A Modest (Admittedly Confiscatory, Politically Unworkable) Proposal

So the federal government staggers on, tentative budget agreement in hand. Amidst all the partisan bickering over whether to slash 20 billion or 38 billion or 60 billion dollars from the 3.8 trillion dollar federal budget, congress has (unsurprisingly) focused comparatively little on the revenue side of the equation. We think they should.

One thing about the US tax system: It is unfair. Although ostensibly progressive, the rich can afford all manner of tax shelters, and the recent revelations that megalithic corporate "citizen" General Electric pay NOTHING in taxes puts the lie to any claim of equitability. Any real tax reform will close these and other loopholes (hence the "politically unworkable" part of today's title, but a boy can dream).

Also, frankly, unfair are the current tax brackets of the federal system. And we don't mean unfair to the poor, either, but to the relatively well off. Under the current system, the top individual income tax rate is 35%. This rate kicks in once one's income hits $379,150. Now, we hardly feel sorry for the poor soul who has to squeak by on $250,000 a year. But how fair is a system that taxes that relatively well-off person at the same rate as the even more well-off person making twice as much? Or five times as much? Or ten times as much? We should have more tax brackets.

How many more? Well, why put a limit on it? After all, with simple computer programs and a massive database, it seems fairly simple to introduce a system whereby the Fed could collect. . . well, as Marx once opined, "From each according to his ability" and give "to each according to his need." (Yeah, we know: Unworkable, blah blah blah). In other words, if the budget is $3.8 trillion, then the government needs to raise from its citizens (human and corporate alike) $3.8 trillion. Tax rates could simply reflect the percentage of national income each person receives.

To illustrate a slightly simpler version of this idea: Imagine the top 1% of American "citizens" (among whom, remember, we include corporations like GE) receives 20% of the nation's wealth (a reasonable and possibly conservative assumption). They should then pay 20% of the country's expenses: $760 billion. A lot of money? Well, yes. But even if these costs are divided among only 1000 entities (and we suspect there would be more), we're talking $760 million per entity. GE can certainly afford it.

The next 1% will have earned a slightly higher percentage of the remaining national income (say 21%), so they would divvy up 21% of the remaining expenses (about $638 billion): Again, a lot of money, but still significantly less than the top 1% would have to pay and presumably divided among a larger population of payers. And if we could cut some expenses like, say, the pointless war in Afghanistan, all these amounts would shrink considerably. By the time we get to the lowest-income citizens, the individual tax bill would probably amount to pennies.

Utopian wool-gathering, we know. But it's a starting point. Perhaps not in the real world, but we have to start somewhere.

Solipsistography
Federal Budget 2011
"G.E.'s Strategies Let It Avoid Taxes Altogether"
Income Inequality in the United States
Savingtoinvest.com

Hard to Type Through Tearing Eyes

Not much to say today. Allergies have run roughshod over your old pal and blogger the Solipsist, and the antihistamines make us somehwatd purple in the western obstinate cloggers of the ranchafodgmb,,tnnp . . Meep? fvhkivbb

Ugh! All right, look, we just wanted to assure or public that, regardless of whatever doomsday scenarios play out in our nation's capitol, the Solipsist will NOT shut down!

No matter how many times you ask!

Hard Core

Disturbed, folks. Yesterday, we read an article in the Times about the ongoing nuclear disaster in Japan. In what we assume was an effort to provide greater clarity on the situation, the article featured a diagram of the reactor. It. . .It was, um. . . well, that is. . . .Uh, well. here


You see it, too, right? Of course, this does give us a somewhat clearer idea of what goes on during a meltdown. The reactor gets hotter. . . and hotter. . .and hotter. . . until it just EXPLODES and spews things willy-nilly all over the place.

Who knew nuclear physics could be so. . . steamy?

Solipsistography
U.S. Sees Array of New Threats at Japan's Nuclear Plant"

Byte-Sized Instruction

In principle, we have nothing against the use of technology in education or the idea of online instruction. Technology has provided people with educational opportunities inconceivable to prior generations. With discipline, perseverance, and a solid internet connection, one can acquire a graduate-level education from the comfort of one's own home. Still, we find something disingenuous about the clamoring from certain quarters (primarily Republican) for the expansion of online instruction as a solution to seemingly intractable problems facing American education.

