Why America Needs Weapons Control: Part I - Reason

Recently, I reluctantly found myself in a discussion about weapons control with an ardent supporter of "gun rights."  It was at times tense, as three people present supported weapons control, and only one claimed to not.  During the discussion, I rarely argued against the statements of the pro-weapons side, instead trying to understand what the solutions are to the obvious problems, rather than disputing difficult to understand "facts."  In the weeks afterwards, I have given this discussion a fair amount of thought, and I have been exposed to a fair amount of media about firearms in America.  I would not say that my views have changed on the subject, but the some of my observations have been enhanced.

First, on the topic of the weapons control, and where I agreed with some of the ideas of the weapons advocate side.  The person, who will remain anonymous since their views are represented only through my interpretation, supported holding weapons owners responsible for actions carried out with their weapons, supported more stringent requirements for concealed carry permits, and considered liability insurance requirements for weapons, provided it was not handed down from the government.  I would include all of those things under the broad umbrella of weapons control, but the weapons advocate did not, so it seems to me that one of the major problems are the words "gun control."  So by a name other than gun control, we agreed that carrying a concealed weapon should require more training than giving CPR.

I did not seek to use numbers in the discussion, just the American experience.  For those of you who were wondering why fully automatic weapons are not readily available in this country, the answer is Bonnie and Clyde.  Today these bandits are probably better known for the Hollywood movie than for their actual crimes, but during their time their crimes were more infamous than the yet to be made movie.  Their story is actually heartbreaking because one has to wonder if the State of Texas had protected Clyde from being raped and beaten in prison if he would have gone on the killing spree in the first place.  For me, Bonnie and Clyde is an important lesson in the need for people to be civil, but I digress from weapons control.  Bonnie and Clyde famously used fully automatic weapons.  The US government, in response to the incidents, made ownership of fully automatic weapons difficult and costly, such that fewer and fewer people owned these weapons.  Along the lines of 50 years after Bonnie and Clyde, the US effectively banned fully automatic weapons (they can still be owned, but for our purposes, I think it is safe to say they have been banned).  Today, nearly 8 decades after their deaths, and with nearly 8 decades of heavy regulation of automatic weapons, very few crimes are committed using these weapons.  In fact, I do not think I can name a mass shooting that has been carried out using an automatic weapon in recent times.  The list of mass shootings carried out by semi-automatic weapons is astonishing.  In fact, not just mass shootings, but firearm crime in general seems largely perpetrated using semi-automatic handguns.  Thus, when we regulate firearms with legislation like the assault weapons ban, it seems that we are not regulating for today, tomorrow, or ten years from now, but for the lives of people living 100 years from now.  I think Americans have solidly proven that weapons control works.

In the face of this argument, the only response is hiding in numbers, which is what the NRA does, and what my debate opponent did.  The most popular number, currently, seems to be that since 2006 weapons sales in Virginia have increased, and violent crime has decreased.  Finding the actual numbers is really difficult.  Finding numbers that are phony and confuse the issue is easy.  An example of phony numbers is an infographic that divides violent crime incidence by percent of households with loaded weapons.  Violent crime incidence ranges from 100-800 per 100,000, and percent of households with loaded weapons ranges from 1 to 13%.  If, purely hypothetically, one state had a violent crime rate of 100 and 1% of households had loaded weapons this method would return 100 units.  A state with a violent crime rate of 800 with 13% of homes containing a loaded weapon would return 62.  According to this analysis, it is safer to live in a highly armed state with a high violent crime rate, than it is to live in a state with few weapons and a low violent crime rate.  The person making this argument is either stupid or a liar, to combat cynicism, I will just call them stupid.  These fake numbers do not shed any light of the NRA's well-armed home state of Virginia, and the gun sales versus violent crime business (Virginia is twice as armed as Vermont, with a crime rate high enough that, even by the stupid analysis, is more dangerous than Vermont).

To begin, I think it is informative to discuss the time period.  The decreasing violent crime and increasing weapons sales statistic is from 2006 to 2011.  In 2007, in Virginia, 32 people were killed in a mass shooting at Virginia Tech.  I do not think that the deadliest mass shooting at institution of learning ("school shooting") makes a good baseline for normalcy.  In fact, I think it would be much more informative to look at longer records for both.  Finding records for weapons sales is extremely difficult, since it is not tabulated by any agency, but it does seem that weapons sales surge every time a democrat is elected.  Finding records for violent crime is fairly easy.

