My co worker from another life, had suggesting placing "The 85 percent rule" in a blog format. My way of getting the message out to people. I honestly don't care about a financial compensation, ( although if you insist on sending money....oh never mind ) but although he did not completely agree with the rule, he suggested the blog.
If you have not read any of the other blogs, the 85 percent rule, is a statement on the human condition. Why we act the way we do. 85 percent of the entire world population alive now, or who ever lived, or who ever will live, is dumber than a box of rocks. 5 percent of the remaining population is dumber than the 85 percent, 5 percent are normal intelligence and 5 percent are scary smart. They are so smart, none of us really understand them, but its good they are around.
Dumber or dumb to me, means correct information is out there, or its actually easy to find and yet an individual or a group decides to use partial information, inaccurate information, lies, rumors, to make decisions. They do this because its easier not to find the truth, its safer to decide with the pack, its more convenient to believe the lie. All of which equals really dumb people.
We are ALL guilty of doing this one time or another, and we need to work at not thinking with the 85 percent or 5 percent dumber.
This is really an important concept, when you realize, our politicians, our elected officials, or corporation leaders, our clergy and spiritual leaders, our police , military, everyone you count on, ALSO are effected by this rule of being dumber than a box of rocks.
You counted on them being smarter, not so. They are human, they are also herd animals, pack animals, they do stupid things, really stupid things. Being warned about this condition, it is YOUR task to THINK. To make decisions based on fact.
My blog on Pakistan could be an considered one of my dumb moments, but I am just tired of giving money to a people who make no apologies about a desire to kill me or my fellow countryman.
In the spirit of being honest, I do not believe in any supreme being. Many years ago, I did, I was raised with religion, received all but one sacrament. While I do understand our species need for belief in a supreme being, I do not see the logic in it. Or I do not understand the logic of belief in the style of God most religions claim to believe in.
But given that many people do believe, for me an important issue is ( and I have stated this before ) how can you negotiate with some one who either actual believes they are being directed by God, or has to pretend so deeply that they believe. ( they have to pretend in order to have the mass of people , continue following them) If God is directing you ( if you believe God is directing you) than what is there to negotiate with man about. God told you this land is yours, who is man, the united nations, Palestine, Israel, Ireland to say its not yours or you need to share it. God told you or your leader, its YOUR job to convert others in the world, and if they don't convert its your job to kill them. How do we negotiate Gods orders.
And when individuals claim they are devote believers, it limits how they can respond, even if they are not true believers. They need to maintain the facade of belief, or risk losing their followers.
But religion in my blog needs to come after the election, we have bigger fish.
Lies of omission and lies because candidates just find it easier to lie to us, and count on you and I not checking.
First, I beg everyone to vote, the answer is not to not vote. Not showing up at the polls does not frighten any candidate, it means they only need there constituents to show up and it makes it easier to win with low turn out ( except if both parties bases show up) But vote, if you don't like the two parties please vote for the bizarre name you never heard of... vote for the woman dominatrix or the Albanian goat trader.... but cast a vote. And stop sending money to the parties. That is how to deliver a message, dry up campaign funds. and show a high turn out voting for any one but the two main parties. That's a message. Not voting is an easy win for one of the two parties and lets face it, both of them are lacking.
The Democrats are spineless, whining , in effective, out of touch, egotistical , idiots , with over active libidos, and lie about there private lives, the public lives are so poor no one really cares.
Republicans are all that and preach moral values while cheating on there families but they claim the devil forced them to do it. However they lie about the stuff that gets you and I, killed. That is the difference.
If the tree hugger and democrats are wrong about global warming, we will have spend allot of money getting off fossil fuels. The economy will be slow for a lot longer, more jobs lost durning the adjustment, maybe less convenience for the average person, but at the end of the day, we wont depend on foreign oil , we would create new jobs with the new infrastructure and creation of renewable energy makes money available for other issues... the social issues.
If the Republicans are wrong about global climate change, the end result is you are dead! Either the flood kills you , the food riots, the pollution, but you are dead. So again what is the logical choice here.
The republicans lied about economy, higher taxes on the rich do NOT create higher un employment. I showed that historically that is not accurate, and empirically if lower taxes create jobs, than ask where are the jobs NOW taxes are low now ( on the rich) where are the jobs.
The democrats are wrong on interest rates. increase interest rates will get more money out there not less. Why would any bank or company for the matter want to increase production or lending. You borrow money from banks at low low interest and invest it in stocks , bonds, derivatives etc. Why would you why would you build or create jobs with that borrowed money when you make more by investing it. Make it less profitable to invest money into the market by increasing the interest rates.
If I had my 3 wishes and they had to be on social issues and not me being filthy rich and universally intelligent , it would be renewable energy, no industrial nation can do anything without energy, so wish one would be renewable cost effective energy, wish two would be quality ( QUALITY ) and free education. Again no industrial society can survive without a WELL educated population , last, the proper balance on health care, between socialized heath care for emergency medicine and private for everything else.
Dad (who I love and respect very, very much) -
ReplyDeleteFirst, I need your help moving the TVs in my house - probably this weekend.
Second, you did not prove anything with your 7 data points from 1941. If anything, the fact that a relatively low tax environment is not resulting in robust job creation potentially indicates that there are many other factors involved, one of which includes a horrible tax system riddled with loopholes and exceptions and already relies on the top income earners (like you making over $100k) to pay the vast majority of income taxes and fund an ever expanding social welfare "safety-net" that just saps our country of the money to invest in things you and I both know we need to invest in.
Yes, the Republicans are idiots on many issues but I think the basic idea is higher taxes isn't the answer. You could tax the "rich" 100% of their income (funny how Obama/demotards say millionaires and billionaires on TV but all of the proposals start at 200k/250k...weird) and it still wouldn't cover the budget deficit (which you should care about even though you say you don't because we owe interest on it and that interest - while low now - is still billions we could be using on more productive things). What they should be saying is that taxing one group more isn't the answer, we really need to revamp our whole crummy, loophole ridden personal and corporate tax code.
From your blog on Fri, Sept 23rd:
1941 unemployment = 9.6 coming out of a depression, tax rate on the wealthy 80%
jump to
1960 unemployment = 6.6 tax rate = 91 percent...yes that is 91 percent but look at employment rate
1971 unemployment = 5.9 tax rate = 65 percent
1981 unemployment =7.5 tax rate = 60 percent hmmmm
1991 unemployment =6.4 tax rate = 31 percent
2001 unemployment= 4.2 tax rate = 39 percent
2011 unemployment = 9.2 tax rate = 35 percent..
This relationship is overly simplifying things and does not prove your point. We would have to investigate much more deeply to see what was going on in each of these time periods.
If you plot the annual data points from 1940 to the present you find all sorts of trends. You really have to look at the other factors and economic relationships to see why UE may have been rising or falling.
Here are three periods I cherry picked:
From mid 1940s-early 1960s the top marginal rate stays in the 90s and UE goes from a low of approx. 1% to 6%.
In the early 1960s they cut the rate from 90s to 70% and UE falls from 6% to 3%.
UE is around 9% in mid 1980s and they cut the rate from 70% to 30% (in late 9180s) and UE falls to the 5% range.
All I am saying is that you can cherry pick data points to try and make a point.