Category Archives: Musings

Bonus Entry on Taxes: Guest Post on Withholding

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My series on taxes officially ended yesterday, but here’s a bonus entry submitted via e-mail by my college buddy David O’Nan:

Personally, although tax changes are needed badly, the first action that should be taken is to do away with withholding. Make every taxpayer pay a check to the government every month for taxes and another check for their FICA/etc (and quit allowing them to move surpluses from one to the other to hide their spending). It’s so “hidden” now that most only have general ideas and don’t feel the pain the same way they would if they consciously had to pay the taxes. And any changes are similarly “hidden.” If every time they made a change in taxes you had to change the amount you paid (up or down), everyone will know exactly the difference rather than relying on pundits and wonks and people with agendas to tell them a slanted view of the impact.

People will start to think twice about what they expect government to fix when they get slapped upside the head with the tax bill the first few times. Once that object lesson is learned, then you could make better headway in addressing some of the ridiculous stuff that doesn’t raise widespread ire because the consequences are out there in the ether somewhere.

In a separate e-mail, he wrote,

It would be a fun idea to implement, but even if someone has direct-deposit and banks online, they still get to see the impact on every bank statement (paper or online). Every taxpayer already has a taxpayer ID number so it can’t be any more difficult to track than tax returns. Have them pay their tax within a month of the paycheck (more than one paycheck a month, more than one tax payment and FICA payment a month).

I don’t know about having to write so many checks based on how many paychecks you get — for those of us with multiple jobs, that would be a real pain. But I do know that my tax burden became much more real when I started paying estimated taxes, since part of my income has no withholding and my income fluctuates from time to time. So with respect to making it more obvious just how much everyone is paying in taxes, David is certainly on to something.

Thanks, David, for sending that in and letting me post it!

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For Those Overloaded on Inauguration Coverage …

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We all live through little slices of history every day, but not like today. More words will be spoken and written about today than we can ever count — especially with blogs and tweets and squirts and whatever-will-be-next-in-the-crazy-world-of-the-Internet — and certainly more than anyone will ever read. All the historians through all the years will never catch up with all the words written and to be written about today.

Because of that, I will only say: Congratulations, Mr. President, and good luck.

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Happy Civil Rights Day

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Here’s wishing you and yours a happy Civil Rights Day, with hope that your civil rights are intact. If you live in the U.S. and are a law-abiding citizen, I believe your civil rights are as secure as ever … despite the protestations of the fear-mongers in this and other media.

I cannot, of course, evaluate the condition of the civil rights of people from countries other than the U.S. If you do not enjoy the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, I hope soon you will. Remember: no matter what your tyrants tell you, we in the U.S. desire only your freedom and friendship.

For those wrongly accused, denied their civil rights for illegitimate reasons, I wish for you justice.

But for people living in the U.S. who are plotting violence against our country, its leaders, or its institutions — no matter your ideological bent — you have no civil rights in my eyes. You abrogated your civil rights the minute you donated money to the terror-supporting organization; the second you agreed to do the bidding of your brooding, bellicose bosses; the instant you decided that your vision of unrest and death was preferable to our vision of peace and freedom. I hope the full force of our domestic intelligence apparatus is working to ferret you out of the holes in which you live and work and plot our downfall.

So, again, happy Civil Rights Day.

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A Micro (Really Micro) Economic Observation

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In the anti-gravity category:*

Last year, when gas prices were moving up toward record highs, the company that operates the vending machines in our building raised its prices. My twelve-ounce can of diet liquid caffeine carbonation went up, as did the prices of all the anti-diet items in the snack machine one pace to the left. This was concurrent with prices of almost everything everywhere going up and being blamed on the high gas price.

But since gas prices have come down to the lowest seen in years, the prices of these other things are still at their elevated levels.

The main effect of the lowered gas prices, then, appears to be higher profit margins for the purveyors of consumer goods. If they were wise, they’d plow those increased profits back into their businesses to improve their products, distribution systems and other practices, so that when the next increase in their operating costs comes along they don’t have to pass it on to the consumer right away — using the fat years to store away surplus for the lean years.

