Wow, this turned out to be a really long one. I guess I had a few points to make.
Once there was a concept called 'The Cloud.' It was such an ephemeral thing that you had to use quotation marks whenever you talked about it. 'The Cloud.' Companies pushed it, and pushed it hard. 'The Cloud.' It was super-premium ice cream and Jesus put together in a cone made of hundred-dollar-bills. You'd be a moron if you didn't get behind 'The Cloud.' And you believed them. Until you thought about it for a moment.
I'm getting pretty damned tired of 'The Cloud.' Imagine me making my own finger quotes whenever I say it. 'The Cloud' (finger quote). It's been marketed like a puppy that makes you grilled cheese sandwiches, who could ever not like 'The Cloud?'
Me. And I'll tell you why.
I'll start with a few personal reasons, then get to a global reason. First, 'The Cloud' is not a thing. It's not a product, it's not a service, it's not anything at all. It's a concept, a computational construct. 'The Cloud' is not something you can point at like you can a real cloud. 'The Cloud' is online storage, just like a web page. 'The Cloud' is hard drive space on servers spread around the world, connected by the Internet.
Does that scare you? It should. 'The Cloud' is just a term for putting your stuff on a set of servers out there... somewhere... Where? Who knows? Is 'The Cloud' in the United States? Could be, but it could also be in Europe. Or Japan. Or Guatemala. Or the Ukraine. Or China. You could be putting your documents - literally - anywhere. 'The Cloud' is in more places that are NOT the US than are, and those places don't have to abide by US laws; some of those places pride themselves on the fact that they don't.
So when you put your documents on 'The Cloud' you are trusting in the discretion and honor of people you don't know, and who are, frankly, not worthy. Any system administrator of each server your documents are stored on has unrestricted access to those documents. They can read them, download them somewhere else, share them, giggle at the pictures, whatever they want to do. That's what being a SysAdmin means, you have complete access to all parts of the system. How many sysadmins are there on 'The Cloud?' No telling, but it's way more people than you'd be comfortable with, I know that.
'But Don, my documents are encrypted,' you say. To which I reply 'Are they? Really? Are you sure?' Like I said, you're trusting in people who don't deserve it. When a Ukrainian identity thief tells you he's encrypted your files chances are pretty good he's just lying. 'What? Anonymous, criminal Internet trolls would lie?' you say. And I reply 'Duh.'
But let's assume the files really are encrypted. So what? Like I said, every sysadmin has unrestricted access to your documents. They can do whatever they want with them, which includes running any number of encryption breakers on them. When the documents are out of your control there's no way to get that control back. Ever.
Think of it this way. You keep your important papers in a safe, in a safety deposit box, a coffee can buried in the back yard, whatever. In those cases, only a very few people a) know where those papers are, and b) know how to get to them. Your SSA card, your passport, your birth certificate, all are under pretty secure lock and key (let's hope). Imagine if you just posted those things on a web site. That's what you're doing when you put things on 'The Cloud.' People will tell you there's a difference, but that difference is only cosmetic, the structure underneath is exactly the same.
Well, those are my personal reasons. Now for the global reason.
When documents are stored out of your control on 'The Cloud' they can be changed.
So what? Well, the push behind 'The Cloud' design is ultimately to store one (1) copy of any document or file. So if you bought an mp4 of 'Love On The Rocks' by Neil 'Awesome' Diamond, there would - ideally - be only one copy that everyone who loved overproduced 70's music would share. You and I would listen not just to the same song but to the same file when we hit play.
BFD, right? Again, so what? Well, that one file would be under the control of someone - an anonymous* someone - who might just not appreciate the genius of The Diamond. They could delete the file, making it gone forever, or, more insidiously, change the file. 'Just pour me a drink and I'll tell you some lies' could easily become 'Just pour me a drink and I'll bake you some pies.'
So I'll ask yet again... so what? What's the big deal?
Imagine if the Constitution weren't on multiple fragile, priceless paper copies. Imagine if it were a single copy online. Or even multiple copies. Some nutjob sysadmin on 'The Cloud' decides (s)he doesn't like the Third Amendment, changes the document so there are now only 9 Amendments in the Bill of Rights, and BOOM! all of a sudden you're forced to quarter troops in your home, and you have nothing to point to that says the law of the land used to say otherwise.
