Fascinating Reading

I've just spent the past several hours reading a post by University of Chicago Law Professor Todd Henderson and several responses to it.  Professor Henderson't post "We are the Super Rich" has since been deleted, but thanks to the wonders of google, can still be found here.  The essence of his post is that despite having an income over $250,000, he and his wife -- who is a doctor -- are not really rich.  Here is how he puts it:

"The biggest expense for us is financing government. Last year, my wife and I paid nearly $100,000 in federal and state taxes, not even including sales and other taxes. This amount is so high because we can’t afford fancy accountants and lawyers to help us evade taxes and we are penalized by the tax code because we choose to be married and we both work outside the home. (If my wife and I divorced or were never married, the government would write us a check for tens of thousands of dollars. Talk about perverse incentives.)"

"Our next biggest expense, like most people, is our mortgage. Homes near our work in Chicago aren’t cheap and we do not have friends who were willing to help us finance the deal. We chose to invest in the University community and renovate and old property, but we did so at an inopportune time."

"We pay about $15,000 in property taxes, about half of which goes to fund public education in Chicago. Since we care the education of our three children, this means we also have to pay to send them to private school. My wife has school loans of nearly $250,000 and I do too, although becoming a lawyer is significantly cheaper. We try to invest in our retirement by putting some money in the stock market, something that these days sounds like a patriotic act. Our account isn’t worth much, and is worth a lot less than it used to be."

"Like most working Americans, insurance, doctors’ bills, utilities, two cars, daycare, groceries, gasoline, cell phones, and cable TV (no movie channels) round out our monthly expenses. We also have someone who cuts our grass, cleans our house, and watches our new baby so we can both work outside the home. At the end of all this, we have less than a few hundred dollars per month of discretionary income. We occasionally eat out but with a baby sitter, these nights take a toll on our budget. Life in America is wonderful, but expensive."

My initial reaction to this rant was dismay that this person is apparantly teaching law and economics at one of our most prestigious law schools.  I don't doubt that he does not feel rich.  However, just because you chose to put all of your money into a really high end house and several luxury cars does not suddenly mean you don't have any money to spend.  Not to mention that anyone who is putting money into stocks when they have such a high debt load is a financial idiot.  It is sad that this person does not understand how truly lucky he is and only dwells upon his shortcomings.

This view was strengthened when I read a blog posting by Michael O'Hare, who attempted to break down Professor Turners numbers in greater detail.  Click through the link to get the full breakdown, but Mr. O'Hare's well reasoned calculations conclude that based upon the taxes he pays, Professor Turner's family actually makes closer to $500,000 a year, lives in a million dollar house and is setting aside at least $33,000 a year towards retirement.  By any accounting, that is the provence of the rich.

However, the most fascinating reading stemming from the Professor Henderson's blog was a response post made by Cal Berkley Economic Professor J. Bradford DeLong.  This may be the single best comment discussion I have ever read on the internet, with surprisingly little in the way of personal attacks and lots of actual back and forth discussions.  It almost makes me cry for the mostly wasted potential of the internet.  I highly suggest you click through the link and read not only Professor DeLong's full post, but the many comments as well, but for those who are too lazy to surf, here's the conclusion:

"Professor Xxxx Xxxxxxxxx's problem is that he thinks that he ought to be able to pay off student loans, contribute to retirement savings vehicles, build equity, drive new cars, live in a big expensive house, send his children to private school, and still have plenty of cash at the end of the month for the $200 restaurant meals, the $1000 a night resort hotel rooms, and the $75,000 automobiles. And even half a million dollars a year cannot be you all of that."

"But if he values the high-end consumption so much, why doesn't he rearrange his budget? Why not stop the retirement savings contributions, why not rent rather than buy, why not send the kids to public school? Then the disposable cash at the end of the month would flow like water. His problem is that some of these decisions would strike him as imprudent. And all of them would strike him as degradations--doctor-law professor couples ought to send their kids to private schools, and live in big houses, and contribute to their 401(k)s, and also still have lots of cash for splurges. That is the way things should be."

"But why does he think that that is the way things should be?"

