Eccentric Flower:200907/Speaking of Wolfe
From Eccentric Flower
Speaking of Wolfe (and Other Things)
"He passes the supreme test of being rereadable. I don't know how many times I have reread the Wolfe stories, but plenty. I know exactly what is coming and how it is all going to end, but it doesn't matter. That's writing."
– P.G. Wodehouse
Nero Wolfe, that is.
The other day I faced the fact that I would have to discard my rule about only getting Nero Wolfe books through used and rare bookstore hunts, simply because the used/rare bookstores are going the way of the dodo. Even in the Boston area, a spiritual home of the bookstore and the place which will be, along with London, the last location on the planet to abandon the bookstore concept entirely, most of the remaining used bookshops tend to feature Books That Didn't Sell In The First Place - a large category, almost totally devoid of interest. They are occasionally worth digging into for the rare title that someone would actually want to own, which may have slipped in by mistake - the one gold volume in a consignment box full of dross - but mostly they exist to remind you of just how many books were once published every year that no one on earth actually wanted to buy or read. (These days, those people just self-publish on the internet and still get wholly ignored, but for much less overhead to everyone.)
Anyway, so, I was linked to Nero Wolfe stuff by Amazon's Precognitive Recommendation Engine (I had never bought anything Wolfeian from them before, so don't ask me how it got there), and I discovered that there were six in the most recent paperback editions that I hadn't got. Strangely, these six new ones are in a different format from all the others of that set I own - they are larger, more like thin "softcovers" or trade paperbacks, rather than the normal paperback dimensions.
I also saw that the complete set of the only good film or television version of Nero Wolfe ever made was available for half of what it would normally cost, so I bought it. (We had already seen most of them on TV at one point or another.) If you like Nero Wolfe and you don't read books - well, hell, you don't exist; that's a null intersection. Let's try it another way: If you like Nero Wolfe and you think you'd like to see someone acting out the stories, but are skeptical of their potential quality, I assure you these are the real deal. Even a lot of diehard Wolfe fans think so.
I have not abandoned the hunt entirely, because some books still elude me. (Please don't comment and say I could get them by searching used-book resources online. I realize that. Used-book listings online are the salvation of many a desperate bookseller and the final death knell for those booksellers who were not previously desperate. They are, in short, a mixed blessing at best, and far less fun than hunting for titles, and I do not endorse them for this purpose.)
In particular, two titles seem especially hard to find: The Black Mountain, an unusual book in the Wolfe canon where he not only leaves his house, but travels out of the country (!), and Gambit, which I'm told is a fairly undistinguished mystery but has been mentioned in these pages for the opening scene in which Wolfe systematically destroys the Merriam-Webster Third Unabridged Dictionary. (Read why Wolfe was so appalled here.)
If you are to read the Nero Wolfe books, I am asked on occasion, is it necessary to read them in order? The answer is "no, but."
In fact, since Stout made a deliberate decision to age his settings but not his characters, and the relationship between Wolfe and Archie is essentially sprung upon us full-blown, reading them out of sequence has no particular shocks in that direction. Although you can look at Fer-de-Lance and The League of Frightened Men (which I just finished, it was one I didn't previously have) and realize that both Wolfe and Archie spoke very differently at first (Archie is cruder, Wolfe more florid) and that Cramer, in particular, hasn't settled on a character yet - little details like that - as a whole the whole thing is already fully set up - the brownstone, the Wolfe/Archie relationship, Fritz, all the key points are so firmly fixed even then that, apart from those first two or three books and the wartime ones, it is difficult to pick up a Wolfe book and guess which year it was written. About the only indicators you have are money figures (Wolfe's rate, and Saul Panzer's, rise over the years), what model of car Archie is currently driving, and the difficulty of getting across town (Stout comments with increasing wryness on the New York traffic situation over the years). Only occasionally (like the year Archie and Lily Rowan are following the Miracle Mets) does the real world intrude in any way.
However:
There is continuity in the Wolfe universe. Supporting characters have stories of their own, notably Orrie Cather in Death of a Doxy. Characters die from time to time, and their deaths are less striking if you have not established a history of who that character is and what their importance to this universe was. In The Black Mountain it is impossible to understand the extremity of circumstances if you have not built an understanding of Wolfe's habits and if you do not realize the importance of a death in that story to him. If you read The Black Mountain as your first Wolfe book, you would be very, very confused.
(Also if you read A Family Affair, Stout's last novel, first. In fact - I haven't read it yet - I'm told that it needs to be read dead last. Apparently there is a rather depressing revelation about a major character in it.)
Also, clients have a tendency to come back, or at least get mentioned again. It is not vital, but useful to know what service Wolfe performs for Lewis Hewitt in an earlier story that turns Hewitt from an orchid rival into a friend and helpful force later, and so on. One character, Paul Whipple, is a college student when he proves invaluable to Wolfe in Too Many Cooks (in 1938); he comes back, much older and entangled in racial politics, in A Right To Die in 1964. Occasionally Wolfe refers to lessons learned from prior incidents, and so does Archie, and it is helpful to have known what those prior incidents were.
Three books absolutely need to be read in sequence, preferably one after another in rapid succession; only by seeing the two previous tangles with Arnold Zeck, Wolfe's Moriarty, in And Be a Villain and The Second Confession - even though he is barely involved in either of those tales - does the simply astonishing chain of events in In the Best Families have full impact. (Fortunately, I was warned about this particular pitfall by a friend of mine in advance.)
So, do you have to read Wolfe books in order? No. And with the difficulty of obtaining them, and the numbers involved (forty-seven books!), it is extremely unlikely that anyone would try to get them all in order before beginning to read them. But if you can read them in order, I suspect it would improve the reading experience quite a bit. I say I suspect, because, obviously, I did not do so.
Another thing I have learned from these books is that the art of the book cover has declined immeasurably. But since I don't have scans, I'll simply say that I have paperbacks from more than five different paperback runs of Wolfe novels over the years, and you can tell at a glance which ones are most recent - each decade, the covers get steadily less interesting. In some cases, because I didn't have my list with me, I've bought the same book twice - and the differences are usually pretty astounding.