Think that kind of document tampering can't happen? Think it won't happen? Think it hasn't already happened many, many, many times over? You'd better think again.
The fight for liberty in the future is going to be the fight for control of information. The fight for freedom of information. 'The Cloud' is not actually a way to distribute that information. It's designed to be a way to control information and suppress it. I don't trust it, and neither should you.
Don't say I didn't warn you.
*anonymous uncapitalized, meaning unknown, not Anonymous the hacker group. I think Anonymous is probably with me on this topic, at least as much as a loose confederation of unknown individuals can be.
** hey, guess what? Just to prove my point, since I first posted this publicly, I've changed it four times. Do any of you have a record of the original? Of the four changes? Not unless you printed out the first one two hours ago. And if you did print it, please, go outside and get some fresh air.
Saturday, December 31, 2011
Thursday, December 29, 2011
Who Manages The Content Managers?
I heard an interesting point on the radio today. The discussion concerned how little girls are marketed to, the increasing sexualization of younger and younger girls, and how the whole 'princess' meme has taken over. One of the ladies in the discussion made the point that - with 26,000 princess-themed products on the shelves in a year - Disney has changed 'princess' from a choice to a mandate. If there's nothing else in the toy aisle to buy for girls, then you have de facto decided for them that they want to be princesses, even if, deep down, they really would rather not.
It's 100% true. If you've been in a toy store or in a big-box retailer lately, you know about 'the pink aisles.' Everything, and I mean EVERYTHING, is that vibrating vulva-pink that hurts your eyes. Toy companies and retailers have stopped responding to what the customer wants and now are telling the customer what they're going to get. And that's completely wrong.
But this got me to thinking, where is this not already the case? Where, in our modern consumer society, do the marketers not already control what we see and hear? Sure with little girls and princesses it's egregious and over-the-top, but isn't it just the same with fifty-year-old men and Cadillacs? Do you think every fifty-year-old man wants a Cadillac, or is that they believe Cadillac represents a certain arrival, a threshold that says to them they've 'made it?' There's almost no real difference between brands of modern cars, other than one of perception. And marketing.
Or what about new mothers and baby stuff? This is probably more evil than 'the pink aisles' in stores because it exploits a mother's need to do the best for their child, combined with their insecurity and fear that they're not doing enough. New mothers today are bombarded by messages that they are not fit for the title unless they have... fill in the product line here. The properly-branded stroller, or the hypo-allergenic blanket or the BPA-free sippy cup. It's all fantasy, especially when you realize the world got by without any this stuff for the entirety of recorded human history, minus the last five years or so. And yet new mothers forget their own upbringing and respond like robots to the marketers and dutifully buy whatever grotesquely-expensive new thing they're told will make their baby safe and make them the perfect parent.
We're very focused on financial institutions right now, on making sure they never again rape the world like they were allowed to for the past 30 years. But what about these marketing douchebags? I think there's a more sinister, creeping depravity about them, one that undercuts our confidence in ourselves, one that leaves us open to crass manipulation and soulless exploitation. And it's all in the name of making a buck.
These are the bastards we need to watch.
It's 100% true. If you've been in a toy store or in a big-box retailer lately, you know about 'the pink aisles.' Everything, and I mean EVERYTHING, is that vibrating vulva-pink that hurts your eyes. Toy companies and retailers have stopped responding to what the customer wants and now are telling the customer what they're going to get. And that's completely wrong.
But this got me to thinking, where is this not already the case? Where, in our modern consumer society, do the marketers not already control what we see and hear? Sure with little girls and princesses it's egregious and over-the-top, but isn't it just the same with fifty-year-old men and Cadillacs? Do you think every fifty-year-old man wants a Cadillac, or is that they believe Cadillac represents a certain arrival, a threshold that says to them they've 'made it?' There's almost no real difference between brands of modern cars, other than one of perception. And marketing.
Or what about new mothers and baby stuff? This is probably more evil than 'the pink aisles' in stores because it exploits a mother's need to do the best for their child, combined with their insecurity and fear that they're not doing enough. New mothers today are bombarded by messages that they are not fit for the title unless they have... fill in the product line here. The properly-branded stroller, or the hypo-allergenic blanket or the BPA-free sippy cup. It's all fantasy, especially when you realize the world got by without any this stuff for the entirety of recorded human history, minus the last five years or so. And yet new mothers forget their own upbringing and respond like robots to the marketers and dutifully buy whatever grotesquely-expensive new thing they're told will make their baby safe and make them the perfect parent.
