important question is what policies will lead most reliably to a thriving sustainable economy and society.
Second, the single most significant policy contributing to the ever-increasing concentration of income and wealth is the preferential tax treatment wealth holders now receive; of which the most damaging element is the way it subsidizes unproductive capital and distorts Adam Smith's famous Invisible Hand. Thus, I must respectfully disagree with Mr. Baker and Mr. Thorndike; reform should start by addressing the flaws of existing structure.
If the ever-increasing concentration of income and wealth was the path to a thriving sustainable economy and society, I would join the multitude of conservative economists, shrug my shoulders, and accept that “a rising tide floats all boats.” But paraphrasing a quip by Warren Buffett, our rising tide has been floating the yachts and threatening to drown the multitudes. The measure of tax policy should be whether it effectively supports our society and economy. Current policies do not. Our tax (and monetary) policies have made tax avoidance and valuation manipulation far more profitable than productive enterprise. We have under-mined our productive economy. There is no reason to be surprised that we are creating serial asset bubbles instead of jobs.
The primary objective around which we all should rally is not redistribution of wealth, or elimination of inequality, but revitalization and stabilization of our economy. It is within that framework that I believe we need to evaluate our existing tax structure, and examine alternatives. It is within that framework that I advocate a carefully crafted shift back toward property taxes, the long-term historic norm of taxation, as a pro-growth policy option.
I am a capitalist. I believe that the productive deployment of capital is the driver of economic growth and prosperity. One key measure of the efficiency of our tax policies is do they promote the efficient productive deployment of capital. I posit that our present policies do not. By sheltering unproductive capital from taxation, we effectively subsidize and encourage unproductive holdings. As a result, we are misallocating our collective resources.
A simple truism common among economists is “when you tax something more heavily, you get less of it.” It is the rationale behind so-called “sin taxes”, cigarettes, gasoline, carbon; if you want to discourage something you tax it.
So what is the relative burden of our tax structure today? We tax labor at the highest rates. We tax investment income at reduced rates. We shelter unproductive capital from any direct tax assessment whatsoever. Sheltering illiquid and unproductive assets from taxation may be an effective way to inflate their value, but it is not an effective way to encourage productive investments, which as a capitalist I perceive to hold an exceptionally important societal benefit.
The rationale for preferential treatment of investment income is that savings are presumed to stimulate increased productive economic activity. But objective analysis of the effect of current policies clearly suggests we are failing to achieve that goal. It is not savings that provide benefit, it is productive investment - and structural tax shelters for low-profit and unproductive capital are inadvertently diverting resources away from productive allocations.
Mr. Kwak is right. We should be having a debate about taxing wealth, but the point of that debate should be the economic efficiencies of structural reform, not class warfare. We should not approach wealth taxes as an add-on revenue grab with redistributional intent. A wealth tax should be considered as the cornerstone of comprehensive tax reform aimed at eliminating the misincentives and distortions embedded in current policies.
A properly structured wealth tax integrated with repeal of current investment income taxes, reform of tax expenditures, and a reduction in the top marginal tax rate on earned income would stimulate consumer spending by increasing disposable income for the middle class masses while simultaneously encouraging capital to migrate toward more productive allocations.
Near the end of his article Mr. Cowen suggests that “It doesn’t seem fair to the holders of that wealth to suddenly pay additional taxes on assets that they thought were in the clear.” Undoubtedly he is correct, hedge fund managers and billionaires who have become accustomed to receiving preferential tax treatment probably will perceive removal of those preferences as “unfair.” But fair really is in the eye of the beholder.
The concept of equal treatment is fundamental to both democracy and capitalism; and “fairness” is an emotionally charged perspective that is difficult to subordinate. Yet fairness is so subjective debating it doesn’t often seem to lead to a meeting of the minds. I perceive reduced tax rates and perpetual tax deferrals offered to a select class of citizens to be grievously unfair. But the holders of wealth to whom Mr. Cowen refers have anointed themselves as beneficent “job creators,” and I have no doubt that their perception of fair is different from my own. We are unlikely to close that gap by debating the issue.