In the United States, violent crime has been decreasing since 1991.  Regardless of this peak, the US murder rate, according to Claude Fischer, has declined since colonial times.  Admittedly things get tricky going back to the beginning of the country, so focusing on the current decline in crime makes sense, beginning with the peak in 1991.  There are many explanations for this decline.  Police presence has increased, lead exposure in children has declined, prison population has increased, and abortion was legalized (Roe v. Wade was 1973, but the unwanted children who were aborted under the American freedom of choice would not become criminals for say, about 18 years).  It is a complex problem with no clear answer, yet the NRA, and the person I was discussing this issue with, fully embrace that the reduction in crime in Virginia over the last five years is related only to increased weapons sales.  This seems unlikely.

At one point during the discussion the weapons advocate was asked if they wanted children and teachers they knew to have to go to a school where they were safe only through the presence of more weapons, and to their credit, they answered yes.  I am not sure what has happened to "family values," but wanting children to be educated in a war zone does not seem to fit the idea of loving nurture.  In fact, from my understanding of the Secret Service's analysis of school shootings and successful intervention/prevention of school shootings, the most important factors are not armed guards and metal detectors, but making students feel welcome, appreciated, listened to, and, dare I say, loved.  While I have no desire to slander the brave men and women who protect this country at home and abroad, I have never felt love and acceptance from people who are armed.

A prime example of my lack of trust for armed protectors did not become obvious to me until I began to spend significant time in other nations.  When traveling in unfamiliar places, one will become lost.  I have, numerous times, asked unarmed police officers for help, and I have always been treated with respect, and felt welcome and appreciated by unarmed police.  I have never felt comfortable asking armed police for directions.  In Chile, I encountered two types of federal police, friendly, approachable, unarmed police who helped me more than once find my way, and intimidating, unapproachable, heavily armed police who I avoided as if they were gangsters.  This was the same country, the same police force, presumably the same training, and the armed ones made me take chances being lost in clearly unsavory neighborhoods, rather than asking for help.  All of these police have been on foot, making them very accessible.  In the US police are almost always armed, and when they are not in armored cars, they are often astride horses.  Horse or car, these police are physically difficult to approach, and armed.  I have never approached an American police officer for help.  Given my reaction to armed compared to unarmed police, the very suggestion of putting weapons in schools gives me the chills.

In fact, I find it unimaginable to have weapons in schools for other reasons.  I will come back to the obvious one that children and tools capable of causing death do not mix.  I will begin by stating that in Junior High one of my teachers pulled a knife on me.  He was trying to prove a point, because he had heard that in another class I had mentioned that one has to try to think about situations other than your own when trying to understand gun control.  He decided that my Constitutional right to free speech and my right to a safe school environment was less important than his right to declare the Constitution 27 words long.  This teacher pulled out a knife, and proceeded to point the knife at me, and say "what if I was coming at you with a knife"?  Escaping him, apparently, was that he was "coming at me with a knife," and I peacefully responded.  He then decided I should be the attacker, and tried to make me take his knife, I refused.  The teacher did not lose his job, nor was he reprimanded, and perhaps if there were an unarmed police officer I would have felt safe enough to ask for help.  In my mind though, I ask the question, "what if he had a firearm"?  Most teachers do not threaten their students with weapons, but I experienced one who did, and I think we should carefully consider what it means to put firearms in the classroom.

My discussion partner found it unimaginable that I would find armed individuals more intimidating than unarmed people.  He said that schools would be safer with firearms.  I asked how he imagined paying for all of these armed officers in schools, he said you could find plenty of qualified volunteers.  In fact, one school did that.  After the Newtown tragedy, a school, I forget where, recruited a retired police officer and firearms safety instructor to patrol the halls, armed.  The new security measure left his weapon unattended in a restroom, accessible to children.  No child found the weapon, and no one was hurt, but certainly it proves the point that firearms do not belong in schools.  The weapons advocate was unimpressed.

Weeks after this talk, I would watch a massive manhunt for a former LAPD officer and military member in Southern California on the news.  As the death toll rose, and the cost to tax payers to keep people safe from someone who was not only a law-abiding citizen (up to the point he stopped abiding laws), but a trained protector of the weak, I could not help but recall what the qualifications the weapons advocate said could be required to be a volunteer armed guard in a school.  "Former soldiers and police officers" would be more than willing to volunteer for this task I was told.  No background checks, mental health exams, or further control would be necessary.  I could not help but wonder what it would be like if this person had begun his rampage in a school, with a school issued firearm.

This, I think, brings up an important point.  The difference between a law-abiding weapons owner and a criminal is simply breaking the law.  Admittedly, we have different levels of laws in this country.  Most Americans think nothing of speeding, but speed limits are laws, so are any of us truly 100% law abiding?  If one rose up against a law that one deemed unconstitutional, would that person be law abiding?  Everyone is law abiding until they first break the law.  So should the law abiding weapons owner be inconvenienced by the fact that they are making it easier for themselves to become dangerous?  I think so, but what is more important is that finding people who are likely to break the law is extremely challenging.

