I hope this is not too late. [It's probably to nerdy, anyway.] Rather than frame this as "Why don't Progressives ..." I'll just pose the question why various issues are not discussed.
1. Why do we do so much of the tax code favoritism of certain activities as "deductions" from taxed income and not as partial tax credits? What sense does it make that a charitable contribution by [name your least favorite rich person] reduces their taxes by 37+ state income tax rate percent but someone with a lower income or in a non-income tax state the reduction is smaller or zero?
2. Why don't we finance our social safety net -- Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, ACA, unemployment insurance with a VAT rather than a (capped) tax on wages? [I understand why Bismarck didn't do this, but we've made lots of other improvements over Bismarck's days.]
Can Matt blow the whistle on crypto ponzi scheme before it cause ànother Great Recession like in 2008?
China already banned cryptocurrencies entirely, and India and Pakistan are poised to do the same. Other countries have also made moves to prohibit or constrain cryptocurrencies, but Western liberal democracies are notably permissive.
You should have a word with Jamie Galbraith on Georgism and the land tax. He's written some very good analyses of it. And while I don't think I agree with one of the premises of George's proposals to tax land (i.e. to raise revenue for taxaation), I do think it has merit in the sense that it's a more equitable tax and more difficult to evade. It's effective a rentier tax. I look forward to seeing what you write about it.
I've shared this article before, which admittedly fits my priors. Basically, they find that the only symptom that is convincingly correlated with prior COVID infection is anosmia - loss of sense of smell:
I think it'll just be lumped in with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and mononucleosis and other poorly defined post viral syndromes that there isn't a whole lot of data for / about.
A meta-study just came out showing similar immediate side effect profiles for placebo vs. MRNA vaccines - stuff like headache, fatigue, malaise and sore arms. So the brain is pretty powerful.
I wonder that - commonsense would tell you even if long covid is 100% real there will still be plenty of peopling thinking they have it when they don't - but it seems strangely unfashionable to suggest that - even in a larger context of "long covid is real and a problem". Like this article:
It's real even if it's not actually organic. Like people with demonstrated pseudoseizures have a real disorder, it's just not treated with anti-epileptic medication but with cognitive therapy. There may not be a whole lot to do for Long COVID sufferers, we'll see, but that doesn't mean it's not a real disorder.
Were the teen years so humbling that they made you radically revise how you would practice young child and preteen parenting if you were doing it again? That sounds surprising bordering on preposterous even leaving aside the research angle.
Absolutely, for my oldest. I had chilled considerably by the time the others came along. Not sure why you find that so surprising. It's common for parents to look back and realize the missteps they made along the way.
We’ve got two now (supposedly) grown children. If you have more than one, my free advice is to realize that whatever worked with the elder probably won’t work with the younger for reasons of personality and changes in your own life.
I can see how your strategies and behavior would change over time and with successive kids. But as Michael noted, most of these books are about early childhood and are informed by a fair bit of research. My kids are still young - the oldest is 4 - but I really can't imagine anything that could happen in the teen years that would change my views on pregancy/childbirth/infanthood. I suppose it's slightly more likely that I will change my mind on these years - but it still seems unlikely. If my kids are rebellious or unmotivated teens is that supposed to lead me to wish I'd had a different napping strategy from 1-5?
With further reflection, I realize that part of the reason I find your claim so surprising is that I'm already reasonably aligned with most of Oster's recommendations: don't be a dick to your kids, evaluate risk rationally, and consider costs and benefits comprehensively (i.e., being honest about your own preferences). So while I'm sure I may screw some things up between now and age 20, it seems highly unlikely that any teen behavior would make me revisit those core beliefs about good parenting (or even just about anything from this age). But if I hadn't had the benefit of reading folks like Ostrom before having kids, I might have started with one of the "hate me now but you'll thank me later" authoritarian parenting styles (thanks whoever it was with that pithy summary elsewhere in the comments). And in that case, I can see how experience might lead me to bigger revisions later on (when "hate me now" only leads to "also hate me later"). So that was my fault for not considering the wide range of where new parents start out. Doubly so, since the initial dismissive comment is a pretty strong signal.
Matt, you mention your (presumably self-diagnosis of) aphantasia, which is an intriguing window into your mind. I've always been interested to know if you identify as having some form of hypergraphia, i.e. a compulsion to write. Now wondering if the two are related.
Not sure where this fits, but given the discussion on the vaccine and just Doing Something to speed it up, maybe this fits. Every day, we get a post or a headline about the CDC's poor real-time data to be making decisions. And yeah, the CDC hasn't been good this pandemic.
But I do wonder about where the CDC could have improved on things like vax status of hospitalized patients? Because I think of a problem like that and immediately think of data source. How do the various players in the medical field collect that. Do they? In what format? What's the quality of that data? And given that, what mandate does the CDC or the feds have to tell a hospital group to change that to better align with the CDC's role? I'd ask the same question on the state level.
