No your use of quotes just helps inform me of your view of the problem; your focus is first on saving the "rich" from those poor, burdensome taxes.

tocqueville was one of the most insightful folk to grasp what american democracy was, back when it was, long ago in a time-space erased by american capitalism.

but ace, he believes in what's "real"
because he's not a french aristocrat, you see.
french aristocrats are not real.
ace is real and he believes it.
that's why he's smarter than alexis de tocqueville was.

It is clear to me that actually explaining my view is not good enough. So, I will ask questions that will lead you to my view. I will start with this one.

If you have an opportunity to earn an extra $100 from work, how much effort will you put into earning the extra $100 if it will be taxed at a rate of 100% - before you collect it? One week after you collect it? One year after you collect it? After you die?

---------- Post added at 02:35 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:30 PM ----------

Come on, how about a little intellectual honesty. What I posted about Tocqueville was factually correct. His views in a modern context is problematic as it relates to a commentary on American democracy in the context of economic opportunity. I acknowledge value in his views, but are you suggesting that there are no problems or the problem as I described? Gee whiz - in your dislike of me, my style or whatever - you come across as petty. Grow-up.

i dont dislike you ace.
you just say so many stupid things....

tocqueville talks about democracy in america in the 1830s.
i reference the argument and i situate it quickly in a historical context.

your powerful "critique" of the point is that tocqueville comes out of a historical context.

well no shit ace.
i said as much in the post.

First for anyone interested here is a link to the book in question, I recently read it since it came up in this discussion:

DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA - Google Books

Second, Tocqueville writing is clearly influenced by his aristocratic background.

On the issue of wealth being passed from generation to generation, I note page 121, first full paragraph in his book he states that equality is connected to economic opportunity - I see that as a good thing. In European style aristocracy wealth was pass in whole from generation to generation not subject to break-up, not necessarily due to taxation, but due to the entire estate passing to a single heir without break-up as opposed to the system developed in the US where estates were subject to division to heirs. The implication of this is not having an entrenched aristocracy. Democracy nurtures economic opportunity through the creation of economic equal opportunity.

At this point, I am going to assume no one is going to answer the questions because of the appearance of an obvious setup.

What would have been an intriguing answer is if someone said - I would put in the same amount of effort because even if the effort gives no benefit directly to me, there is a benefit to society or to others.

Unfortunately, no one actually thinks that way, not even socialists, communists, etc., their real interest is to derive benefits personally or to society through the effort of others. And that is why these systems ultimately will always fail and the system will gravitate towards allowing individuals to directly benefit from their efforts and motivations to get "rich".

what real system is in place that is an equivalent of "earn $100, taxed $100"?

There are examples in this thread. Under our current tax code people face these choices constantly - where through the loss of tax credits and certain deductions an increase of a $100 in income could cost a person that $100 or more.

In many of these cases it involves working poor trying to get ahead - one day you are getting $$$ from government through a program, you earn some $$$ from work and the entire amount from government goes to zero because you no longer qualify. In this context you can argue a benefit from government is not a part of our tax system, I don't. For example you have a job paying taxes that in part supports our unemployment system, you then loose your job and start collecting - ifyou collect $200 per week, you won't take a job paying $100 per week until your benefit runs out.

"Rich" people have experts working on their behalf to find loop-holes and they have choices - they can manage their tax burden. Poor people do not have these experts and they don't have many choices - in some cases it is stay poor or get screwed. Much of this is thanks to liberals who think they are doing good but are not - and there are some liberals who know what they are doing and they just don't really care about the working poor, they just pretend to.

{added} There are better ways to do all of this. For example unemployment insurance - don't make it all or nothing, for low income people allow it to be a supplement to income they earn through work - allow them to get ahead, to save.

Welfare, in its many forms? If you work, you lose 100% of the chunk of other people's money the government gives you every month.

People don't really "earn" welfare, though, right?

What do you consider welfare?