Thus, I suggest the more productive framework for evaluating and debating taxes and economic policy should be efficiency. Advocates of the status quo should be challenged to defend the efficiency of existing policies. Likewise, advocates of change would do well to look beyond class warfare arguments and the search for incremental revenue and examine the potential benefits of removing investment distortions from the tax code. I hope Mr. Cowen is correct. I hope an even-handed and efficient tax on wealth does become a topic of serious conversation and debate. If my perceptions about the potential benefits of structural tax reform are wrong, I welcome substantive rebuttal. If they are right, they deserve critical public evaluation and debate.
1If we can’t agree on even that point I suspect I am going to have difficulty influencing your opinion. But if you think I’m wrong there, I invite and urge you to explain your opposing position.
Military convoys traveling from Kawaihae to Pohakuloa Training Area Wednesday (Jan 30). There will be two convoys (separated by time and space) beginning at 11 a.m. and ending no later than 3 p.m.
Individuals in surrounding communities may notice an increase in noise due to military aircraft training, here, Jan. 7-9 and Jan. 13-16. These dates are subject to change as the aircraft training is contingent on weather conditions.
Military service members are scheduled to convoy to and from Pohakuloa Training Area, beginning Thursday.
In President Trump, Rep. Karen Bass (D-Calif.) has seen this movie before. The four-term Los Angeles progressive was a member of the California Assembly when action star Arnold Schwarzenegger became the Golden State’s governor. And when Bass became speaker of the assembly (2008 to 2010), the first African American woman in the nation to reach such legislative heights, she was in constant contact with him.
Bass was so concerned by what she saw on the campaign trail last year that she started a petition in August calling on Trump to undergo a mental-health evaluation. As of this writing, it has garnered 36,773 supporters. Now that Trump is president, Bass said her town halls have turned into psych sessions.
Bass was elected to Congress in 2010, the same year the tea party ushered the Democrats out of the majority in the House. What’s happening now “is like that time period on steroids,” she said. Bass was part of the Congressional Black Caucus contingent that met with Trump at the White House. Listen to the podcast to hear what happened.
“It was clear we weren’t there to schmooze,” Bass said.
“Cape Up” is Jonathan’s weekly podcast talking to key figures behind the news and our culture. Subscribe on iTunes, Stitcher or wherever else you listen to podcasts.
“This gala is being held at a very difficult time for the family members that we serve,” said Marleine Bastien. “I have never seen such a high level of confusion, uncertainty, and fear. March 8 is International Women’s Day!
FANM’s work of providing quality services in the domain of mental health, domestic violence intervention, access to healthcare, adult education and computer training , immigration , youth services and leadership training, in addition to advocacy/organizing work pertaining to immigration, gentrification, affordable housing, statelessness in the Dominican Republic et al.
FANM has been internationally recognized for its visionary approach of combining quality services that enrich and save lives, with advocacy and organizing.
It has become a lifeblood of low to moderate income families in Miami-Dade County.
The gala will consist of a silent auction of famous Haitian artists Turgo Bastien and Louis Rosemond’s work, live auction by famous auctioneer Andre Pierre (former Mayor of North Miami), a full course dinner, songs by Christina Ponthieux and Princess Merriah Dessous, folkloric dance by Sosyete Koukouy Dance Group, and music by Aroze Twoubadou with special guest Kapi of Tabou Combo.
Contract award is subject to Section 3 Preference in accordance with HUD federal regulation 24 CFR part 135.
RFQ Notice: Contractors are hereby sought with confirmed verifiable professional qualifications for the specified technical work and skilled trades at potential job site activities within Muscogee County. Expectations of all selected applicants include, but are not limited to: provision of all necessary equipment so projects remain on schedule and within costs, sourcing all necessary materials to ensure quality and price points as agreed, working to maintain project timelines as agreed while communicating status to client regularly, maintaining a safe and orderly work environment, and meeting or exceeding all applicable local codes.
- Any other skilled construction trade areas not specifically referenced in the above list may also be considered and are likewise encouraged to apply under this RFQ All RFQ responses must be submitted in a sealed envelope to the address as provided below. Qualifications for each of the above listed work and skilled trades construction practitioners must meet the minimum applicable licensed qualifications for the field in which the bid is submitted.
Editor's note: This is the second part of a three-part series. Part three will publish Monday.
The market for hemp was largely dormant for decades, but it’s grown in recent years, especially for use in medicines, food, supplements and cosmetics.
