Hasan Minhaj Delivers at WHCA Dinner

It's probably a good thing Donald and his cabinet didn't show up -- he was roasted in a spit, shredded, then devoured. In other words, really funny.

25 Years Ago: 1992 LA Riots

I thought I should post a few more photos that I had taken back then. I've written a few times already about being there, 25 years ago, but I thought I might add a few more notes to the memories.

Many of my fellow university students dispersed, skipping out on some finals. I didn't have much of a choice as I'd plunged into becoming a full-time resident of Los Angeles. For several days up and down South Vermont Street, you could see fires engulfing commercial strip mall buildings. There were so many fires set, the fire department could not keep up. The looting was so widespread that the police could not do anything but to stand and watch. What started out as pure anger over the Rodney King verdict become something closer to "Hell with the rigged system, I'm getting mine".

LA's a weird reality. Even before and long after, at night you could always rely on police helicopters flying with their spotlight shining down and gunshots fired off in quick succession. You think I'm joking, but I'm not -- every night. It is so far beyond normal, but like all things you get used to it after a while. It wasn't until I moved away, that I had come to realize how indifferent I had grown to the chaos.

Add that existing layer of chaos to what happened, starting on April 29, 1992, and you might begin to feel the level of fear that gripped the city.

The Government's Impending Shutdown.

This morning the House passed a 1-week continuing resolution to keep the federal government open. In it, Republicans have a problem, however:

GOP Voting against their own bill

1. Rep. Sam Johnson 
2. Rep. Walter Jones Jr. 
3. Rep. Steve King
4. Rep. Stevan "Steve" Pearce 
5. Rep. James Sensenbrenner Jr. 
6. Rep. Robert Wittman 
7. Rep. Justin Amash
8. Rep. James Renacci 
9. Rep. Scott DesJarlais 
10. Rep. Thomas Massie 
11. Rep. Jim Bridenstine 
12. Rep. John Ratcliffe 
13. Rep. Alex Mooney 
14. Rep. Matt Gaetz
15. Rep. Trey Hollingsworth
16. Rep. Thomas Garrett

GOP Not Voting

1. Rep. Peter "Pete" King
2. Rep. Vern Buchanan
3. Rep. Jason Chaffetz 
4. Rep. Pete Olson
5. Rep. Raul Labrador 
6. Rep. Tom Marino 
7. Rep. Bill Flores
8. Rep. Richard Hudson
9. Rep. Markwayne Mullin
10. Rep. David "Dave" Brat 
11. Rep. Mike Bost
12. Rep. David Rouzer
13. Rep. Dan Newhouse
14. Rep. Mike Johnson

The highlighted names are members of either the Tea Party Caucus, the Freedom Caucus, or the Republican Study Committee, or otherwise voted against the last budget -- members that have advocated and pushed for a balanced budget.

The 2017 budget cannot be passed by Republican votes alone, and yet, Donald has made it clear that his sole negotiating tactic with Democrats is to extort them (I'll cut money off from the ACA if you don't fund my Wall!)

The government's impending shutdown is still coming. Republicans still haven't figured out how to govern.

On the 99th Day, He's Cracking Us Up

This quote from last night:

"I’m A Nationalist And A Globalist. I’m Both."

It comes on the heels of repeated admissions that he wasn't prepared for the difficulties of the job and how complex the issues were. This brings us to the Song of the Day: Supertramp's Breakfast in America

I'm a winner, I'm a sinner
Do you want my autograph
I'm a loser, what a joker
I'm playing my jokes upon you
While there's nothing better to do

That personifies Donald, I think.

Adventures in Headlines.

You might have heard about Turkish authorities coming to the rescue of a Russian spy ship that hit a cargo ship carrying sheep and sank. Apparently, the spy ship was blinded by fog. The quality of this blog being as it is, I offer you a proper headline:

Spy Ship Sailing Blind Strikes Sheep, Saved by Turkey

Yes, Donald Really Said This.

"I loved my previous life. I had so many things going ... This is more work than in my previous life. I thought it would be easier."

Five Thoughts on Donald's Lamentations:

1. Donald is transcendent, capable of floating from a previous life to this one -- clearly a better being than the rest of us. This explains last week's quote, "I want to thank you and I want to god bless America."
2. I can't decide if this is a case of "Ruh roh!" or "Duh, D'oh!" Maybe it's both.
3. The grass is always greener on the other side. But you should see their water bill. Don't worry though, as Donald will "negotiate" a better deal on water -- instead of paying $100 he'll pay $50 (before the water gets shut off, forcing him to pay the $50 connection fee, the $5 processing fee, the $5 late payment fee, and of course the remainder of his balance.)
4. I'd go so far as to suggest that Donald wants to be impeached just so that he can go back to playing golf and watching cable TV instead of making existential decisions. The problem with this strategy, of course, is that Republicans remain reluctant to give him an out and impeach him, and his base is so profoundly dumb that they support anything he says.
5. This is the fourth or fifth direct quote from Donald, complaining about the job, and he hasn't reached 100 days. Only time will tell if this will age into a fine whine or turn into sour grapes.

