Almost Classical

Facebook "memes" are among the least and most effective rhetorical devices in use. They are ineffective at changing ideas or winning arguments. They are extremely effective  at ensuring your community perceives you as a loyal member, and they reinforce the dominant values and positions in the community. The memes get more and more extreme as people seek to prove just how much they hate the opposing camp. The claims about the values and authenticity of the opposition also trend towards absolute dismissal and discounting of any genuine differences. Republicans become thugs and fascists. Democrats become communists. Both sides argue the other represents "real" fascist and authoritarianism. The reality is, there aren't many radicals in the United States. Most voters are centrists. Social media posts from left and right are demonstrating absolutist stupidity in many of these threads. Conservatives and libertarians are neither extreme anarchists nor fascists....

By November 7, 2016, a swollen spinal cord was making it nearly impossible for me to sit, walk, drive, or even rest. The next morning, my wife managed to get me to the urgent care center at our physician's office. His staff called in the doctor, who sent me off to the emergency room. Election day was spent with morphine, Percocet, an MRI, and a really bad reaction to the mix of painkillers and pain. My wife still stopped by the polling station on the way home from the ER that afternoon and we both voted. It was the most painful election ever. Worse than the election has been the days following. This is my own fault. I've been stuck in bed, on painkillers. Unable to type on my laptop, unable to sit and read for any sustained period of time, I have been consuming social media. Normally, I would have been outside during the daylight hours (four more decorative grasses to plant) and watching movies for my MFA classes. Instead, my semi-lucid moments were spent reading th...

This campaign season in the United States is already producing some meme myths on social media. One I keep seeing is the "90% tax rate" myth. Often, the responses prove people don't understand the marginal rate system of the U.S. income tax. Another meme that does reflect marginal rates claims there was a 70 percent effective tax rate. That's not quite reality, either, though. (It is, and it isn't, as I'll try to explain.) The most popular blog posts on Almost Classical remains The 90% Tax Rate Myth , in which I explain effective rates vs. top marginal rates and the relative stability of top rates excluding outliers of less than 10 tax filers. That’s necessary because some of the “top tax rates” would have applied to… ONE PERSON . As I wrote in that old post: As a result of deductions and exclusions, even the theoretical maximum Real Rate of taxation at 60% in 1944 overstates taxation dramatically. The reality? On earned income, the richest U.S. taxpayer...

[NOTE Augusut 8, 2017:  The marginal and effective U.S. Tax rates mentioned in this 2011 post have been supported by research conducted by Thomas Piketty (Paris School of Economics), Emmanuel Saez (UC Berkeley and NBER), and Gabriel Zucman (UC Berkeley and NBER). These economic researchers are well-respected by progressives. Data are data, though we differ on interpretations. "Income" vs. "Wealth" presents much of the challenge, as wealth accumulates but is not taxed in the United States. Distributional National Accounts:  Methods and Estimates for the United States published July 6, 2017, includes the following table: As the table shows, the effective tax rate for the top 1 percent peaked at 45 percent of income in 1944-45. Unfortunately, the overall revenue intake of the United States kept growing and the burden has been falling most on the bottom 50 percent. Tax increases on the middle and lower classes reduce potential economic growth since...