In the previous entry I posted about Phineas Gage so that the non-space-program folks would have something to look at. Here are four late-arriving links for you Wolfe-abstainers. They have absolutely nothing to do with the above.
- Fancy Fast Food. I suspect these still taste like crap, but the visual presentations are often astonishing.
- Paula Marantz Cohen is an enormous prude.
- I approve of the Pelosi health care bill, because I think "soak the rich" is sound policy, but I'm not at all surprised that The Economist doesn't.
- Lexington on atheist summer camps. Warmed my heart.
I, too, fail to see how learning to reason promotes hopelessness. But then, I have never seen much of the connection between religion and morality either, so what do I know?
Also, the idea of invisible unicorn poop amuses me.
When it comes to soaking the rich, I'm afraid my personal drive to protect the fruits of my own labor runs smack dab into the brick wall of my idealistic thoughts about implied social contract, for lack of a better word.
That is, in English, I resent it when I have clawed my way into a position of some modest affluence and someone takes it away ... but I also believe that there comes a point when you have gone beyond "affluence" into "wretched excess," and I set that bar rather low. Once you pass that point, I feel it is your duty (yes - I do not use that word lightly) to sink some of that excess moolah into helping the unfortunate, and since the rich in this country don't seem to be strongly motivated to do that, I can't say I'm crying too hard at the thought of them being forced to. I mean, let's put this in perspective - so they buy one fewer car a year or something? Does anyone actually need a yacht or a second home?
Now, I realize that perhaps at the lower values of "rich" this gets muddy, but I still think that if you make 250 grand a year, you can stand to loosen up with the charity a bit. You can't convince me that there is anyone in this country who makes 250K who isn't running a considerable surplus. I guarantee you that I'm not making anything near that, and *I* run a surplus (knock wood). If I can spare it, they can too.
So, um, yeah, to answer your question, yes, I do consider it sort of a moral imperative. As for the question, "Well, what would be the point then of making that much money?" - you got me. I couldn't tell you for the life of me. My policy has always been to quit when I have enough. Then again, I gather some people don't leave the table when they're full very well either.
(And for what it's worth, I also have a number of other very odd economic ideas, such as feeling that commodities have an intrinsic value unrelated to their market worth, as in, "I don't care if they can get that for them, there are no pairs of shoes in the world worth that price.")
How did chowder get into this?
-- 21:26, 20 July 2009 (BST)
Uh oh. Don't tell me you didn't actually READ your link about fast foods!
Whether or not we happen to approve of it, monetary gain is the engine that drives much of innovation and the incentive to excel, to build that better mousetrap. Try as we might, we can't change human nature. And I don't think it's up to you or me to tell somebody else what he or she should be satisfied with. Don't forget that maintaining a lifestyle of "wretched excess" is providing jobs for untold thousands who might otherwise be unemployed. Now that I think about it, that in itself is a form of helping. When I was still involved with the maritime industry, I saw the devastating effect of the surcharge imposed upon mega-yachts. American shipyards were literally forced to shut down. The wealthy yachies bought their new yachts overseas and kept them there, as well, putting the squeeze on marinas, suppliers, maintenance crews, right down the line. Unintended consequences? Not really. Just short-sightedness on the part of lawmakers. Apparently, they realized the error of their ways, because the surcharge was lifted not long after its inception.
It's been proven that imposing taxes on the ûber-rich is disastrous. Everything attrits, from corporations to manufacturers, to employees, and ultimately to consumers, who have to pay more for less production. Why isn't this obvious? It's happened before. Wasn't anybody watching?
-- 22:05, 20 July 2009 (BST)
Oh, *that* chowder. I admit that was not one of the recipes that caught my eye.
I don't concede that raising taxes on the super-rich is disastrous. Even if they go off in a snit and take their money somewhere else, then it's money spent somewhere else. Lower one bucket; raise another. Economically, the entire planet is close to zero-sum to me - I figure money that's not in someone's pocket is in someone else's - and I have no especial loyalty to the American market. In fact, I sort of hope that this game of, "Well, I'm taking my marbles somewhere where I can exploit workers the old-fashioned way" continues to its logical conclusion.
You know, after a certain amount of time, exploited workers wake up as their standard of living creeps up, and eventually demand to be treated like humans. Some businesses have moved over and over because each new place they put their factory eventually demands to be treated with basic rights and dignities. Eventually, everybody will expect a minimally adequate standard of living, and we will be forced to evolve to something closer to the Swedish model: Everybody gets adequate, if not excellent, treatment from the state and the tax rates are exorbitant, but no one except a few "don't touch a penny of my money" types much care because their lifestyles are sound. Yes, some businesses have left the Scandinavian model over the years because they complain about crushing taxes. Many more have stayed on. And if the businesses and the rich have no place to escape, then they will eventually accept it: They make more, they have an obligation to contribute more to the general pool.
If everybody could live decently - if everyone had their lowest tiers of Maslov needs met, knew that they would be able to have/afford their food and clothing and shelter and education and basic security needs, no worries - then the people who cared about the yachts would look to the majority of the world the way they have always looked to me, all my life: Greedy and unrealistic. Once conditions are even vaguely close to being a level field for all, we can talk about the perks. But when a quarter of the world or more wakes up each morning wondering where it's going to get the means to survive another day, saying, "Well, hey, I worked in a shipyard and that yacht was a job to me" cuts me no slack whatsoever.
Sorry. I don't mean that as a personal attack on you in any way.
-- 22:17, 20 July 2009 (BST)
I have been wanting to start reading the Wolfe stories on your recommendation for quite some time now. As it always is with material I know will be very good, it somehow keeps getting put off... (I did finally read some Rumpole and was delighted)
Your description of the continuity is interesting compared to the Judge Dee mysteries that I'm reading now. The approach to characterization is different because of the faux-historical style, but the Judge and his relationships with the recurring characters are similarly identical from book to book. In the same way, there are supporting character developments that are more rewarding when read chronologically. To me it's a more old-fashioned way of world building, but not in a bad way at all. The current model seems to be the ongoing soap-opera punctuated by novel-shaped tent-pole events.