We're very focused on financial institutions right now, on making sure they never again rape the world like they were allowed to for the past 30 years. But what about these marketing douchebags? I think there's a more sinister, creeping depravity about them, one that undercuts our confidence in ourselves, one that leaves us open to crass manipulation and soulless exploitation. And it's all in the name of making a buck.
These are the bastards we need to watch.
Thursday, December 22, 2011
The Lie Of The Celtic Tiger
If you were conscious and paying attention from about 2000 to 2007-ish, you heard of the 'Celtic Tiger,' the economic miracle that took Ireland from one of the poorest European countries to one of its richest. At least on paper. The same thing happened to Iceland, though there wasn't a catchy phrase for their boom, probably because Icelandic names are much harder to pronounce than Murphy or Fitzgerald. At least that's my guess.
As we now know, the Celtic Tiger was just another aspect of the huge financial bubble that took over the globe during that time. Ireland didn't make money by selling more goods or services that the world suddenly needed, Ireland made money by selling money. Its citizens fueled the boom by buying more and more stuff they didn't need and by paying for it with money they didn't really have, provided by jobs that should never have existed in the first place and were only there to perpetuate the bubble.
Sound familiar?
The same thing happened here, a housing boom that expanded beyond all reason and a populace eager for more junk to fill their garages before the next subdivision yard sale. The same boom, the same bust. And, currently, the same malaise, with a bunch of people who had been employed finding it impossible to get the same kind of pointless jobs they'd spent years being bad at before. Ireland's economy hasn't 'recovered' because the prosperity was a lie in the first place. So was the United States's. For thirty years we've shipped jobs and cash overseas to have foreigners do things we should have been doing ourselves all along.
How do we get out of it? How do we put people back to work, how do we get back what we never should have given away? I'm not an economist - which I think is a plus in my favor - but it seems to me that the United States has done very well when its citizens do something. Make something. Create something. No more making money by selling money, because ultimately that's a fraud and a sham and doesn't provide anything of value. And, yes, Goldman Sachs, I'm looking your direction when I say that.
We need to manufacture things again.
Before you get all eco-friendly on me, there's absolutely no reason in the Twenty-First Century that manufacturing has to be the kind of thing the Lorax would rail against; we can do things better, smarter, faster, and cleaner than our grandparents did. Easily.
But how do we compete with China? They can do things far cheaper than American companies, right? I submit to you that is also a fraud and a sham. Of course China can produce mardi gras beads cheaper than we can, if they use what is essentially prison labor and compromise quality*.
But save that whole can of worms for another time. The United States needs to become a net exporter again, of physical goods that the rest of the world lines up to buy. We need citizens throwing caution to the wind and starting their own businesses, and we need banks willing to back those visions. And we need a government that isn't in the pocket of a few large multinational corporations but instead supports the people it's supposed to be working on behalf of.
* arguably quality is not all that important for mardi gras beads but you get the idea
As we now know, the Celtic Tiger was just another aspect of the huge financial bubble that took over the globe during that time. Ireland didn't make money by selling more goods or services that the world suddenly needed, Ireland made money by selling money. Its citizens fueled the boom by buying more and more stuff they didn't need and by paying for it with money they didn't really have, provided by jobs that should never have existed in the first place and were only there to perpetuate the bubble.
Sound familiar?
The same thing happened here, a housing boom that expanded beyond all reason and a populace eager for more junk to fill their garages before the next subdivision yard sale. The same boom, the same bust. And, currently, the same malaise, with a bunch of people who had been employed finding it impossible to get the same kind of pointless jobs they'd spent years being bad at before. Ireland's economy hasn't 'recovered' because the prosperity was a lie in the first place. So was the United States's. For thirty years we've shipped jobs and cash overseas to have foreigners do things we should have been doing ourselves all along.
How do we get out of it? How do we put people back to work, how do we get back what we never should have given away? I'm not an economist - which I think is a plus in my favor - but it seems to me that the United States has done very well when its citizens do something. Make something. Create something. No more making money by selling money, because ultimately that's a fraud and a sham and doesn't provide anything of value. And, yes, Goldman Sachs, I'm looking your direction when I say that.
We need to manufacture things again.