A common answer to this is to just throw people at it, but I've been doing IT for 25 years and have never met a project that couldn't be made worse by simply throwing bodies at it. And I've done both gov't and private industry data work, fwiw.
Not sure if this is something that could be a longer post, but I'd if any of the Slow Boring community knows the answers to any of this, maybe it would be useful. Or at least interesting.
I am not well versed in economics. I took one Econ class in college, and it started at 8 in the morning, so I skipped it a LOT. But reading the description of how land used to be a separate element but has since been folded into capital, I wonder how classical economists would have viewed modern environmental regulation, where regulations protect land or reserve it from use. Also, I'm assuming land is an unique element because of it's finite, scarce nature; knowing what we do about the water cycle, the same can be said of fresh water. Is it a kind of land, or a different element altogether?
I think summer programs is the right way to introduce vocational training programs at the high school / college level. If there is more than one company involved and more than one school involved, and all participants opt-in, then I think it could be a very positive thing all around. I think probably there is a huge opportunity here that just isn't being exploited.
I was part of something called VMEC which teaches semiconductor fabrication skills to college students in Virginia. It's a paid internship that you have to apply for.
You don't necessarily have to pay high school students if they can put it on their college/job resume, but I do think it would get less blowback.
Funny that 'land reform' was a common radical demand or even policy in history when (inherited, unequal) access to land mattered for agricultural production. Today, when (inherited, unequal) access to land matters for knowledge creation, networking, amenities and intergenerational mobility, nobody would talk of 'land reform.'
Oh God Bringing Up Bebe. The "20-something new mother that took a trip to France in college on her parent's dime but now lives in a trendy neighborhood and wants to still pretend she's the star of some Sex in the City-style prestige TV show" book. [eye roll]
I hope this is not too late. [It's probably to nerdy, anyway.] Rather than frame this as "Why don't Progressives ..." I'll just pose the question why various issues are not discussed.
1. Why do we do so much of the tax code favoritism of certain activities as "deductions" from taxed income and not as partial tax credits? What sense does it make that a charitable contribution by [name your least favorite rich person] reduces their taxes by 37+ state income tax rate percent but someone with a lower income or in a non-income tax state the reduction is smaller or zero?
2. Why don't we finance our social safety net -- Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, ACA, unemployment insurance with a VAT rather than a (capped) tax on wages? [I understand why Bismarck didn't do this, but we've made lots of other improvements over Bismarck's days.]
Can Matt blow the whistle on crypto ponzi scheme before it cause ànother Great Recession like in 2008?
China already banned cryptocurrencies entirely, and India and Pakistan are poised to do the same. Other countries have also made moves to prohibit or constrain cryptocurrencies, but Western liberal democracies are notably permissive.
Cryptocurrency Is a Giant Ponzi Scheme
https://jacobinmag.com/2022/01/cryptocurrency-scam-blockchain-bitcoin-economy-decentralization
Bwahaha, I said I was sure that Matt had read the ACX posts about Georgism, and I was right
Nail, meet guy who only has a hammer
Literacy-wise.
"I’ve never won any kind of journalism prize."
You have won Andrew Sullivan's "Yglesias Award."
You should have a word with Jamie Galbraith on Georgism and the land tax. He's written some very good analyses of it. And while I don't think I agree with one of the premises of George's proposals to tax land (i.e. to raise revenue for taxaation), I do think it has merit in the sense that it's a more equitable tax and more difficult to evade. It's effective a rentier tax. I look forward to seeing what you write about it.
This was super-fun to read! More of these, please.
I saw this Vox article on long covid:
https://www.vox.com/22893535/long-covid-symptoms-treatment
"Basically, symptoms can include pretty much anything, show up pretty much any time, and change or resolve pretty much whenever. "
By this standard, can't 100% of people assume they have long covid?
I've shared this article before, which admittedly fits my priors. Basically, they find that the only symptom that is convincingly correlated with prior COVID infection is anosmia - loss of sense of smell:
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullarticle/2785832
I think it'll just be lumped in with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and mononucleosis and other poorly defined post viral syndromes that there isn't a whole lot of data for / about.
A meta-study just came out showing similar immediate side effect profiles for placebo vs. MRNA vaccines - stuff like headache, fatigue, malaise and sore arms. So the brain is pretty powerful.
I wonder that - commonsense would tell you even if long covid is 100% real there will still be plenty of peopling thinking they have it when they don't - but it seems strangely unfashionable to suggest that - even in a larger context of "long covid is real and a problem". Like this article:
https://www.vox.com/22369734/long-hauler-covid-vaccine
Not one of the "hypothesis" is that, for at least some people, it's not real.
It's real even if it's not actually organic. Like people with demonstrated pseudoseizures have a real disorder, it's just not treated with anti-epileptic medication but with cognitive therapy. There may not be a whole lot to do for Long COVID sufferers, we'll see, but that doesn't mean it's not a real disorder.