-- 22:45, 20 July 2009 (BST)
Here's the NY Post (as rabidly anti-tax as anyone) reporting on the proposed health care tax: http://www.nypost.com/seven/07152009/news/nationalnews/dems_want_wealthy_to_pay_healthy_tax_179318.htm
So let's look at the facts as the Post plays them: "A 1 percent surtax would apply to incomes over $280,000 for individuals and $350,000 for couples, Rangel said last week.
"Higher rates would apply when incomes reach $400,000 and $800,000 for individuals and $500,000 and $1 million for couples [topping out at 5.4%], [Sen. Durbin} said."
Anybody out there making $280k? I wish I were and that my wife was making another $70k, and if we were, I wish we could pay $3500 a year to ensure that every American had adequate health care. And if, insha'Allah, we're making $1 million a year, I'd be happy to kick in $54,000.
The Post also had a set of boxpics that I can't find that said something like, a couple making $1 million in NYC, after all the taxes, would be paying almost 59% of their gross income in some form of tax -- or another way to think about it, they'd be living tax-free on $410,000. I'd like to try that for a while. I live in the most expensive city in the United States, and I figure realistically, I need $180-240k gross for my family to live on, maintaining my current good, but not extravagant way of life.
Bunny, there's a difference between a health care tax and a yacht tax. People will move their yachts to Bermuda; they will not move themselves there. Plus, increased health care will mean more productivity from workers, which will help the economy in the long run. No one (that I know of) is advocating a return to the confiscatory tax rates in the '50s through '70s, with a 90% top marginal bracket in New York. But I can easily live with a 60% tax rate on couples earning >$1 million.
Oh, and William Conrad will always be the definitive Nero Wolfe for me.
-- 22:55, 20 July 2009 (BST)
I don't consider this an attack in any way. Where you and I disagree is on what constitutes greed. I have nothing against luxury and those who can afford it. I don't see them as obligated to give me what they've worked for (in most cases, inheritance notwithstanding) just because I didn't have the motivation and tenacity to acquire it myself. Of course, I'm not including the Madoffs of the world. They and their ilk should fry in hell.
As for what constitutes wealth, certainly I could live nicely on $250K. But my doctor, for example, with a family of five, could not. By the time he's paid his malpractice insurance and his taxes, he's down to half that. Let's assume he has a comfortable home in a reasonable suburban neighborhood, he and his wife both have a car, and he's saving to be able to afford to put his three kids through college. See? He's probably still paying off student loans, too. I think it's wrong to expect him to devote his life to healing, and have to struggle to support his own family. I'm just not that idealistic.
To me, class envy is just as injurious as greed. You yourself said we should be grateful for what we have. And when you work for it, you'd like to keep it. Everybody else should have the same privilege. Sure, it'd be nice if they chose to give some of it "back" (although I'm not sure I get that concept, except for some high moral regard for mankind. Religious zealotry starts to insinuate itself here, and that makes me uncomfortable as hell.) and I think the vast majority do support charities of various sorts, if for no other reason than the tax break. But I don't see them as obliged to do so, and that's where we differ.
-- 23:08, 20 July 2009 (BST)
Robert, the yachts were an example I personally witnessed, having been in the industry. I don't mean to imply that they're as important as health care. But I'm glad you used the word confiscatory, because that's just what I consider a tax on the so-called rich to be. We have a graduated tax structure, that, if properly collected, would bring in a heck of a lot more than it does. Closing loopholes and catching tax evaders would go a long way toward closing the gap. Imposing additional responsibilities and penalties on your most productive citizens, no matter their gross income, smacks of socialism, to me.
-- 23:17, 20 July 2009 (BST)
I agree that Conrad is an excellent Wolfe and possibly even definitive, but if these episodes cross your path, you should definitely give Chaykin a try. He's actually the secondary attraction - Hutton's Archie fits the part so well that, like several others, when I read the book I now see him in my mind; it wasn't a huge change because that's more or less what my mental Archie was like already.
-- 23:43, 20 July 2009 (BST)
Ooooh, the "S" word. Bunny, bad news for the capitalists out there. We already have a substantial socialist country -- state universities, Social Security, Medicare, TVA, AFDC, farm subsidies, DoD-driven research and procurement, not to mention lately GM, Chrysler and a whole mess o' banks. It's all been downhill for the pure capitalists since Hoover slunk out of office, with a little resurgence during the Reagan years and the flirtation with fascism during Bush II.
And your doctor, whom I assume is married, making $250k isn't affected by the health care tax, so he's irrelevant to that discussion. (I note also that Florida has no income tax so all he's paying is a 33% marginal federal rate, plus he has deductions up the wazoo -- insurance, property taxes, child credits -- that might push him even lower, so no sympathy from me.)
-- 00:32, 21 July 2009 (BST)
At the risk of turning this thread into a dogpile on Bunny42, three things I noticed (in order backwards in the thread and by decreasing nit-picking):
What's the difference between a graduated tax structure and imposing additional responsibilities and penalties on your most productive citizens (granting your assumption that productivity is the same thing as income)?
Ah, but he isn't taxed on his malpractice insurance (business expense), mortgage interest, educational IRAs for the kids, or student loans. So factor those out. Is his adjusted gross income still over $250,000? Awesome for him! ...but yes, he's cash-rich.
I'm open to being corrected, but this sounds like a restating of the broken window fallacy.
I'm in a hurry, so I'm sorry that this is probably coming off a bit curt. Please accept my apologies -- I do feel that you have a valid point to make, but right now my points of disagreement are what's popping out at me.
-- 01:05, 21 July 2009 (BST)
It's been downhill, all right, and not for the good. Fascism?? Good lord! It is clear that we will not agree on this one.
As for my doctor, you're a hard man, Robert. Of course he's married. And I was only makeing an arbitrary guess about his income. I do know it's less than a lot of people believe all doctors make. But I put him up there as a national example. That we have no state tax is irrelevant. You seem to be saying nyah, nyah, if I can't have it, then you can't, either. That's what I'm hearing, anyway. My doctor isn't looking for your sympathy. He'll probably have to cut back on services, raise his rates, and we'll all suffer for it. Don't you have the same deductions in NY, except for the state tax part? Deductions apply to everybody, regardless of income, and the amount paid is a percentage of that income. If it were properly collected, I still maintain that we wouldn't be having this discussion. In a perfect system, the more you make, the more you pay. Not percentage-wise, actual dollar-wise. Close the loopholes and apprehend the scofflaws- I say.