Proponents of hemp are optimistic about its potential. Cannabis analysts at the Brightfield Group estimated the hemp market could grow to $22 billion by 2022, but some university researchers are not so certain.
Hemp may bring slightly higher returns than traditional row crops, but it has higher input costs and is more labor intensive, University of Wisconsin researchers reported. University of Kentucky researchers predicted in 2013 that the hemp industry would bring dozens of jobs to the state, rather than hundreds.
Other research indicates the real potential for American hemp production is in CBD and hemp seed oil.
Before it was effectively banned after World War II, hemp had already lost a lot of the fiber market to cotton and it’s a long shot to take that market back, according to Cornell crop scientist Jerome Cherney and Canadian researcher Ernest Small. Hemp started its European comeback in the early 1990s as animal bedding and a replacement for other niche products like cigarette papers.
Hemp makes up 0.5 percent of the world’s fiber market, while cotton accounts for 85 percent. Substituting hemp for other fibers is usually more expensive. Plus, the low cost of employing workers and well-established textile manufacturing facilities in China will be tough to compete with, according to Cherney and Small.
The real opportunity for hemp is in the seed. Almost two-thirds of U.S. hemp imports in 2017 were seeds, according to congressional research.
Chris Beedle has between 6,000 and 7,000 acres set aside for an industrial hemp crop he hopes to plant in Audrain and Callaway counties. Current regulations will heavily restrict how many acres he can plant, but if he gets a permit, hemp will go up as a row crop in his fields.
Aside from regulations, Beedle said an outdoor hemp crop works about the same as any row crop.
Once the crop is grown, Beedle said he’d run a conventional combine through to cut the tops off the plant and gather the seeds. The stalk that are going to be processed for fiber get cut down and left in the field so they can start to rot. This lets the fiber start to separate from the woody stalk. Then it’s all baled and taken to a processor.
“We’re not reinventing the wheel with harvesting,” Beedle said.
A major difference between hemp and other row crops is that there aren’t any pesticides or herbicides approved for use on industrial hemp. That could change, but Beedle said he’s planning on running a totally organic operation. Weed control is more of an issue early on in its growth.
“Hemp puts up a heck of a canopy,” Beedle said.
That should crowd out weeds once the hemp gets going, but farmers will have to go through their fields and knock out weeds themselves until then.
Beedle is growing for seeds and oil, he said. He spent 20 years raising cattle, so he has his eye on the potential for using hemp seed as an additive in livestock feed. The FDA has deemed hemp seed safe for human consumption, but it’s still evaluating whether farmers can use it in feed for commercial animals.
Mitch Meyers, CEO of BeLeaf Co. in St. Louis County has her eye on animal feed, too. She said she’s been trying to get Purina to look into it.
The FDA’s concern is that THC from hemp seed in livestock feed could end up in meat, Beedle said. That doesn’t make sense to him since hemp can’t contain higher than 0.3 percent THC.
It takes a THC content of at least 1 percent for marijuana to cause a high. The 0.3 percent THC threshold in Missouri and federal laws was established in a 1975 paper co-authored by Ernest Small, an oilseed researcher for the Canadian government. That standard was arbitrary, Small wrote in a 2016 paper.
Researchers at North Carolina State University couldn’t detect THC in a trial chicken feed that replaced soybean oil meal with hemp seed cake. Swedish researchers in 2008 found hemp seed cake in a protein feed fattened cattle just as well as soybean meal.
Hemp seed cake is what’s left after the seeds are pressed to extract the oil. It doesn’t have much potential outside of animal feed, but hemp seed oil has a lot of omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids and is often sold as a dietary supplement. It’s also used as a salad dressing, moisturizer, acne medication and anti-wrinkle cream.
Hemp production today is going to be a lot different than it was in antebellum Missouri. For a long time, the main reason for growing hemp was to produce a sturdy material used widely to make rope and cloth.
It can also be used to make electrodes for supercapacitors, regulating the flow of energy from batteries. You can also process hemp to harvest cannabidiol, or CBD, a molecule that is purported to have health benefits ranging from a natural antidepressant to a treatment for epilepsy.