The Truth About ESPN

On January 4, 2006, Texas beat USC in the waning seconds of the Rose Bowl to win the national championship. 35.6M people watched that game. Following that season, the entire slate of BCS/CFP games moved to ESPN, and not a single game has garnered more viewers. In 2006 the US population was 296M; at the start of this year, it was 324M. I've occasionally repeated this point, but yesterday's layoffs at ESPN punctuated their problems.

If you don't have the eyeballs, you can still outbid broadcast (over the air) TV for content, so long as your channel is bundled inside of cable TV. But once that unbundling begins, your revenue will shrink. At once, people no longer need to pay for your content when they're not watching it. Baseball fans no longer need to pay for football games they don't particularly care for, etc.

Bundling is a form of a monopolistic rent; once that monopoly was broken -- once rentiers had choices -- ESPN either had to lower its fees (rent) or lower its expenses (labor and content). They've chosen to lower their labor costs, but that's the low-hanging fruit.

As Deadspin noted:

If ESPN is trying to significantly trim costs, things are going to get grim, because cutting the salaries of online writers isn’t going to cut it. And so the fundamental question is how long ESPN—or Disney, or Disney shareholders—can be content with diminishing profits, and at what point they admit that aggressively outbidding competitors for live rights at the peak of what was at the time clearly a bubble was a mistake. If they do so, the knock-on effect to the leagues that rely upon their money to pay salaries and fund operations will be immense.

Services such as Sling TV and Playstation Vue offer you the ability to subscribe on a month-to-month basis without any penalties, and it piggybacks on the internet (ISP) service you would have subscribed to, regardless.

Last month the New York Post picked up on this:

SNL Kagan projects the total number of so-called “broadband-only” homes stood at 15.4 million at the end of 2016. 

The result of this trend is that homeowners pay less for TV and that the cable channels are seeing their revenues squeezed.

Cord-cutting is real and one significant consequence is that ESPN's monopoly on live sports is falling apart.

With falling subscriptions, ESPN's in deeper trouble than they're letting on.

About the "2017 Tax Reform" Plan

In early February, Donald eliminated his Tax Plan page from his campaign website. Yesterday, he trotted out basically that Tax Plan page. Unfortunately for him -- but fortunately for us -- the Internet Archive has it saved.

Let's review it line by line:

• Tax Brackets:
• April 26: "Reducing the 7 tax brackets to 3 tax brackets of 10%, 25%, and 35%"
• Campaign website: "The Trump Plan will collapse the current seven tax brackets to three brackets."
• "Brackets & Rates for Married-Joint filers:"
  • "Less than $75,000: 12%"
  • "More than $75,000 but less than $225,000: 25%"
  • "More than $225,000: 33%"
• Standard Deduction:
• April 26: "Doubling the standard deduction"
• Campaign website: "The Trump Plan will increase the standard deduction for joint filers to $30,000, from $12,600, and the standard deduction for single filers will be $15,000." [2017 standard deductions are currently: $6,350 / $12,700]
• Children, dependents:
• April 26: "Providing tax relief for families with child and dependent care expenses"
• Campaign website: "Americans will be able to take an above-the-line deduction for children under age 13 that will be capped at state average for age of child, and for eldercare for a dependent."
• Wealthy Tax Breaks:
• April 26: "Eliminate targeted tax breaks that mainly benefit the wealthiest taxpayers."
• Campaign website: "Carried interest will be taxed as ordinary income."
• AMT:
• April 26: "Repeal the Alternative Minimum Tax"
• Campaign website: "...will be repealed, as will the alternative minimum tax."
• Death Tax:
• April 26: "Repeal the death tax"
• Campaign website: "The Trump Plan will repeal the death tax."
• ACA 3.8% Investment Tax:
• April 26: "Repeal the 3.8% Obamacare tax that hits small businesses and investment income"
• Campaign website: "The 3.8 percent Obamacare tax on investment income will be repealed"
• Corporate Tax Rate:
• April 26: "15% business tax rate"
• Campaign website: "The Trump Plan will lower the business tax rate from 35 percent to 15 percent"
• Corporate Repatriation:
• April 26: "One-time tax on trillions of dollars overseas" and ""Territorial tax system to level the playing field for American companies"
• Campaign website: "It will provide a deemed repatriation of corporate profits held offshore at a one-time tax rate of 10 percent."
• Note: Inherently, corporate profits earned overseas is taxable income, but was allowed to be deferred for forever, except for the occasional tax repatriation holiday. Moving to a "territorial" tax system means corporations will be able to shop around for nations with the lowest tax rates -- something they already do, but are forced to keep cash offshore.
• Special Interest Tax Breaks:
• April 26: "Eliminate tax breaks for special interests"
• Campaign website: "Eliminate special interest loopholes"

Additionally:

• Mortgage and Charitable Deductions:
• April 26: "Protect the home ownership and charitable gift tax deductions"
• November 30 CNBC Interview With Steve Mnuchin:
• "They'll still let you do charities, but there'll be other deductions that are absolutely limited to pay for this."
• "Again, we'll allow — we'll cap mortgage interest, but allow some deductibility."