And, for the record, do you really like the idea that the government is running GM and the banks? What's next, newspapers? Maybe the government should put a cap on the amount of money an entertainer can earn, and all the rest has to go to charity and entitlements. When I see the lines of people waiting to pay $50-60 a head to get into Disney World, the numbers of tourists arriving to take cruises out of South Florida, you can't convince me that everybody's broke. The problem is inadequate collection procedures, I'm sure of it. The money's there, if they would enforce the laws already on the books.
And one more thing. Of the reported 46 million people with no health insurance, about 40-45% of them are illegal aliens. I cannot, for the life of me, understand why obvious lawbreakers should be given a free pass with my tax dollars. And yours. It would take some of the pressure off of emergency rooms, we wouldn't need nearly as much money to solve the health care crisis, and, most importantly, it would send the message that the laws mean something. If it weren't better in this country for illegals, they wouldn't come. I heard rumors that some of them are, in fact, going home, because of the crackdown on employers who hire them. It's a start.
-- 01:39, 21 July 2009 (BST)
Danima, please don't make a dogpile. 8-) There has to be room for intelligent discussion.
The fallacy says the shopkeeper loses money, and therefore can't purchase or use the services that would benefit the town. That's exactly my argument about higher taxes for rich people. Make them pay more taxes and they don't use other services or buy other things that help the economy. At some point, the amount of additional taxes versus the loss to the economy would even out, I suppose, but I'm not sure it's worth the risk.
My objection is to higher percentages for wealthier people. They already pay more. Much more, and it doesn't take tax increases to make it happen.
-- 02:07, 21 July 2009 (BST)
Well. In brief because it's bedtime:
1. "Socialism" is not automatically a bad word for me. I'd rally for it outright if I felt I could trust the government to do it properly.
2. I agree about tax scofflaws and loopholes, but I don't think that would be as big a save as you do.
3. I disagree strongly about illegal aliens. Let 'em in. The reason there's a market for them anyway is because you can't get Americans to clean toilets or pick tomatoes. If we treated immigration policy sensibly then we could actually improve conditions - like the Florida tomatoes I won't buy because the migrant worker conditions there are often so bad that to call them "slavery" would dignify them. In order to clean that up we must first acknowledge it. Those aliens are just following the market, and you can't get more capitalist than that.
And if their existence were legitimized, we could charge them income tax!
P.S. Y'all play nice. (Not that you haven't so far; I'm just saying.) If it comes down to having to agree to disagree, so be it.
-- 03:45, 21 July 2009 (BST)
Hey! We're playing nice! We happen to have different views, but above all else, we're civilized.
Okay, lemme tell you about aliens. First, I welcome any and all who come here properly; by that I mean legally, the way my mother did. I still believe that even with all our warts, we're the best deal there is, and, apparently, so do thousands of aliens from all over the world. So be it. We have to have certain restrictions, such as some illnesses, (I understand they're lifting the ban on AIDS patients) the same way we have prohibitions on certain agricultural products that might contaminate our crops. But, for the most part, thousands are welcomed each year. They arrive here legally and go through proper processing, visa requirements, etc. I'm the first to acknowledge the need for them. I haven't been to a motel in South Florida that wasn't staffed largely by Hispanic and Haitian workers. They might be willing to work for less money, but Americans look down their collective nose at menial labor, and somebody's gotta do it. All I ask is, come here legally.
Here's a little anecdote about unintended consequences. When I was still working for U.S. Customs, I was sometimes called upon to help clear planeloads of migrant workers from Trinidad and Barbados, among other places. They came by the hundreds to harvest the sugar cane. They were dirt poor, by our standards, achingly so, but what they earned here in a few short months fed their families back home for the whole year. They were on waiting lists for these jobs. If they misbehaved while here, they were sent home. There was always someone waiting to take their places.
Well, the bleeding-heart contingent who wanted to prove how much they "care" decided the workers were not being adequately compensated for their labor and raised hell with the sugar companies. The result? The sugar people automated the harvesting process and didn't need the laborers anymore. Not quite as efficient, but much cheaper. The workers all lost jobs some of them had happily held for twenty-five years or more. They were coming here legally, to better their conditions at home.
Big Sugar is not a charitable organization, it's a business with obligations to its shareholders to make a profit. The laborers who harvest fruits and vegetables could be in the same predicament, if enough people do as you say and don't buy Florida produce. It's not an easy problem. Nobody said it was. But you can see why I'm looking at it from a slightly different point of view.
The loophole fixing would be a good start. Add to that the money we'd save by sending home the illegals, which would, in turn, reduce the amount needed to finance health care. That'd be nice, too. Next, we legalize gambling, prostitution and marijuana, and tax the hell out of them. Puts organized crime out of business, adds money to the coffers, and conceivably stabilizes quality and safety. Frees up more law enforcement types to work on other kinds of crime, like pedophilia, rape, murder, etc.
I had a cousin in France who was a card-carrying Communist, back in the day. We asked him how that was working out for him. He insisted everybody was equal. Except, of course, he was a little more equal, because he was going to be a leader. See, you just can't fight human nature. The bread lines were fine for everybody else but him and his brethren, who were going to "run things."
Call me indoctrinated, but I truly believe socialism stifles creativity, resourcefulness and the striving for excellence, all qualities I think make this country great.
-- 07:16, 21 July 2009 (BST)
I find it interesting that in at least one case you get the same sum I do for the arithmetic, but draw an entirely different conclusion from it.
OK. Take the sugar example. We agree that Big Sugar's sole motivation is to make a profit, not to be nice and friendly. We also agree they will screw the workers any chance they get, yes?
(As it happens, when I wear my corporatist hat - yes, I do have one - I understand the virtues of automation. Labor is always the single biggest expense of any company, more so in America where the cost of benefits has become crippling. So I am not utterly without sympathy to business. But let's not muddy the water any more than it already is.)