Proponents feel that online classes can serve more students than traditional classrooms at lower cost. Indeed, one reason many school districts have adopted online curricula is that they can no longer afford to hire enough teachers to comply with class-size maximum laws. Only a churl would point out that money spent on educational software and licensing fees could just as easily go towards paying flesh-and-blood teachers. So call us churlish. But we see their point: Certainly, a greater "absolute" number of students can be "taught" by a computer program than by a teacher. One program could used by as many students as needed, whereas even the most ambitious teacher cannot handle a limitless number of students.

But this gets to the heart of what one means by "teaching." Too many critics of education in general and teachers in specific think that all a teacher does is provide information--facts and figures. If that were the case, then, indeed, software could easily replace teachers. In fact, Google's free search engine could replace most software.

A friend of ours pointed out that, as seen in the most recent "Star Trek" movie, this information-provision model is basically how education works on the planet Vulcan: Students sit in a chair and are bombarded with facts and questions. This might work for Vulcans, but we humans are not yet so advanced.

Proper education--successful education--develops children's ability to think, to reason. Indeed, content almost doesn't matter. The Solipsist is a pretty smart guy, if we do say so ourselves. He did well in school, but he would be hard pressed to tell you many of the "facts" he learned in 9th grade history or 11th grade physics. What he got from high school and other educational endeavours was primarily the ability to read, to think, to reason--and an enthusiasm for those skills. Even if a computer could provide a student with reasoning challenges--and we believe a computer CAN do this--it cannot truly engage a student; it cannot interact with a child to assess that child's thinking process and push that child to the next level--not consistently, anyway, not yet. Maybe someday, but not yet.

What's ironic is that all these advocates of computerized instruction--all those who feel technology provides a better education than that offered by flesh and blood teachers--were themselves taught by these "inferior" providers. That being the case, what makes them think they themselves possess the critical intellectual acumen required to assess the effectiveness of computerized instruction? This conclusion must logically have been arrived at through faulty, substandard reasoning.

Until a computer tells us that computer-based instruction is superior, we'd rather continue to take our chances with the flawed but curiously effective teachers that have gotten the job done so far.

Solipsistography
"More Pupils Are Learning Online, Fueling Debate on Quality"

A "To Be Continued" Would Have Killed Them?

Boy, is the Solipsist's face red! That'll teach us to take a cut-rate vacation in Sendai! (Too soon?)

We must apologize for a couple of "oopsies" in yesterday's review of HBO's "Mildred Pierce," starring the lovely and seldom-clothed Kate Winslet. First, as "Anonymous" pointed out, we misspelled the name of Winslet's co-star, Guy Pearce, as Guy PearSe. In our defense, you can hardly blame us for misspelling a name--P-I-E-R-C-E-- that the actor himself insists on misspelling. But we loved him "Memento" and "LA Confidential," so we'll cut the Guy some slack.

More importantly, we totally embarrassed ourselves by complaining about the movie's lack-of-point when the film isn't actually, um, over. We've apparently only seen the first 40% of a five-part Bataan death march of Depression-era feminism. We trust--we hope--to feel more of a sense of "closure" by the end.

Truly, though, we are ashamed. This is easily our biggest gaffe since our brief review of "West Side Story":

"We LOVE this musical! It's kind of like 'Romeo and Juliet' but hardly depressing at all and with MUCH better tunes. The show's big finale, 'Tonight, Tonight' was just exhilarating! We don't know what'll become of Tony and Maria, but we can't help but think that those two crazy kids are gonna be ALL RIGHT!"