--Part II - Fear will be posted on Monday 4 March.--

The Hipsters Grow Up

Harry Potter and the new hipsters emerged from the 1990s.  Like everything about hipsters, they appropriated their name from the past.  Like the hipsters from the 1940s, the modern hipster seeks to be different by exactly copying someone else.  I hold no grudge against hipsters, I enjoy many hipster fashions (though tights are not pants), and I can support chic bicycling and (with some griping) fad diets that have made veganism somewhat cool.  Hipsters though, no matter what they want to believe, are growing up.

Emma Watson is no longer a nerdy kid, but the new Natalie Portman, a sex symbol grown into perfection in public view.  Fixed gear bicycles are available made to order for easy consumption.  American Apparel's "local" niche has international stores.  '80's sunglasses can be purchased at 7-Eleven or from Dolce & Gabbana.  If no other proof exists, Macklemore and Ryan Lewis are at number one for their song "Thift Shop."

NPR's All Songs Considered introduced me to Macklemore, and I posted a link to his song, "Same Love," on this blog.  I think "Same Love" is nearly brilliant, and the message resonates with me as well.  The other songs are pop-alternative-hip-hop or whatever the hipsters are calling it these days.  I did not give them too much thought in all honesty.  Then months ago someone at NPR did a piece about "Thrift Shop."

Since it is now at number one, you have probably heard the song, but if you were not paying attention (like me), the premise is that Macklemore (or the narrator anyway) and his friends are buying clothes, gadgets, toys, and society's secondhand gems at a thrift store for cheap.  Macklemore is going to make something unique and cool out of "your grandpa's clothes," and "twenty dollars in [his] pocket."  In the post-recession world, as NPR pointed out, the young simply have no choice but to live in over-crowded run-down flats and shopping at thrift stores to be cool.  Or do they?

If there was no money in hipsters, Macklemore would not be at a Warner Brother's aided number one, and there would not be dozens of stores and brands that cater to them.  Levi's made a pair of red jeans, with reflective hits and an antimicrobial crotch, for riding bicycles, for men.  The hipsters, or at least some of them, have money, and as they grow up, they will have more.

When my brother and sister-in-law (who are not hipsters) bought their first house all they could afford was a 1900's company built house in not quite the right part of town.  It had character and charm, and most importantly, was affordable in a world where the wealthy were getting richer at the expense of newly-wed teachers.  With time, much of that character would wear through to become costly renovations and security alarm installations.  With a baby on the way, they upgraded to a 1980's house with less charm and more fire codes.  I think this is, or will be, happening for the hipsters too.

My brother's family will be happy in their new home.  Their son will be able to play in the yard and walk to school.  They can ride their bikes to the store on nice summer days, but will drive most days.  They have found happiness in the America GM built.

Happiness is elusive, so I am glad they have found it.  I find the suburbs lacking, and at least some of the hipsters do too.  A friend of mine lives in Ballard, a recently chic neighborhood of Seattle where cheap old homes are being razed to accommodate swanky townhouses (hers seems fairly standard as a three-story quad).  Her home is very nice, and hits closer to the mark for me than my brother's house, as she easily walks to shops, the grocery, and restaurants.  Ballard, in all its coolness, lacks public transportation, and while the new townhouses are swanky, they sprout like strange mushrooms along suburban streets.  Even with the rising population density, Ballard still feels suburban.

It seems without exception, Americans, in their big SUVs, cheap petrol, and 3500 calorie diets, love the idea of European cities.  From the sidewalk cafes in Paris to the nonsensical mayhem of Roman streets, the imagination of university students and retirees are captured by city living.  The hipsters dream of a car-free bike-way, where track stands signify greatness, and the Harry Potter kids grew up fantasizing about Diagon Alley.  While I am no Potter expert, it seems that the world of wizards bustles about from the boutiques to meetings at Gringotts, then to the Leaky Cauldron, or Florean Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlor for a treat on foot, rather than car or broom.

Spurring the imaginations of more generations, The Lord of the Rings inspires us to imagine fantasy worlds without cars, and accordingly snug villages and cities.  The Peter Jackson movies emerged early in the 2000s, reinforcing the imagined worlds of car-free urban living.  Since then, George R.R. Martin has captivated the world, and HBO, with tales of Westeros, from crowded keeps to tight villages.  Whether you dream of the steep streets of Minas Tirith, the canals of Bravos, or the magic of Diagon Alley, it seems you dream car-free.  The villages in these books even inspire the tight roads suited more for walking than driving.  For example, Hobbiton is a cluster of hobbit holes within walking distance to the Green Dragon, and Honeydukes Sweetshop in Hogsmeade is within tunneling distance of Hogwarts.