To my mind, in your anecdote, the villain is not the "bleeding-heart contingent" but Big Sugar. Sure, the bleeding hearts were being naive - they should have realized that Big Sugar would essentially pick up its marbles and refuse to play - but I can't fault their motivations.
If Big Sugar's being a jerk, then what sort of moral reserve prevents you from taxing them heavily? Think of the taxes as a Jerk Penalty if you like. It will make no difference. Nor will it make a difference whether they choose to automate or whatever - we'll tax 'em regardless. One way or another they will pay the piper.
I'm not saying "penalize success" - as Robert points out, they will still be successful and they'll still get plenty of the fruits of their effort. I'm just saying, the bigger you succeed, the more I feel you have an obligation to put some in the common pool.
My Robin Hood impulses, idealistically naive though they may be, are oddly not affected by whether the fat cats I want to steal from are nice guys or assholes - although I point out that there are very few nice guys among either the independently wealthy or the big corporates. If they ARE nice guys, then they should WANT to give out a share of the pie so that everyone can get some. If they AREN'T nice guys, then they probably got all that pie by exploiting the people who currently don't have any, and they should be forced to share out a bit.
I believe that we live in a world with ample resources for everyone in it and then some, if these resources were only properly husbanded and distributed. I think it is the primary tragedy of life on this planet that the resources are NOT so distributed. I'm less concerned with wealth inequity than resource inequity - particularly food, medicine, tangibles like that - but it strikes me the problems are so closely connected that you can't try to solve one without solving the other.
Now, I grant you that socialism has many problems - among them the fact that humans are genetically self-interested jerks and therefore we have an interest in always trying to defeat the system that's telling us to share and play nice. And I agree with you about it stifling innovation (but not creativity, and if you don't mind, I'll go into that distinction some other day).
But I would be willing to accept any number of its faults because I think they would be better than the mess we currently have. Do you KNOW what the ratio of wealth distribution is in this country? Roughly speaking, one-tenth of the populace has nine-tenths of the money, but it's actually much worse than that; of that 9/10 of the money, the bulk of it is held by something closer to 1/100 of the populace. Those people could improve the world single-handedly and still buy all the yachts and second homes and private jets they wanted. The fact that they're not doing it is, to my mind, very nearly a criminal act.
-- 15:22, 21 July 2009 (BST)
But... They DO pay. Didn't you check out the link I sent to Danima? Herewith, an excerpt:
" The wealthiest 1 percent of the population earn 19 percent of the income but pay 37 percent of the income tax. The top 10 percent pay 68 percent of the tab. Meanwhile, the bottom 50 percent—those below the median income level—now earn 13 percent of the income but pay just 3 percent of the taxes."
Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, Oprah Winfrey, to name just a few, are philanthropic beyond most peoples' wildest dreams. And I believe many, many more of the top 1% pay out millions in trusts, charitable contributions, etc. if for no other reason than the tax deduction, but I'm pretty sure it's more. I can't get behind the notion of legislating moral responsibility. To me, it's analogous to carbon credits. People who actually want to save the planet will do so voluntarily, not throw money at the problem so they themselves can continue to indulge. In the same way, there are so many potential problems involved with confiscatory taxation, I don't see it as a valid solution.
You see Big Sugar as exploiting labor unfairly. I see them as having kept the immigrant laborers employed far longer than they had to, until they were forced to make a change. It didn't happen until they got hassled. Whatever the motivation of the ones who interfered, they were shortsighted and the consequences ultimately hurt the very ones they hoped to "save" from exploitation. Conditions here weren't Cadillac, but they were infinitely better than how they were living in Trinidad.
Aaaaand... Big Sugar is already taxed heavily, both by Federal and State taxation. They are heavily involved in Everglades restoration, whether voluntarily or otherwise. Sugar is one of Florida's leading industries, along with citrus and beef cattle. (Also tourism, which often resembles cattle herding...) Anyway, the sugar companies pay millions already. Squeezing them some more has that old downhill trickle effect and, ultimately, we all end up paying more.
I'm coming at this believing there are far fewer jerks than you think there are. Glass half full? Rose-colored glasses? I'll accept that. I even allow people to call me naive. The alternative is too harsh for me to accept, regardless of what the media would have me believe. Who was it, who said this country is terrible, except for everywhere else in the world? Something like that.
-- 17:54, 21 July 2009 (BST)
Who's not playing nice? We're just disagreeing about stuff (and from *you* who complains that there's no civilized disagreement anymore!)
I'm putting the fascism argument over here http://profrobert.livejournal.com/47412.html so as to not completely hijack the comments thread.
On the tax issue, I was focusing my comments on the proposed health care tax, not on tax rates in general. The current version of the plan has zero impact on couples making less than $350k.
On the larger issue of taxation/spending, I recall seeing that the economy gets the biggest bang for the buck from things like extending unemployment benefits -- for every dollar spent, more than a dollar goes into the economy (the unfallacifying, if that's a word, of the broken window analogy). Tax cuts are among the worst; people tend to pocket them. Health care strikes me -- without any stats to back it up -- as an excellent use of tax dollars. A healthier populace almost has to be more productive than one without, right?
I don't know what the proportion of uninsureds being illegal aliens is, nor do I know whether the current plan is intended to cover them. I agree we need a rational immigration plan with enforceable rules, and that ultimately only persons legally in the United States should receive its bounty.
On the issue of taxes affecting quality of life, I still don't have a lot of sympathy for the hypothetical Florida doctor grossing $250k. Were I grossing $250k, I know my income tax obligation would includes about 8% more for state taxes (though my property taxes are low), and I'm convinced my housing per square foot is more expensive than his. (And I didn't buy a McMansion with 5% down -- if he did and he's underwater, again, no sympathy.) If it's the three kids as opposed to my one that is what's breaking the bank, I'd say to him what I'd say to the Reagan-era proverbial Welfare Queens -- don't have so many kids. A real issue about whether we have No. 2 is if I can get my practice running with sufficient income that I don't have to worry about how to pay for a second child. I cannot understand how one cannot live on a quarter of a million a year because I live in the most expensive city in the United States, and I certainly could.