So basically, he just tossed the press and Americans the same policies he'd campaigned on and had already posted on his website, before he took that page down. Why would he do this? Because the press is gullible enough to treat it as though this plan is an official document, and it provided him with a false sense of accomplishment in the absence of anything outside of three-dozen EOs.

Fail.

100 Days of Nothing

CNN obtained Donald's "list of accomplishments" in his first 100 days -- the list that his administration came up with to use as talking points -- and going over it I had to laugh. Most of what he considered an accomplishment hasn't actually been implemented. Hence, it's really Donald's 100 Days of Nothing.

Let's go over it line by line:

"CUTTING REGULATIONS"

• Energy Independence Executive Order
• Does practically nothing. Ultimately, markets drive energy choices, not presidents. Nonetheless, if he were serious about energy independence, he would steer US away from fossil fuels and towards green energy. Last I checked, oil markets are heavily influenced by OPEC. Besides, he doesn't quite understand the energy price paradox -- increased prices create incentives to drill while lower prices add disincentives to domestic production; you can see this effect in the unemployment rate changes in Montana and Wyoming.
• Revocation Of Federal Contracting Executive Orders
• Because nothing says "helping the middle class" like lowering the bar of federal contractors who then hire H-2A migrant employees just like Donald.
• Reexamination Of CAFE Standards
• Does not repeal standards; review requires time and is made insignificant by California's CARB standards for automakers, which are then adopted by over a dozen other states. Automakers aren't going to create separate tooling/assembly lines just to sell fewer cars to dirtier states. As if to punctuate this point, CARB recently issued new guidelines.
• Review Of Waters Of The United States Rule
• Does not repeal standards; review requires time and may be (likely will be) subject to a lawsuit.
• Creation Of Regulatory Task Forces
• Has done nothing. No reports, and even if they propose cuts, they have to go through the regular process of removing regulations -- you can't just arbitrarily cut regulations, after all.
• Eliminating Stream Protection Rule
• Was never implemented in the first place, but I guess this might be considered a win for him. Its effect, in the long run, might be negligible, considering that the target of this rule was coal and their tailings. Save a dying industry but poison poor Americans -- that's the Trump way.
• Eliminating Regulations On Extraction Companies
• Touting this is both odd and amusing because it lets companies off the hook from having to disclose and remove foreign sources of minerals that came from bad -- eg blood diamonds -- sources. Does nothing for American workers.
• One-In-Two-Out Regulation Reform
• This hasn't done a damned thing. The last I checked -- two weeks ago -- the federal register hadn't reflected any revocation of rules, even as new rules were added.
• Minimizing Affordable Care Act
• The sole effect so far has been that the IRS is no longer asking if you've had coverage all year, but insurers are still sending out 1095 forms. It does not mean that the IRS can't go after you in the future, however.

"JOB CREATION"

• Buy American, Hire American Pipeline
• The DAP was given an exception, making this EO stupid and worthless, besides, the US cannot force private industry to use US products lest it violates a basic tenet of WTO rules. See DAP.
• Dakota Access Pipeline
• The pipeline had already been built with the exception of the portion that traversed under Lake Oahe, so it did not "create jobs".
• U.S. Material In Pipeline Construction
• Again, this is BS because the US cannot force private industry to use US materials.
• Partnering With Private Sector
• Has not happened, except in the sense that Donald has asked private sector what it wants to be eliminated. Or maybe he's referencing his BS idea of handing over infrastructure to private industry? That hasn't happened either.

"TRADE"

• Withdrawal From The Trans-Pacific Partnership
• Yeah, and you know what happened? China stepped in with FTAs with some of those members of the TPP. Donald wanted leverage over China, so he took the best leverage over China and threw it away. He really is stupid.
• Trade Enforcement
• All talk. They haven't brought a single complaint to the WTO. Seriously, in the three months since taking office, Donald hasn't filed a single WTO complaint. In Obama's final two months, he brought 3 complaints to the WTO, two of which were directed at China. Donald's a real tough guy, he is.
• Comprehensive Reports On The Causes Of U.S. Trade Deficits
• The "plan" is to have reports issued. No report has yet been issued. Of course what this really is, is Donald asking for someone to write his book report for him so that he doesn't have to read a whole book.

"ETHICS"

• Federal Hiring Freeze
• Odd (or rather, hypocritical) to put the hiring freeze under "ethics", especially since the hiring freeze effectively slowed ethics reviews.
• New Ethics Commitments On Political Appointees
• Every incoming administration offers up a new version of ethics rules. What this doesn't tell you is that his EO removed the ethics commitments on other people. So much for draining the swamp.