Using one example of how this issue is confusing, consider the earned income tax credit. To get this credit a person has to have earned income, but not too much earned income. With the credit, the person can get back all taxes paid to the federal government, plus in addition they get the remainder of the credit in the form of a check from the federal government. Is that welfare? A person or family can loose 100% of the tax credit if they make too much money.

Here is another editorial with facts supporting the premise:

The Great Escape - IBD - Investors.com

The pattern is pretty clear.

It think that it's pretty clear that in discussions like these, the words "taxes" and "welfare" have little actual meaning. They're just code words. It won't be long before someone starts claiming that roads are welfare.

No doubt we should take the editorial extra seriously because the facts were chosen with great care.

The only clear pattern is that it's difficult to predict how tax-based revenue will change in the future.

Minnesota in the 2000s is a pretty great example of why conservative economic policies fail when it comes to actually keeping government in the black. The great fiscal genius that is Tim Pawlenty, he of the "No New Taxes (but we'll impose a shitload of fees)" pledge was consistently unable to come up with a budget that didn't rely on shifting costs down the road or raiding money set aside for something else. One of his main problems was that despite the old canard that reducing taxes actually increases gov't revenue, he was met with consistent budget shortfalls. If I were IBD, I'd make this connection and let the reader come up with their own flawed conclusion, but I'm not, so I'll just say that the economy is complicated, and that the people who seem to have certainty regarding it are the ones who are the most confused by it.

I gave a specific example and asked you to give your definition of a term, there was no "code" in that.

How many examples of the same thing to we need before we take it seriously. Here is an excerpt from another view from today's WSJ:

Michael Boskin: Obama's Economic Fish Stories - WSJ.com


No it is not. The general trend is easy to determine regarding tax policy, the difficulty is in isolating tax policy from other variables. Rational people respond in predictable ways.

Paulenty wants to keep taxes low and cut spending, the DFL controlled legislature has a different agenda, isn't that conflict the root of the budget problems in Minnesota?

Nice. Note how they point out the fact that there isn't a consensus about the effect of the stimulus, but then right after they imply that there is a consensus about why the stimulus failed. It's weird that they'd ignore the idea that the effects of the stimulus were small because the stimulus wasn't big enough.

Aside from the "rational people behave in predictable ways" fallacy, you basically just rephrased what I said, which is to say that it is difficult to make a revenue forecast that adequately account for the effects of reality.

The DFL is pretty good at capitulation. Cuts have occurred frequently, with local governments picking up the slack. The point is that conservative fiscal policy hasn't done the state any favors.

"rational people behave in predictable ways" fallacy

That's actually not a fallacy at all. The problem is with presuming consistent rationality. People don't always behave rationally even if they behave mostly rationally. The reason economic models have any validity at all is because most people behave rationally most of the time. Think of it: how could anyone know whether a price is fair or reasonable if they didn't behave rationally?

Another issue is whether rational people could disagree about what the right economic decision is. That in turn rests on what different people value. But in the end it comes down to price - people may be willing to pay more for something they value more. But that doesn't mean people who aren't willing to pay it aren't rational, it only means they place different values on the transaction.

or it could mean that the word "rational" is vaporous in this context.

just saying.

You know, I was thinking that it is best to say, "People behave in predictable ways when they are being rational."

or you could say that rational is a characteristic imputed to people who behave in predictable ways. so it's be a synonym for predictability in a sense, but one links it to some putative subjective mode (being "rational" follows from the capacity to be predictable, so the latter is an expression of the former).

So then one could conclude that Ted Bundy was acting rationally;
since serial killers predictably keep on killing.

I need a feinting couch, for I'm experiencing a case of Vicks-Vapor-Rub overdose.

I am not one bit remorseful for the thread heist.

The only place a statement like "rational people behave in predictable ways" isn't a fallacy is in an econ textbook. This is because in an economic textbook it's a tautology: Predictable Behavior -> Rationality and Rationality -> Predictable Behavior.

