If you are at all interested in science, you should be subscribed to Minute Physics. Why? Because they produce things like this:
I learned more about 
Author Archives: Jean-Paul
A lesson in basic tax policy
You see people making this mistake a lot. Otherwise smart, successful people think that if they make just one more dollar, their tax burden will suddenly shoot up.
This is not, nor has it ever been, how our tax system works. Here are the current tax brackets:
| Marginal Tax Rate[6] | Single | Married Filing Jointly or Qualified Widow(er) | Married Filing Separately | Head of Household |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 10% | $0 to $8,700 | $0 to $17,400 | $0 to $8,700 | $0 – $12,400 |
| 15% | $8,700 to $35,350 | $17,400 to $70,700 | $8,700 to $35,350 | $12,400 – $47,350 |
| 25% | $35,350 to $85,650 | $70,700 to $142,700 | $35,350 to $71,350 | $47,350 – $122,300 |
| 28% | $85,650 to $178,650 | $142,700 to $217,450 | $71,350 to $108,725 | $122,300 – $198,050 |
| 33% | $178,650 to $388,350 | $217,450 to $388,350 | $108,725 to $194,175 | $198,050 – $388,350 |
| 35% | $388,350+ | $388,350+ | $194,175 | $388,350+ |
We’ll do a simple example of a single person. If you make less than $8,700, you are paying 10% in taxes. So if you made $5,000 last year, you paid $500 in taxes. Your effective income tax will always be 10% if you only make $8,700.
Say you made $20,000, though. What would your taxes be? Well, that puts you in the 15% tax bracket, but you won’t be paying 15% total. You will be paying 10% on the first $8,700 and 15% on the next $11,300. That is $870 and $1,695 for each respective bracket for a total of $2,565 tax burden. That makes your effective tax rate 12.8%. Which is about what Mitt Romney pays despite the fact that he makes millions more per year than you.
So, no, if you’re making $390,000 a year instead of $388,000 a year, you’re not going to suddenly own the government a whole lot more money. And no, there is absolutely no reason to decide to take a vacation just because you are going to advance a tax bracket.
There you have it. The progressive tax system! It’s the only tax system that is fair if your definition of fair is making sure your fellow citizens can do things like eat and sleep in a bed. It’s not so fair if your definition of fair is my money is mine and I got mine jack!
Eye graveyard
Ever wonder what happens to all the dust and dirt and eyelashes that get stuck in your eye? Sure, most of it ends up falling out in a fusillade of tears and blinking, but what about the others? Surely, some of it ends up travelling to the back of the eye.
The back of the eye must be an eye graveyard where all the micro-detritus is put to rest. I wonder if there are little caretakers that make sure things are kept neat back there. Or is it more like a mass grave with eyelashes stacked haphazardly together.
I sense a great disturbance in the force
Star Wars: The Old Republic has gone free-to-play. I sense a giant time-suck in my future. As if millions of hours suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced. I haven’t created a character yet, but I’ll be on Jedi Covenant if anyone reads this and wants to join me. Let me know your character’s name.
Short sales are rising
I have noticed that the percent of foreclosures has been dropping recently and the percent of short sales has been rising. Now, we have a possible explanation. It turns out that the big banks, as part of a settlement are required to provide either principle reduction or allow short sales. The banks get credit for either. So they are offering as many short sales as allowable per the agreement.
In some ways, this is good. Families can get out of their debt burden without the massive credit hit that foreclosures would cause. But I’m pretty sure the spirit of the settlement was to keep as many homeowners in their house as possible and the missed mortgage payments have already hurt their credit rating. Plus, they will still need to find a place to live after the short sale. So, in the end, it’s just more of the same. As they say, banks will be banks.
Images from a UFO landing
Ok, its not a UFO, but it certainly looks eerily like what I’d expect such a landing to look like. Strange light source? Check. Semicircle of shadowy governmental vehicles? Check.
Imagine being in a Soyuz capsule, which I understand is pretty harrowing to begin with, and the parachute doesn’t open in time. Longest five seconds ever!