"And here is the dirty secret: Professor Xxxx Xxxxxxxxx thinks that that is the way things should be because he knows people for whom that is the way it is."

"Cast yourself back to 1980. In 1980 a household at the bottom of the 1% rich households in America had an income equivalent in today's dollars $190,000 a year. They know of 1000 people--900 of them poorer than they are in income brackets 90-99% and 100 people richer than they are in the top 1% income bracket. The 900 people poorer than them back in 1980 had incomes from $85,000-$190,000 a year. Those are, if you are sitting at the bottom of the top 1%, the middle class who are not as successful as you. You don't look downward much. Instead, you look upward. Of the 100 above you, 90 in 1980 had incomes less than three times their incomes. And they would have known of 1 person of that 100 who was seven times as rich as they were."

"Thus Professor Xxxx Xxxxxxxxx in 1980 would have known who the really rich were, and they would on average have had about four times his income--more, considerably more, but not a huge gulf. He would have known people who were truly rich, and he would have seen himself as one of them--or as almost one of them."

"Now fast forward to today. Today a household at the bottom of the 1% rich households in America has an income of nearly $400,000 a year--the income of that slot in the labor market has more than doubled, while the incomes of those at the slot at the bottom of the 10% wealthy has grown by only 20% in two decades. The 900 people he knows in the 90%-99% slots have incomes that start at $110,000 a year. Compared to Xxxx Xxxxxxxxx's $455,000, they are barely middle class--"How can they afford cell phones?" Xxxxxxxxx sometimes wonders."

"But he wonders rarely. He doesn't say: "Wow! My real income is more than twice the income of somebody in this slot a generation ago! Wow! A generation ago the income of my slot was only twice that of somebody at the bottom of the 10% wealthy, and now it is 3 1/2 times as much!" For he doesn't look down at the 99% of American households who have less income than he does. And he looks up. And when he looks up today he sees as wide a gap yawning above him as the gap between Dives and Lazarus. Mr. Xxxxxxxxx doesn't look down."

"Instead, Mr. Xxxx Xxxxxxxxx looks up. Of the 100 people richer than he is, fully ten have more than four times his income. And he knows of one person with 20 times his income. He knows who the really rich are, and they have ten times his income: They have not $450,000 a year. They have $4.5 million a year. And, to him, they are in a different world."

"And so he is sad. He and his wife deserve to be successful. And he knows people who are successful. But he is not one of them--widening income inequality over the past generation has excluded him from the rich who truly have money."

"And this makes him sad. And angry. But, curiously enough, not angry at the senior law firm partners who extract surplus value from their associates and their clients, or angry at the financiers, but angry at... Barack Obama, who dares to suggest that the U.S. government's funding gap should be closed partly by taxing him, and angry at the great hordes of the unwashed who will receive the Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security payments that the government will make over the next several generations."

"Do I wish that Professor Xxxxxxxxx had a little more self-knowledge? Yes. Is it pathetic that somebody with nine times the median household income thinks of himself as just another average Joe, just another "working American"? Yes. Do I find it embarrassing that somebody whose income is in the top 1% of American households thinks that he is not rich? Yes."

"Do I hope to educate him so that he has a better grasp on reality and better understanding of America and of public policy? Yes."

Thank you Professor Delong.  You definitely just educated me.

No Not Mike Vick!

Last week I suggested that the best thing the Eagles can do is to trade Mike Vick and try to get some value from him while he is hot.  Now it seems the Eagles have instead drank the Vick cool aid and will soon be signing him to a long term deal and trading away Kevin Kolb.  Noooooo!  Don't make me root for Mick Vick.  He may be an amazing football talent, but he is a disgusting human being.

Don't get me wrong.  I am all for the idea that once you have done your time, you should be allowed to become a productive member of society again.  Intellectually, I have no problem with Vick playing in the NFL again.  That's his profession, and he should be allowed to work again now that he has finished his jail time.

That said, I don't have to like the guy, and I don't want to root for him every Sunday.  These are some of the things he did to his dogs.  He attached jumper cables to their ears and electrocuted them to death.  He hung them from trees and let them slowly die of exposure.  He slammed them to the ground over and over again until their skulls were crushed in.  He strangled them with his bare hands.  These are not the acts of a normal human being.  These are the acts of a psycopath.  Every time you read the story of a mass murderer, it starts with the explanation about how he loved to torture small animals as a child.  This is a man one step removed from Jack the Ripper.