Wishful thinking.

___
*I.e., the what-goes-up-doesn’t-always-come-down category.

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Missing A Sense of Perspective

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When I read the headline that Adolf Merckle, a German industrialist, had committed suicide over recent financial losses, I wasn’t too surprised: after all, accounts of businessmen jumping to their deaths after the 1929 stock market crash are legendary. When I read the early report, though, I thought there had to be more to the story.

The original story I saw highlighted Mr. Merckle’s $9.2 billion fortune and losses that were reportedly in the “hundreds of millions.” It seemed almost impossible to me that someone would choose suicide over losses that amounted to less than a tenth of their wealth.

And, as I suspected, there was more to the story. According to this Bloomberg report, “Merckle, 74, spent December negotiating with banks he owed about 5 billion euros ($6.7 billion) to save the family empire he built over four decades.”

So he was struggling with the potential loss of over 70% of his personal fortune. That’s a lot, no doubt, and quite a shock to the system, but it still would have left him with a cool $2 billion or more. That’s a quite different position from folks who start off with fewer zeroes and end up with next to nothing.

Maybe my perspective is skewed because I don’t have a lot of zeroes behind my personal fortune. (In fact, like many people, my personal fortune is effectively nil, since most of what I have is largely owned not by me, but by the bank that holds the note on my house.) And maybe there’s still more to this story, more than will ever come out. But it’s a cautionary tale, and a warning that we should maintain a sense of perspective that emphasizes what we still have, rather than what we’ve lost.

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North Carolina Residents: Beware Another Tax Idea

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A couple of days ago Michelle Malkin wrote about a proposed law here in North Carolina that would assess fees on motorists based on how far they drive in a year. She included some very sound objections to the idea in her post, Nanny State alert: Meet the mileage police. My only quibble with her is over her characterization of it as a “nanny state” action, because its aim is not to protect us from ourselves or anything else; instead, it’s more a “greedy state” action, because it seems to be aimed solely at increasing revenue.

Why do they need to increase vehicle tax revenue? Because in the wake of high fuel prices, people started driving less … meaning less consumption … meaning less tax revenue. They want to make up shortfalls in the state government’s income.

On the surface, it seems fine that people who drive more should pay more — after all, people who use more electricity pay more. But while we may think of roads as public utilities, “consuming” your share of the road does not require someone to lay out the new roadway ahead of you or produce more roadway behind you because you’ve used it — unlike electricity that has to be generated and then is used up, or water that has to be treated before and after use. Once the road is built, it continues to exist for a long time, and the wear and tear of one vehicle at a time seems too miniscule to meter.

Speaking of the possibility of “metering” our vehicles, how much more state bureaucracy would be needed to collect this tax? The data collection, tax assessment, payment processing, accounting, disbursement, and tax fraud investigation would probably cost far more than this tax would ever produce. (I say that based not on knowledge of the numbers of people involved or any other specific facts, but rather on my own assessment of the inherent tendency of government offices to develop extra layers of oversight and other non-value-added functions.)

The same day that Ms. Malkin presented her argument against the tax idea, Raleigh area blogger Tabitha Hale took aim at the proposal in her post on Red County, NC Road-Use Tax A Privacy Violation? She looked at the issue from a different angle, considering the longer-term view in which GPS-capable data recorders would one day download driving patterns that would be used to assess the tax. Her argument against the bill is also a sound one.

The best case scenario would be for this proposal to be pulled from the table entirely; next best would be for it to die in committee; and next would be for it to be voted down. It seems little good can come from it. Unfortunately, that hasn’t stopped our government in the past from passing laws that have caused more harm than good.

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The Messages We Send, and Receive

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I was in Greensboro for a short time last evening, and stopped for a bite at a fast food restaurant just south of town. As I started pulling into one of several empty parking slots near the door, I noticed that it was marked “Employee Parking Only.”

Except for the two handicapped parking spaces, all the spaces near the entrance were marked, “Employee Parking Only.”