-- 18:25, 21 July 2009 (BST)
I'm coming at this believing there are far fewer jerks than you think there are.
Or that the jerks are in different places from where I think they are. Let's take that as a given; it may be irreconcilable.
The wealthiest 1 percent of the population earn 19 percent of the income but pay 37 percent of the income tax. ... Meanwhile, the bottom 50 percent ... now earn 13 percent of the income but pay just 3 percent of the taxes.
Rather than quibble over the validity of the findings from the American Enterprise Institute, a right-wing organization which exists primarily to defend the right of private enterprise to rob us blind, let's say for the sake of argument that I accept those numbers. Now express them as a percentage of personal wealth. Having someone in the bottom half of earnings pay three percent is far more personally devastating to them than those people up in the top brackets paying thirty-plus. Even if I grant that our tax system is reasonably progressive - and, as I said before, I'm with you that it probably would be if we closed all the loopholes - to my mind it does not go far enough. Even if tax rates are a steady slope on a graph, I am not satisfied with a steady slope; I want a hyperbola.
People who actually want to save the planet will do so voluntarily ....
I agree, but that's not nearly good enough. I maintain that people need - constantly and continuously - to be forced into doing the right thing; you do not.
Understand, I have as little patience as you do with enforcing morality, but I simply don't see any other choice in this case. As a rule, I have far less faith in the species than you do. In particular I no longer trust the rich, the corporate, or the governmental entities in this country to do the right thing in any way; in fact I trust that if they can find a new way to behave badly, they will immediately do it. And I believe the matter is far too important to leave to The Invisible, Dead And Mostly Discredited Hand of Adam Smith.
My friend Antony would object to my position strenuously; he is close to being an anarchist. He resents any government interference in any aspect of life. I do too, alas. But this is a case where I have made a personal decision about the lesser of two evils.
Incidentally, I don't believe in carbon credits either. I believe it's a scam. But you'd like my answer even less. I'd like to give the EPA political independence and sharp teeth. Your factory pollutes? We're shutting it down. When will it open again? When you make it stop polluting.
You would see a whole lot of sudden technological innovation in heavy-metals reclaim, smokestack scrubbing, reuse of by-products, chemical cracking to take apart toxins, etc etc etc the instant that happened. I guarantee it. And we would all win.
-- 18:38, 21 July 2009 (BST)
I didn't say anyone wasn't playing nice! In fact I said that everyone had been! It was just a caution! I didn't want to go to bed and get here the next morning and find a flame war had broken out. You've seen what the rest of the internet is like ....
-- 18:40, 21 July 2009 (BST)
Okay, back. And, wow, a lot of words written after (and during) me writing mine last night.
So, Bunny42: I'm not sure quite what point you're making with the AEI link. I worked backwards from the numbers they provide in their chart, and here's what I get:
income rank 0 to 1% 1% to 5% 5% to 10% 10% to 25% 25% to 50% 50% to no income income/capita 2261.90% 416.67% 261.90% 174.60% 100.00% 30.95% tax/capita 7708.33% 1041.67% 458.33% 236.11% 100.00% 12.50% tax/income 340.79% 250.00% 175.00% 135.23% 100.00% 40.38%
(I hope the chart format comes out right)
Since the AEI doesn't give us actual numbers, I normalized based on the 25% to 50% quartile -- the presumably-comfortable middle class. And, I have to say, I'm not seeing anything particularly shocking, here: the top 1% pays about 3.4 times the rate on their 22-times-higher incomes than the 25-to-50 set. But it makes a difference to your question -- "are tax rates so high as to stop people from venturing to earn money?" -- if those rates are 1% and 3.4%, 10% and 34%, or 20% and 68%.
Splitting the population at 1%, 5%, 10%, 25%, and 50% gives the impression that these groups are somehow comparable, instead of representing 1%, 4%, 5%, 15%, 25%, and 50% of the population, respectively. So I include one more row for the chart, a naive multiplication of tax/income by population share (again, normalized to the mid-upper middle class):
?relevance? 13.63 40.00 35.00 81.14 100.00 80.77
-- 21:50, 21 July 2009 (BST)
Enough silly fun with numbers, though. I think it's interesting that the broken window fallacy is subject to so many interpretations -- I recognize that you consider a tax to be, in essence, a broken window: resources lost to the economy.
What I was saying, though, and it's my fault for not taking the time to be clear about it, is that the logic of "maintaining a lifestyle of 'wretched excess' is providing jobs for untold thousands who might otherwise be unemployed" is the same logic that says that it's good for the glazer to get work regardless of the reason.
I'm open to having a conversation about either of our two interpretations, if you like.
About immigration, though, I really only have this: if you're complaining about people coming here illegally, I hope you also complain about how difficult we make it to immigrate legally. Shipping "guest" workers in and out is a sorry excuse for what the Statue of Liberty stands for.
-- 22:11, 21 July 2009 (BST)
About that doctor. I know a doctor here in Florida, and she's on record as saying a full 50% of her income goes towards medical malpractice insurance. I don't know how much she makes, but for this argument, let's say she makes $250k/year. After insurance, she nets $125k/year. I do not know if she gets to write off her insurance costs, but assuming she doesn't, and assuming (for simple math) that the tax rate is 33%, she nets $41k/year. If she can write off 100% of the insurance, her net goes up to $84k/year. The truth is probably somewhere in between.
It's hard trying to find actual premiums for malpractice insurance. I found one quote that stated premiums were anywhere from $20k-$70k/year per doctor [1], and several quotes for a hospital/clinic up to the million/year range [1][2].
Also, I found mention that a typical medical student graduates with an average of $150k student loan debt [3]. I can easily see how a doctor making $250k/year gross might not make all that much net.