"NATIONAL SECURITY"

• Strike On Syrian Airfield
• That helped national security, how? We didn't destroy Assad's remaining chemical weapons, now did we? In fact, their own reasoning for the strike was to send a message to not use it on Syrians, not for the sake of US national security.
• Travel Restrictions On Select Countries
• Not. Here's the thing though: If Donald were serious about his "extreme vetting", and, following the second restraining order on his updated EO, you would think that they would be rushing to get that vetting process refined sooner than later. In one month we will have passed the 90-day mark on his original deadline for that "extreme vetting" plan. Apparently, it's not that critical.
• New Iran Sanctions
• Because nothing says we're protecting US national security quite like sanctions on a handful of Iranians. It's not that sanctions aren't effective, but that adding a handful of Iranians to an existing list isn't going to effect stronger national security.
• Defense Spending In Budget
• What budget? The one that hasn't yet been passed? Wait, does this mean that, by merely including defense spending in a budget, Trump is boasting about boosting national security? The bar is so low, it's under water. But wait, because of the Budget Control Act, Donald can't just increase defense spending...it's all BS, really.
• F-35 Cost Savings
• Does not affect national security, all things considered, and the cost savings were already in the works as the next round of procurement was being negotiated. Don't believe me? The Pentagon stated in 2015 that when the plane entered full production in 2018, the price should go down to $85M per plane -- that's lower than what Donald "negotiated". Oh well, so much for cost savings.

"IMMIGRATION"

• Immigration Enforcement, Including Constructing A Wall
• They don't even have the money to pay for design services.
• Sanctuary Cities Funding
• Will be successfully challenged in court under a couple of constitutional sections, and the funding hasn't actually been cut.
• New Hiring To Enforce Immigration
• The EO did not have the power to fund the new hiring; I have no idea where the money is coming from since Congress hasn't passed a spending bill yet. Must be a money tree.
• Prioritizing Criminal Immigration Enforcement And Hiring More Immigration Judges
• Again, EOs don't have the power to fund new hiring; serious criminals were always prioritized under Obama, and by some comparisons, ICE under Obama actually deported more people. What we know is that the Trump folks have gone after DACA folks, even lying about it.

"PUBLIC SAFETY"

• Commission On Opioid Crisis
• Hasn't done anything. As much as everyone would like to see progress on this, Jared's kind of busy with a million things.
• Protecting Law Enforcement Officers Crime
• Hasn't done anything.
• Tackling International Cartels
• Hasn't done anything. This bears repeating: Just because he signed an EO saying that this is what he wanted, doesn't mean that anything has been done. No money.

"HELPING WOMEN AND MINORITIES"

• HBCU Initiative
• The moxie here is astounding. At the same time that Donald's budget proposed cutting federal education money, he's expanding federal bureaucracy to help HBCUs expand enrollment? Huh? Isn't it going to be hard to expand enrollment if you slash grants?
• Canada-United States Council For The Advancement Of Women Entrepreneurs
• Has not done anything, has no money.
• Promoting Women In Entrepreneurship Act
• More moxie. While Donald was proposing to slash NSF science funding, he was also demanding that they support women entrepreneurship in science. In other words, a double-whammy for real science funding as his proposed budget would force the reallocation of research dollars in support of business.
• Women And Space Exploration
• Even more moxie. This one directed NASA to spend its money on encouraging women to enter science-related fields even as his budget squeezed out other NASA programs. His budget proposal didn't even keep up with inflation, but it expanded what NASA was supposed to do.

"SUPREME COURT"

• Nominating And Confirming Gorsuch
• The bar is low with Donald. It's not as though he wasn't going to nominate someone and the only way his nominee was confirmed was through the dismantling of Senate rules.

Do You Enjoy a Good Conspiracy?

There is this guy, Bill Palmer, who has his own website -- the Palmer Report -- dedicated to posting stories that are politically left-leaning. His stories are apparently well-sourced, frequently correct, but he typically inserts opinions as a blogger would. There's nothing wrong with good "shade" and I rather love it, but his site would gather far more support, credence, and readers if he lessened the shade and stuck to what he's discovered.

As far as conspiracy stories go, he's got some really good ones. The biggest conspiracy of them all: RUSSIA.

Conspiracy, here, does not necessarily carry the negative connotation of people running around with tin foil hats, but rather, that a lot of the stories he's breaking involve a group of people conspiring to do bad things. It's still not clear that Russia and the Trump campaign conspired, but the ties are far deeper, wider, and involve criminal activity outside of the campaign.

Journalists are rarely right on all of the facts; likewise, Palmer probably has gotten things wrong. Nonetheless, he seems to be connecting a lot of dots that even some journalists are connecting, leading some news outlets to start pointing links to his site and his stories. He's gained enough cred to at least warrant some attention.

Right now, the thing that is worth tracking is the rumors about why Jason Chaffetz pre-announced that he won't be running for re-election and might quit altogether before his term is up. It's odd that, just months into his new term, he's decided to ambiguously call it quits. There are apparently five reasons: (1) He had a multi-year affair; (2) The Russians have kompromat on his affair and were blackmailing him; (3) The Russians have kompromat on money laundering and were blackmailing him; (4) He's being investigated for campaign finance fraud; (5) Trump wrote him a $10M check for leaking "the Comey letter".