As Ace used the phrase (Governmental revenue forecasting is easy because rational people are predictable) it's definitely not true. On an individual level it doesn't apply because people acting in a completely rational capacity do unpredictable things all of the time. It is only in hindsight that we attach the rational label to their motivations. Even then, the act of attaching the rational label to a person's thoughts is highly subjective. On a more macro scale, the phrase doesn't apply, because then you're looking at the emergent properties of a complex system, which are defined by the system's individual components acting in concert and which are not necessarily all that predictable.

Even if it weren't a fallacy, the idea that "rational people behave in predictable ways" is fairly meaningless as anything other than a guiding principle, because the type of awareness and computing power required to predict anything of economic significance with any amount of certainty doesn't exist.

Usually I say: People do what they think is in their best interest.

---------- Post added at 08:27 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:21 PM ----------

What is the point of government economic policy if there is no component of predictable behavior?

Given something like the mortgage interest tax deduction, isn't that predicated on the belief that home ownership is good and that the deduction is in place to encourage home ownership?

Given something like fines issued by government for unwanted behaviors by individuals or entities, aren't those predicated on the belief that a negative economic impact will discourage unwanted behaviors?

Forecasting revenue requires specificity, you have to make assumptions based on limited information. It's a far cry from simply predicting the behavior of automata.

Revenue forecasting is common. There is no doubt assumptions are made, and the accuracy and thoughtfulness that goes into those assumptions will have a major impact on the accuracy of the forecast, accuracy can be virtually certain especially when the laws of large numbers are in play. What we are really talking about is calculus - I say it is "science" not "art".

I'd say it's more stats than calculus.

I don't think your distinction between science and art reflects reality. Science is an art form, especially when prognostication is involved.

forecasting is only as good as the assumptions used. And one of the assumptions is about what rational people would do, but there are way too many variables for anyone to know what different people value, so as a result, even assuming rationality, prediction is hard.

At the gross level, certain things do hold true, like the downward sloping demand curve and the upward sloping supply curve. But that's a very blunt instrument.

This just underscores that Hayek was right - central planning always fails because the planners can never have all the information they need, when they need it, in order to make good decisions -- and because they are subject to the same irrationalities as everyone else.

you could use similar kinds of models to demonstrate that crowds moving through open corridors will tend to break left when confronted by an obstacle.
because that tendency is consistent, so predictable, it's also rational, isn't it?

This is likely to be the case. The issue, then, is calculating the difference between what they think and what they know.

The bottom line: people are seldom as rational as they think they are. The market is driven in large part by emotions. Even if you take household money matters, emotions tend to play a larger role than people would like to accept.

I think people routinely do things that they know are counter to their best interest. Cigarette sales and the obesity epidemic are good examples. I think people tend to choose ease and convenience over their own best interest. If this were not the case our economy would be vastly different.

It is both. The ability to develop predictive formulas is calculus.

I will re-read this line of discussion but it seems that some are taking issue with the ability to predict behaviors and forecast with accuracy. I think it can be done and is not a guessing game even when the behaviors of people are involved.

---------- Post added at 01:12 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:03 PM ----------

Rational behaviors do not always result in correct behavior or the most logical behavior. Correct behavior may require information that a rational person does not have or an analysis that a rational person does not do. However, given consistency, rational behaviors that do not lead to correct behavior can be explained and predicted.

Las Vagas, given the odds of winning games of chance against the house, should not exist based on what one would consider rational behavior in the context of correctness. But it does, and the folk who build and operate casinos, very easily predict the behaviors of their visitors.

---------- Post added at 01:20 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:12 PM ----------

There is certainly obsessive, compulsory and addictive behaviors, but there is also a person who makes a choice between the benefits of immediate gratification and the long-term costs.

I'm thinking you mean calculus in the more general sense.

Nobody is saying that it can't be done accurately. It is difficult to do accurately precisely because there is typically a significant amount of guesswork required in predicting the behavior of groups of people. It is always a guessing game, even if one is unwilling to admit that guesswork is involved.


I think you're speaking your own language here.

Right. I was just pointing out that people frequently don't have their own best interests in mind when making decisions and that any economic theory that ignores this fact is inadequate when it comes to predicting human behavior.

yeah ace, i was talking about stochastics.

never mind.