[1] http://www.nal.usda.gov/ric/ricpubs/RHNsprsum02.htm
[2] http://www.softwareadvice.com/articles/medical/5-ways-physicians-can-profit-from-using-an-emr/
[3] http://www.tcpalm.com/news/2009/may/28/shortage-family-doctors-leaving-some-without-care/
-- 00:34, 22 July 2009 (BST)
I'll grant you that my article was published by the AEI, and yeah, I know who they are. But here's the guy who wrote it:
"Stephen Moore is senior economics writer for the Wall Street Journal editorial board and a contributor to CNBC TV. He was the founder of the Club for Growth and has served as a fiscal policy analyst at the Cato Institute and the Heritage Foundation."
I thought the Wall Street Journal was a fairly reputable source. Just sayin'.
Danima, I'm not clear on what part of the fallacy applies to our discussion. Yes, the tax could be the broken window. But what part do the wealthy play? Are they the boy who broke the window? As I've been thinking about all this, I realized that Columbina wants people to give back, to make a contribution commensurate with what they've achieved. And I think that just by BEING a doctor or a lawyer or an enforcement professional or, yes Robert, even a lawyer, you are giving back. It takes a special person, mindset, whatever you want to call it, to devote yourself to helping mankind. You're making a far greater contribution than I, who sits here discussing how you should be spending your money. I find it grossly unfair to ask even more of those people, just because they've educated themselves and worked to achieve their current status. I admire them. So, Columbina, you and I will never agree on this one.
I'm well aware that legal immigration is tedious. It has to be, in order to prevent everyone on the planet from moving here. I have to ask myself, if this country is such a mess and we're all such trolls, then why does everybody want to come here? We must have something going for us, that a portion of our own population can't/doesn't appreciate. I'm pretty sure we still have yearly quotas, as well as discretionary rejection for a variety of reasons. Qualified aliens don't NEED to dig a tunnel under the fence. They wouldn't be rejected in the first place. And, I consider American citizenship, and even resident alien status to be a privilege, not a God-given right. Sure, the policies could stand some tweaking, especially in light of the dire need for alien agricultural laborers. But I was here, in South Florida, after the Mariel Boatlift (1980, wasn't it?) and saw the quality of people who got in under that fiasco. You can't let just anybody come here. You just can't. If it takes a little effort and time to be accepted, then so be it.
Finally, I approach your EPA solution from the point of view of a former Fed. Yeah, sounds great on paper. But I've seen the way Government can bollix up a perfectly good solution. The worst part of government is that it HAS no teeth. So often it's merely advisory in its power. And, given human nature, which you CANNOT change, perhaps that's best.
-- 01:56, 22 July 2009 (BST)
I could reply that the WSJ was a fairly reputable source until Murdoch bought it, but I'd just be giving you a hard time - I don't actually mean that :)
Yeah, I think we have to agree to disagree, but your point about doctors is well made - I didn't actually use doctors as an example because I think they're a special case right now. Not only are they providing a valuable contribution, but the evidence suggests they are getting thoroughly hosed. There are parts of this country where it is nearly impossible to find someone in obstetrics because of the crippling fear of lawsuits. But I wasn't so much thinking about them. I was thinking of the types which used to quaintly be called "industrialists" or "tycoons."
The real point where we're going to have to disagree is immigration. I don't think putting up physical, legal, or metaphorical fences is going to work - at least not for much longer. America (the prosperous nations in general, but especially America) has an unsustainable lifestyle, and the poor nations hate and envy us by turns. This is disastrous. Collectively, America is the oligarch hoarding all the pie; if we don't take the wall down, it will eventually get broken down, and it may get nasty.
My prophecy is that there will be some serious prosperity adjustments, not in my lifetime, but certainly in my two-year-old niece's. Somewhere in her span, the rich world is going to have to collectively adjust to living more modestly, whether they like it or not. If you don't think this will happen, please analyze the repercussions of the emergence of China as the world's foremost economic and population power. That will happen in my lifetime; it is happening now.
I figure we might as well take down the fences now, let anyone in who wants to come in, and get used to living with a lot less than we have.
-- 03:37, 22 July 2009 (BST)
Oh! More fun with numbers! It seems like the fundamental question being asked is, "how likely is it that a U.S. resident with an Adjusted Gross Income of $250K or more will, after reasonable fixed living expenses, have a small disposable income relative to a given tax?" There's a lot of undefined terms in there, but better that than a completely undefined question.
Our test case appears to be a doctor, but I don't think that occupation is actually relevant: Thirty Seconds of Research provides me with the answer that medical malpractice insurance is entirely tax deductible.
On the other hand, student loan interest is not deductible above a certain income level, so a large loan burden could affect the equation. However, using the highest student loan rate on file at this site converts a $150K ten-year loan to monthly payments of $1,839.79:
So far, so good. After that, I think we can factor the doctor's noble profession out of the question.
Ah, time to go.
-- 04:55, 22 July 2009 (BST)
Misc. Responses:
The WSJ editorial page, even pre-Murdoch, was famous for its extreme, right-wing, free-market beliefs. As a source of reliable information, it was the antithesis of the Journal's news pages.
If you let the fences down, the country will be overrun by people with no commitment to a republican (small "r") form of government. You'd have civil war until a dictator was able to claw to the top. Imagine Iraq if all the troops left suddenly, and you'd have a good example.
Cap and trade is a great idea. This is one problem the market will be good at addressing. Pollution is a classic "free rider" economic problem: Polluters don't feel the cost of their pollution; cap and trade makes them feel it. Overall pollution will drop, and the power to pollute will be redirected to the highest-value activities.
-- 17:38, 22 July 2009 (BST)
If you let the fences down, the country will be overrun by people with no commitment to a republican (small "r") form of government. You'd have civil war until a dictator was able to claw to the top. Imagine Iraq if all the troops left suddenly, and you'd have a good example.
Wow. Um, I would like you to make that chain of thought a lot more explicit. Because right now I not only don't follow your reasoning there at all, but I think it might be saying something fairly offensive. (Felipe Calderon would probably not be pleased to hear that Mexico has no commitment to a republican government, for example.)
People come to this country partially because they want a republican form of government. The analogy with Iraq is spurious; you can't compare an artificial peace imposed on factions who have hated each others' guts for thousands of years with the situation of immigrants coming to this country from places which happen to have less republican governments than we do.