I will state that the only thing that seems plausible is that he cheated on his wife. Chaffetz's excuse -- "spending time with my family" -- is usually code for "I was caught cheating on my wife and now I need to save my marriage and my legacy". Coming from a very religious state, Utah, Chaffetz would imperil his seat, were information about an affair to leak out just before the midterm election. The other stuff is too fanciful for my taste.

A (Hyperbolic) Literal Translation of Next Week's Politics

On Sunday, April 30, 2017, Donald will have survived 100 days in office. Lacking anything substantive -- in fact, failing to accomplish his own, stated goals -- he is now trying to push tax reform, ACA repeal and replace, and deal with the debt ceiling all at the same time. The debt ceiling reaches its hard ceiling -- the point where the federal government must shut down -- on Saturday, April 29.

So what's Donald's big deal on the debt ceiling? To demand that Democrats fund his Wall in exchange for CSR payments for the ACA. This is a hair-brained scheme, ransoming the economy and health insurance rates for millions of Americans, so that he can build his Wall, effectively telling America that the only thing stopping him from destroying America are Democrats.

We know how this ends. (See the previous post on Donald's 5-point foreign policy)

The Most Pleasing Places to Be Stung

The inquiry begins with a question, "Where do stings hurt the most?"

But as you likely already know, pain triggers chemicals in the brain that can also be associated with pleasure. Hence, a modest modification to the pain map, that instead, becomes the pleasure map.

The astute connoisseur of pleasure will note that nothing short of 6 is worthy of consideration.

The 5 Principles of Trump's Foreign Policy

Sun Tzu had 6 principles to apply in The Art of War, but Donald is efficient and requires only 5.

After much observation and thought, I have been able to expertly dissect and whittle down the 5 underlying principles of the Trump Administration's foreign policy, in this highly specific order:

• Fuck up everything
• Point finger away
• Make shit up
• Blame media
• Change subject.

Note: These highly rigorous principles of foreign policy happen to apply to other subjects that the Administration faces.

10 Things I Did to Procrastinate on Tax Day

Taxes are due today. I procrastinated. Today. Here are the 5 things I did to procrastinate in the last 24 +/- hours:

1. Replace Disposal Unit: The other week Amazon had a one-day amazing deal on garbage disposals, so I finally ordered one to replace the current one that was dead. It arrived last week, but I put it off. Last night I installed it, and since it required unscrewing the drain pipes, I cleaned out the pipes leading into the wall. The disposal is an E-Z Mount system, and it really was easy, but it required pulling out the old disposal that was mounted the traditional method, and I had to scrape off the dried portions of plumber's putty. The E-Z Mount comes with a very thin rubber gasket and I wasn't sure if it'd work with my cast-iron/ceramic sink, but it worked just fine. The ended up brushing out (old toothbrush) the sides of the cast-iron pipe wall connection too, which was extremely nasty -- probably why my drainage had slowed down over the years. Time: 2 1/2 hours.
2. Cleaned Out Under Sink: I figured that since I was replacing the disposal unit I might as well clean the underside area. I consolidated stuff and cut out a liner for the floor -- something I'd been meaning to do for years but just never got around to it. Reorganizing, I discovered that bottle of dishwasher rinsing agent I'd gotten years ago from Costco, and thought that I'd run out when in reality it was hiding way in the back of the cabinet. I also found a box of SOS steel wool soap pads with 7 pads left, which has gotten me excited about the idea of scrubbing down my stainless steel pots and pans. Time: 1/2 hour.
3. Laundry: Two loads, whites and lights separated from colors and manmade materials. Why not? Time: 2 concurrent hours with disposal replacement.
4. NASA 360° Video: United Launch Alliance (ULA) had a rocket launch Tuesday morning from NASA's Cape Canaveral, video-streamed in 360°. I grabbed my Google Cardboard and my phone and watched the final 2 minutes in immersive 360°, but I started streaming the countdown from 30 minutes earlier. Time: 3/4 hour.
5. Pokemon Go: Walked late last night, playing Pokemon Go to collect monsters while the Easter event was still running (through 1pm Pacific, April 20). I hit level 27 on Sunday night, and I've set a goal to hit level 28 before the Easter event ends. I'm probably going to fall a little short of that, but that's okay, considering how much I've milked it. Time: 1 1/2 hours.
6. Political News: When in doubt, browse the internet for political news. This morning is mostly light reading: Donald had to be prodded by Melania to put his hand on his chest during the National Anthem at the WH Easter Egg event yesterday; Donald continues his warpath insisting that he's done all these great things in his time in office, despite any meaningful work to help out the voters who supported him; people are greatly concerned with the instability of Donald and North Korea, scratching their heads on why his administration talked up the move to send a carrier group to Korea, only to have the media discover that in fact, they sailed in the opposite direction towards the Philippines. Oh, and tracked Jon Ossoff results for the first hour. Time: 1 1/2 hours.
7. Tech News: When political news is light, read tech news. Sadly, tech news is mostly light reading this morning, too: Google rolled out a major update to Google Earth; Facebook had a bunch of announcements at their F8 conference but because I don't do FB I simply ignored it all. Time: 1/2 hour.
8. Talked on the Phone: To be fair, I didn't call anyone, they called me. Come to think of it, I almost never call anyone. Time: 2 1/2 hours.
9. Watched the News: I watched the local, national and PBS News Hour. PBS News Hour streams live at 3:00 pm in the west -- this is what I watch -- so I get to see the flaws that most west coast folks don't get to see. Time: 2 hours.
10. Baked Muffins: Yep, I made muffins from scratch. Blueberry. I've never actually followed any recipe for muffins, instead, just sort of making it up as I go along. I have three variations: Blueberry, cranberry, and candied fruit -- yes the candied fruit you normally put into fruitcake. It doesn't actually take very long, though, and the procrastination crosses over into other stuff while baking. Time: 1/2 hour.

