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[barton]

Good thought-food.   I want to read these and then get a better handle on how US federal gov approach to R&D compares to EU generally.  I have vague bits of knowledge of this,  but not enough.   I like the whole For Further Reading idea as part of UDC.   Good alternative to the way the Web makes just lightly nibbling information here and there so easy.   Depth is often a casualty.   

[josh]

Good thought-food.   I want to read these and then get a better handle on how US federal gov approach to R&D compares to EU generally.  I have vague bits of knowledge of this,  but not enough.   I like the whole For Further Reading idea as part of UDC.   Good alternative to the way the Web makes just lightly nibbling information here and there so easy.   Depth is often a casualty.

I've been thinking about this and the best way to go about it.

A part of me wants to simply create a new space labeled For Further Reading, but I think it's just overkill. Perhaps relabeling the thread something like FFR - R&D (or whatever subtopic we've been on) would work, if we could be bothered to do it.

[josh]

Earlier today, in the Biden forum, I posted that the US Corn Belt has lost a third of its topsoil.

Is this a problem that should be addressed by the landowners, without governmental involvement?

Is this a problem that should be addressed by the state, because it crosses land boundaries?

Or is this a problem that should be addressed by the federal government, because it crosses state boundaries?

I am assuming that it should be addressed, rather than ignored.

[barton]

The owners are at the mercy of the banks.   If the feds can step in and really subsidize green agri,  no-till methods, prairie strips (belts of restored prairie between crops),  cover crops,  green manure,  and so on,  that gives the farmer means to work with the banks and not be forced by them into the quick-and-dirty cropping.   I also give props to groups like Nature Conservancy that develop funds to assist farmers with sustainable practices and such.   Also,  water management is a huge issue and is,  of course,  one that goes across state lines.   Green agriculture methods can save enormous amounts of water,  and take pressure off aquifers and riparian sources.   Sometimes you need responsible federal management.   We're talking about feeding people here,  so it's not like some highly abstract argument needs to be put forth for the importance of agri reform.   

[josh]

Kim Stanley Robinson, SF Author, argues in WaPo that a global population decline could be a good thing:

“The world is ill-prepared for the global crash in children being born which is set to have a ‘jaw-dropping’ impact on societies,” the BBC reported last summer. This media staple got a boost a couple of weeks ago from a New York Times article headlined “Long Slide Looms for World Population, With Sweeping Ramifications.” While trying to find some bright spots (lower demand on resources!), the article mostly focused on the “hard to fathom” negative implications.

"I’d prefer to fathom the good stuff. And that goes well beyond a reduction in the demand on resources — welcome as that would be. No matter how clean our technological systems and lifeways, fewer humans would mean fewer demands on the biosphere."

Thoughts/reactions?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/06/07/please-hold-panic-about-world-population-decline-its-non-problem

[Oiled]

I have held Kim's view for many years.   As he notes,  a healthy sustainable pop figure is impossible to determine,  but there is no doubt that three billion people who want a Western prosperity lifestyle could be borne by ecosystems far better than nine billion.   And there's also a quality of life issue,  when the wild places aren't so packed with people seeking nature  that its restoring quiet and beauty are nearly obliterated. 

His economic points are good ones,  grounded in what really improves people's lives and not what makes capitalists moist.   

[Holly Martins]

Well,  KSR just nailed it.   I've read some of his science fiction,  so I know he ponders ecological issues quite a bit.   

I think, to survive, humans have to recognize that the philosophy of endless growth inherent in capitalism is also the philosophy of a colony of cancer cells.   

And a smaller working-age population does also mean less unemployment and a higher valuation on labor.  A world where workers are being wooed with higher wages is one with "economics as if people mattered," to borrow E. F. Schumacher's phrase.   

Mental health would improve in a less populated world where urban centers had more green spaces close at hand.   I'm not sure the Deep Ecologists are wrong about a world with only a few hundred million people,  though that seems unlikely to me unless something catastrophic happens.   

