She technically wrote this before me, but…

That said, I don’t see why brackets top out at a relatively low level of income.  Indeed, I don’t see why we have tax brackets.  They’re inefficient, and a lot of them have pernicious marginal effects on those near the ceiling.  Why not a continuously scaling function from negative (EITC) to some maximum?  These days, people use either printed tax tables or tax software to prepare their taxes; this shouldn’t present an undue hardship.   Obviously, with my preference for less government, I would recenter the scale so that people making $250,000 a year pay relatively less, and those making $10 million pay relatively more, in order to make the proposal revenue neutral.  But the basic concept seems bipartisan.

Besides, I’d love to see the merits of a logarithmic regression equation debated on the floor of Congress.

I’m with Nate:

I’d call this the law of unintended consequences — except that the consequences are explicitly written into the bill. The bonus tax, which passed the House earlier today, applies not only to AIG but also to some 12 other firms that received substantial levels of government assistance. This includes both financial institutions like AIG and nonfinancial ones like General Motors; it includes banks that are preforming poorly, like Citibank, and those that are holding up fairly well, like JPMorgan Chase and PNC. The government has dictated that nobody at anybody of these companies is deserving of incentive-based compensation, unless their household income is less than $250,000 per year. [...]

As written, I’m not even certain that the bill will reduce compensation for these bailed-out firms at all. It will just shift it from incentive-based compensation, which is subject to the levy, to salary-based compensation, which isn’t. But in so doing, it will make it harder for the companies to align performance and rewards.

I understand why the bill was written this way — it had to be broad enough to fend off a constitutional challenge — but the cure is worse than the disease. Much worse. I can’t imagine a credible defense of it along economic lines, and so far as I’ve seen nobody has even attempted one.

And with hilzoy:

Besides all that, it’s spooking the banks needlessly. I want to emphasize the word ‘needlessly’ here. There are a lot of things I think we ought to do that would spook the banks. Nationalizing several of the large banks, for starters. Putting in place regulations that ensure that no company is “too big to fail”, that depository banks and investment banks are different companies, that liquidity requirements are bigger and (preferably) countercyclical, etc. Regulating all types of financial services firms, including hedge funds, and all financial instruments, including derivatives. Setting up procedures to liquidate any companies that manage to become systemically important despite these regulations, procedures that ensure that their investors take a very serious haircut. Unless someone can explain to me why off-balance entities serve some useful purpose, I think they should be banned. So I am fine with spooking banks.

That said, no business does well when the rules are constantly changing all around them. A lot of the reforms I favor are aimed not just at making the rules better, but establishing predictable rules where none exist. The fact that we have been improvising ever since this crisis hit is a tremendous indictment of every preceding administration that could have set up mechanisms to deal with these sorts of problems but did not.

If we want to spook the banks, then, I think we ought to do it in some way that actually solves a genuine and serious problem, and does it in an intelligent and targeted way. This bill is neither intelligent nor targeted. Moreover, while the bonuses are outrageous, they are not on my list of the top 100 things we need to worry about right now.

I’d rather save my fury and use it to force serious, lasting reform of the entire financial industry, and save spooking the banks for something really worthwhile, like nationalizing Citi.

This is angry mob politics at its worst.  Zero brains, all pitchforks and torches.

So this is what the kids are doing these days. Damn whippersnappers!

Just kidding, I’ll totally give this a try.

As directed by this freaking guy.

This video below contains some explicit cartoon scenes, flashing lights and is FOR OVER 18′s ONLY.

Directed by Eric Wareheim (Tim & Eric) in association with Warp Records and Warp Films. Music by Flying Lotus. Co Directed/ Animation by Devin Flynn. Co Directed/ Edited by Eric Fensler. More info at dancefloordale.com

So, I’ve been really slow with my posts lately…

Anyway, a couple posts about our income tax brackets a while back got my mind stirring at work, and a question came up: Why the hell do we even have tax brackets, anyway?  We should just have a tax equation.  I mean, it’s not like we don’t have computers doing our taxes right now anyway.  Why can’t we just have a single equation that takes in your adjusted gross income and calculates the percentage of your income that should be taxed.  No brackets needed, and it’s much more precise.

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Hey guys. I have a new website. Again.

I really appreciate everyone’s comments from last time around. Taking everything that was said into consideration, I decided that while there was a lot I liked about the last version, I had some fundamental problems with the design. So! I decided to scrap it and start anew. I enlisted the help of a new flash friend, Arkadiusz Milek, (who is a total badass) for the coding end. Behold:

http://teamasparag.us

I think it’s a solid improvement over v1. Hopefully I can get a job now. That is all.

This one is my favorite.

Many more animals, wearing convincing wigs of course, in the article.

[Source: www.bestweekever.tv]

Ridiculously sweet Puma commercial. Features some really creatively done light projection (all the rage these days) coupled with interpretive dance. Yeah, who knew? Soundtracked by The Magnetic Fields, one of Eric’s faves.

[via Motionographer]

[Source: www.alexschreyer.net]

He’s a master of cinema. Please watch the following clips to experience.

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Hey everyone

I will be in San Francisco from Friday, March 20th to Thursday, March 26th at this years Game Developer’s Conference. I was wondering if anyone else will be in the area. Does anyone know someone going to GDC that I might be interested in hooking up with? Adam, will Maureen be there?

Just curious. Take care guys!

This is awesome:

Bronzed and deeply lined from decades of life in the desert sun, Mr. Clark is not one to worry about global warming. He suspects that if the planet’s climate is getting hotter, it is part of a natural cycle and will probably correct itself. “Experts have been wrong before,” he said.

But late last year, Mr. Clark decided to install a $62,000 solar power system because of a new municipal financing program that lent him the money and allows him to pay it back with interest over 20 years as part of his property taxes. In so doing, he joined the vanguard of a social experiment that is blossoming in California and a dozen other states.

The goal behind municipal financing is to eliminate perhaps the largest disincentive to installing solar power systems: the enormous initial cost. Although private financing is available through solar companies, homeowners often balk because they worry that they will not stay in the house long enough to have the investment — which runs about $48,000 for an average home and tens of thousands of dollars more for a larger home in a hot climate — pay off.

But cities like Palm Desert lobbied to change state laws so that solar power systems could be financed like gas lines or water lines, covered by a loan from the city and secured by property taxes. The advantage of this system over private borrowing is that any local homeowners are eligible (not just those with good credit), and the obligation to pay the loan attaches to the house and would pass to any future buyers.

I can’t wait for Arizona to pass similar legislation.  This is something that will finally make solar panels move from a rarity to a common site in desert locations.

Horribly underrated (yet loved by a majority here @ JTB) Wii game Excitetruck is getting a sequel on April 20th!

From Nintendo Power (via Ars):

Unlike its predecessor Excite Truck, which featured normal trucks to race, Excitebots will see players riding in vehicles modeled after insects and animals. This includes robotic racer versions of turtles, frogs, ladybugs, grasshoppers, and more. You can even collect power-ups that will allow you to run around on two/four legs.

Aside from the new look, it appears that the game will play much like Excite Truck. Tilts controls will make a return, as will ground deformation. Once again, whether or not you win a competition will depend on a combination of the tricks you pull off and where you finish in the actual race.

And now… a video!

Hopefully they’ll have the option to play the game without the Wii-Wheel, as I’m personally not the biggest fan of useless pseudo-peripherals.

Collegehumor published an article that my very own girlfriend, Genevieve, wrote. Very exciting stuff. Check it out here. It’s called “how to get your girlfriend to play videogames”.