I agree with cap and trade in principle as a good idea. However, the system has already begun to be gamed, even before it is fully implemented.
-- 18:15, 22 July 2009 (BST)
My inference is that "let the fences down" means anyone who can get here, stays here. That means not just Mexicans (though I suspect they would be the largest contingent since they could literally walk in), whom I'm not really worried about, but also unreconstructed Communists, radical Muslims, white supremacists, and others who have competing, violent interests, none of which is to have a stable democracy. The Iraq analogy is apt because there you have large groups of well-armed people who hate each other. Without troops there to police them (and even with the troops there), the factions would engage in civil war. What kept the lid on for so long was Saddam's reign of terror, and in your scenario, that's what it would take to stop the civil war. Really: Look at how the rest of the world behaves when left to their own devices. It's dictatorship or war or both. (And don't cite Western Europe to me. They keep their borders regulated, and where they haven't been able to -- I'm thinking of French Algerians here -- it's caused a lot of misery.)
-- 18:58, 22 July 2009 (BST)
P.S. As for Mexico, it's effectively a one-party kleptocracy with widespread corruption and uncontrollable crime. If that's your model for the United States, I'll get my wife to move us to England.
-- 19:00, 22 July 2009 (BST)
Bunny42: okay, back to the broken window!
One thing that I thought I made clear in my last comment on it, but worth restating: you and I have two very different interpretations of how that parable applies to tax policy and the spending decisions of the wealthy. The interesting thing is, as far as I can tell, our interpretations are not mutually-exclusive: it's possible for both of us to be right or wrong, independent of the other.
(There's a principle I picked up somewhere along the way for internet disagreements called the "paraphrase test": in cases where you're unlikely to agree, you should at least be able to paraphrase the other person's position in such a way that they agree that you're representing them accurately. With that in mind:)
If I understand correctly, the Bunny42 interpretation of the parable of the broken window is that the money spent paying taxes corresponds to money spent repairing the window: it is essentially lost to the economy. Do I have that right?
If so, I'm curious about how you'd address the objection to that point of view that ProfRobert expressed in the comment timestamped 18:25, 21 July 2009.
Now for the Danima interpretation of the parable, which is on a completely different topic: your statement that "maintaining a lifestyle of 'wretched excess' is providing jobs for untold thousands who might otherwise be unemployed." In the context of this statement, the parable's glazier stands in for "the untold thousands who might otherwise be unemployed." The repair of a broken window corresponds to the destructive use of wealth -- maintaining a private golf course in the middle of the desert or flying in a private jet to anywhere, for just two examples. And, interestingly, the people who live a lifestyle that is objectively described as "wretched excess" play the roles of both the shopkeeper and the little boy with the rock.
While it's true that there is no law nor, probably, moral obligation to stop people from breaking their own[*] windows just so that they can pay a glazier to repair them, the lesson of the broken window is that money spent in that way cannot be considered a productive part of the economy.
Did I manage not to be hopelessly obscure, this time around? I don't expect you to agree with me (yet -- *grin*), but it would be nice to know that you understand the point I'm making.
[*]of course, in the two examples I gave, the wealthy person in question is breaking not just their own windows, but everyone else's windows, as well -- and not necessarily ever repairing them.
-- 19:24, 22 July 2009 (BST)
I must agree with ProfRobert about not letting down the fences, but my objection is more concerned with criminals and miscreants. I hadn't even considered terrorists, which is kinda funny, because, having been associated with Customs and Immigration for so many years, it should have been the first thing to come to mind. What concerns me is the increase in crime, both violent and otherwise, that happened after Mariel, which was just a small example. Open all the borders, and Katie, bar the door!
Danima, I'm going to ponder the fallacy for a bit. I'm trying to see where you're coming from, really I am. But I'm still a little confused. Stay tuned...
-- 21:34, 22 July 2009 (BST)
I hope that everyone on this thread, whether I agree or disagree with him or her, knows that I write with respect, and that where disagreements exist, they are, at worst, "agreements to disagree." There is nothing personally perjorative that is intended, no matter how sharp the disagreement.
-- 04:56, 23 July 2009 (BST)
I read a lot of Nero Wolfe stories back when I used to subscribe to Alfred Hitchcock's and Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazines, but I've never read any of the books. And you are appealing greatly to my OCD, which is very happy when I read things in order, even if, or especially if they don't need to be read in order. So off I go, to read them in order!
-- 18:07, 24 July 2009 (BST)
A propos of this thread, the following article from AP appeared on today's MSNBC.com business section:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32131382/ns/business-us_business/
It pretty much validates what I've been saying about the effects of confiscatory taxes on corporations. This particular article centers on profit losses due to the unplanned-for recession. But I maintain that heavier taxation would precipitate identical results.
This may not be what we'd like to see, maybe wouldn't happen in a utopian world, but it is proven to be the result in the real world. Corporate America has obligations to its shareholders (some of whom are we, in the form of pension plans and IRAs), and they/it will take whatever measures necessary to ensure said profits, be they cutting jobs or closing entire factories. Ultimately, we who can less afford it will have to pay more. It's not pretty, but it's business.
I say, leave 'em alone, let them make pots of money, and we'll all benefit from it. Resent them at your pleasure, but you have to admit there's a grain of truth to my ramblings.
-- 08:24, 26 July 2009 (BST)
Bunny42:
I'm going to try the chowder recipe. When funds were tight, my mom used to simmer stale bread chunks, minced garlic and water, until the bread was... for lack of a better word... slimy. She laced the brew liberally with grated gruyere cheese, added salt and pepper, and voilà! Lovely, warming soup. The chowder sounds more nourishing, but I'm used to thickening the broth with bread.
Also, what did the rich do to deserve to be soaked? How is it that what they earned and/or inherited now somehow becomes ours to plunder? Is this some sort of moral imperative, that they have a moral obligation to give away whatever they've amassed? Kinda makes it seem not worth excelling at anything. What would be the point, if you just have to give it away? Furthering humanity or whatever should be a choice, as in Bill Gates's case, not an obligation. Especially, since the current administration seems to consider $250,000+ to be "rich."
-- 21:16, 20 July 2009 (BST)