Alas, I ran out of things that were more interesting to do than my taxes. I finished early, too. I was done just over 1 hour ago so I took a short nap before I finished this post. What's the world coming to, when I get my taxes done before 10 pm on Tax Day?

Rent Control is NOT a Good Choice

The City of Portland has occasionally dabbled in the idea of rent control, but the most recent housing bust and consequential rental squeeze have pushed many to demand rent control in Portland. I understand the frustration of seeing rents rise double-digits annually and feeling forced out. But rent control is a bad idea.

Let me back up a bit. Price controls, generally (except in temporary cases), are a terrible idea, and rent control is merely one form of price controls. It is a Socialistic system of treating private goods as those of public, creating distortions between supply and demand in what is otherwise a Capitalistic model. There is a case to be made for temporary price controls, but laws at the local level rarely have sunset provisions in them, and more often than not, people see the positive front end of price controls and believe that it should be applied forward indefinitely. Worse, once the negative effects are fully in place, governments usually react by addressing the effects rather than the cause. 

When the subject comes up, I always relate my experience of Santa Monica in the early 90s, but for a change, I offer up Alex Tabarrok's post from today:

Walking around Mumbai it’s common to see some lovely, older buildings (circa 1920s perhaps) that are in a great state of disrepair. A well maintained building can last for hundreds of years so why are these buildings falling apart? The answer is rent control. Bombay passed a rent control act in 1947 that froze rents at 1940 levels. 

More than fifty years later, rents remained frozen at 1940 levels. It wasn’t until 1999 that the Act was modified slightly to lift controls on some new construction and to allow rent increases of 4% per year. After a fifty two year freeze, however, a 4% increase was a pittance. Thus, even today there are thousands of flats where tenants are paying rents of 400-500 rupees a month (that’s $6 to $8 a month!)–far, far below market rates. 

The rent control law meant that there was virtually no construction of rental housing (WP) for decades and a slowly dilapidating housing stock. (Ironically, the only free market in rental housing is in the slums.)

This is obviously the extreme case of price controls but my Santa Monica experience falls in line with this. Prior to leaving Southern California, you had to sign up on a 2-year waiting list to find an apartment to rent and all of the apartment buildings were 20+ years old. Over time, Santa Monica changed the laws in favor of a less-strict rent control, which was followed by a rush of new residential development.

It is a cautionary tale, I would hope, but the inevitable follow-up question is, "Yeah, but what do we do about the rent increases?" The answer depends on whether or not you believe gentrification is a net-positive or a net-negative -- if net-negative, then you're going to love Mumbai and I have no solutions for you; if net-positive, then I say redirect the Portland Development Commission (PDC) to focus on targeted rental rate apartment development.

That is to say, offer up money to create new apartment buildings that cap rental rates for X-number of years, in exchange for guaranteeing X% profit for development and ROI% during those X-number of years in the agreement. Take the risk out of affordable apartment development and you'll get people interested quickly. Do any number of similar things, but not rent control. If you pass rent control in Portland, it is in the periphery cities where housing will grow -- in that case, wait for me to move to Beaverton, then pass rent control in Portland. :D