Beedle plans to steer clear of CBD for now. Industrial hemp comes with plenty of restrictions, and he expects there will be more for CBD, especially when it’s used in medicines.
If he gets a permit, Beedle wants to develop a good seed that he can sell to other growers.
Hemp has missed out on all the advancements in seed technology since the mid-20th century. Missouri is even farther behind on good seed stock since nobody can plant here until 2020 while other states get started, Beedle said.
Meyers is also concerned by Missouri’s late start. While the state tries to get its industrial hemp program running, investors are already putting money into states like Kentucky that are ahead of the curve, she said.
How ALEC, the Koch brothers and their corporate allies plan to privatize government.
ALEC openly advocates privatizing public education, transportation and the regulation of public health, consumer safety and environmental quality.
On February 25, 2011, Florida State Representative Chris Dorworth (R-Lake Mary) introduced HB 1021. The bill sought to curtail the political power of unions by prohibiting public employers from deducting any amount from an employee’s pay for use by an employee organization (i.e., union dues) or for any political activity (i.e., the portion of union dues used for lobbying or for supporting candidates for office).
Furthermore, HB 1021 stated that, should a union seek to use any portion of dues independently collected from members for political activity, the union must obtain annual written authorization from each member.
In effect, this bill defunds public-sector unions–like AFSCME, SEIU, the American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association–by making the collection of member dues an onerous, costly task. With public-sector unions denatured, they would no longer be able to stand in the way of radical free marketeers who plan to profit from the privatization of public services.
Given the similarities between HB 1021 and a rash of like-minded bills in states across the country, including Wisconsin, on March 30 a public records request was sent to Dorworth’s office seeking copies of all documents pertaining to the writing of HB 1021, including copies of any pieces of model legislation the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) may have provided.
But two weeks later Dorworth’s office delivered 87 pages of documents, mostly bill drafts and emails, detailing the evolution of what was to become HB 1021. Buried at the bottom of the stack was an 11-page bundle of neatly typed material, labeled “Paycheck Protection,” which consisted of three pieces of model legislation, with the words “Copyright, ALEC” at the end of each.
Dorworth legislative assistant Carolyn Johnson claims that, although Dorworth is an ALEC member, neither she nor her boss have any idea how the ALEC model legislation found its way into Dorworth’s office. Dorworth could not be reached for comment.
Nov. 2, 2010 saw a radical cohort of Republicans swept into office in states across the country.
When the legislative sessions began in January, the American news-consuming public was shocked by the tenacity of this new breed of Grand Old Partier as it set to the task of breaking public employee unions, dismantling state government and privatizing civic services.
While battles still rage in the nation’s legislatures and statehouses, mainstream media attention peaked in February and March with the culmination of the fight over Gov. Scott Walker’s budget bill AB 11, which sought to curtail the collective bargaining rights of government employees and thus disempower Wisconsin’s public sector unions.
When on February 23 the Buffalo Beast published recordings and transcripts of a prank call to Walker from a Beast reporter posing as billionaire GOP donor David Koch, it became apparent how intimately involved brothers David and Charles Koch were in Walker’s efforts to break public sector unions.
Subsequently, bloggers and editorialists began batting around possible scenarios involving myriad right-wing public policy foundations funded by the Koch brothers and proceeds of Wichita, Kan.-based Koch Industries (and other Koch-controlled corporations). During such speculation, one name arose as the favorite villain behind the multitude of bills aimed squarely at public employee unions. That name was ALEC (see sidebar detailing the organization’s Koch connections).
An exhaustive analysis of thousands of pages of documents obtained through public records requests from six states, as well as tax filings, lobby reports, legislative drafts and court records, reveal that these suddenly popular anti-public employee bills, while taking different forms from state to state, were indeed disseminated as “model legislation” by ALEC.
Not coincidentally, bills similar to those in Florida and Wisconsin have been introduced in Arizona, California, Illinois, Iowa, Indiana, Kansas, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, North Carolina, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, Ohio, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Texas, Utah and Vermont.
The purported goal of this nationwide movement has been to reduce the budgetary burden posed by public employee salaries by limiting the right of public employees to collectively bargain for pay and other benefits. These restrictions, along with “paycheck protection” laws, curtail the political power of public employee unions by cutting off funds for political campaign and lobbying expenditures. These measures would effectively thwart attempts by public employee unions to resist privatization of government functions and to support candidates opposing elected officials who vote for corporate giveaways of public resources.