Before you get all eco-friendly on me, there's absolutely no reason in the Twenty-First Century that manufacturing has to be the kind of thing the Lorax would rail against; we can do things better, smarter, faster, and cleaner than our grandparents did. Easily.
But how do we compete with China? They can do things far cheaper than American companies, right? I submit to you that is also a fraud and a sham. Of course China can produce mardi gras beads cheaper than we can, if they use what is essentially prison labor and compromise quality*.
But save that whole can of worms for another time. The United States needs to become a net exporter again, of physical goods that the rest of the world lines up to buy. We need citizens throwing caution to the wind and starting their own businesses, and we need banks willing to back those visions. And we need a government that isn't in the pocket of a few large multinational corporations but instead supports the people it's supposed to be working on behalf of.
* arguably quality is not all that important for mardi gras beads but you get the idea
Saturday, December 3, 2011
Stick A Fork In Me, I'm Done
I have bemoaned my impending old-man-hood from time to time, citing the little ways I know that I'm becoming a codger well before I should. I just got my next big sign.
I show up at the bank five minutes before it opens.
This morning I had to deposit my paycheck - I don't use direct deposit in order to control my company's cash flow - but needed to work out first. And I woke up so early I had to wait for the gym to open, but I did that at home. I got my sweat on, slowly since I've been sick lately, and then I got in the truck and rolled bank-ward.
Only after I was nearly there did I realize that the bank might not be open quite yet. It was ten till nine. When I got there, sure enough, the bank doesn't open until 9 AM. So I sat in the parking lot filling out my deposit slip until the nice lady opened the door.
Two guys beat me to the door, both of them well past retirement age. I was standing in line behind white-haired geezers who had been out of the work force longer than I have been in. Yup, just me, the tellers, and two chatty old men who had probably been up three or four hours by that time.
So had I.
I swear, my time is shifting earlier and earlier in the day. I never have slept as long as most people - which used to concern me until I realized that's my normal - but I'm waking up earlier than I ever have before.
Pretty soon I'll be eating dinner at 4:30 PM and trimming my ear hair before I go listen to retirees like the Rolling Stones perform their 'Before We Break A Hip' tour.
It's not a matter of if my transformation will take place, but of how long I have before I start wearing black socks with sneakers and talking to people who aren't there. Maybe next week?
I show up at the bank five minutes before it opens.
This morning I had to deposit my paycheck - I don't use direct deposit in order to control my company's cash flow - but needed to work out first. And I woke up so early I had to wait for the gym to open, but I did that at home. I got my sweat on, slowly since I've been sick lately, and then I got in the truck and rolled bank-ward.
Only after I was nearly there did I realize that the bank might not be open quite yet. It was ten till nine. When I got there, sure enough, the bank doesn't open until 9 AM. So I sat in the parking lot filling out my deposit slip until the nice lady opened the door.
Two guys beat me to the door, both of them well past retirement age. I was standing in line behind white-haired geezers who had been out of the work force longer than I have been in. Yup, just me, the tellers, and two chatty old men who had probably been up three or four hours by that time.
So had I.
I swear, my time is shifting earlier and earlier in the day. I never have slept as long as most people - which used to concern me until I realized that's my normal - but I'm waking up earlier than I ever have before.
Pretty soon I'll be eating dinner at 4:30 PM and trimming my ear hair before I go listen to retirees like the Rolling Stones perform their 'Before We Break A Hip' tour.
It's not a matter of if my transformation will take place, but of how long I have before I start wearing black socks with sneakers and talking to people who aren't there. Maybe next week?
Friday, November 25, 2011
Scam?
I was just witness to a foiled scam. Or to an adult man woefully unfamiliar with the ways of modern commerce. I haven't figured out which yet.
I went to the grocery store, stocked up on fruit and yogurt and picked out a package of the Holiday Oreos.* My minimal needs met I moseyed up to the checkout stand.
The guy in front of me was buying regular groceries - nothing crazy like a barbeque or ninety pounds of meat - nothing odd, nothing out of place. His total came to $39 and change.
Here's where it gets weird. The guy leans in to the cashier and whispers something. She doesn't understand him so he has to repeat himself. Twice.
He wants an $80 grocery gift card. Nothing unusual there, the cards are in easy reach of the cashier. But... he wants to pay for the groceries with the card. And then use the balance to buy gasoline, which this grocery store also offers.