[josh]

Up above, in the Biden admin forum, we were discussing top marginal tax rates. I observed that for a bit more than a decade in the 1950s and 1960s the top marginal tax rate was 91% or 92% - on income greater than $1.5 million in modern dollars.

The question was asked by Ham whether I thought it was fair, to which I replied that I was not suggesting that. I then asked him what he thought a fair top marginal tax rate would be and at what income level did he think it should kick in.

He's thinking about that, but noted he thought the question of what constituted income was a bigger question. I've disagreed that it is bigger, but totally agree that it is important!

So... what do you folks think the top tax rate should be on income, at what income level should it start, and what should be counted as income for that purpose?!

[Hamilton Samuels]

Another complication, here, Josh is what is the dollar worth where you live? $100,000 in KS is a lot more than $100000 in CA or MA.

That should be factored in, somehow. And it's not, IMO.

[josh]

From Jay Kuo on FB:

A common question I hear people ask, usually to mock poor, white conservatives, is “Why do these people vote against their own self-interest?” In many ways, it is a valid and perplexing question. Poor whites stand the most to gain from economic policies like Biden’s, which grant child credits to families, freeze taxes for those making under $400K, provide Covid-19 relief to hardest hit areas, rebuild crumbling infrastructures such as bridges and highways in rural communities, and offer lowered costs for Medicare, to name just a few. All of these would tend to help the reddest of the red states and their inhabitants.

Yet these regions typically show the highest loyalty to Trump and the GOP. Many point to endemic racism, to the culture wars over abortion and trans rights, and to notions of individuality and freedom wrapped up in things like the anti-mask movement and the preservation of an unfettered second amendment right to own guns of all kinds.

But perhaps these are just indicia of a more generalized principle: People don’t vote their *self* interest, they vote their *group* interest.

Political opinions are not reasoned through and arrived at, they are more typically worn like badges of honor that identify you with your group, whether its party, religion or community. The more proudly you display them (think bumper stickers and T-shirts) the stronger you signal your loyalty to the group.

Uncomfortable facts that run contrary to a professed belief (such as that the GOP wants to gut the Affordable Care Act on which you and your family depend) are resisted by the group so effectively that *any* contrary statements, even if totally incorrect, often will be cited and clung to in order to justify the belief (e.g. my rates would have gone up even more under ObamaCare, which is socialism!) This quest for evidence can grow increasingly absurd, to the point where people believe the most fantastical of lies (think QAnon) in order to support their groupthink. This is in fact the cornerstone of cultish behavior.

If you’re hoping to win poorer folks on the far right over, it’s not useful to argue in the abstract that the Democrats will help them out the most. But there is a wide section of the population that is persuadable. That persuasion is not so much based on facts around economic policies, but on how those same policies are demonstrably actually helping *other* people out in their communities, people they might like and respect. If someone in their own community says that the child care tax credit or the ACA saved their family, community members may listen.

Another very effective way to get the message through is to have celebrities, such as actors, singers and well-known authors, carry the torch. People *want* to see themselves aligned with the people they admire. This is why it actually does matter quite a bit for people like Taylor Swift or BTS to take a political stand. For those who don’t spend a lot of time thinking about politics, but know that they respect these artists tremendously, new political opinions can form as the mind races to justify why they like them. (This is also why cancel culture and deplatforming is such a hot issue for radical conservatives.)

It also nearly goes without saying that telling people they are stupid for voting against their own pocketbook isn’t going to persuade them. They also aren’t dumb so much as manipulated, and in fairness liberals do much the same retrenching when faced with facts that run counter to their political ideology and set of beliefs about their leaders. The problem with liberalism is that it seeks to establish itself based on reason and fact, when these things demonstrably are not the things the typical human brain uses to arrive at a decision, whether it’s what to eat for lunch or who to vote for.

