It's not about some people are poor and some are less poor. It's about how hard it is for poor people to become less poor.
The first guy makes 26 and keeps 25.9. The second guy makes 100 and keeps 92.5. His boss makes 1M and keeps 902.5. His neighbor makes 10M and keeps just over 9M.
The guy making 26? You have to take that $100 out over the course of a year, because a lot of people living at that level are unable to cough up $100 all at one time. An extra $100 dollars going out the door can cause those people to be late on their rent.
The guy making 10M? That $1M tax bill will not affect his standard of living measurably. It will probably only slow down his investment schedule, delaying the day he becomes a billionaire.
The poorest people are paying negative taxes (consider EIC). Yes they absolutely are being subsidized by the higher income people. And yes, kind of by default the cutoff point and the size of the subsidy are deeply connected.
I remember when the top marginal rate (in the US) dropped from 70% to 50%. I'm not sure that a marginal rate of 50% is justifiable, much less 70%. Let's not even talk about 96%. To be clear: I am a leftist and many here probably call me a socialist, but I want Americans to be able to become fantastically rich. I mean Scrooge-McDuck-swimming-in-the-vault rich. I want Larry Ellison playing bumper cars with mega yachts, I want Elon Musk building spaceships, I even want Bill Gates flying around Africa trying to cure malaria. Honestly, I'm kind of pissed off that none of them have built a mega-zeppelin yet.
I don't want to tax anybody at 96%. But I do want to protect the poor ('cause I'm one of them!).
Wealth is a positive feedback system. The more wealth you have, the easier it is to grow wealthier. I'm not saying all rich people manage it, but it's easier than going from poor to rich. This positive feedback is a contributor to the growing wealth inequity in the US. I don't know what the answer is, but then, I never claimed to.
I just pointed out that flat taxes are inherently regressive.
I see the big exemption at the bottom, but all that does is move the point of disadvantage. The person making $1,000 over the cutoff will feel the tax more than a person making $100,000 above the cutoff, who will in turn feel it more than the person making $1,000,000 more than the cutoff.
Consider the graph of the tax paid at each income level. A flat tax is by definition a straight line at a constant slope*. The left end of the sloping line intersects the X axis at the 'poverty level' cutoff. It doesn't matter where you put the cutoff. The people near the left edge of the sloping line (poor people) are more strongly affected by the tax they pay than people near the right edge (wealthy people, or more accurately, high income people).
*:Tax paid is a straight line with a constant positive slope, tax rate is a straight line with no slope.
In the feds, at least, there is an explicit policy that ALL INMATE TELEPHONE CALLS will be monitored (only exception is calls to your lawyers).
One of the tasks guards in the residence units are tasked with is to sit and listen to hours of inmate calls. Some are monitored in real time, some are monitored after the fact as recordings.
The guards are lazy, so they fast-forward through the dull parts, but every call gets listened to. This is one reason they limit the amount of telephone minutes in the feds. They don't have the manpower to sit and listen to all of that.
Some guards are abusive with that power, but most of them don't want to do it.
Inmates do have a right to privacy, it is just greatly 'diminished'. That's the term used by the SCOTUS, 'diminished'.
Correctional facilities are generally prohibited from releasing any details from your medical record, cannot place cameras in cells and bathrooms, and should not monitor communications between inmates and counsel. I suspect there are also special requirements for body cavity searches, but I don't know it.
There are services that will provide inmates an outside telephone number and will conduct text messaging communication through the CorrLinks system (this is the inmate email messaging system in the feds (I think also in some state prison systems, but I'm not sure)). CorrLinks charges 5 cents a minute for email access and the outside service converts from text to CorrLinks and vice versa.
A radio on the waist with a red button to sound a 'body alarm'. Also if the radio hits the ground (like being dropped, or the guard trips) it sounds an alarm. Also all of the landline phones are set so that if they hit the 2 button more than twice in a row (called "hitting the deuces") it sounds an alarm.
I said for years this was a win-win solution. And it isn't tax-payer money at all. The prisoners would buy the phones at the commissary, just like they buy mp3 players and radios. There is a regulation right now that commissaries cannot sell inmates anything that costs over $100, so that might need to be addressed.
All calls can still be recorded and monitored. Inmates can receive incoming calls, so staff don't have to forward messages to 'please call home'. Prisons no longer have to maintain the current payphone hardware (or rather, not as much of it.) Best of all, from the prison perspective, almost all of the inmates will be carrying a locator device at all times, and probably a remotely activated microphone as well.