Stochastics are nice because you can dispense with lots of pesky assumptions and let the data speak for itself. For instance, you can use data to show that groups of people are predictable independent of assumptions regarding rationality.

that was why i mentioned the example. but the response sucked the wind away.

I'm getting the impression that ace doesn't deal in uncertainties.

of course it's rational. In a country where people tend to walk on the right side, it stands to reason that they'll pass an obstacle in their path by going left, where there will usually be more space open, than on the right, where there will by definition be less space (because the obstacle is in their path, and theyr'e on the right). How is that not rational?

More to the point, though, unless you are positing that people are generally random, which strikes me as an absurd position, the default assumption has to be that people are generally acting rationally - defined as acting in pursuit of what they value. Seen that way, the obese person acts rationally because s/he values the nice feeling from having the cheeseburger and fries right now more than possibly being thinner after four or five more months of discipline. You can dispute that judgment (I know I do) but it's not irrational. It totally is a function of what people value. People's true preferences and values get revealed through their actions. This happens all the time. And it accounts for charitable instincts as well. People can value good things or bad things.

In this context, irrationality would be, say, choosing to pay more for an item without also getting some other benefit such as convenience. There's a difference between matters of judgment, as to which people can disagree, and matters of rationality.

that one can impute the category "rational" to an action without that action involving a conscious choice simply confirms the position i've been arguing over the last few posts.

in the example of crowds tending to break to the left, you have a regularity of action. you can say it's rational by doing what you do--inserting it into a grid or frame that makes it so. so a regularity is rational is a regularity so long as that regularity is social (as over against an automatic reflex).

but that usage of rational has nothing to do with the sense in which ace was trying to use the term, which is restricted to economic theory. it has even less to do with the traditional western philosophical notion of a rational subject.

the term's vaporous.

well of course it's inserted into a frame. These actions don't exist independently of their contexts.

Loquitur, I don't think that the ability to impose a rational explanation onto collective behavior is at all equivalent to showing that the actors involved were behaving rationally.

Well, Filtherton, we as human beings have no way of understanding other people except by our observations of their actions, which are naturally affected by our own interpretations. If you assume that you yourself are rational, and that the people you interact with generally are rational as well (defined in approximately the same way as you define it for yourself, or at least within some reasonable range), then your interpretation of how others are acting will be influenced by that.

As I said, this stuff can't exist in a vacuum. People act in context, and the observers observe in their own context as well.

I just think it's a huge (and hugely arrogant) step to say that people -- more specifically, other people -- act irrationally. You're imposing your own values that way, rather than granting others the respect of their own decisionmaking. Absent mental illness of some kind, in most cases you just can't make a pronouncement that others are behaving irrationally; all you can say is that they are making a judgment different from yours.

It's like buying a lottery ticket - most economists will say it's irrational to buy lottery tickets because they have only an infintessimal chance of winning. Yet millions of people buy them. Are they all nuts? No, not at all. That's because they are not buying just an infintessimal chance of winning; they are also buying that sense of possibility and anticipation, because (as the ad goes here in NY) "you have to be in it to win it." Until the bet is lost and they toss the ticket in the trash, they have an interlude of thinking there is a chance, however remote, of ending their financial worries. I bet if you asked most lottery buyers whether they expect to win, they'll say "no, probably not. But you never know, lightning can strike." Is that irrational? Not to me it isn't. Maybe a different judgment than I would make, but hardly irrational.

Part of the problem is that different people have different definitions of rational. I think that most people act rationally most of the time. The definition of rational that I'm using is completely subjective. I include myself in the above generalizations.