5 Thoughts on UA 3411

1. Bad People Don't Have the Same Rights: There were some news media outlets that had taken to describing the negative aspects of the victim's background. Think about it: They're essentially saying that there are circumstances where it could have been okay to forcibly extricate a passenger and in the process give him a concussion, a broken nose, and cracked teeth. This arbitrary line demarcating the rights of people apparently comes at a low bar: Getting into trouble with the law. Speeding tickets? You're a bad person who doesn't enjoy the same rights as everyone else!
2. Blame Versus Responsibility: It's always easier to blame someone or something than to take responsibility. UAL's CEO initially blamed the victim likely because -- and you know it's true -- that's what their own employees said was the cause of the issue. If you're a flight attendant or gate agent, are you really going to take one for the team and accept responsibility? Not your problem -- you were following the guidelines that were written out by corporate, amirite? Nobody stepped in during the confrontation, as a result, to prevent the escalation of events. It's the same reason why United got a lot of bad press over a non-rev the previous week.
3. Culture: Years ago, I had booked a one-stop flight to Hawai'i on United because it was $100 cheaper. The first leg was a code-share flight with a regional airline but was postponed for four hours because of some mechanical issue. I ran all the way from one gate to the next and missed the plane by five minutes at the most, as I could see it taxiing out in front of me. That really pissed me off because (A) since they were code-shared, the folks in the first plane should have alerted the second to hold, and (B) they didn't even offer so much of a voucher for a free flight for their failure. That wasn't the first time I'd felt that United had a lousy culture of not caring, but it was the last time I flew them. Even if they're the cheapest flight, I will not fly with United. Granted, this may simply be confirmation bias, but I haven't had a bad flying incident ever since then.
4. Cheap and Stupid: The system of overbooking and offering vouchers is actually an economist's take -- specifically Julian Simon --on how to create efficiencies. It increases revenue and maximizes carrying capacity of airports and airline routes. In practice, you would never want a cap on vouchers, but that's where United's case highlights cheap and stupid. If they hadn't cheapened out, eventually they would have found people willing to take the cash. Instead, they stopped at $1,000. That's stupid because if they weren't willing to spend more than $1000 on a volunteer they could have simply booked their employees for later flights on other airlines for far less, then given them a split on the remaining money of the $1000 and still saved money. Now, they're facing a civil lawsuit and losses valued in the millions.
5. No One Stood Up and Yelled, "STOP!": From all of the people using their phones to record video of the event, you can hear a handful of people pleading for the confrontation to stop, but you don't hear anyone standing up and yelling, "STOP!" People were outraged and they wanted to step up and intervene, but they didn't. Just prior to his concussion the passenger was screaming, as if in pain, and not a single person attempted to intercede and end the incident. You'd like to think that you are better than that, but my experiences say otherwise. The vast majority of people are passive, complacent, or fearful, particularly in the face of someone with authority. I understand. I used to be that way a long time ago, I even wrote about the regrets from my inaction of my earlier years. When you stand up, your action informs and prevents others from ignoring their moral conscience. Stand up.

Donald is Forcing Government to Lie to Americans

Read this excerpt from Politico:

On Monday, the Department of Health and Human Services suggested in a statement to The New York Times that the administration might continue the payments. On Tuesday, however, HHS condemned the report and said no decision has been made.

Two administration officials said the HHS rebuttal was personally ordered by an incensed Trump, who feared that the Times story hurt his negotiating position. Trump took the unusual step of calling HHS Secretary Tom Price to dictate a blistering statement that challenged the story and swiped at Democrats, one senior administration official said.

Aside from the fact that he has no leverage over Democrats and ignoring the reality that he just announced to America that he's the reason why the ACA will fail, it's scary that he's deliberately forcing others in government to lie for him.

That's on top of the fact that Donald tried to suppress this DHS memo that contradicted his desired outcome. Then there's the whole Devin Nunes unmasking controversy that originated and was fabricated from within the White House, by a group of political operatives recently placed on the government's payroll -- one of which the director of NSC attempted to purge, but was overruled by the White House.

These are dangerous times in America and few people comprehend the threat. Sure, there are a handful of large protests against Donald, but by and large, most people have taken to normalizing him as though the opposition to him is nothing more than expected partisanship.

Donald is an existential threat to the Republic with the risks growing with each passing day.

#RESIST

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An Update:

Did the White House direct the Secretary of Defense to lie about the location of the USS Carl Vinson carrier group? The Department of Defense's transcripts of Sec. Mattis' response is noted by the clarification that directly contradicts what Mattis said:

SEC. MATTIS: I believe it’s because she was originally headed in one direction for an exercise, and we canceled our role in that exercise, and that’s what became public. We had to explain why she wasn’t in that exercise. [Sic: The ship’s port visit to Fremantle, Australia, was cancelled; the exercise with the Royal Australian navy is proceeding as planned.]

The green section above indicates what the Department of Defense added, while the red portion highlights what Sec. Mattis actually said.