He has not yet purchased the card.
The cashier rings up his purchase, which now comes out to $118, including the $80 gift card. The man starts to become upset. He wants to pay for his $39 of groceries out of the $80 gift card. He does not want to see $118 on the register. And he does not want to pay for the $39 in groceries with the $50 cash in his hand, for some reason. He wants to buy an $80 gift card and pay for the groceries with that.
The cashier is confused, but not so confused she just does what he asks. She calls over a supervisor, who cuts to the heart of the matter. The man cannot pay for groceries with a gift card he has not yet purchased.
At this point the man is upset, though not outraged or even very vocal. The supervisor offers to let him pay for the card first, then he can pay for the groceries once the transaction for the card has gone through. Seems reasonable enough to me, and it seems to be what the man actually wants to do, but by this point he's had enough. He says he doesn't want any of it and storms out, groceries un-bought.
Hmmm...
This man was easily my age, which means he's been buying things at cash registers for well over half his life. I find it hard to believe that he wouldn't get the concept that you have to pay for the gift card first, then pay for your groceries with it. So I'm leaning towards scam.
Yet the optimist in me wants to believe that he just wasn't getting his point across, and when he couldn't explain himself he got frustrated and left. Without the groceries he had shopped for and put through the checkout. And without paying with the cash in his hand.
I think it was a scam, averted by a cashier who refused to be taken in. And yet, you kind of have to admire the guy, trying to get away with something like that in middle of the afternoon. I wonder if this was his first time, or if he's done this kind of thing many times before.
* the creme middle is red, for Christmas. And for one of the days of Kwanzaa, I'm pretty sure.
I went to the grocery store, stocked up on fruit and yogurt and picked out a package of the Holiday Oreos.* My minimal needs met I moseyed up to the checkout stand.
The guy in front of me was buying regular groceries - nothing crazy like a barbeque or ninety pounds of meat - nothing odd, nothing out of place. His total came to $39 and change.
Here's where it gets weird. The guy leans in to the cashier and whispers something. She doesn't understand him so he has to repeat himself. Twice.
He wants an $80 grocery gift card. Nothing unusual there, the cards are in easy reach of the cashier. But... he wants to pay for the groceries with the card. And then use the balance to buy gasoline, which this grocery store also offers.
He has not yet purchased the card.
The cashier rings up his purchase, which now comes out to $118, including the $80 gift card. The man starts to become upset. He wants to pay for his $39 of groceries out of the $80 gift card. He does not want to see $118 on the register. And he does not want to pay for the $39 in groceries with the $50 cash in his hand, for some reason. He wants to buy an $80 gift card and pay for the groceries with that.
The cashier is confused, but not so confused she just does what he asks. She calls over a supervisor, who cuts to the heart of the matter. The man cannot pay for groceries with a gift card he has not yet purchased.
At this point the man is upset, though not outraged or even very vocal. The supervisor offers to let him pay for the card first, then he can pay for the groceries once the transaction for the card has gone through. Seems reasonable enough to me, and it seems to be what the man actually wants to do, but by this point he's had enough. He says he doesn't want any of it and storms out, groceries un-bought.
Hmmm...
This man was easily my age, which means he's been buying things at cash registers for well over half his life. I find it hard to believe that he wouldn't get the concept that you have to pay for the gift card first, then pay for your groceries with it. So I'm leaning towards scam.
Yet the optimist in me wants to believe that he just wasn't getting his point across, and when he couldn't explain himself he got frustrated and left. Without the groceries he had shopped for and put through the checkout. And without paying with the cash in his hand.
I think it was a scam, averted by a cashier who refused to be taken in. And yet, you kind of have to admire the guy, trying to get away with something like that in middle of the afternoon. I wonder if this was his first time, or if he's done this kind of thing many times before.
* the creme middle is red, for Christmas. And for one of the days of Kwanzaa, I'm pretty sure.
Thursday, November 17, 2011
Nobody Likes A Smarty-Pants
To say there is a strong streak of anti-intellectualism in America is to understate the situation drastically. Just a brief listen to any TV news show, any political debate, or - God help us all - any reality show will reveal just how stupid it seems people have become. We get our information in 5-second sound bites, nothing better than topic sentences to 7th-grade term papers and then it's off to something new. It seems that Americans don't like anything too cerebral, they want to lead with their chin and wear their heart on their sleeve and leave the cipherin' to the few pasty pigeon-chested Melvins who aren't burly enough to make it in a man's world. After all, nobody likes a smarty-pants.