Have I spent some time dreaming of these places, I will admit to such frivolous endeavors, but I have also spent time dreaming of Vancouver's West End, Seattle's Capitol Hill, the Castro in San Francisco, and pretty much all of Portland.  I will use Vancouver for this first example, because pressed up against Stanley Park, one of the finest city parks in all the world, are two neighborhoods.  The West End holds residences dripping with charm and businesses full of local character.  Carving out a toe-hold next to the marina at the entrance to Stanley Park is Coal Harbor.  The flaw of the West End is that among some of the most desirable places in all of Canada, are countless buildings built during explosive growth during architecture's "ugly era" where buildings were built from plans that the Canadians clearly stole from the Soviet Gulag system.  Coal Harbor has none of these buildings.  The giants of this neighborhood are glass-clad carbon copies of one another.  Every building is exactly the same, every road bustles with grey cars hurtling along under overcast skies.  While the grey interiors of the grey-glass buildings built upon parking-garage foundations filled with grey cars has the soul-sucking warmth of Azkaban's Dementors, the flats are swanky, unlike some of those in the West End.

Even with the ugly era buildings lurking about the West End, the neighborhood has character, the streets are quiet, and even though commercial districts are really only two blocks away, you often feel that you are far away from the bustle of the city.  The character and quiet of the West End evolved over decades.  Paris and Rome took centuries to build, and became the dream-inspiring cityscapes of today.  Manhattan, Boston, and Montreal grew out of people's desire for better places to live, not by design.

Modern cities are built, and in pursuit of lowering the bottom line, uniformly and soulless.  Phoenix, Las Vegas, and the metastasized sprawl that GM and the car have infected the world with have become the new standard.  I do not think it is a surprise that art built upon the car-centric city are dystopias.  No one wants to live in the New York of Corban Dallas, nor in Aldous Huxley's Brave New World.  While we may dream of the car of the future, we dread where it will take us.

When the hipsters decide to buy their first homes, some will flee the city like Monica and Chandler in Friends, but I think many will want to find a neighborhood that suits their dreams.  I know I would take Diagon Alley to Ballard, and I would even consider putting up with the wizards for it.  The question is then not where will they live, but who will build it?  Some will move into historic buildings dripping with charm and character, but like my brother's experience, eventually these people will want to live in a place that has wiring fit for a computer, and seismic codes fit for a plate margin.  Some of these historic buildings will be remodeled, others will burn down and be replaced by new ones.  But these districts, in western cities, will still be built along multi-lane streets, choked with cars, rather than alleys packed with cafes bursting with patrons.

In Las Vegas, some people are trying to manufacture these places.  They build shopping malls with expansive parking lots at the edge of town, and top them with high-end residences.  The residents of these shopping malls live within walking distance of the Whole Foods, and the sculpted foam exteriors have the appearance of Italy, Greece, or Brooklyn, but the BMW is in the resident's-only garage, and it shows.  SUVs full of soccer moms crowd the access roads to park near the big box stores with old world facades, which I doubt would fool Macklemore, and his multi-platinum hipsters.

I, along with the hipsters, want real soul.  We want a neighborhood that has local businesses found no where else in the world.  With real estate prices that we can afford, attracting diverse people in diverse fields.  We want students flat mating, yoga teachers in studios so small they require their heightened flexibility to climb into bed, yuppies in lofts, dinks (double-income, no kids) in two-bedroom units, and families in townhouses.  In this cityscape, I could leave my building, which looks somehow unique against all the other buildings, and go to a cafe, bar, shop, grocery, or on a run in the park, without fear of getting hit by a car, because this ideal neighborhood has narrow, car-free streets.

If we stopped dedicating so much public space and public funds to our cars, we could have parks, sidewalk cafes, and cities that make Hermione, Aragorn, and Parisians jealous.  I can identify a growing market for this (aging hipsters, and whatever I am).  I can imagine how this could integrate into an existing city.  I even see a method for accomplishing the design, have an architectural firm design the streets and lots, then have each lot designed by a different architect, just like the natural growth of a city.  What I do not know is how to build this.

If one looks at Bellevue in Seattle, we can see that a separate city can be successful as an offshoot of the main city, Bellevue is simply an over-developed suburb.  In Vancouver residential towers spring up at light rail stops.  Exurbs have erupted from the car culture and the suburban dream.  But all of these things lack soul or creativity.  Without a doubt Bellevue will one day be an suitable place to live for people who like colors other than gray.  At the Simon Fraser University campus the planning committees have created Univercity.  The buildings are mostly blah, the carefully planned businesses are comfortable for a middle aged Canadian, and the streets are designed to sacrifice the lives of school children in the best interest of SUV drivers.  It is a dream of the car, and accordingly, is something of a dystopia.  The hipster students shun the place in favor of grittier neighborhoods with long commutes to school.  They pack organic, free-range, gluten-free lunches to eat while they talk about how environmentally conscientious they are for living in old buildings that leak heat like sieves many miles away from the soulless LEED certified buildings of their campus.  While I certainly grudge their uninformed hypocrisy, I cannot fault them for not wanting to live in Univercity.

