Sowell Talks Past Moderates

In his brilliant book, A Conflict of Visions, Thomas Sowell explains how liberals and conservatives (or as he more accurately calls them, believers in the "unconstrained" and "constrained" visions, respectively) often mean different things when they speak the same words. For example, "equality" means equal outcomes to a liberal and equal rules/laws to a conservative. As a result, when liberals and conservatives argue about equality, they talk past each other: neither side's arguments make sense to the other since they take the same words to mean different things.

In Sowell's recent columns (for example, this one on negative advertising), he falls victim to the same phenomemon. His points about Obama's track record on various issues are only compelling under the assumption (not stated until the very end) that his record is a better predictor of his future actions than his currently stated beliefs.

When Sowell does get around to mentioning this assumption, he quickly dismisses any contrary opinion:

Does anyone in real life put more faith in what people say than in what they do? A few gullible people do -- and they often get deceived and defrauded big time.

But this assumption is the basis of his entire argument. If you instead believe Obama's recent statements are better predictors of his future behavior, then nothing Sowell says in the article will be compelling. So perhaps it would be better to focus the article on addressing the evidence for this assumption rather than simply dismissing anyone who would disagree as "gullible".

Unfortunately for non-moderates, it is easy to find examples in either direction. In fact, republicans themselves do not always believe this assumption. For example, many seem to accept McCain at his word that he would not offer amnesty to illegal immigrants despite his clear track record of trying to do so.

The fact is that no simple rule -- either Sowell's assumption or the opposite -- is always true. The moderate voter is left to make the best prediction possible taking all the evidence into account on a case-by-case basis. Those who decide Obama means what he now says will ignore contrary evidence in his record, and conservative commentators like Sowell will talk right past them as they write article after article decrying that record.

The Ultimate Skeptic

This farmer is the ultimate skeptic.

Consciousness Exists

I have often heard people (especially, computer scientists) say "consciousness does not exist". This is, quite literally, the stupidest thing one could try to argue.

The fact is that consciousness is the only thing you experience directly. Hence, its existence is the only thing you can know for sure. Everything else -- the universe, people, atoms -- is conjecture.

Don't get me wrong: I'm quite convinced that the universe is real. But consciousness is the foundation, that through which you experience and gain knowledge of the world. You cannot distrust consciousness without distrusting everything.

The Life Triangle

Life: an exciting job, a family with kids, a social life -- pick two.

C.f. the project triangle.

Income vs. Wealth

While we're on the subject of rich and poor, another issue comes to mind: income versus wealth.

Conservatives often decry the progressive income tax on the grounds that it does not put a higher burden on the wealthy, necessarily, but rather on those that currently have a high income. The latter may be people who are still a long way from being wealthy. For example, it could be a doctor who is paying off hundred thousand dollar loans she took out to pay for medical school. This doctor is clearly not wealthy.

In a world where the tax man had perfect information, would it really make sense, though, to be taxing based on wealth rather than income? I would argue not. Why should someone with a modest income who has managed to save up a significant amount of money over time be taxed at a higher rate than someone who has a higher income but spends it all as fast as it comes in? That would clearly be rewarding the wrong behavior.

The example of a doctor paying off loans seems bad because it is a case of investment: in this case, the doctor is investing her money in educating herself so she can earn a higher income in the future. Typically, we only tax the profits of investment, not the revenues. Perhaps the tax code could be fixed to better handle those cases. However, they are often sorted out already in the form of deductions. Special provisions for paying off school loans are usually popular with politicians. Other investment cases are likely similar.

If we have deductions for investment cases and we don't want to reward people for not saving money, then what's wrong with taxing income instead of wealth?

Capital Gains

The Legitimate Skeptic is an equal opportunity contrarian. Having criticized a left-learner yesterday, it is time to criticize some right-wing views.

Suppose I save up some money, buy a second house, and rent it out to make extra money. That rental income is taxed at up to 35%. If, instead, I lend my money out directly, then the money I make is capital gains and is taxed at 15%. Does this make any sense?

Conservatives will say that capital gains should be taxed differently because the money has been taxed already. However, only the principal has been taxed, and it is not taxed a second time. It is just the interest, which has not been taxed before, that is taxed in scenarios I described.

It seems to me that income is income, no matter from whence it comes. The fact that we tax capital gains at a lower rate than other income enables the rich to get richer more easily than the poor. This is clearly out of line with a principles of a country that prides itself on economic mobility.

One good thing about the writers guild strike

As disappointing as last year's writers guild strike was to viewers, the show "Heroes" may actually have benefited. Despite being a huge fan of season 1, I found season 2 to be disappointing. After having season 2 cut short and getting an extended break, they've managed to start a third season that is much fresher and more exciting. I for one would probably not be watching anymore if season 3 were as dull as season 2, so at least in that one instance, there may have been some benefit to the writers guild strike.

See what you will

It always amazes me how easily people can distort their view of reality to match their current convictions. This article on digg is a case in point: AP: Wall Street bankrupt by GOP failure to regulate Freddie.

The title makes clear the poster's view that that republicans failed to regulate Freddie and Fannie, leading to the stock market collapse. Presumably, the part of the linked article they see as evidence is that Freddie and Fannie hired a firm to lobby republicans against a bill that would have increased regulation (and ultimately succeeded in killing it).

As the article explains, though, democrats were uniformly against the bill already. But since republicans were in the majority, they also needed republican votes to stop it; hence, they lobbied republicans. In particular, they got "prominent constituents and financial contributors" to call their republican representatives and express opposition to the bill. They targeted republicans up for reelection, in tight races, who would be most sensitive to the views of their constituents.

In short, the poster places no blame on the large number of democrats who were against the bill, instead places it entirely on the few republicans who were against it, and hence declares the lack of regulation as the failure of the republican party as a whole (ergo the "GOP failure to regulate Freddie").

This kind of thinking reminds me of a scientist I know who looked at a graph with dots scattered randomly all over -- which he was expecting to be in a line -- and said "well, you've got outliers all over the place, but these three right here look right". Sometimes it seems like, the smarter a person is, the easier they can convince themselves of whatever they wish.