Is this a violation of prisoner rights? Maybe, but 80% or 90% of the inmates at my prison would have lined up for the privelege of buying one.
On the other hand, most prison staff actively hate inmates and want to make their punishment more severe. You should have seen how pissed off they were when we got mp3 players on commissary.
MOST of the cellphones in my prison were used to have phone sex without the guards listening in and for downloading pornography.
Theoretically, every minute of every phone call from inmate to the outside world is surveilled by the guards. In reality, the guards are really lazy, and they discovered they were allowed to fast forward through the dull parts, so not all of it gets listened to. Still, it's more comfortable to be able to talk to your woman while lying in bed after lights out, rather than standing in the common area on the pay phone during phone hours.
Additionally, in the feds we were given (I think) 300 minutes of phone time a month. When you're through, you're through. A cellphone lets you talk as much as you want.
Also, when I first got in, long distance was around 60 or 70 cents/minute, don't remember exactly. Later they reduced it to about 10 cents/minute. that was a huge relief for a lot of people that had good family connections who were using the full 300 minutes a month.
So, at least in my prison, not much gang-running. YMMV, of course.
I agree, but I would point out that many of the administrative staff would bring their phones in and play with them at Mainline (Mainline is the name for the dining hall in most federal prisons). So, those people will be pissed when they can no longer use them, but they aren't supposed to have them anyway. There is always the very real risk that one of us would steal the phone.
The bigger problem is that the current federal law forbids use of devices to block cell signals. Oddly, it is not illegal to have cell phone jammers, just illegal to use them. The current proposed legislation I presume is cutting out an exemption for correctional facilities.
Yes, they do a hard job, and mostly they do it well.
When they do it badly though, as in this case, accountability is critical.
Do you recognize that tense relations between police and community increases danger to the police officers? Then let's also recognize that this greatly increases that tension.
It is tough to be right 100% of the time. You're right.
But when you are the guy who is wrong that one time, and you kill some innocent person, and it happens because of your personal judgement (nobody else was shooting, just YOU), you should be held accountable.
I am a convicted felon. I could have died coming out of that last bank, would have been nobody's fault but my own. I get that.
MOST police shootings are justified. I get that. Hell, I subscribe to Donut Operator's channel on YouTube.
When they are not justified, though, we are not served by a justice culture that protects bad shooters.
You're sitting at home watching TV and there's a commotion outside. A loud voice starts demanding that you exit your home. You go open the door to see what is happening.
A bunch of people (cops?). You're surrounded. Bright lights, you're blinded. You're confused.
Let's consider that for a second: YOU ARE CONFUSED.
Next, you make some random movement with your hand (NOT going for a gun - you don't have a gun!) and the next sound you hear is harps, 'cause you're gone.
Why didn't the COPS imagine this? Why isn't part of their training to understand that when you point guns at people and yell at them, some of them get confused? Being confused during a police encounter should not result in a death sentence.
Everyone keeps saying that the swatter is the only one with culpability here. This police force made their SWAT team available for this activity. Don't they have at least as much culpability as someone who leaves a loaded gun where a child can find it and be injured or killed?
The problem is 'what' training. When you repeatedly tell the officer to shoot if there is fast motion where you can't see both hands, that's what they're going to do. Telling them the same thing more often is not going to make them stop. You have to actually change the thing you're telling them to do.
Even with no time served, he is eligible for about 32 months of Good Conduct Time, so, his projected release will be about 17.5 years out. Since he's under 20 years, he's eligible for Low Security. He is young, though, so he might still wind up designated to a Medium. Depends what the analysts in Texas think of him.
Regardless, even if he goes to a Medium, it's not going to be one of the warrior academies. He would probably go somewhere like Allenwood, Butner, or maybe even Lexington.
I'm not saying it's going to be fun, but it's not going to be Shawshank, either.
Ooh! I just remembered. I think they revamped the Good Time calculation recently. He may serve even less than 17.5 years.
No. That would take forever and your call history would wind up full of those stupid disposable temporary numbers.
For both Uber and Lyft, do this:
If you are a passenger, open the door or look through the window and say "What's your name?" Your driver's name is right there on the app. With their picture. And I know the picture's not always great, but it's good enough to verify you have the right driver. And they will say their name.