Hard pass on Emily Oster and, frankly, any parenting "expert" who hasn't raised a child to adulthood. The teen years are humbling.
I haven't read Crib Sheet, but Expecting Better is more of a literature review than a "I know how to raise my child well, learn from what I did."
Were the teen years so humbling that they made you radically revise how you would practice young child and preteen parenting if you were doing it again? That sounds surprising bordering on preposterous even leaving aside the research angle.
Absolutely, for my oldest. I had chilled considerably by the time the others came along. Not sure why you find that so surprising. It's common for parents to look back and realize the missteps they made along the way.
We’ve got two now (supposedly) grown children. If you have more than one, my free advice is to realize that whatever worked with the elder probably won’t work with the younger for reasons of personality and changes in your own life.
Most of her advice is more or less summed up as “you can chill out more”
I can see how your strategies and behavior would change over time and with successive kids. But as Michael noted, most of these books are about early childhood and are informed by a fair bit of research. My kids are still young - the oldest is 4 - but I really can't imagine anything that could happen in the teen years that would change my views on pregancy/childbirth/infanthood. I suppose it's slightly more likely that I will change my mind on these years - but it still seems unlikely. If my kids are rebellious or unmotivated teens is that supposed to lead me to wish I'd had a different napping strategy from 1-5?
With further reflection, I realize that part of the reason I find your claim so surprising is that I'm already reasonably aligned with most of Oster's recommendations: don't be a dick to your kids, evaluate risk rationally, and consider costs and benefits comprehensively (i.e., being honest about your own preferences). So while I'm sure I may screw some things up between now and age 20, it seems highly unlikely that any teen behavior would make me revisit those core beliefs about good parenting (or even just about anything from this age). But if I hadn't had the benefit of reading folks like Ostrom before having kids, I might have started with one of the "hate me now but you'll thank me later" authoritarian parenting styles (thanks whoever it was with that pithy summary elsewhere in the comments). And in that case, I can see how experience might lead me to bigger revisions later on (when "hate me now" only leads to "also hate me later"). So that was my fault for not considering the wide range of where new parents start out. Doubly so, since the initial dismissive comment is a pretty strong signal.
Matt, you mention your (presumably self-diagnosis of) aphantasia, which is an intriguing window into your mind. I've always been interested to know if you identify as having some form of hypergraphia, i.e. a compulsion to write. Now wondering if the two are related.
Not sure where this fits, but given the discussion on the vaccine and just Doing Something to speed it up, maybe this fits. Every day, we get a post or a headline about the CDC's poor real-time data to be making decisions. And yeah, the CDC hasn't been good this pandemic.
But I do wonder about where the CDC could have improved on things like vax status of hospitalized patients? Because I think of a problem like that and immediately think of data source. How do the various players in the medical field collect that. Do they? In what format? What's the quality of that data? And given that, what mandate does the CDC or the feds have to tell a hospital group to change that to better align with the CDC's role? I'd ask the same question on the state level.
A common answer to this is to just throw people at it, but I've been doing IT for 25 years and have never met a project that couldn't be made worse by simply throwing bodies at it. And I've done both gov't and private industry data work, fwiw.
Not sure if this is something that could be a longer post, but I'd if any of the Slow Boring community knows the answers to any of this, maybe it would be useful. Or at least interesting.
I am not well versed in economics. I took one Econ class in college, and it started at 8 in the morning, so I skipped it a LOT. But reading the description of how land used to be a separate element but has since been folded into capital, I wonder how classical economists would have viewed modern environmental regulation, where regulations protect land or reserve it from use. Also, I'm assuming land is an unique element because of it's finite, scarce nature; knowing what we do about the water cycle, the same can be said of fresh water. Is it a kind of land, or a different element altogether?
Neither land nor fresh water are finite. Both can be produced by the hand of man.
Nonetheless, they are finite.
I think summer programs is the right way to introduce vocational training programs at the high school / college level. If there is more than one company involved and more than one school involved, and all participants opt-in, then I think it could be a very positive thing all around. I think probably there is a huge opportunity here that just isn't being exploited.
I was part of something called VMEC which teaches semiconductor fabrication skills to college students in Virginia. It's a paid internship that you have to apply for.
You don't necessarily have to pay high school students if they can put it on their college/job resume, but I do think it would get less blowback.
Funny that 'land reform' was a common radical demand or even policy in history when (inherited, unequal) access to land mattered for agricultural production. Today, when (inherited, unequal) access to land matters for knowledge creation, networking, amenities and intergenerational mobility, nobody would talk of 'land reform.'
Best economist (and/or economics textbook) to read?
Mexico Lindo in Mainz, Germany needs to be added to the European Tex-Mex roster - it’s the go-to spot for everyone stationed in Wiesbaden
Oh God Bringing Up Bebe. The "20-something new mother that took a trip to France in college on her parent's dime but now lives in a trendy neighborhood and wants to still pretend she's the star of some Sex in the City-style prestige TV show" book. [eye roll]