>This is something I tell people I am generally politically/socially align with (liberals/progressives) when they start talking about “handouts for red states.” California and other areas were not developed on their own, they required years of sustained federal investment and interest in the area.
If they were to ask where you think this "federal investment" funding came from, what would you reply?
It’s a fair point, but there is a significant difference between investment in infrastructure and education versus just supporting states that are intentionally degrading their infrastructure and education.
Upwards spiral versus downwards. Money pours in for both cases, but only one is really an investment.
Much of it would come from borrowing, which would be paid back using tax revenues in later years from the regions developed using that investment. Just like most investments.
The West Coast of the United States, California, Washington, and Oregon. will just move on like the rest of the world is moving on away from the United States. Turning your back on infrastructure useful infrastructure medicine education, science, schools is not a winning hand long-term.
If you look at a map of the American South Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia will just move on. Actually it’s already happening and has been happening for the last 30 years. Other parts of the American South are however, stuck more firmly in the past and getting further behind and that also applies to some of the Midwestern states.
Louisiana has another ongoing long-term problem the gulf of Mexico is eating away at the bottom half of the state lands end is moving further north that involves scientific observations oh boy thems fighting words.
DAFs (U.S. tax law) were never meant to benefit charities, they are a way to give donors a tax break today by putting money in the hands of for-profit entities like Fidelity in exchange for a vague promise to maybe someday donate to an actual charity.
I wonder if Fidelity is putting a similar restriction on those age 70 and above who wish to make a Qualified Charitable Distribution (QCD) from their Traditional IRA to Southern Poverty Law Center. This would be even worse, since it is not Fidelity's job to audit the charitable deductions made via QCDs.
I've seen situations where Fidelity won't let you OR your spouse access your retirement funds if your spouse ends up in legal trouble. I really wouldn't keep money you need to be able to access with them. My friend ended up in prison non-finance related and his wife didn't have access to their retirement account (luckily she had other income sources).
It also helps to spread your lifetime Soc Sec benefits over more tax years, thereby lowering the total tax you pay (because pushing higher payouts into fewer tax years by delayed filing will typically increase your marginal tax bracket).
> the monthly payment is about 1/4 of what I was paying for health insurance before I was eligible.
Maybe not, if you take into account the >$500/month subsidy of your Medicare Part A benefits (assuming you had the minimum number of calendar quarters paid in). And your Part B payment (the one usually deducted from your Soc Sec payment) is also partly subsidized unless your income is high enough to trigger IRMAA adjustment.
Unlike Pournelle, Niven is still alive (87 year old), but I don't think he is writing new science fiction these days (although he has collaborated on some stories this century and has made guest appearances at some conferences in the last few years).
I too prefer POP. I don't read email on my phone, I alternate between a desktop and notebook computer for that (and most everything else), and simply copy my Thunderbird profile back and forth (using robocopy) when I switch. I have four primary mail identities, and use the Thunderbird unified folders to easily manage it all.
>Time turns out to be a great universal organizer, just like how a photo collection is wonderfully organized by date more than by any other single dimension.
I have found this same thing to be true. I even tell my family that if for some reason they need to access all our critical info on my computer, the most recent files in each directory are almost always the most interesting ones.
To begin with, your premise is that the only primary sources are press conferences and that press conferences only provide information in response to questions.
But even taking it literally, isn't that one of the things LLMs could actually do? You're essentially asking how a text generator could generate text. The real question is whether the questions would be any good, but the answer isn't necessarily no.
Author here. Our blog generally concerns property tax reform for our regular readership which is admittedly less clear to a new reader coming in cold: the intuitions I’m referring to is the average homeowner kind of assumes any tax reform (such as shifting taxes off buildings and onto land) is designed to impoverish them personally. The purpose of these maps is to show such people where land value in cities is really concentrated - Ie, not the m the suburbs. Mono centric city value might be intuitive to academics, but it’s not among regular everyday people.
Do you mean people underestimate how steep the gradient is, or they don't know it at all?
It seems kind of dubious to me that "everyday" people don't understand that land in cities is worth more than land in suburbs. It seems very transparent that you get a smaller lot size for the same price.
Both. They do understand that it’s worth “more” in the city but they vastly underestimate the magnitude, and they vastly underestimate what that means in terms of where the total bulk of land value is concentrated, and therefore what the distribution of winners and losers will be in any tax shift scenario.
> I was waiting to read about what these "wildly incorrect intuitions" were, but it's never explained. The maps correctly matched my own intuitions.
If you are into land value tax discourse maybe, but from my experience at least there is a big lack of awareness of the impact of economic activities on land values as they are not reflected by anything that people get in contact with. That's especially true because neither rents nor property taxes (the one thing people might have exposure to) fully capture it.
I had guessed land in Manhattan vs the bronx as 7x more valuable, based on living in the Bronx and paying rent. For the joys of living in the Bronx my rent was under $1k and I had a separate bathroom that was part of my studio apartment. Meanwhile Manhattan apartments wanted $2k and I had to use a bathroom shared with the floor.
Same. My assumption, before seeing this, was "ok, I'm going to guess land in a city is worth 100 or 1000x land anywhere else", and I guess I overestimated a bit.
If they were to ask where you think this "federal investment" funding came from, what would you reply?
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