Drivers should do the same thing, although almost none of mine ever do. "What's the name on the account?" Allowing an incorrect passenger in your car is a surefire way to get cheated, and maybe robbed/raped/kidnapped/murdered as well.
For both passengers and drivers, do not ask them to confirm their name: "Are you So-and-so?" Make them provide it: "What's your name/name on the account?"
It's too easy for an opportunistic scammer to just go "Yep, that's me."
You know, as weird as it sounds, I loved being a pipelayer. I loved being strong and working really hard. I enjoyed the challenge. I worked (mostly) with pretty good people.
Unfortunately, I traded my health for a paycheck. My knees are shot, and I have arthritis in my hands (not too bad yet, but still).
The two saddest words in the English language: If only...
I was a pipelayer until 1999 when I tore up my knee. In the southeast, the guy running the tractor would make between $18/hr and $25/hr, white guys in the ditch were maybe $12-$15/hr, hispanic or black were maybe $9-$13, somewhere in there (yes, it was straight rascist. Don't bitch at me about it, I was one of the guys standing in the ditch with a shovel). There would typically be about 3 or 4 labor guys for each tractor guy, although I saw one crew with about 10 laborers paired with one tractor operator.
I would guess that crews are the same or smaller now. I am sure they make a little more money. I doubt many of them make a lot in any context that includes software engineers. People (or businesses) that own tractors can make a lot of money.
The issue with the benefits of automation is similar, I think, with the issue with the benefits of the tractor. The benefits accrue to the owner of the automation, same as the benefits of the tractor. If factory laborers bought the robots that replaced their jobs, it would be natural to agree that they should keep those profits while relaxing at home. Unfortunately, it's the factory/shop/store owners that are buying them and the laborers might be in trouble.
It seems morally straightforward that the people who took the risk of investing in automation should receive the rewards, but that results in a seriously fubared society. So here I sit waiting for some insightful commentary, 'cause damned if I know the answer.
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I meant inequality, not inequity.
It's not about some people are poor and some are less poor. It's about how hard it is for poor people to become less poor.
The first guy makes 26 and keeps 25.9. The second guy makes 100 and keeps 92.5. His boss makes 1M and keeps 902.5. His neighbor makes 10M and keeps just over 9M.
The guy making 26? You have to take that $100 out over the course of a year, because a lot of people living at that level are unable to cough up $100 all at one time. An extra $100 dollars going out the door can cause those people to be late on their rent.
The guy making 10M? That $1M tax bill will not affect his standard of living measurably. It will probably only slow down his investment schedule, delaying the day he becomes a billionaire.
Yes. I have a problem with that.
The poorest people are paying negative taxes (consider EIC). Yes they absolutely are being subsidized by the higher income people. And yes, kind of by default the cutoff point and the size of the subsidy are deeply connected.
I remember when the top marginal rate (in the US) dropped from 70% to 50%. I'm not sure that a marginal rate of 50% is justifiable, much less 70%. Let's not even talk about 96%. To be clear: I am a leftist and many here probably call me a socialist, but I want Americans to be able to become fantastically rich. I mean Scrooge-McDuck-swimming-in-the-vault rich. I want Larry Ellison playing bumper cars with mega yachts, I want Elon Musk building spaceships, I even want Bill Gates flying around Africa trying to cure malaria. Honestly, I'm kind of pissed off that none of them have built a mega-zeppelin yet.
I don't want to tax anybody at 96%. But I do want to protect the poor ('cause I'm one of them!).
Wealth is a positive feedback system. The more wealth you have, the easier it is to grow wealthier. I'm not saying all rich people manage it, but it's easier than going from poor to rich. This positive feedback is a contributor to the growing wealth inequity in the US. I don't know what the answer is, but then, I never claimed to.
I just pointed out that flat taxes are inherently regressive.
I see the big exemption at the bottom, but all that does is move the point of disadvantage. The person making $1,000 over the cutoff will feel the tax more than a person making $100,000 above the cutoff, who will in turn feel it more than the person making $1,000,000 more than the cutoff.
Consider the graph of the tax paid at each income level. A flat tax is by definition a straight line at a constant slope*. The left end of the sloping line intersects the X axis at the 'poverty level' cutoff. It doesn't matter where you put the cutoff. The people near the left edge of the sloping line (poor people) are more strongly affected by the tax they pay than people near the right edge (wealthy people, or more accurately, high income people).
