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Oh, come on! These two curves are perfectly related: They're both attempting to vaguely connect 2 variables that intuitively seem like they ought to have something to do with each other without actually being a remotely accurate description of reality.

For reference, Arthur Laffer said the theoretical relationship between tax rates and government revenue per capita looks like this:
Laffer Curve
A suspicious Martin Gardner then plotted the actual relationship between tax rates and government revenue per capita, and got something that looks like this:
Neo-Laffer Curve

My basic view on the subject:
1. There's absolutely no way to measure real innovation. Some of the problems:
- Discoveries that seem unimportant can turn out to be incredibly important 15 years later, and vice versa.
- Organizations sometimes protect their discoveries by keeping them secret.
- Academics often give away the knowledge they have without patenting it to build their career. However, they can also build their career by giving away nonsense and getting away with it.
- A lot of "innovations" are just tiny variations on things that we already have and don't make much real difference (e.g. the rounded rectangle).
2. There are lots of motivations for innovation, some of which can't be bottled, organized, or turned into policies. For example, the more idealistic scientists are motivated more by the joy of discovery than by the cash they'll get.
3. That means that trying to take a theoretical approach to creating more innovation is just plain unworkable. The one thing that seems to have worked, historically speaking, is (1) put really smart people in contact with each other, (2) make sure they have plenty of cash and whatever they need to do their work, and (3) tell them they can focus on pretty much whatever they feel like working on, just make something awesome happen. That worked in Alexandria 2300 years ago, it worked in Baghdad around 1000 years ago, it worked in London around 200 years ago, it worked in Bell Labs in the last century.

I find the Neo-Laffer Curve a good counter. Taxation versus revenue isn't a univariate function, after all.

• http://www.daytrotter.com/article/261/bound-stems- what-youd-get-if-you-remixed-the-great-depression- with-a-choose-your-own-adventure-book-enthrallingl y-but-incorrectly-paginated
  
  "Elijah Wood once sent a signed pic to Janie and asked her to be his girlfriend. That didn't work out for obvious reasons."
  
  And check out the photos at the bottom. Totally butch!
  http://www.flickr.com/photos/60479909%40N00/246082 332/
  http://www.flickr.com/photos/60479909%40N00/246076 309/
• http://www.culturebully.com/ (butch photo)
• http://www.gapersblock.com/transmission/feature/20 06/09/bound_stems_in_so_many_words/ (butch photo at the bottom)
• http://www.cadenhead.org/workbench/stories/2002/10 /14/stalkingJaniePorche.html
  
  Several choice quotes:
  
  
  • (Janie Porche from 1995): I am a 15-year-old girl who is sick and tired of wearing pink so that I can fit society's portrait of a young lady. . . . The makers of girl games need to wake up and realize that not everyone without a penis must wear makeup and chase blond surfers named Ken.
  • "It appears that Janie is a senior at Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas, who was on the school's golf team last year"
  • So I am female, and I am talking to another female, and she tells me that when I get married she wants to be my best man.

Actually, Chicago used to be quite prone to flooding from Lake Michigan, which was only a couple feet below street level. The city's roads and streets were impassable every winter because they would freeze over, and impassable every spring because the rain would turn them to mud. Unlike New Orleans, however, Chicago made the decision to raise its street level by up to 14 feet, thus lifting itself out of the muck and greatly reducing the city's susceptibility to flooding. Not only were streets and sidewalks rebuilt on vaulted arches, but entire buildings were also lifted from their foundations by mechanical jacks, even as people within them went about their business as usual. This was done back in the mid-19th century.

Why New Orleans never followed Chicago's lead is something I'd like to know.

Okay, New Orleans was built at sea level, only to subside under the weight of the built environment. Why, then, didn't anyone take action to raise the city back up before the inevitable occurred? The idea isn't as crazy as it sounds. Chicago did exactly that between 1850 and 1880--raise its street level by up to 14 feet with vaulted roads and sidewalks, and jack up all of its buildings, inch by inch, to match. A building's occupants often weren't even aware it was being raised until they left work in the evening.

So how come wasn't this done in New Orleans? Lack of funds? Engineering problems? Structural instability?

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