Disqus - Latest Comments for phaedrus

Re: Bosses and Workers

cwk — Sun, 01 May 2011 18:25:58 -0000

Umm, you leave out the little fact that since Bob earned money over this period of time with his investments, he earned more money period than Charles, and thus it makes perfect sense that he'd pay more taxes.

And then there's the obvious problem that if you don't tax investment income, you're going to have an entire class of wealthy people who live off of investments and pay nothing for the police, roads, military, etc. This money has to come from somewhere, and apparently you'd rather take it from my plumber than from Paris Hilton.

Re: Ethics After Hell: How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Embrace Unrealistic Expectations

cwk — Wed, 20 Apr 2011 14:04:47 -0000

The people here critiquing Matt's understanding of Christianity are correct in a theological sense, but I think may be somewhat missing the point of the post. The conception of h-ll (lame) Matt is talking about isn't intended to be a theologically accurate one, just one reflective of contemporary American "pop-Christianity", which is actually the dominant religion in this country. It's the Christianity of the average Easter-and-Christmas Christian who doesn't really think very hard about religion but still considers themselves "religious". Think Moralistic therapeutic deism.

Re: Evan Bayh Off To Work On Prosperity-Enhancing Private Sector Job Creation

cwk — Mon, 31 Jan 2011 15:00:35 -0000

It's just my theory of course, but Bayh has always seemed like one of those people who everyone thinks should run for president except for actual voters. There was never any excitement around a Bayh candidacy, and I think he knew that, which is why he never launched a campaign, even in 2008 when Dems with presidential ambitions were crawling out of the woodwork to run against the GOP trainwreck. The route that he expected to follow was as a VP pick who would then still be young enough to run himself eight years later. Then he got passed over twice in both 2004 and 2008, meaning he wouldn't be able to try again until 2016, and for whatever reason, he didn't want to wait that long anymore.

Re: Evan Bayh Off To Work On Prosperity-Enhancing Private Sector Job Creation

cwk — Mon, 31 Jan 2011 14:33:15 -0000

He's from Indiana - a conservative state with a strong tea party movement.

Not really, the teabaggers here are pathetically disorganized. They ran about six different candidates against establishment hack Dan Coats in the GOP primary last year, and look where it got them. If their "organizational meeting" a few weeks ago to try to take out Lugar is any indication, that attempt is going to be equally pathetic.

Bayh consistently wins Indiana elections with over 60% of the vote. He'd have won easily again if he'd wanted to. He didn't quit because he's afraid of losing, he quit because he realized he was never going to be president so it was time to go get paid.

Re: And You Will Know Us By The Trail of Patent Trolls

cwk — Wed, 26 Jan 2011 12:53:21 -0000

It's interesting how much actual software developers, the people doing the innovating, *hate* software patents. In the years I've worked in the industry I don't think I've met one actual developer who supports software patents. All the support for them comes from the corporate lawyers. That should tell us something.

Re: Acronym Mania

cwk — Sun, 23 Jan 2011 21:04:14 -0000

Let's not leave out the American Bar Association. I don't know if this is typical admittedly, but I'm reading one of their books for a class right now and there's actually a giant list of acronyms at the beginning of the book, before even the introduction.

Re: Christina Romer’s Clever Op-Ed

cwk — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 18:45:20 -0000

Can you point out to me where in Romer's op-ed she advocates for any of those things? Because I'm having trouble finding it. I'm sure this a failing on my part, and it's not the case that you're just a lying hack, so I'd really appreciate the help.

Re: Conservatives Can Be Persuaded to Embrace Taxes—But Only If Poor People Pay Them

cwk — Sun, 26 Dec 2010 20:59:30 -0000

"The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread." -Anatole France

Never thought I'd see the day where someone would paraphrase this as a defense of rich people. Astonishing.

Re: Deadweight Loss of Liquor License Restrictions

cwk — Mon, 29 Nov 2010 21:07:06 -0000

So I live in Indianapolis, a city much more similar to Pittsburgh than DC or NYC. We also do not have a shortage of affordable housing. Based on my city I find it somewhat odd, this idea that these popular nightlife districts lower property values. As an example, I recently bought a house while a friend of mine recently sold one. He sold for over 50k more than I paid for a similar house in roughly the same area. The houses are in two adjacent neighborhoods with similar housing stock. The biggest difference between the two houses is location, he's closer to the popular nightlife district than I am. In fact, the houses near the nightlife district typically carry a price premium over those further away. The neighborhood with the nightlife district is considered one of the most desirable in the city. This is typically true for housing of similar quality in popular nightlife districts in other parts of the city.

The house I bought is within walking distance of a small cluster of local businesses, including a popular local restaurant. About two years back (before I bought here) the restaurant wanted to expand, and this was bitterly contested between pro and con forces in the neighborhood. The pro forces won, and expand it did. And when I went house shopping, I considered that expansion, and the fact the pro-expansion side won in this neighborhood to be a selling point, because I want more popular local businesses to walk to.

Sometimes I wish I was wealthy enough to be a real estate speculator. I'd love to ask the NIMBY types to put their money where their mouths are and sell their homes to me before their property values are supposedly destroyed by the horror of living near popular amenities. I suspect I could clean up. I suppose YMMV in Pittsburgh, but I've seen this pattern in Indy enough times to be fairly confident about it.

Re: Vote Less, Judges Edition

cwk — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 17:32:33 -0000

And let's not forget Indiana's esteemed "township trustees", who's primary purpose appears to be to collect a share of property tax dollars with which to give themselves pay raises.