ALEC contends that government agencies have an unfair monopoly on public goods and services. To change that situation, it has created a policy initiative to counter what it calls “Publicopoly.” ALEC’s stated aim is to provide “more effective, efficient government” via privatization–that is, the shifting of government functions to the private sector. ALEC lists its initiatives on its website (alec.org/publicopoly).
Foster care, adoption services and child support payment processing.
School support services such as cafeteria meals, custodial staff and transportation.
Highway systems, with toll roads presented as a shining example.
Surveiling and detaining convicted criminals.
ALEC currently claims more than 250 corporations and special interest groups as private sector members. While the organization refuses to make a complete list of these private members available to the public, some known members include Exxon Mobil, the Corrections Corporation of America, AT&T, Pfizer Pharmaceuticals, Time Warner Cable, Comcast, Verizon, Wal-Mart, Phillip Morris International and Koch Industries, along with a host of right-wing think tanks and foundations.
ALEC is composed of nine task forces–(1) Public Safety and Elections, (2) Civil Justice, (3) Education, (4) Energy, Environment and Agriculture, (5) Commerce, Insurance and Economic Development, (6) Telecommunications and Information Technology, (7) Health and Human Services, (8) Tax and Fiscal Policy and (9) International Relations–each comprised of “Public Sector” members (legislators) and “Private Sector” members (corporations and interest groups).
Each of these task forces, which serve as the core of ALEC’s operations, generate model legislation that is then passed on to member lawmakers for introduction in their home assemblies. According to ALEC promotional material, each year member lawmakers introduce an average of 1,000 of these pieces of legislation nationwide, 17 percent of which are enacted. For 2009, ALEC claimed a total of 826 pieces of introduced legislation nationwide, 115 of which were passed into law–slightly below the average at 14 percent. ALEC does not offer its model legislation for public inspection.
ALEC refused to comment on any aspect of the material covered here.
Employee Rights Reform Act (ERRA): This bill establishes limitations on fees that may be charged to nonunion public employees who are part of a collective bargaining unit represented by a union.
Labor Organizations Deductions Act (LODA): This is the only piece of the “Paycheck Protection” trilogy not aimed specifically at public employee unions (although the bill does name both the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers as entities that must comply with restrictions). LODA establishes a stringent set of criteria governing the means through which any labor organization may collect and use funds for political activity, such as lobbying, electoral and political activities, including contributions to any candidate, party or voter registration campaign.
LODA establishes criminal penalties for any labor organization found to have made a political contribution derived from dues or any other fee paid by union members. Further, LODA prohibits unions from soliciting funds for political use from any individual other than union members and their immediate family members.
Political Funding Reform Act (PFRA): While ERRA and LODA seek to significantly limit the amount and type of funds that may be deducted from employee pay–particularly as those funds may apply to union political activity–PFRA is designed to eliminate all withholding of public employee pay for use in any political activity. Simply put, under PFRA, unions would have to raise money for political purposes by directly fundraising to their members or other union supporters.
In the case of Florida’s HB 1021, e-mails provided by Rep. Dorworth’s office through a public records request reflect that the initial version of the bill had been drafted in January by then-Florida Chamber of Commerce (FCoC) Vice President of Government Affairs Adam Babington. A member of the FCoC Foundation’s board of trustees, Cincy Marsiglio, the senior manager of public affairs and government relations in Florida for Wal-Mart, is the Florida ALEC “private sector” chair (see sidebar below for more on ALEC’s public and private chairs). Babington’s original draft (evidently based on ALEC “Paycheck Protection” model legislation) underwent a revision aimed at curtailing the political activity of public employee unions. This revision was made by Florida State Senate staff who were working with Babington to create a Senate companion version of the bill.
This companion bill, SB 830, was sponsored by Sen. John Thrasher (R-Jacksonville). Thrasher worked for the influential Tallahassee lobby firm of Southern Strategy Group, Inc., from 2002 through his election to the Florida Senate in 2009, where he represented several FCoC and ALEC member corporations, many with interests in the privatization of state governmental functions (particularly in the areas of mental health and healthcare service contracting).

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