From past experience of urban design it would seem that the only way to make a city as interesting as Portland is to let it happen by accident.  As happy an accident as it is, even Portland fails to compare to Minas Tirith (but with plumbing, internet, and bicycles).  With free public transport downtown, and armies of unemployed bike riders, Portland is still plagued with design by and for automobiles.  This is no place for hipsters to settle down and raise a family.  Portland, in all its great American city-ness, is a reminder not of the greatness of the movement, but of the limits of what free people can do in the face of corporations.  Even with all of the Pedalpaloozas and naked bike rides, Portland is still GM's city.

What the aging hipster must do is admit that they want to own their urban dream, and are willing to buy it along with their American Apparel tights, Gap jeans, and designer sun glasses.  They must admit that they can live in any city, but that they need corporate backing to build a car-free, intimate utopia.  Those of us who truly want this lifestyle must look to Macklemore to see, is the thrift shop on Diagon Alley the dream, or does it just bide our time until we have the money to move out to Mercer Island?

Travels with Charlie: In Search of Walden

A problem I have with most philosophical writing is that I often doubt the philosopher really ever thought about human thought.  I will not claim to not suffer from this same problem, but I also do not often claim to understand how people think.  America lacks well known philosophers in the European tradition of philosophy.  Reaching back to undergraduate coursework, I think that Americans tend to be pragmatic.  I do not know much about philosophy from the Americas, but I would hazard a guess that two things permeate the thinking of all those who live on North or South America, Jesus and pragmatism.

While I think it is pretty clear that Jesus is probably the most influential philosopher, tied only with other religious leaders, discussing the role of Jesus in American philosophy is certainly fun, it is a bit like talking about Plato's influence on European philosophy.  It is interesting, but if everyone is influenced by it the discussion only takes you so far, and not quite to a truck named Rocinante.

When I read Thoreau, there were definitely transcendental overtures.  Without society, the farmer would be content with feeding his family.  It is the influence of the wealthy, not the will of ice cutters to engage in their peculiar endeavors to satisfy the desire to have cold in the summer (I am somewhat skeptical on this).  Yet, is someone who fills pages with drivel about the savings of a used window and the nurturing qualities of the sublimely cheap and cultivatable legume really a transcendentalist?  To me, this is the land of pragmatism.  Iterations of method and reasoning until reaching the most intelligent practice.

Pragmatic or transcendental, I cannot help but feel that Thoreau never went to Walden, never built a cabin, and not once did he talk to someone.  Sarah, after listening to people talk about having "been" to a place without leaving the airport, decided that you had to buy dental floss in a place before you had been there.  We have argued endlessly about this.  "What if they do not sell dental floss there, has anyone ever been to Antarctica," I tease her with a smug grin?  I agree with her at times, but I want to "go" to Oklahoma without staying long enough to necessitate buying dental floss (just buying a toiletry every time one travels is apparently cheating).  I think more importantly is going to a place as a blank slate, to allow the place to imprint upon you so you leave the place a new person.  Without intending to throw stones from my glass house, I do not think Thoreau ever considered not judging beforehand a single experience in his writings.

I recall a philosopher, and I want to credit Emerson, with writing ideas along this line.  He asks why one would travel if one brings a decided mind, and leaves unchanged?  I agree with him.  Yet, this is far easier to write than to do.  When I visit Oklahoma I am bound to be unimpressed.  I hope though, that I can be surprised if there are grounds to be surprised.  Like a scientific experiment carried out to verify the results of a previous study, a travel destination may not be unexpected.  In the mundane or expected one can still grow as a person, just as knowledge grows when a previous experiment is verified.

Thoreau, in Walden, does not grow.  He begins by whinging about trains rushing people around, and ends the same way.  He further proves that he is equally susceptible to the corruption of society by leaving his cabin on a pond to pursue new windows and meals priced for experience rather than sustenance.  Inevitably, he walked away changed.  He grew older, and solitude changes people in ways that cannot be anticipated.  Yet, I do not think Walden changed him.

Steinbeck left his vacation home in conflict.  He felt he had lost America, and without judging him too harshly, I would probably agree that when your concern is the sinking of your sailboat the suffering of the masses is far removed from your mind.  In Travels with Charlie though, I find that Charlie is the one who is discovering America.  Steinbeck ensured that he had his comfortable bubble of wealth along with him.  No dog would ever turn down a warm dry bed, but Charlie was unaware that he was insulated from the reality of other dogs or people, he was open to let the smells of each new place imprint upon him an experience with no preconceived ideas.