I have less problem with the dog fighting itself than the way he treated his dogs in between the fights.  If I look at it in a twisted way, I can understand the viewpoint that dog fighting is a sport and these dogs are warriors.  If he had treated his dogs with the pride and respect afforded a valuable athelete, I may have slightly understood the actual dog fights.  But the fact that after having them rip each other to pieces in a ring he then took them home and continued to torture and kill them tells me he just enjoyed the spectacle of watching animals suffer and die.  That is not normal.  That is not someone I wish to invite into my living room every week.

Go back and look at all the things Vick has said since the Eagles signed him.  At no point does he express remorse for doing these things to his dogs.  His remorse if clearly for doing something illegal and getting caught, which cost him dearly in jail time, fame and fortune.  When people say he is a changed man, they are referring to a renewed work ethic and dedication to football.  I do not believe whatever it is inside him that made him enjoy torturing defenseless animals has really gone away.

Again, I acknowledge that he was probably punished more for this crime than anyone in history.  I do not want him kept out of professional football.  It is likely that the thought of further jail time and the loss of everything he holds dear is enough to keep his warped impulses locked inside and that he will never harm another being again.  All this is true, but it still does not make me willing to like the guy.  Now he is going to be quarterbacking my team for probably many years to come and every time I cheer for a big pass play, I will be cheering for a closet psycopath.  I'm not really sure I can do that.

Why Andy Reid why?  Why did you force this choice on us?  Couldn't you at least have given Kolb more than a quarter and a half to win the job?  In the end, I will probably keep rooting for the Eagles.  40 plus years of habit are hard to break.  But they have definitely taken some of the joy out of the sport.

Those Philly QB's

I'm a firm believer in trying to turn negative situations into positive results. Putting myself in Howie Roseman's shoes, I can see a way to turn Kevin Kolb's concussion into a windfall for the Eagles. This assumes that Michael Vick lights it up against a bad Detroit Lions team on Sunday, which seems likely. If he does, and Kolb is cleared to play on Monday, I would be making several phone calls. The first would be to Jeff Garcia telling him to start working out in earnest. The second would be to all the GMs out there saddled with dogs at quarterback. We all know how Vick treats dogs, and I'd be offering to let Vick kick theirs to second string status for a price. Then I would let the bidding wars commence. (If Vick needs to play another week, this just gets pushed back to the next Monday).

I can hear you now. Trade Vick? Are you crazy? He should be starting the rest of the season. First off, the Eagles didn't trade Donovan McNabb to make way for Michael Vick to be their quarterback. It is Kevin Kolb's job unless and until he unconditionally proves he is a bust. A half game doesn't do that. He needs to suck for at least an entire season, if not two, before Andy Reed will admit he made a mistake and draft another QB. By that time Vick will be long gone, playing for some other team with no compensation at all to the Eagles. Plus, I am not yet convinced that Kolb is a bust. Keep in mind that Aaron Rogers only won six games his first year as a starter.

Trading Vick accomplishes two important goals. First it gets the Eagles a draft choice, perhaps even a high round draft choice, which goes a long way towards justifying the awful choice they made in signing him in the first place. Second it takes a lot of pressure off of Kevin Kolb, who has enough to worry about without looking over his shoulder every game wondering when Vick will be trotted in to replace him. Garcia can be brought in as an insurance policy who is experienced enough to replace Kolb for a couple games if he gets hurt again, but old enough that nobody will be pushing to have him permanantly made the Eagles QB.

I can even give you the name of the team you should call first. Imagine how much better the New York Jets would be with Michael Vick at quarterback instead of Mark Sanchez. This is a team that is a mediocre offense away from a possible Super Bowl appearance. With Sanchez, their offense is just plain bad, but with a scrambling Mike Vick, they may well be good enough to keep up with their defense. Don't you think Rex Ryan might be persuaded to part with that late first or second round pick for the chance to get to the big game? Considering that Vick is gone at the end of this year no matter what, that Jets pick will look awfully good in Eagles green.