*:Tax paid is a straight line with a constant positive slope, tax rate is a straight line with no slope.
In the feds, at least, there is an explicit policy that ALL INMATE TELEPHONE CALLS will be monitored (only exception is calls to your lawyers).
One of the tasks guards in the residence units are tasked with is to sit and listen to hours of inmate calls. Some are monitored in real time, some are monitored after the fact as recordings.
The guards are lazy, so they fast-forward through the dull parts, but every call gets listened to. This is one reason they limit the amount of telephone minutes in the feds. They don't have the manpower to sit and listen to all of that.
Some guards are abusive with that power, but most of them don't want to do it.
Inmates do have a right to privacy, it is just greatly 'diminished'. That's the term used by the SCOTUS, 'diminished'.
Correctional facilities are generally prohibited from releasing any details from your medical record, cannot place cameras in cells and bathrooms, and should not monitor communications between inmates and counsel. I suspect there are also special requirements for body cavity searches, but I don't know it.
Odd you should mention texting.
There are services that will provide inmates an outside telephone number and will conduct text messaging communication through the CorrLinks system (this is the inmate email messaging system in the feds (I think also in some state prison systems, but I'm not sure)). CorrLinks charges 5 cents a minute for email access and the outside service converts from text to CorrLinks and vice versa.
Actually, if an inmate is caught with a cellphone, he is guaranteed to lose good time, which will extend his stay in prison. In the feds, anyway.
Not by that much, though.
A radio on the waist with a red button to sound a 'body alarm'. Also if the radio hits the ground (like being dropped, or the guard trips) it sounds an alarm. Also all of the landline phones are set so that if they hit the 2 button more than twice in a row (called "hitting the deuces") it sounds an alarm.
I said for years this was a win-win solution. And it isn't tax-payer money at all. The prisoners would buy the phones at the commissary, just like they buy mp3 players and radios. There is a regulation right now that commissaries cannot sell inmates anything that costs over $100, so that might need to be addressed.
All calls can still be recorded and monitored. Inmates can receive incoming calls, so staff don't have to forward messages to 'please call home'. Prisons no longer have to maintain the current payphone hardware (or rather, not as much of it.) Best of all, from the prison perspective, almost all of the inmates will be carrying a locator device at all times, and probably a remotely activated microphone as well.
Is this a violation of prisoner rights? Maybe, but 80% or 90% of the inmates at my prison would have lined up for the privelege of buying one.
On the other hand, most prison staff actively hate inmates and want to make their punishment more severe. You should have seen how pissed off they were when we got mp3 players on commissary.
MOST of the cellphones in my prison were used to have phone sex without the guards listening in and for downloading pornography.
Theoretically, every minute of every phone call from inmate to the outside world is surveilled by the guards. In reality, the guards are really lazy, and they discovered they were allowed to fast forward through the dull parts, so not all of it gets listened to. Still, it's more comfortable to be able to talk to your woman while lying in bed after lights out, rather than standing in the common area on the pay phone during phone hours.
Additionally, in the feds we were given (I think) 300 minutes of phone time a month. When you're through, you're through. A cellphone lets you talk as much as you want.
Also, when I first got in, long distance was around 60 or 70 cents/minute, don't remember exactly. Later they reduced it to about 10 cents/minute. that was a huge relief for a lot of people that had good family connections who were using the full 300 minutes a month.
So, at least in my prison, not much gang-running. YMMV, of course.
I agree, but I would point out that many of the administrative staff would bring their phones in and play with them at Mainline (Mainline is the name for the dining hall in most federal prisons). So, those people will be pissed when they can no longer use them, but they aren't supposed to have them anyway. There is always the very real risk that one of us would steal the phone.
The bigger problem is that the current federal law forbids use of devices to block cell signals. Oddly, it is not illegal to have cell phone jammers, just illegal to use them. The current proposed legislation I presume is cutting out an exemption for correctional facilities.
You learn that all of that stupid bullshit about prisons you saw in movies is not real.
Yes, they do a hard job, and mostly they do it well.
When they do it badly though, as in this case, accountability is critical.
Do you recognize that tense relations between police and community increases danger to the police officers? Then let's also recognize that this greatly increases that tension.
Not much of that in the Feds, especially at lower security levels.
I would just point out that it WAS a "normal, quite street scene" until the cops showed and executed that guy.
It is tough to be right 100% of the time. You're right.
