How much blood can be squeezed from a stone?

Answer: About 7.8% This from a Wall St Journal Op Ed. The Journal notes that revenue from the personal income tax has been 7.8% of GNP since WWII. Back in the 50's the top incomes paid 90% and the everyone's rates were 20%. Today the rates are considerably lower, but the revenue from personal income tax is still 7.8% of GNP.
Apparently higher tax rates cause people to find more tax dodges, or work less, or take compensation in the form of perks (travel, fancy company dining room, stock options, you name it)
Conclusion, Obama won't be able to tax his way out of his $1.6 trillion deficit. But he's gonna try.

Confusion in the North Country

Confusion started this morning with a light fall of snow. Stupid Beast insisted on going out, so she did. She left little cat paw prints in the fresh snow while the snow cold bit into her paws. Only took her 38 seconds to decide to come back inside.
Then we have a load of trees getting ready for leaf day. Lots of buds. Fortunately no tree had actually committed to leafing yet, so the buds remain unopened as the snow swirled thru the treebranches.
Then we have a lotta pine needles on I93 on the way to Littleton turning brown. I gotta get some pix. Does not look good for those poor trees.

Good reason to go off shore.

US corporate income tax is the highest in the world according to TaxProf.

Will the last industry leaving the US please turn out the lights.

Front Runner who ain't far out in front.

Mitt Romney. All the Sunday pundits agree that he is the front runner, but he sure ain't far out in front. Not with the Donald, speaking birther non sense, right on his tail.
Mitt's a nice guy, and he would made a decent president, but he's got a long way to go to get elected.

NH HHS

The head of the NH dept of Health and Human Services was on WMUR-TV (essentially the NH state TV channel) talking about state budget cuts and his department. The media (democrats to a man) have been wailing about cuts in the HHS budget. Now the department head is on state wide TV and he ought to be making his department's case for more money.
Well, he wasn't very good at it. He didn't say what his last year's budget was, what his this year's budget looks like. He didn't say how many New Hampshire citizens were accepting HHS services. He didn't say what those services were, how much they cost, how many they helped. He didn't say what would happen, would people be cut off completely, have their benefits reduced, shipped out of state, or what?
In short, he (never did catch his name) failed to connect with me. I was prepared to feel sorry for, and perhaps even support a little more money for, deserving citizens being thrown out in the cold. He didn't tell me how bad things are, how deserving the recipients of HHS services are, and how necessary those services are.
So, Bill O'Brian, go for it. Balance that budget.

Buying a gun at auction

That was this morning's exercise. Ammonoosuc Valley Auction Center (Mike and Jan Carver)auctioned off a big lot of guns this morning. There were handguns and rifles and shotguns, and a room full of men looking at the arms and then bidding on them. The top dollar ($600-$700) went for three US military 30 caliber rifles, two M1 Garands and a 1903 Springfield. Handguns fetched as much as rifles. There were a fair number of black powder arms, mostly shootable replicas rather than real antiques. I managed to snag a Marlin 30-30 deer rifle in beautiful condition. Living where I do, with black bears walking up and down my driveway, it seems reasonable to have a real rifle in the house.
Then we had to do Federal Firearms paperwork. Fill out a four page yellow form, check off 10 times "no" you are not a felon, not a fugitive from justice, not a drug user, not an illegal alien, and not a few other things. Then a very patient guy from Corey's Sport Shop telephoned somewhere and after a delay OK'ed us to pick up our purchases. No gun show loopholes in Littleton NH, except you didn't have to do the federal paperwork for black powder guns. Last time I bought a gun (45 years ago) it was simpler, you just gave them money and they gave you the gun.
So, brought my new rifle home and wiped it down with a little WD-40 on a rag to maintain the lustrous dark blueing against the corrosive effects of fingerprints. Need to join the local shooting club to use their range and buy some ammunition and a cleaning kit. That ought to keep me busy for a while.

The American Incline

Op ed in the Wall St Journal for Wednesday. I was gonna post a link to it but I couldn't find it on the Journal's website.
If you look at numbers, say population, GNP, and military spending, over the last decade (2000-2010) we have solid growth. Population is up 10%, to 310 million. GNP is up 21% over the decade, despite the dot com bust of 2001 and Great Depression 2.0, still on going. Military spending is up 55%
Compared to other countries, we are doing better than the EU, Russia, and Japan. India and China have been doing humongous growth over the last decade, so they pulled up closer to us, although we are still ahead by maybe 3X in the GNP department. Ten years ago we were ahead by 10X. Both India and China have 3X our population, so we can expect them to remain competitive for the forseeable future.
But, all and all, the numbers say the US is doing OK. There are a horde of lefty greenie pundits who have been crying gloom and doom, but they are just saying it, the numbers disagree.