So there you have it Howie. You're the new GM in town. Prove to us you have the same sized cojones that Ruben Amaro has. Trading Vick would probably not be a popular move amongst the Eagles nation, but it would be the right move for the team. It might even help get the Eagles out of the Philly sports doghouse.

Favorite Games from the Past Year: Majesty 2

Yes I know this game is a year old, but I just started blogging. When I left Zam and suddenly didn't have to play MMOs for professional reasons, I felt a sudden urge to set aside WOW and EQ2 for a while and try some other games. One of the first ones I picked up was Majesty 2. This was not a highly hyped game and many of you may not have heard of it, but if you enjoy Real Time Strategy games, this one is not to be missed.

Unlike most games, you do not play the heroes yourself. Instead, you play the role of the king and attempt to entice the heroes in your kingdom to do what you want through placing reward flags on the places you want them to explore, attack or defend. Part of the challenge is learning just how much is needed to entice someone to do something without bankrupting your kingdom in the process, particularly considering that your heroes are as a rule not particularly bright. While this may sound boring, it is actually a uniquely fun twist on the standard RTS format.

Money is the key to the game. Over time, you can expand the hero's guilds to sell them extra abilities and add things like market places and blacksmiths to sell them potions and armor. You can also add defensive structures to your town to help protect it from the steady stream of mobs that will be attacking it. Developing a financial infrastructure to let you pay for the improvements in your heroes and town defense before the more powerful mobs start to attack is crucial to winning the game.

What I particularly liked about Majesty 2 was its challenge and its story line. The original game comes with 16 scenarios that are tied together with a really amusing story line narrated by a dead on Sean Connery impersonator. An expansion adds 8 more high end scenarios. Once you get past the first few tutorial scenarios, they start to become really difficult. While there are certain things you need to do for every scenario to succeed, each scenario requires a different strategy to ultimaly avoid being wiped out. Thus it is not unusual to find yourself an hour into the scenario realizing that you had built your town and heroes all wrong and need to start over again. Getting your heroes powerful enough and your town defenses strong enough to fend off the final waves of boss mobs takes a precise and meticulous strategy which if not done properly will find you watching your town and castle torn to the ground by a swarm of powerful mobs while your heroes cower in their guild houses. How fun is that?

If you look up reviews on this game, you will find many people hating on it because of its difficulty level. I personally love a game that forces you to think through each step and admit when you screwed up and have to start over again. The further you get into Majesty 2, the more mind blowingly difficult each scenario gets. The last two scenarios were so hard I found myself screaming at the computer that this is impossible, turning the game off and then waking up in the middle of the night going "aha, I know what I can do to beat that". You know you are playing a good game when you start to dream about it.

Majesty 2 is not without its flaws. Its biggest flaw is a total lack of replay value. Once you have figured out how to beat a scenario, beating it a second time is really easy even on the most difficult setting. Why they didn't build in a random scenario generator is beyond me. I'd probably still be playing the game if there was one. The expansion introduced a scenario builder, but it is so hard to use that there are only a couple player made scenarios available. I'm still holding out hope that there is enough interest in another expansion to have this added in the future, but that is probably not realistic.

Its other major flaw is a bad AI. Your heroes are really stupid and single minded, and will often walk right past a target to get to something further away. Mob behavior is also way too predictable. The classes could be balanced better as well, with some classes such as Dwarves (yes in this game Dwarves are a class) being far too powerful in relation to the others.

Nonetheless, this is nitpicking, and despite these flaws, Majesty 2 is a game well worth playing. It is unique and compelling and should provide a challenge for even the most seasoned gamer out there. It definitely tops my list of favorite games I have played over the past year or more.

Thank You Alabama

After watching the Penn State Alabama football game last night, two things became clear to me. First off, Penn State's coaching staff knew going in that they had no chance of beating Alabama and devised a game plan that was meant to just try to keep the team from embarrasing themselves. Secondly, Alabama's coaching staff quickly realized that they could do anything they wanted to Penn State's defense and that Penn State's offensive game plan was aimed at just running clock and surviving, and in deference to Joe Paterno, they basically called off their dogs and kept the score artifically close. Can anyone who watched that game doubt that if they wanted to, Alabama could have racked up 50 plus points on Penn State's overmatched defense? It was men versus boys, and the boys were all wearing blue and white.