In Walden and Travels with Charlie, I get the distinct impression that the authors have managed to write the exact same book, and could have written the book without ever leaving their arm chairs.  While Walden is often dull (poor grammar destroys even the best story, it is no wonder that the comma and the novel appeared at about the same time), it is often insightful.  Thoreau also records observations of nature, that are being used to help measure climate change.  Such naturalism could not be recorded from an arm chair, but the ideas certainly could be.  While sitting in a heated home, at a laptop, connected to the internet through a smart phone I can write a passage about how the people who live in this town have been corrupted by society.  They are enslaved by a society that tells them they need a TV, a car, and all the trappings of modernity.  They should be out enjoying the beauty and wonders of nature.  While that statement is hypocritical, I do not need to be out in nature if I have already decided that being in nature is the more noble pursuit.  Travels with Charlie is much more pleasing to read, but in the end, it is more of the same.

Instead, I think Hunter S. Thompson had it more correct.  He went out searching for the American Dream.  In Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, he fails to find it, but I do not think he knew what it was.  He pursued the knowledge without preconceived ideas.  Further, he sought the American Dream, not America.  Without delving too far into Greek philosophy, are there not two things?  Is there not America and the Idea of America?

This, I think, is the important question when talking about these two important American creations.  Searching for America is not possible.  There is no America, only the idea of it.  In its ideal form, America may be many things, but to know America is to know the idea of America.  You cannot find this in an RV, you can only find it in one's mind.  While I cannot point to a particular passage in Travels with Charlie, I was just overcome with the feeling that Steinbeck already had his Idea of America.  He tells his reader that he takes no notes, which, with no disrespect, is a fantastic way for memory to mould reality into what the mind wanted it to be.  While Thoreau took a great deal of notes (though much of Walden was written after leaving the pond, despite Thoreau's claims), his Idea of Walden was so much stronger than his experience of Walden that I do not know that he was actually there.

If I recall correctly from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, at one point Duke and Dr. Gonzo ask a taxi driver to take them to the American Dream.  They are driven to a roller rink in the process of being razed, previously named, "The American Dream."  Obviously there is a lot of imagery at work here, Thompson's lament (or Raoul Duke's, I suppose) is that the counterculture was unable to change America in the way he wanted.  To him, the American Dream was lost.

While I cannot argue that Thompson's Idea of America was my ideal America, he formed an idea of this country through travel and experience.  Gonzo journalism violates the candid observer ideals of standard journalism, but to let something change you, it seems necessary to interact with it.  Swimming is an easy task that most animals seem to manage without years of swimming lessons, but to stop fighting our preconceived ideas about the water, and interact with it is the very essence of swimming.

Like swimming, I think travel is the interaction of a person with a place, and philosophy is the interaction between a person and thought.  The philosopher traveler must interact with people, places, and ideas with the full intention of letting that interaction unhinge their preconceived ideas.  From my reading Thoreau and Steinbeck fail in this regard, and as such, Thoreau never went to Walden Pond and Steinbeck never left his vacation home in New England.

Laffer Curve

In debates about tax rates, so often the Laffer Curve gets invoked.  Two points on the curve are discussed, the 100% tax rate, and the inflection point.  The purpose of the Laffer Curve, as Laffer used it, was to simplify the problem of setting a tax rate.  I appreciate the simplification, as I lack any formal education in economics, beyond Economics for Mining Engineers, which never discussed economic theory, merely rates of return and depreciation.  On the other side of the simplification coin, it makes people think they understand economics when they may not understand as well as they think they do.

Accordingly, I suggest some simple adjustments to the Laffer Curve.  First, rotate it counterclockwise.

For those unfamiliar with the Laffer Curve it plots tax rate against revenue.  The origin of the plot is a 0% tax rate with a $0 revenue.  In real world examples, this is something like Somalia, which, to my knowledge, only Ayn Rand has ever really considered to be a model for the ideal society. The curve climbs the tax rate (x-axis), and accordingly, the government's revenue increases (y-axis).  It is supposedly nonlinear, for reasons I do not entirely understand (could be an issue of scale or to legitimately illustrate an idea).  At some point, say a tax rate of 30-70%, the curve reaches an apex, and revenue begins to decline while tax rates continue to climb.  This inflection point is the ideal tax rate.  When the tax rate hits 100%, the revenue hits $0 again.

The 100%,$0 point is the second most talked about point of the curve (behind the inflection point).  The argument goes that if the government takes 100% of your income you have no motivation to work harder, or really, to work at all.  The economy as we know it shuts down.  People either evade taxes, or barter (e.g. no income) to get what they need.  This is the point where I always want to shout, "POPPYCOCK," whenever someone mentions the Laffer Curve.

