An older, but still relevant, post from my Wordpress blog.

A survey of the difficulty of adding a new state to the union, and a brief examination of the issue of apportionment.

-Matt Cantor, Newser.

I support statehood for Puerto Rico, assuming that this latest bid is actually what the people of Puerto Rico want. To me it makes no sense to have a territory with roughly the same population at Oklahoma (28th in the country) and give it no representation in Congress.

I am also very interested to see how the admission of a new state would effect the electoral dynamics of our political system.

“The person evolves into a persona, then a brand, then an empire, with the business imperative of grow or die — a process of expansion and commodification that transgresses boundaries by substituting celebrity for institutions. Instead of robust public education, we have Mr. Zuckerberg’s “rescue” of Newark’s schools. Instead of a vibrant literary culture, we have Oprah’s book club. Instead of investments in public health, we have the Gates Foundation. Celebrities either buy institutions, or “disrupt” them. […]

The obsession with celebrities goes far beyond supermarket tabloids, gossip Web sites and reality TV. It obliterates old distinctions between high and low culture, serious and trivial endeavors, profit making and philanthropy, leading to the phenomenon of being famous for being famous. […]

Their superficial diversity dangles before us the myth that in America, anything is possible — even as the American dream quietly dies, a victim of the calcification of a class system that is nearly hereditary. […]

The celebrity monuments of our age have grown so huge that they dwarf the aspirations of ordinary people, who are asked to yield their dreams to the gods: to flash their favorite singer’s corporate logo at concerts, to pour open their lives (and data) on Facebook, to adopt Apple as a lifestyle. We know our stars aren’t inviting us to think we can be just like them. Their success is based on leaving the rest of us behind.”

-George Packer, The New York Times.

American society has long been obsessed with celebrities. Idol worship is not just limited to pop culture, many biographies of important historical figures are more like hagiographies rather than serious biographies. American society has always used celebrity worship as a means of illustrating and reinforcing the American dream. However, the success of the United States has never been dependent upon the few ultra-successful. The US became a prosperous nation because it had strong institutions both public and private. A robust education system, unions, various civic organizations, and ordinary families, provided the foundation of the middle class. All of these institutions are now being undermined by a philosophy of individuality, not the traditional ‘self-reliance’ form of individuality, but instead a form of hyper-individuality that disregards the value of community and collective institutions.

As this new hyper-individuality grows, so does the cult of celebrity. No longer is idol worship limited to athletes and actors, now we have celebrity bankers and journalists. The celebrity of these people is often placed before their crafts, as a result the institutions that they are supposed to uphold are degraded.

We, the ordinary people, are also guilty. As we engage in this idolatry we too diminish the institutions that we are supposed to uphold for future generations. The institutions that were once relied upon by millions to climb their way into the middle class are no longer valued and, as a result of neglect, have atrophied almost to a point of uselessness.

It is essential to recognize the importance of the individual, and protect our individual freedoms and liberties. However, it is equally important to be cognizant of the importance of the community. Our obsession with the über-successful celebrity has made us forget why community institutions are important, as a result, the middle class and America in general has suffered.

Most successful people are successful because they had good support systems in their lives (parents, teachers, community organizations etc.), the cult of celebrity makes us forget that in this day and age there is not really such a thing as a ‘self-made man.’

”Now that academic economists are rapidly abandoning the always rational, utility maximizing avatar that is homo economicus who for so long dominated the profession, turning to a philosopher who wrestled with the paradoxes of the human condition and advocated taking a leap of faith was perhaps the inevitable next step after behavioural economics and neuroeconomics. Welcome to existential economics.”

-The Economist

It’s about time that economists realized that humans do not always behave in rational ways. People do not always know what the best decision is, and sometimes when we do, we do not always make it.

The American Enterprise Institute (AEI) posted this article on their Ideas blog. The article references a report by the Potomac Research Group. The Potomac Research Group concluded that the US could start running surpluses by 2015! This of course assumes that the sequester is still in effect and the GDP hits a growth rate of at least 4%. Here is a quote from the Potomac report via AEI:

“[O]fficial forecasters will have to radically alter their projections this summer. […] [I]f the economy finally lifts off in 2014-2015, with GDP growth in the 4% neighborhood — with the sequester still in place – a surplus by fiscal 2015 is not totally out of the question.”

The AEI then goes on to bemoan the fact that a balanced budget would ruin the momentum of debt reduction policies and entitlement reform.

This is why I love politics. After years of haranguing us about the Democrats’ anti-market policies and unbalanced budgets, the AEI is now unhappy because the budget might be on its way to being balanced, and if the government runs surpluses no one will want to cut “entitlements.”

The Internet sales tax is something rare in an era of unprecendented corporate influence: it’s fair. ampro.me/15ke1xO

— The Prospect (@theprospect) May 6, 2013

“There shouldn’t be special incentives in the tax code to buy from Amazon instead of your local retailer,” says Carl Davis, a senior fellow at The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, the research arm of Citizens for Tax Justice. […]

There’s no question that local businesses are hurt by e-commerce; a 5-10 percent off-the-top price break is considerable. […]

“Poorer families pay a larger share of their income in sales taxes than better-off families do because they have to spend almost everything they earn,” Mazerov said. “Tax-free Internet shopping compounds the problem: Many low-income families would love to shop online to avoid sales tax but can’t because they don’t own a computer or can’t afford high-speed Internet access.””

-Jeff Sanigor, The American Prospect.

 So, while the government is proposing cutting corporate taxes, it is also trying to impose a new sales tax. The American Prospect is promoting the Internet sales tax as being fair, but is it really?The author of this article makes some solid points about wealthy vs. poor shoppers, however he is missing the bigger picture; the nation’s tax burden is being shifted away from corporations and on to people like you and me.

(Source for the graph.)

Since the 1980s individuals have been carrying a larger and larger share of the tax burden. Imposing an Internet sales tax and then cutting corporate taxes will continue this trend. As of 2011 tax revenue from individuals has rebounded yet revenue from corporations is still down significantly. What is more disconcerting is that this re-alignment of the tax burden is happening at a time when unemployment remains persistently high, wages are stagnant, and corporate profits are at all time highs. 

Is this really fair?