This engenders two emotions in me. First off I am saddened to see the once great Penn State program devolved to this state. There once was a time when this team would never just roll over and give up against any opponent. There was never a point in this game where I thought Penn State even thought about opening up their offense and trying to pull out a win. Instead they kept calling safe, vanilla screens, dumpoffs and off tackle runs. I hate seeing Penn State willing to accept second tier status like this.

The second emotion is admiration for the class shown by Alabama's coaches and fans. True sportsmanship is so rarely seen any more that when it does show up it practically leaps out at you and screams to be shared. Alabama could have easily run up the score on Penn State and taunted them into submission, which is unfortunately what most schools out there would have done in this position. Instead, they changed their offensive play calling to eat the clock and keep the score low. Alabama's fans could have chanted taunts like over rated and Penn State sucks, like you hear at many other schools during a blow out. Instead they gave Coach Paterno a standing ovation as he ran off the field at half time.

So I am writing to say thank you Alabama. You have shown that there is still some class and sportsmanship left in college football. I personally will be rooting for you to win another National Championsip.

Media Gone Mad

Penn State students from the 1980's may remember Bro Cope. He was a crazy old man who showed up every spring and fall ( I am guessing he wintered in Florida) and stood on the steps of one of the classrooms and told everyone that passed that they were going to hell. He would call the girls sluts for wearing skimpy clothing and the boys sons of the devil for looking at them. Nobody ever took him seriously. We all just laughed at crazy Bro Cope and never gave him much thought.

It seems that The University of Florida has a modern day Bro Cope, just as crazy and just as forgettable. His name is Terry Jones. Yet somehow this crazy bible thumper has managed to draw an international media frenzy that threatens to destabilize US relations with the Muslim world and threatens the lives of our troops. How can that be possible? I can guarantee that if Bro Cope had announced he was going to burn a Koran nobody would have taken him seriously. Shouldn't we just be laughing at Terry Jones as well?

Clearly this incident marks a new low for our modern day news media. Is there anyone out there who believes that the actions of this nut case deserve anything other than complete indifference? Once there was a time when the media understood its responsibility to the public. Rather than just thinking "is this a story we can make money from" the media actually considered if it was a story they should be promoting. Bro Cope could have burned a stack of Korans and nobody would have even noticed. Yet on 9/11 there will likely be thousands of reporters hanging on every word this idiot says.

The really tragedy of this is that the very size and scope of the media coverage escalates the influence of this single incident. Even as someone who lives in the US and understands the capacity of the US media to circle jerk a story into unheard of dimensions, this one still astounds me. Imagine then how it looks to some poor guy in Indonesia who can only believe that this Terry Jones must be some powerful US cleric to be able to gather so much attention, which can only lead to the conclusion that this Jones in fact accurately represents American views on Islam. The media has elevated this piece of garbage into some living symbol of America.

If you are a member of the US press, bow your head in shame. Your profession has finally hit rock bottom. I don't blame Terry Jones for this incident. He's just a crazy old man. The world is full of crazy old men and most of us have the sense to simply ignore them. I blame the news media for giving this crazy old man an international platform. There once was a time when they had more sense.

Finally a Post

I think I have had this domain for a year now and have yet to make a single post. Well no more. It's time to open up this blog and see what it can do. I'll try to make it a point to post on here regularly, even if I am most likely just talking to myself. Whether regularly means daily, weekly or just now and then I am still not sure. I'll see how much I enjoy writing just for the hell of it.

What will I be posting about? I really have no idea. I'm into Philadelphia sports teams and video games, so those will obviously get lots of coverage. I tend to closely follow the news, and generally am never short of opinions about the topics of the moment. My political views tend to the liberal side of the spectrum, but I am known to not always follow the party script.

So for those of you who somehow found yourself here, I say welcome to my blog. I hope I can be interesting enough to prompt you to check back now and then.