If the origin is Somalia, then the 100% tax rate is the ideal communist society.  I do not think Americans are interested in living at either end of the spectrum, but the point is still important.  The Laffer Curve seems to assume that GDP will be affected by tax rates, but government will not be.  This is, of course, ridiculous.  Somalis demand very little of the government that does not exist there.  People who pay low tax rates expect protection (police and military) and infrastructure (roads, power grids, etc.).  More taxes means more social services.  Next would come education, then healthcare, then housing, then food, and finally comforts.  If I commit a bit of Reaganomics heresy, and hold GDP constant (rather than government), the revenue would actually peak at 100% taxation (as a percent of GDP), but government spending would also have to peak to justify the tax rate.

By rotating the Laffer Curve counterclockwise we do introduce a small amount of complexity, but we capture the change in GDP and government.  Looking at all the communist states that have failed to outlast, or achieve greatness, it is pretty convincing that a 100% tax rate would be very bad for GDP, but the state's revenue is not $0!  The debate over the inflection point can still carry on, but the curve would actually start to reflect reality.

This would take the fun out of it for those who like to argue that Ayn Rand had it correct, and that in the case of human comfort, Somalia is second only to the Garden of Eden.  Sooner or later though, you have to eat the apple, and realize that we want to find the inflection point.  In this snipe hunt, there are two sides.  Avoiding the Keynes-Hayek tug-of-war at the inflection point, the argument, to me, comes down to how people budget, and how those budgets affect the economy.

To begin, I offer how I think the "average" person budgets, or wants to budget.  A household makes a given income, and because I am lazy, I will say it $50,000 (I wanted to use $100,000 because it is easier, but the Census has the median household income at $52,762).  In this household, we will say about 20% of the income goes to taxes of various kinds, or $10,000.  An additional 10% will go into savings, $5000.  Insurance easily costs $1000/month (24%). If groceries, gasoline, and other day-to-day expenses cost $1000/month (24%), and rent/mortgage is $900/month (~22%), the budget is totally consumed (yes, this is very simplified).

If that income decreased, savings and (non-government mandated) insurance would probably be the first things to be cut, then incidentals and rent.  If the income increases, then the gains are probably the reverse of the cutting order.  Incidental costs and rent increase before insurance and savings, to a point.  At some point a person is mostly comfortable.  Sure, they could move into a mansion or build a Taj Mahal like mausoleum for eternal comfort, but savings is going to start accounting for a greater and greater percentage of income.  I doubt, for example, that someone who makes ten times as much as I do has ten cell phones just to illustrate their wealth.  I also doubt that on his way to 100 billion dollars Bill Gates blew a trillion dollars at WalMart.

While a personal budget is a bit different than a corporate or government budget (all three take out loans, despite what Paul Ryan will say, just think mortgage), the analogy serves in this case.  In Jet Age, Sam Howe Verhovek credits the development of one of the most important jets ever built, the Boeing 707, to a fascinating thing.  Sure, the Comet beat the 707 to market, so there was competition.  There was also a visionary who saw a market his company could fill.  The post-Reaganomics dance card is full in the story except for one thing.  The Boeing 707 was developed largely owing to high taxes.

Owing to fear of war profiteering, the tax code made it such that a company's profits had to be reasonably comparable to their pre-war profits.  Boeing was a small company that grew tremendously because the market for aircraft grew, but the tax code did not allow for growth.  As such, their new profits would be taxed at a painfully high rate.  They could avoid these high taxes by investing in research and development.  Since R&D is a business expense, they cut corporate profits through reinvestment, or taxable profits anyway.  Given a tax rate of 90%, investing $1 million only costs the company $100,000.  The government, essentially, pays the remaining $900,000.

Conversely, a corporation that is taxed at a very low rate has little incentive to really invest in developing new products.  Certainly they must keep pace with the competition, but take the inverse of Boeing when it built the 707.  If a company is taxed at 10%, investing $1 million causes the share holders to lose $900,000, and the government only kicks in $100,000.  In this case, a low tax rate encourages companies to not hire more people, to not do research and development, to not donate to charities, but to instead, make the wealthiest share holders wealthier.

I acknowledge that a high tax rate probably does discourage corporations from working overly hard.  Boeing thought that the investment in the 707 would pay off, and it did.  It catapulted them from obscurity to eventually become one of only two jetliner manufacturers in the world.  The worry of profiteering waned, and the high tax rate disappeared.  It was a combination of carrot and stick that gave the world jet travel, not just endless carrots.