But when you are the guy who is wrong that one time, and you kill some innocent person, and it happens because of your personal judgement (nobody else was shooting, just YOU), you should be held accountable.
I am a convicted felon. I could have died coming out of that last bank, would have been nobody's fault but my own. I get that.
MOST police shootings are justified. I get that. Hell, I subscribe to Donut Operator's channel on YouTube.
When they are not justified, though, we are not served by a justice culture that protects bad shooters.
You're sitting at home watching TV and there's a commotion outside. A loud voice starts demanding that you exit your home. You go open the door to see what is happening.
A bunch of people (cops?). You're surrounded. Bright lights, you're blinded. You're confused.
Let's consider that for a second: YOU ARE CONFUSED.
Next, you make some random movement with your hand (NOT going for a gun - you don't have a gun!) and the next sound you hear is harps, 'cause you're gone.
Why didn't the COPS imagine this? Why isn't part of their training to understand that when you point guns at people and yell at them, some of them get confused? Being confused during a police encounter should not result in a death sentence.
Everyone keeps saying that the swatter is the only one with culpability here. This police force made their SWAT team available for this activity. Don't they have at least as much culpability as someone who leaves a loaded gun where a child can find it and be injured or killed?
The problem is 'what' training. When you repeatedly tell the officer to shoot if there is fast motion where you can't see both hands, that's what they're going to do. Telling them the same thing more often is not going to make them stop. You have to actually change the thing you're telling them to do.
He is going into the Feds, not State.
Even with no time served, he is eligible for about 32 months of Good Conduct Time, so, his projected release will be about 17.5 years out. Since he's under 20 years, he's eligible for Low Security. He is young, though, so he might still wind up designated to a Medium. Depends what the analysts in Texas think of him.
Regardless, even if he goes to a Medium, it's not going to be one of the warrior academies. He would probably go somewhere like Allenwood, Butner, or maybe even Lexington.
I'm not saying it's going to be fun, but it's not going to be Shawshank, either.
Ooh! I just remembered. I think they revamped the Good Time calculation recently. He may serve even less than 17.5 years.
No. That would take forever and your call history would wind up full of those stupid disposable temporary numbers.
For both Uber and Lyft, do this:
If you are a passenger, open the door or look through the window and say "What's your name?"
Your driver's name is right there on the app. With their picture. And I know the picture's not always great, but it's good enough to verify you have the right driver. And they will say their name.
Drivers should do the same thing, although almost none of mine ever do. "What's the name on the account?"
Allowing an incorrect passenger in your car is a surefire way to get cheated, and maybe robbed/raped/kidnapped/murdered as well.
For both passengers and drivers, do not ask them to confirm their name: "Are you So-and-so?" Make them provide it: "What's your name/name on the account?"
It's too easy for an opportunistic scammer to just go "Yep, that's me."
You know, as weird as it sounds, I loved being a pipelayer. I loved being strong and working really hard. I enjoyed the challenge. I worked (mostly) with pretty good people.
Unfortunately, I traded my health for a paycheck. My knees are shot, and I have arthritis in my hands (not too bad yet, but still).
The two saddest words in the English language: If only...
I was a pipelayer until 1999 when I tore up my knee. In the southeast, the guy running the tractor would make between $18/hr and $25/hr, white guys in the ditch were maybe $12-$15/hr, hispanic or black were maybe $9-$13, somewhere in there (yes, it was straight rascist. Don't bitch at me about it, I was one of the guys standing in the ditch with a shovel). There would typically be about 3 or 4 labor guys for each tractor guy, although I saw one crew with about 10 laborers paired with one tractor operator.
I would guess that crews are the same or smaller now. I am sure they make a little more money. I doubt many of them make a lot in any context that includes software engineers. People (or businesses) that own tractors can make a lot of money.
The issue with the benefits of automation is similar, I think, with the issue with the benefits of the tractor. The benefits accrue to the owner of the automation, same as the benefits of the tractor. If factory laborers bought the robots that replaced their jobs, it would be natural to agree that they should keep those profits while relaxing at home. Unfortunately, it's the factory/shop/store owners that are buying them and the laborers might be in trouble.
It seems morally straightforward that the people who took the risk of investing in automation should receive the rewards, but that results in a seriously fubared society. So here I sit waiting for some insightful commentary, 'cause damned if I know the answer.
Now that was funny.
Well, here's hoping you're right.