I make enough money lately as a business owner to put myself in a higher tax bracket, and yet I vote against my own economic self-interest all the time. I do this because I believe in the ideals of my own group, which espouses equality of opportunity and fairer division of wealth. These values are apparently more important to me than my own pocketbook. Am I delusional? I would like to think not. I can make a post-hoc argument about how my self-interest is really served by supporting redistributive economic policies and high marginal taxes, but that really just is confirmation of a pre-existing desire to see myself as a person with certain values. I cannot argue with the idea that I regularly place the ideals of my group (liberal Democrat) above my own economic self-interest.

The same goes for those on the other side of the political spectrum. Understanding where this stubborn and seemingly illogical behavior arises, and how best to address and deal with it, is essential for us to win a majority of voters to our side.

[FlyingVProd]

Taxing families who should be wealthy into poverty is wrong and crazy.

And we need for Americans to be rich and powerful and to have a voice in the world. Our power does not come from our President, our power comes from our people, and we need for our people to be wealthy and strong and well educated.

There are families who are world famous who are poor now because the chief money-earners were over-taxed. They should have been wealthy, and they should have went to the best schools, etc, but it just did not happen. The Great Grandkids are working at fast food restaurants for other people with zero education and some have experienced jail.

They should have went to Harvard, etc, they should have had the best that America had to offer. And we want for Americans to be prosperous, and these are good Americans who have loyalty to America, they would not have sent all of the jobs to China like Bill Gates and others did. They would have created jobs in the USA for Americans.

If you hit the jackpot and become a huge star, you need to be able to make money to help your family for future generations, you want for your children to attend the best schools, and to be able to travel the world and have opportunities. If your Grandchildren end up on welfare and have to go to community college, then I would definitely say that the taxes were too high back then.

You want for your future generations to be Senators, etc. My Great Grandfather was Chief of Police of Denver, Colorado, those are the kind of jobs you want for your children to have and for future generations. And you want for future generations to be successful business people, etc. To tax people so high that their descendants end up on welfare and in jail is a crime. They should have all went to Harvard, etc.

Salute,

Tony V.

[josh]

Taxing families who should be wealthy into poverty is wrong and crazy.

And we need for Americans to be rich and powerful and to have a voice in the world. Our power does not come from our President, our power comes from our people, and we need for our people to be wealthy and strong and well educated.

There are families who are world famous who are poor now because the chief money-earners were over-taxed. They should have been wealthy, and they should have went to the best schools, etc, but it just did not happen. The Great Grandkids are working at fast food restaurants for other people with zero education and some have experienced jail.

They should have went to Harvard, etc, they should have had the best that America had to offer. And we want for Americans to be prosperous, and these are good Americans who have loyalty to America, they would not have sent all of the jobs to China like Bill Gates and others did. They would have created jobs in the USA for Americans.

If you hit the jackpot and become a huge star, you need to be able to make money to help your family for future generations, you want for your children to attend the best schools, and to be able to travel the world and have opportunities. If your Grandchildren end up on welfare and have to go to community college, then I would definitely say that the taxes were too high back then.

You want for your future generations to be Senators, etc. My Great Grandfather was Chief of Police of Denver, Colorado, those are the kind of jobs you want for your children to have and for future generations. And you want for future generations to be successful business people, etc. To tax people so high that their descendants end up on welfare and in jail is a crime. They should have all went to Harvard, etc.

Salute,

Tony V.

Nobody in the US is being or has ever been taxed into poverty who "should have been wealthy," Tony.

Nobody.

That includes Roy Rogers' family - I don't know how they went from $10s of millions to broke, but it wasn't from taxes.

[Hamilton Samuels]

Roy Rogers's kids: https://www.wideopencountry.com/roy-rogers-children/

Some tragic deaths among them, but none, it seems from being overly taxed.

[Holly Martins]

On the "bobo" class,  and how America's class divisions,  and ideological bases,  have changed.   One of the best long reads I've had this year.

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2021/09/blame-the-bobos-creative-class/619492/

[josh]

On the "bobo" class,  and how America's class divisions,  and ideological bases,  have changed.   One of the best long reads I've had this year.

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2021/09/blame-the-bobos-creative-class/619492/

Haven't read it yet, but getting the September articles on August 4th really feels like pushing things...