I wondered what message the management was trying to send.

Were they trying to say, “We value our employees, and want to do what we can for them even though we pay them very little and make them wear funny little cardboard headpieces?” If so, that’s very nice of them to be so considerate of their employees. But the message I got was, “Hey, customers, we like our employees more than we like you.” (Maybe they’d like to add, “Please come in and spend your money anyway.”)

I asked the young man behind the counter about it, and he just laughed. He said I was about the fiftieth customer who had asked since they repainted the parking lot — and that the employees don’t even use the spaces, so we were welcome to them.

So I still don’t know what message they were trying to send. I just hope I can communicate more clearly than that in my own writing — my speechwriting, my nonfiction writing, and my fiction.

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Damaging Your Credibility as a Writer

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I went to a Public Relations & Marketing seminar this week in Chapel Hill, and had the pleasure of listening to a luncheon speech by Marty Clarke, author of COMMUNICATION LAND MINES. His web site is http://www.martyclarke.com/, and I highly recommend him — he’s a terrific speaker.

Marty asked whether or not we agreed that a single typographic error or misspelled word on a resume could prevent a person from getting a job interview. We all said, “Yes.” So he asked why we weren’t as careful with e-mail as we would be with a resume — with proofreading instead of just relying on the spell checker (“Spell check is your enemy,” he said), and doing whatever we can to ensure that the message we send out doesn’t inadvertently destroy our credibility.

I don’t recall the entire question exactly, but he asked something along the lines of, “How many of you have received an e-mail from someone higher up in your company and when you read it you thought, ‘How did you get to where you are if this is how you choke out a paragraph in your native language?'”

I ask the same thing sometimes with respect to some of the novel manuscripts I look at for Baen. I should ask those authors whose manuscripts are riddled with spelling, grammar, and punctuation errors if they take as little care with their resumes. Because in this case the manuscript is their resume.

Then again, sometimes a gem of a story lies hidden inside a very rough manuscript — so I have to look beyond some pretty bad writing to see if the story itself is good. But I wish those writers would take a little more care to present themselves better — that they would polish that gem so it sparkled the first time I saw it.

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Space History, 11.21: The Time Dilation Song

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This isn’t the usual “multiple of 5”-year space anniversary I usually post, but it’s too good not to include. On this date in 1975 — according to Wikipedia, the official source for everything that might be true — Queen released the album A NIGHT AT THE OPERA.

What does that have to do with space history, you ask? Because, in the fine tradition of such songs as “Rocketman” and “Major Tom,” this album included a song about space travel: “’39.” Written and sung by Brian May — the astrophysics student who stopped working on his doctorate to pursue music but eventually earned his PhD in in 2007 — the song involves the time dilation effect of traveling at near-relativistic speeds. A science fiction song by someone who knows science.

And that’s today’s space history, kids. Now, back to your regularly-scheduled browsing.

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On Veterans' Day: National Veterans Freedom Park

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Even though I’m an Air Force veteran, I think of Veterans’ Day as something for those other folks — for the real veterans, in other words, for those who faced more danger and hardship than I did. The most danger I faced was cleaning up burning red phosphorus at the AF Rocket Propulsion Lab, and I didn’t have any real hardship — my remote tour in Greenland was more fun than not, and my requests to go to the Iraqi AOR were denied.

So Veterans’ Day sort of embarrasses me. Honor the guys who really sacrificed, please. Honor those with whom I served, but not me.

That’s why I’m glad to promote the National Veterans Freedom Park, which is going to be built right here in Cary, North Carolina. Its theme is “The Story of Freedom as told by the Veteran,” and it will feature some striking artwork and an education center. It’s also working with the Library of Congress in the Veterans History Project, to “collect and archive the personal recollections of U.S. wartime veterans to honor their service and share their stories with current and future generations.”

In other words, the National Veterans Freedom Park will honor not just veterans, but real heroes. I’m all for that.

And for those served honorably — no matter where or when — and who are still serving today, on the front lines and behind the scenes, I salute you all.

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