5 Thoughts on Donald's Tomahawk Strike Against Syria

1. Costs: You're going to read a lot of bullshit about the costs, from as low as $250K per missile. Don't believe them. If the Navy gives a figure south of $1M per missile, don't believe them either. The number is much more than that. Here's the Department of Defense's own acquisition requests (most recent request, 2017) through the past few years, and their cost per unit:
   FY 2013: $293.6M / 196 units = $1.5M / missile
   FY 2014: $312.5M / 196 units = $1.6M / missile
   FY 2015: $317.5M / 243 units = $1.3M / missile
   FY 2016: $202.3M / 149 units = $1.36M / missile
   FY 2017: $186.9M / 100 units = $1.87M / missile (requested)
2. Hypocrisy: It's inescapable, that Donald is the biggest hypocrite in the world. Back when President Obama drew a red line in the sand, Donald said that we should stay out of Syria and that Obama needed to get congressional approval for air strikes against Syria -- a declaration of war, essentially. Jump forward 4 years and Donald is getting into Syria and without congressional approval. Why the hypocrisy? Because of two things: Armchair quarterbacking and an incoherent policy -- the next two items on this list.
3. Armchair Quarterbacking: This is one-half of why Donald's hypocrisy has been exposed. It's easy to be an armchair quarterback when you don't have the responsibilities of the Oval Office. It's an entirely different situation when you're in the Oval Office and you're actually presented threat response options and you have to take responsibility for your actions. We all sit at home and armchair quarterback, but Donald's actions are made substantially worse by his disinterest in the details and their nuances -- he can't see past the first play.
4. Incoherency Driven by Emotional Knee-Jerk: For the moment, put aside whether or not you support a military response to the sarin gas attack by Syria on its own people. The biggest problem here is that Donald's response showed an incoherent foreign policy that was driven by an emotional knee-jerk response to seeing dead and suffering children from the sarin gas attack, fueled by his ego of having the most powerful weapons at his disposal. Today, it's not that big of a problem. Tomorrow, it will destroy America's name and prestige around the world as that chaos is further unleashed through ill-considered decisions and a low-threshold trigger finger.
5. I Would Have Supported Air Strikes, But...: Think about how stupid his actions were. They did not "degrade" Syria's ability to deliver chemical weapons attacks one bit. Airstrips can easily be repaired and planes replaced within a matter of a week. He didn't have an actual plan in place to go after the chemical weapons, either. The attack wasn't overwhelming, either, with the target just a single air base. So now, all he's done is poked the hornet's nest without thinking through how the hornets will react. He asked the military to come up with a set of quick-strike options and that's all he got. His level of cognition is pathetically low and a danger to America. It's okay to be this dumb if you're in charge of a business, but not when you're the Commander in Chief of the armed forces of the most powerful military in the world.

Russia: It's Illegal to Share Gay Putin Clown Images

My meager contribution to this serious issue.

Republicans Still Can't Figure Out Healthcare Reform

There's just no way Republicans can pass the AHCA in any revision dreamt up by Republicans. The dynamics have never changed; you still have the Establishment vs the Freedom Caucus vs the Moderates.

Look at KFF's poll. Notice how 39% of Republicans thought that it was a good thing the AHCA didn't pass?

Their current plan, in an appeal to the Freedom Caucus, is to allow states to waive ACA requirements they do not want, whether it is coverage for essential health benefits or the ban on pre-existing conditions, etc. That's not going to go over well with the moderate House Republicans whose seats are the most vulnerable.

Senator Rand Paul's plan is to keep the ACA in place but to reduce the subsidies, which is probably the worst idea of them all as the beneficiaries of the ACA -- the poorest -- will thus see their out of pocket costs rise and does nothing to expand competition.

The one thing they could put into the AHCA, and therefore allow them to glom on every Freedom Caucus idea in order to pass the bill, is the one idea that Democrats want above all else: Public Option. You can go all the way back to the start of the healthcare reform discussions in 2009 and find the Public Option as the preferred goal of Democrats. The Public Option doesn't need to require an entirely new system to be built; in areas where there were no market plans available, people would be allowed to buy / subsidize their way into Medicare. In markets where competition is limited, you could allow for a buy-in to Medicare Advantage (where private insurers manage the plan).

Short of the Public Option, Republicans are left to fighting amongst themselves, leaving no chances of the AHCA passing in any modified form they come up with.

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ADD:

The bottom line for Republicans: Modify the ACA to make it work, not to replace it, or else you'll be replaced.

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ADD2: Cough, cough [told you so] cough, cough: "Centrists push back on new ObamaCare repeal plan"

This choice quote from Paul Ryan: "We’re at the concept stage right now."

This, coming from the guy who offered up the AHCA and tried to rush it through to a vote without CBO scoring. It seems obvious, Ryan has always been stuck in the "concept stage".

Hurry: April 1st H&R Block Tax Software Price Drop

I never do my taxes early, unless you count the day before they're due as early. Having said that, I set up price tracking on the version of H&R Block Tax software that I use, via The Tracktor, and it notified me today that the price had dropped.

The Deluxe version (no state) if you're crazy enough to buy it at a brick and mortar store, is usually priced at $34.99. At Amazon, the price fluctuates from $19.99 to $24.99, but very rarely lower. I missed out on the previous discounts at $19.99, so I set up sub-$20 price tracking; lo and behold, I got an even better price!
$13.99!


Oregon's equivalent of the federal 1040 is extremely simple, so I never get the Federal+State, but that's also discounted. I'd rather have two coffees and two donuts than spend the extra $6.
$19.99



Their Premium+State version is directed at those who are self-employed and rental property owners, but the Deluxe one that I use essentially covers those items. The primary difference between the Deluxe and Premium when it comes to self-employment is that you need to figure out your own SE Tax, print, and send it yourself, finding the info on the IRS' website yourself. It's not that hard.

Still, I get it, people hate having to spend time navigating and figuring out the SE Tax on their own, so that's why they get the Premium version. It saves you about 1/2 - 1 hour.

$29.99



There's a Premium+Business, but let's be honest here, if you have a business and the Deluxe version is inadequate, you probably need to step up and get yourself an accountant.

If you're even thinking about buying the basic version, don't. Just use the free, online version.

One last note: This offer ends tonight at Midnight, meaning that on April 2, 12:00.01 am is too late.