I propose then that corporate taxes be set fairly low on income that equals some percentage of their expenses. Corporate taxes could even potentially be zero (I question this, but for argument) for profits of up to, say, 20% of expenses (this means you are better investing in your company, then the historical trends of the stock market).  After that, the tax rate would sky rocket to 75% or 90%, any logical CEO would make sure to reinvest that money in their company, raising the 20% untaxed profit, and boosting the economy.  What if the CEO says, "well heck, my salary can increase by 100% of the profit beyond 20%, I do work pretty hard at this job"?  Then we have another issue that is present in this country.

According to this AFLCIO infographic, CEO pay is 380 times their company's average blue collar worker's pay.  In 1980 it was 42 times.  The 1980s were not exactly the best days of the economy, but neither was 2011.  From the same infographic, it seems that when the wealthy get too wealthy by percent of total wealth (e.g. 1929 and 2007) the country is due for imminent disaster.  Coupled with this carrot-and-stick tax scheme, executive pay could be limited by percent of total non-executive pay.  I doubt that running a really big company is harder than running a middle-sized company, but having never done either, I will accept the anti-tax argument that CEOs deserves high pay.  Okay, the bigger one's company's payroll, the bigger one's salary.  I cannot even begin to suggest a pay limit, but in all honesty, is any one employee, including the CEO, really worth 380 other people?  Is being a CEO really that high risk?

In my mind around $5 million dollars in the bank pretty much allows one to never work again, and live more or less comfortably without worry.  If you make just shy of $24 million a year (the average income for the richest 1% of 1% of Americans), if you find yourself out of a job after a year, you are set for life, comfortably.  If, on the other hand, you make $50,000/year, you will never achieve that.  While I appreciate the effort that the titans of industry give us, I cannot help but think that being a Koch brother, with $25 billion of wealth feels much better than making $7.25 an hour (minimum wage).  If the Kochs disagree, I am sure they could find no shortage of people willing to trade.

What does salary have to do with the Laffer Curve?  The Laffer Curve is not looking at the tax rates that individuals would pay, but rather the rate at which revenue is collected from the tax base.  How the tax code is written to achieve that percentage is not represented.  The most simple approach is to put a flat tax on all wealth that is equal to the ideal tax rate on the Laffer Curve.  Flat tax rates do not make sense though, and even my modified Laffer Curve does nothing to elucidate the issue.

Unfortunately, for my previously proposed tax rate complicated tax rules seem to cause a lot of problems.  For example, most Americans would probably object to eliminating the mortgage interest deduction, but this deduction rewards opulence, and taxes the poor.  When politicians argue to eliminate deductions, and broaden the base, I have to set aside my cynicism, and agree.  The problem I see with simplifying the tax code, and incorporating elements that legitimately encourage reinvestment in America is that so many people want to cheat their taxes.  The idea behind deductions is to encourage various sectors of the economy.  When I read tax code, it seems simply evident that the IRS is trying to keep up with people who are trying to game the system.  When I come to that conclusion, I groan, knowing my taxes are more complicated because someone else did not want to pay their fair share.

That is the whole debate when it comes to taxes though.  How do we agree on what each person's fair share is?  I think even Laffer would agree that the curve that bares his name has limited use in the construction of an actual tax system.  I do think the tax code could be improved, and I think raising taxes is the best way for this country to get out of the financial situation that lowering taxes has put us in.

In economics and taxes, even a statement like "raise taxes" seems convoluted.  While I agree that under certain circumstances lowering the rate while cutting deductions could increase revenue.  I might also agree that cutting some taxes may help grow the economy, the argument that cutting taxes increases revenue is silliness that I am getting tired of hearing.  I am also tired of people demanding less government, but demanding more government services (VA benefits and over a decade of war are expensive, requiring Americans to pay their taxes, not complain about them).

Accordingly, I offer an additional change to the Laffer Curve.  Rather than revenue on the y-axis, use GDP.  We know that having no government fails to create meaningful GDP, and we know that 100% taxation limits GDP, though it is probably more than zero.  There is still an inflection point of unknown tax rate where taxation maximizes GDP.  The government maximizing GDP (or coming close to the maximum) would likely increase revenue.  Maximizing GDP would not simply be a result of the tax rate, the tax revenue would have to be used for the benefit of the GDP.

To investigate the revenue-spending situation that best supports the GDP (and hopefully the common good, though that may slightly damage the economy), the modified Laffer Curve must be supplemented with a second curve. The second curve would plot tax rate against the services a government can provide.  Presumably, these curves could be constructed such that the ideal combination would fall at the intersection of the two curves.  Even without them being that eloquent, they would give people a reference, taxing at a given percent could have a given effect on the GDP, and provide these services.  This may help illuminate how much we want taxes to collect.

There will still be those who argue for ever lower taxes.  The modified Laffer curve will also not solve the who to tax issue, or how to find the ideal rate.  It will though, reflect how economics actually work, and maybe help us remember that Boeing shrunk the world because of high taxes, not low.