Biden’s new soak the rich tax.

   The rich already pay 37% on ordinary income and 23.8% on capital gains.  Will this Biden tax idea replace the existing rates with a 20% rate?  That would be a tax cut for the rich.  Something democrats have been against like since forever.

   Or is the Biden 20% a surcharge on the existing rates, which would jack the 37% on ordinary income up to 57%, very steep even for a George Soros.  And the 23.8% capital gains rate would become 43.8%, also very very stiff. 

   Worse, the Biden tax hike would tax “unrealized income” the increase in value of your stocks and bonds and fine art and real estate, and everything.  To collect this everybody would be required to tell the government how much stuff they own, on April 15 every year.  Doing income tax has gotten so bad that I now have to use TurboTax.  It would be twice as bad if I had to list everything I owned ever April 15. 

   Plus there is serious difficulty in determining the increase in value of things that don’t get traded all that often like New York Skyscrapers or fine art or fancy cars.  That will create a lot of welfare for lawyers. 

Old line science fiction writers, H. Beam Piper.

   He wrote a bunch of stuff, all of it quite readable, most of it published in Astounding Science Fiction magazine (later renamed to Analog Science Fiction).  One of his best novels was Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen, a parallel universe story.  The action takes place in a medieval alternate universe where the priests of Styphon’s house have maintained a monopoly on gunpowder, fireseed to call it what the natives call it.  Only Styphon’s house knows how to make gunpowder, and should a kingdom care to make war, they have to get Styphon’s House to support them if the want to win.  Into this universe a Pennsylvania State Policemen from our universe, name of Calvin Morrison, gets tossed.  Calvin knows the formula for gunpowder, and the war with Syphon’s house is on. 

   Piper’s other great novel is Space Viking, about a far future universe where constant space borne warfare has created some really broken down planets.  Lucas Trask buys a large nuclear powered space war craft and sets out to shape up the broken down parts of the universe.   It’s a good read. 

   Both of these are older stories, out of print by now.  You can probably find them on the net, or in a good municipal library, or in any second hand bookstores that may still be left in business. 

Congratulations to Ukraine

   Yesterday the Russians announced, publicly, that they will settle for just the bits of Ukraine on the east side that they have controlled for several years.  The original Russian war aim was to take over the whole of Ukraine and make it into just another Russian province. 

   Anyhow courageous and stout Ukrainian resistance has made the Russians drop back from taking over all of Ukraine to just taking over a small slice of territory on the east border between Ukraine and Russia.  Land that the Russians invaded some years ago, and have held ever since, despite serious objections (armed objections) from Ukraine.

   Anyhow, congratulations to Ukraine for hanging tough and forcing the Russians to back down. Keep hanging in there and Ukraine might be able to force the Russians to pull out and Ukraine to keep all its land. Resistance has cost Ukraine a lot.  The TV shows endless shots of blown up apartment buildings, women and children fleeing, fires, and destruction.  Resistance to the Russians has not been cheap.

Strange Headlines from US News & World Report.

    The Russians have just admitted to suffering 1600 deaths of troops in combat in Ukraine.  US News calls this “staggering losses”.  For 30 days of fighting that’s only 53 deaths per day.  US civil war battles could run up 10,000 casualties in a day or two of fighting.  So 1600 deaths for a month of fighting is light deaths in my book, not “staggering” like US News and World Report calls it. 

   The Russians only listed deaths.  Losses in combat are deaths, wounded (usually several times the number of deaths), prisoners of war, and “missing in action”.  Missing in action means we don’t know what happened, the troop just wasn’t there are the battle.  The Russian announcement only mentioned deaths, where as losses are usually 2 or 3 times the number of deaths. 

   NATO and the Ukrainians think Russian deaths are much higher than the Russians are admitting to.  They call Russian deaths 7000 to 15000.  As far as NATO and the Ukrainians go, the Russians are lowballing their combat deaths.  The total Russian force employed is something like 250,000. So the Russians admitting to a death rate of 0.64%.  The NATO and Ukrainian estimates yield a death rate of 2.8% to 6.8%. 

   I am still surprised at US News and World Report calling the Russian deaths “staggering”.   I think the admitted Russian deaths are getting off lightly.

  

Congressional Hearings on Ketanji Brown Jackson’s nomination.

 Hmm.  She doesn’t believe that child pornography should be a crime, or at least not a crime with such heavy jail terms, even though the congressionally passed law is pretty clear on this subject.  She has been giving very mild sentences in child pornography cases, which looks like “living constitution” thinking and legislating from the bench rather than enforcing existing law.  That’s a down check in my book.

   That bit where she was asked to define “woman” and replied that she was not a biologist and did not know the definition did not sit well.  That sounds like pure quibbling, lawyer style, to me.  Every English speaker knows “women” (and “men” for that matter). 

   She was on the board of a tony DC private school that is teaching Critical Race Theory to the students. She claimed not to know what Critical Race Theory is. 

   I am not sure we need someone of Judge Jackson’s thinking on the Supreme Court. 

Don’t make threats you will not or cannot carry out

Putin has been threatening to use nuclear weapons or poison gas or germs in the Ukraine War.  Sean Hannity was saying last night that we ought to threaten Putin right back, as in “If you nuke us we will nuke you, harder.”  Good idea, but should Biden utter such a threat nobody, not Putin, not I, not any of the newsies, would believe that Biden has the courage to carry out such a threat.  Everyone expects that Biden would chicken out at the last minute.

   Basic principle of negotiations.  If you make a threat you have to be ready to carry it out.  If you threaten but don’t carry thru people won’t believe anything else you say.  In this case, the Biden case, it is best not to make threats at all. 

Stare Decisis “Let it be, let it stand”

Stare Decisis is lawyer speak (Latin) for a common, well used, and old legal doctrine.  Courts should rule that same way on the same issue.  If the courts make a new and different ruling, a new and different principle, each time a case comes before them.  The result is nobody knows what the law is, because the courts rule differently each time.  Stare Decisis, accepted by all US courts, stabilizes that law.  The principle says to rule the same way as you ruled last time.  This requires a bit of research (quite a bit actually) to find out how all of our various courts ruled on an issue, any time in the past.  But it allows citizens and their lawyers to know what to expect when (or if) they go to court. 

  US courts mostly stick with Stare Decisis.  The few important exceptions make the history books, Marberry vs Madison, Dred Scott, Plessy vs Furguson, Row vs Wade.   It is probably a good idea that we have so few “turn existing law upside down” cases.  As a matter of process, to my mind, changes in policy should be made by the elected legislatures, not a handful (often only one) unelected judge[s]. 

   Congress is holding hearings on Judge Jackson to become a supreme court judge.  A lot of questions are about where she stands on Stare Decisis.  Her answers don’t really tell me where she is coming from.