The Laffer Curve

Last night I watched the first half of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. In the first half we see Ben Stein - noted monotone economist and humorist - explain the Laffer Curve to apathetic high school students.

For those of you who are unaware of the Laffer Curve, it was the economic theory that gave justification to the tax cuts of the 1980s, and early 2000s. The Laffer Curve states that government tax revenue is highest at some point between a 0% & 100% tax rate.

At the extremes it conveys much truth. At a tax rate of 100% where government receives all of an individuals income there is not economic incentive to work, and thus nothing to tax. Likewise if a government does not tax its people it will receive no revenue. The fun part of the Laffer curve is that no one knows where the top is  (agrees - we can almost certainly get the top to a margin of error), all we know is that it’s somewhere between 0% and 100%. This makes it very easy for conservatives to claim we are currently on the right side of the curve and taxes must be lowered, and liberals to claim we are on the left side of the curve and taxes should be raised. 

By the early 2000s many economists had recognized the Laffer Curve could no longer be used to justify tax rate reductions, because by 2001 we were most certainly on the left side of the curve. Nevertheless it is used to this day to justify tax cuts. 

Now that we got some background out of the way, Mr. Stein’s lecture inspired me to look into the history of the Laffer Curve, and discovered it was quite a divisive topic in the Republican Party of the 1970s and early 1980s. I had already known that George H.W. Bush had called it “voodoo economics” in the 1980 primaries — Mr. Stein’s lecture covers this fact — , but the curve had been largely unaccepted until the Reagan Administration. 

Two men I already hate immensely can be held responsible, Dick Cheney & Donald Rumsfeld were both apparently present at the dinner meeting at which Laffer introduced this idea to top Republicans. These men would go on to influence Reaganomics, which for some reason still influences the Republican party. 

And so, Ferris Bueller helped me see why I loathe Reagan, and hate Cheney and Rumsfeld. 

You're welcome. I found this on Reddit. 

I want to talk about email for a little bit. First let me say I love email cause its the last form of communication thats a true standard. Everything else you have to act in your own little community and post and share and all that shit within one sites domain. Not email. Kudos to that. 

Now everything thats wrong with email. 

There is one unit to differentiate emails. Read and Un read. Which is a terrible way to try to prioritize mail. I, right now, have two "unread" messages in my inbox. I have read both of them. They just still require my attention. Both require me to act in some way, and marking them as unread is the only way I can get a constant reminder that there is still something I need to do, or that they are important. Now you may be saying, "But Tom! I can click up to three little exclamation points and even put a star next to each of my emails!" Go Home. You're an idiot. No one uses those little exclamation points properly. I either get no exclamation points when someone from work sends an urgent project, or I get three when the Gap has another fucking sale. -- Never accept less than 30% off at the Gap. Just wait a few days. They'll give it to you.

Now lets destroy flags, or stars or whatever the hell your email client uses to show you've got a special email. This is the only legitimate form of designating an email. Whats still terrible about it is that I get no sort of notification about the number of flagged emails I've got sitting in my inbox. and its still only one degree of designation. I mean come on! 

So I'm left with these two "unread" emails. Only I've read them.

Tumbled. <- You might hate that ending but I stand by it. 

Apologies

First I’d like to apologize to Drew. This is late. I’m sorry.

And now a list of people who I’m expecting an apology from.

The Koch Brothers - they back the radicalized tea party.

Arrow Mouse Traps - the mice got the cheese three times!!

Whoever makes Butterfinger candy bars. - I’ve always hated them.

Gerrymandering Governors - You bastards know what you did.

WhiteRose prepackaged cheese - Waxy.

Large leaf lettuce. - I should not need a knife for a salad.

Amazon - Still love you, but why wasn’t the PS3 version Prime?

Microsoft - The Surface? Rly?

NBC - Get your act together. What happened “Must See TV”?

Best Deli - Sell English muffins.