And yet... everybody running for President wants to come across as the smartest person in the room. Without putting on airs or using big words. Or being distracted by facts.
It distresses me. And I don't like to be distressed. How can so many people who want to hold the highest office in the land put so little work into actually THINKING about things? Don't you suppose that our President should put some real effort into understanding the way, say, the world economy turns and how that's tied into multi-national conglomerates and rampant political corruption?
If I hired you to run a bakery, I wouldn't necessarily expect you to be a baker, but I would expect you to discover pretty quickly the details of how a bakery works. You'd need to learn fast, you'd need to be able to move from specifics to generalizations fairly easily, you'd need to deal with ambiguity and yet at the same time be able to employ what you already know to make the kind of decisions a bakery manager needs to make to get the dinner rolls out the door. And to do that you'd need to be a fairly smart person.
Why should our President be any different? It's a much bigger job than bakery manager, with much higher stakes. And it's a job that really has no precedent, there's no apprenticeship for the Presidency. It is sui generis (look it up).
We need one of JFK's 'best and brightest' in the Oval Office, not the 'least offensive of a miserable selection.' We need someone who doesn't pretend to have answers to problems they clearly don't understand. We need someone who is willing to listen and learn and use their brains to solve problems. No more talking heads who get their opinions and policies from focus groups.
I'm old enough to remember when ignorant people were ashamed of their ignorance, now dolts and simpletons wear their foolishness like a badge of honor. It's time to chase the trolls back under the bridge. Our nation's founding fathers were the smartest of the smarty-pants of their generation, and we do them and our country and injustice when we accept anything less for ourselves.
And yet... everybody running for President wants to come across as the smartest person in the room. Without putting on airs or using big words. Or being distracted by facts.
It distresses me. And I don't like to be distressed. How can so many people who want to hold the highest office in the land put so little work into actually THINKING about things? Don't you suppose that our President should put some real effort into understanding the way, say, the world economy turns and how that's tied into multi-national conglomerates and rampant political corruption?
If I hired you to run a bakery, I wouldn't necessarily expect you to be a baker, but I would expect you to discover pretty quickly the details of how a bakery works. You'd need to learn fast, you'd need to be able to move from specifics to generalizations fairly easily, you'd need to deal with ambiguity and yet at the same time be able to employ what you already know to make the kind of decisions a bakery manager needs to make to get the dinner rolls out the door. And to do that you'd need to be a fairly smart person.
Why should our President be any different? It's a much bigger job than bakery manager, with much higher stakes. And it's a job that really has no precedent, there's no apprenticeship for the Presidency. It is sui generis (look it up).
We need one of JFK's 'best and brightest' in the Oval Office, not the 'least offensive of a miserable selection.' We need someone who doesn't pretend to have answers to problems they clearly don't understand. We need someone who is willing to listen and learn and use their brains to solve problems. No more talking heads who get their opinions and policies from focus groups.
I'm old enough to remember when ignorant people were ashamed of their ignorance, now dolts and simpletons wear their foolishness like a badge of honor. It's time to chase the trolls back under the bridge. Our nation's founding fathers were the smartest of the smarty-pants of their generation, and we do them and our country and injustice when we accept anything less for ourselves.
Saturday, November 12, 2011
My Buddy TJ
A short one today, I can't seem to get away from the political stuff.
I hear all sorts of arguments back and forth about the role of government, how big it should be, how small, what a government's role should be. Unless you're advocating anarchy or totalitarianism any of these arguments are just different shades of gray.
But I think people making these arguments are forgetting the first principles of government. When you decide what a government actually is then making the arguments about size and scope and influence becomes much clearer.
So, here's how I see it. The first principle is that the power to govern derives from the consent of the governed. This is the basic idea that the entirety of the United States is founded on. It's the principle that led us to declare independence and it's the principle that our Constitution holds at its core.
Taking that as a given, then, the role of government is to protect the individual liberties of its citizens. That's the beginning and the end of it. Government exists to protect the rights of the people who agree that there should be a government in the first place.
Everything else flows from that. The power of the government to tax is necessary to provide the services that only government should, like roads and sewers and standing armies. The power to regulate business is necessary to protect the government's citizens - you and me - from people and companies who would rather turn a quick buck and hurt people than do things the right way and make a few cents less.