Today’s word of the day is: pareidolia
Pareidolia is when you think you see patterns in random, everyday things. Saying a cloud looks like a teapot? That’s pareidolia. Seeing the Virgin Mary and Baby in the rings of a tree trunk? That’s pareidolia. And pretty awesome! But what you see says more about you than it does about the object. God didn’t put it there. You did. With your mind!
Stupid Things Libertarians Say
This episode of Stupid Things Libertarians Say™ is brought to you by Ron Paul’s farewell address. In it, he says:
Why have we allowed the federal government to regulate commodes in our homes?
Rand Paul must have heard his dad say this thousands of times growing up because he’s repeated it in Energy Committee Hearings:
The scary thing is there are millions of people in the United States that applaud this. First off, who actually has ever had a toilet that didn’t work? You do realize that you can hold down the plunger for a little while longer to allow more water to flush your massive dookie, right? And really, should we be sending people to Congress that don’t know how to use a freaking toilet?
“But none of that matters!”, you say? “Government shouldn’t be telling me what kind of toilet I should buy!”, you say? Listen, this is not difficult. Potable water is a limited natural resource. It doesn’t obey state boundaries. It doesn’t obey national boundaries. It needs to be preserved. Governmental regulations are all about preserving that water. That’s it. Flushing a toilet is an unfortunate, but necessary waste of water. You shouldn’t be able to decide how much water you waste. It is too precious.
Movie Review: Lincoln
Ratings for reviews will appear above the fold, while the review itself will appear below the fold to avoid spoilers for anyone that wants to go into it with a blank slate even though I’ll try to keep the spoilers to what can be seen in the trailers.
Jean-Paul’s rating: 5/5 stars
Why austerity is a bad idea
Paul Krugman points us to the fact that the U.S., despite still not doing well, is doing better than all other first world nations. The most obvious answer is that other countries have hopped full on the austerity bandwagon. As Mr. Krugman is fond of saying again and again, it turns out that contractionary fiscal policy is contractionary.
National economics is a strange creature. It generally behaves almost the exact opposite of what a family economic plan would look like. In the middle of a familial recession (someone gets laid off, etc.), it makes complete sense to cut back on the cable bill, go on a diet, maybe even (god forbid!) cut the internet. You also try to keep paying the things that matter for daily life; food, housing, health etc. This is an experience almost every adult alive has faced at one time or another. It also makes complete sense to try to apply what we know to something that, on the surface, looks like the exact same problem. In this case, though, it ends up being a matter of knowing just enough to be dangerous.
At the national level, calling for austerity during a recession is like calling for a family to stop feeding itself. In some instances, quite literally. Republicans like Newt Gingrich are fond of calling Obama the “food stamp President” and it is true that the amount of money put towards food stamps has skyrocketed under Obama’s watch. In a time of massive unemployment, Republicans criticize Obama for the government feeding its citizens who can’t afford food! It’s mind boggling. Especially because President Obama did absolutely nothing to cause the increase. Eligibility rules haven’t changed, only the number of eligible citizens has.
But beyond feeding its citizens, there’s a whole lot the government can and should do to help people get back on their feet. Where this would give the most bang for the buck is repairing our crumbling infrastructure. The government should be borrowing as heavily as possible right now to fund that.
I know what you’re thinking, “But…but…but, what about the debt! It’s a very high number!” It’s true. But in the situation we’re in, it’s a meaningless high number. Say someone came up to you and offered you money. All you have to do is give it back in ten years. In fact, they’ll actually let you keep a little bit of it without paying it back. That is the situation the federal government finds itself in now. The government should be taking as much of that offered money as possible and invest it in our infrastructure. This will provide jobs to a segment of the population that needs it most and give them money to spend which will immediately give the nation economic returns. Our improved infrastructure will facilitate economic movement. Which will, in turn, grow the economy. This is a no brainer!
Then, when the economy is back on its feet and we are close to full employment once again, we look to the debt. When times are tough, the government should be spending money like a sailor on shore leave, when times are good, the government should be pinching every penny to save for the next rainy day. That’s not an easy thing to wrap your head around. Economic models show that it works, though.