Full-Frontal Nudity Only Excuses So Much

We watched the HBO version of "Mildred Pierce" the other night. We've never seen the Joan Crawford version, nor did we know much about the movie, but we figured that, with Kate Winslet in the title role, we could at least count on some good full-frontal nudity. (DIGRESSION: We assume Winslet has a clause in her contract that requires her to do full-frontal nudity in any movie she appears in--which should make her inevitable remake of "Mary Poppins" very interesting. We further assume, given that she is an Academy Award winner with plenty of clout, that she is the one who insists on doing full-frontal nudity. Our point is that we are not being lecherous; we are merely supporting a talented actress in her career choices. EOD) Anyway, although we had to wait through nearly 3/4 of the film, we were not disappointed. We were, however, bemused by the film itself. Specifically, we find ourselves wondering what the point was. Again, we've not seen the original, but we're willing to bet that this version was, if anything, more faithful to the original novel, which makes us feel that the novel was equally pointless. If you're not familiar with the movie, here's the story: Mildred Pierce is a housewife in California in 1931. At the beginning of the film, she throws her philandering husband out of the house. With two young daughters, Mildred has to find employment, but, being that this is the Depression, jobs are hard to come by. Mildred can find work neither as a receptionist nor a sales clerk, and so she must ultimately degrade herself by accepting a job as a ('shudder') waitress. Now, we realize that this was a different era, and, indeed, both Winslet and the director, Todd Haynes, do a good job of conveying clearly the idea that, for a woman of Mildred's background, it was embarrassing to take a "service" job--particularly one that required a uniform. Still, especially in today's economic climate, it's a little hard for us to get too distraught about a woman who must "demean" herself by working as a waitress. Not to worry, though: It isn't long before our gumptiopn-filled heroine is able to pull herself up by her sensible shoe-straps and open a restaurant of her own. On her last day of waitress work, Mildred waits on the table of a dashing stranger played by Guy Pearse. He invites her to run off with him for a passionate weekend. Since Mildred has packed her kids off for a weekend at the grandparents, she accepts the invitation (hence the aforementioned full-frontal nudity). Upon her return home, however, Mildred finds a distraught neighbor who informs her that her youngest daughter has taken ill and, "since there was no one at home," she has been taken to the hospital. Mildred arrives at the hospital where her ex-husband and former inlaws are waiting. They are told that the young girl, Ray, seems to be doing all right. Mildred says she'll stay at the hospital, so everyone else can leave. The next morning, Ray takes a turn for the worse and dies. So. . . .is the point that Mildred has been punished for daring to pursue individual happiness with Guy Pearse? We doubt it. After all, the kid got sick; even if Mildred had not been off gallivanting, we fail to see how she would have prevented the child's illness. Is this merely meant to be a "naturalistic" drama, wherein things just, sort of, happen? Maybe, but we still feel there should be some clear point. After all, real life provides us plenty of opportunities to experience things "just sort of happening." Fiction should provide us with a clearer feeling of resolution.

And Pac-Man Now Has Lowfat Monsters

The upcoming version of John Madden's football video game franchise, Madden NFL 12, will continue the series' attempts at ever-greater verisimilitude by "removing" "players" from the "game" when they suffer "concussions." When virtual players suffer crushing hits and leave the field of play, a play-by-play announcer may relay the news that the player has suffered a concussion and will not return. NFL executives and others applauded Madden's move as a way to increase awareness of the dangers football players face:

“'It’s a great approach to teach kids in a way that no one else can reach,' said Chris Nowinski, the co-director of the Sports Legacy Institute and a former Harvard football player, who speaks at schools and summer camps about the seriousness of concussions."

The Solipsist reached MVP quarterback Tom Brady for comment. After a profanity-laced tirade (we probably shouldn't have called at 3:00 am), Brady acknowledged that the changes would probably have positive impact. "Now, when these pasty, flabby 15-year-olds come crawling out of their parents' basements to play real football, they'll think twice before leading with the helmet." While players generally approve the changes, their avatars expressed less enthusiasm. "Look," said Avatar Tom Brady, "I don't want some algorithm deciding when I've been hit too hard to keep playing. And if the virtual New England Patriots lose even one game because of a hasty decision, I don't think it's worth it." "They're talking about 'neurological damage,'" complained Avatar Reggie Bush. "I don't even have a central nervous system! I'm not real! Let me play!" Meanwhile, other video game franchises have announced plans to follow Madden's lead, including the Major League Baseball game "The Show." On fly balls to the outfield, action will stop while players explain how trigonometric principles allow them to track the ball's path. In the "Halo" franchise, gamers will now have to participate in a lengthy diplomatic negotiating session with representatives of "the Flood." Only when negotiations have failed will players proceed to the battle sequences or "fun parts." ******BREAKING NEWS******* John Madden has just announced that game programmers have locked out the avatars for their refusal to cooperate in the new injury-prevention guidelines. The avatars responded by decertifying their union and disaggregating their pixels. No further negotiations are scheduled at this time. Solipsistography "Madden Puts Concussions in New Light in His Game"