Bureaucracies by their nature do things slowly and inefficiently, we'll never be able to change that. But when those bureaucracies remember their guiding principles - that they're working to serve the people who allow them to exist in the first place - everything can run much smoother.
It is most important to remember that 'government' is not something separate from its citizens. Government IS its citizens. Government is all of us together.
"Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves are its only safe depositories."
-- Thomas Jefferson
I hear all sorts of arguments back and forth about the role of government, how big it should be, how small, what a government's role should be. Unless you're advocating anarchy or totalitarianism any of these arguments are just different shades of gray.
But I think people making these arguments are forgetting the first principles of government. When you decide what a government actually is then making the arguments about size and scope and influence becomes much clearer.
So, here's how I see it. The first principle is that the power to govern derives from the consent of the governed. This is the basic idea that the entirety of the United States is founded on. It's the principle that led us to declare independence and it's the principle that our Constitution holds at its core.
Taking that as a given, then, the role of government is to protect the individual liberties of its citizens. That's the beginning and the end of it. Government exists to protect the rights of the people who agree that there should be a government in the first place.
Everything else flows from that. The power of the government to tax is necessary to provide the services that only government should, like roads and sewers and standing armies. The power to regulate business is necessary to protect the government's citizens - you and me - from people and companies who would rather turn a quick buck and hurt people than do things the right way and make a few cents less.
Bureaucracies by their nature do things slowly and inefficiently, we'll never be able to change that. But when those bureaucracies remember their guiding principles - that they're working to serve the people who allow them to exist in the first place - everything can run much smoother.
It is most important to remember that 'government' is not something separate from its citizens. Government IS its citizens. Government is all of us together.
"Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves are its only safe depositories."
-- Thomas Jefferson
Friday, November 4, 2011
Setting The Record Straight
I've been hearing 'statistics' repeated over the past few months, intentionally misleading sound bites designed to inflame rather than inform. It's easy to get 'me too' angry, especially when you can't be bothered to check things out for yourself. In our information age, however, it's ridiculously easy to find things out directly from the source.*
Claim #1
Half of wage earners don't pay any taxes.
Truth:
Let me tell you right up front that I am a small business owner. I run a payroll every Wednesday, rain or shine. And I can tell you in no uncertain terms that EVERYONE who draws a paycheck has to pay taxes. It's against the law not to, and if you hire a professional firm to collect those taxes for you (I do), they make all the deductions automatically.
If you get a paycheck, you cannot skip paying taxes. It's out of your hands.
I believe what people mean when they say this is that half of American taxpayers get a net refund, they get back most or all of what they paid in during the preceding year. But the fact of the matter is that the US Government used those funds for months before returning them. Kind of like a bank where you earn no interest. Which is most banks these days.
Fact: Half of all American taxpayers make less than $30,000 per annum*. You're a total son of a bitch if you would begrudge these people their tax refunds.
Fact: these numbers ignore the FICA deductions, which everyone who gets a paycheck also pays - and which no one gets back at the end of the year. Also, FICA tax has a limit which most Americans never reach. In 2011 it's $106,800, at which point you stop paying FICA tax. Which means with every dollar after that amount the rich get 7.65% richer.
Fact: saying 'half of all Americans get a net refund' - the truth - doesn't sound nearly as outrageous as 'half don't pay taxes.' This is why rat bastard asswipes never say net refund.
Claim #2
A flat tax is a better tax option for most people.
Truth:
It most definitely is not. The plain hard fact is that 48% of American taxpayers already pay 9% or less on their income tax* and this is after the standard deductions that all of us get. So 9% flat tax is a substantial increase for most people, especially when a flat tax usually means eliminating the standard deduction.
But let's assume you're more attracted to the 20% option. Who benefits there? Almost 98% of all wage-earning Americans pay 16.3% or less of their taxable income. So this means the 20% option is attractive only to the top 2% of wage earners, who pay about 24%. Maybe a few people reading this are in that bracket, but I can guarantee most of you aren't.
Fact: we have a graduated tax structure because we have a flat price structure. A loaf of bread costs the same for me or Bill Gates. But it's a much smaller percentage of his income than mine.
Fact: flat tax proposals are the professional wrestling of politics, it's fun to watch for a while, but no one who knows anything about the real subject takes it seriously.
Claim #3
The top 10% of wage earners pay 50% of the collected income taxes.
Truth:
This one actually is true. And it's more like the top 10% pay over 75% of the collected taxes*.
Fact:the top 10% also take home 75% of the country's adjusted gross income.
Let's say that again. The top 10% of wage earners in the United States earn 75% of the taxable income. They also take the lion's share of the deductions, so they're actually making at least 30% more just in gross wages.
Fact: if you and I are hungry for pizza but you eat 75% of the slices, I would expect you to pay for 75% of that pizza. Same thing with income taxes. If the top 10% of earners make 75% of the wages they should pay 75% of the taxes. Seems perfectly fair to me.
All right, I'm done for now. Numbers are boring to most people, which is why it's so easy for a few right-sounding but completely wrong 'statistics' to be repeated so often people take them as fact. You need to use the brain God gave you and figure this stuff out on your own.
* for much of this post I used the 2009 IRS tax stats file. Yes, they do provide this information - free of charge - on their web site. It's up to you to go get it.
Claim #1
Half of wage earners don't pay any taxes.
Truth:
Let me tell you right up front that I am a small business owner. I run a payroll every Wednesday, rain or shine. And I can tell you in no uncertain terms that EVERYONE who draws a paycheck has to pay taxes. It's against the law not to, and if you hire a professional firm to collect those taxes for you (I do), they make all the deductions automatically.
If you get a paycheck, you cannot skip paying taxes. It's out of your hands.
I believe what people mean when they say this is that half of American taxpayers get a net refund, they get back most or all of what they paid in during the preceding year. But the fact of the matter is that the US Government used those funds for months before returning them. Kind of like a bank where you earn no interest. Which is most banks these days.
Fact: Half of all American taxpayers make less than $30,000 per annum*. You're a total son of a bitch if you would begrudge these people their tax refunds.
Fact: these numbers ignore the FICA deductions, which everyone who gets a paycheck also pays - and which no one gets back at the end of the year. Also, FICA tax has a limit which most Americans never reach. In 2011 it's $106,800, at which point you stop paying FICA tax. Which means with every dollar after that amount the rich get 7.65% richer.
Fact: saying 'half of all Americans get a net refund' - the truth - doesn't sound nearly as outrageous as 'half don't pay taxes.' This is why rat bastard asswipes never say net refund.
Claim #2
A flat tax is a better tax option for most people.
Truth:
It most definitely is not. The plain hard fact is that 48% of American taxpayers already pay 9% or less on their income tax* and this is after the standard deductions that all of us get. So 9% flat tax is a substantial increase for most people, especially when a flat tax usually means eliminating the standard deduction.
But let's assume you're more attracted to the 20% option. Who benefits there? Almost 98% of all wage-earning Americans pay 16.3% or less of their taxable income. So this means the 20% option is attractive only to the top 2% of wage earners, who pay about 24%. Maybe a few people reading this are in that bracket, but I can guarantee most of you aren't.
Fact: we have a graduated tax structure because we have a flat price structure. A loaf of bread costs the same for me or Bill Gates. But it's a much smaller percentage of his income than mine.
Fact: flat tax proposals are the professional wrestling of politics, it's fun to watch for a while, but no one who knows anything about the real subject takes it seriously.
Claim #3
The top 10% of wage earners pay 50% of the collected income taxes.
Truth:
This one actually is true. And it's more like the top 10% pay over 75% of the collected taxes*.
Fact:the top 10% also take home 75% of the country's adjusted gross income.
Let's say that again. The top 10% of wage earners in the United States earn 75% of the taxable income. They also take the lion's share of the deductions, so they're actually making at least 30% more just in gross wages.
Fact: if you and I are hungry for pizza but you eat 75% of the slices, I would expect you to pay for 75% of that pizza. Same thing with income taxes. If the top 10% of earners make 75% of the wages they should pay 75% of the taxes. Seems perfectly fair to me.
All right, I'm done for now. Numbers are boring to most people, which is why it's so easy for a few right-sounding but completely wrong 'statistics' to be repeated so often people take them as fact. You need to use the brain God gave you and figure this stuff out on your own.
* for much of this post I used the 2009 IRS tax stats file. Yes, they do provide this information - free of charge - on their web site. It's up to you to go get it.
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