Regardless of any arrogance I may have, you still can't really credibly assume that patterns evident in group behavior are proof that members of the group are acting rationally, even if they probably are. Right? It would be a tad unconventional to observe the collective behavior that is a stampede and conclude that the animals must be rational because they all seem to be conforming to a certain pattern of behavior. Part of making good observations when your perspective is limited is recognizing your limitations and not extrapolating unnecessarily.

filth, by that it's safe then to assume that everyone is irrational.

the people who administered the holocaust---you know, worked in the bureaucracy that implemented it, that set things up and put them into motion--operated what is sometimes called a bounded rationality. everyone does, but this is just an extreme example.
one feature of bounded rationalities is compartmentalization. one type of compartmentalization is the separation of a bureaucratically and/or politically sanctioned goals from their consequences.
so exterminating a population could come to be seen as a neutral administrative objective.
people inside that bureaucracy did their duty...they were bound by whatever they understood the professional code of ethics to be, say, as well as by social solidarities that dovetailed with and were reinforced by political or ideological consensus. they operated in social, political and professional contexts that normalized a day gig which was--if you thought about it this way---organizing the extermination of another group of human beings because of their religion and/or ethnicity.

within those contexts, participating in genocide was a rational action.
how useful is the category?

I think that everyone is irrational to some extent.

--^--

Filtherton, I'll agree that you can't presume rationality based on the bare fact that a crowd is acting uniformly, without looking at what the particular behavior is. Ambulating by putting one foot in front of another isn't a rational choice, it's how people walk. But people's reactions to certain social stimuli is a totally different story.

Here's what I think: I think we're getting caught up in a semantic argument about what it means to be rational. I get the impression that you think that "rational" status is something that need only be imposed on an actor post action, so that if someone's behaviors seem rational, then they are labeled rational. I can be fairly dense at times, so let me know if I've got you all wrong.

I think that people have many diverse reasons for doing the things that they do, and that many of these reasons wouldn't stand up well to close scrutiny. I include myself in this. I understand that these things may be considered rational in a local sense, that is, rational if you take into account the limited information processing capabilities of humanity and assume that everyone is doing the best they can with the information they have. This would mean that everyone is at least locally rational, but it would also destroy the notion that rational people are predictable, because as far as I can tell, outside of generalities or statistical distributions, they aren't.

It would be more appropriate to say that the collective behavior of rational people can be predicted sometimes, assuming we know enough and nothing odd happens in our period of interest.

Couple of things:

1) we don't know what is inside people's heads. We can't. So of course we can only evaluate rationality by observing their actions and then measuring the actions against some yardstick. I suppose that can be called ex post labelling, but there really isn't any other way to do it, right?

2) of course people can only make decisions based on the info they have available to them and their own capabilities. That's the very definition of being a rational actor. Your position seems to be that there is some independent absolute definition of what a rational decision is, against which everyone's decisionmaking can be evaluated. I don't agree with that at all. I think you can point to general tendencies, but that's all, because each person is unique and has his/her own priorities and abilities. The ability to forecast can only be based on gross generalizations and tendencies, based on what most people would deem rational in a general situation.

The answer to your question in 226 is, yes. In the context of stochastic, what may appear to be random and irrational can in-fact be predicable. I use the stochastic oscillator frequently when trying to determine entry and exit points for stock market investments, often day to day price swings have no correlation to the intrinsic value of an investment, giving the appearance of irrational price movements. Often those price movements that appear irrational often are not.

In your post 226 question the pattern may be as simple as person #1, given 50/50 probability went left, and then those that follow have a inclination greater the 50% to follow the lead of the person in front.

---------- Post added at 03:08 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:07 PM ----------

I am in a constant search to eliminate uncertainty.

---------- Post added at 03:11 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:08 PM ----------

Is this breaking left thing made up, or is there something to it?

Do yourself a favour and consider the fact that the best one can hope to achieve is the minimization of uncertainty.

Sure, you can eliminate uncertainty with things such as GICs and the like, and I'm pretty sure the sun will rise again tomorrow, but we must always factor in risk vs. reward in many aspects of life. Life is about managing uncertainty, not eliminating it.

aside

ace...

i did a bunch of research into crowd flows/stochastics when i was trying to figure out why a piece i did that involved putting the audience into motion didn't work as planned. the research didn't add much to what i already more or less knew (it was fucking cold that night for one thing; for another we didn't make the distinction between our performance and that of the collective that opened for us clear enough) but i did find out about the breaking left tendency.

there's alot of information about this kind of thing around design of fire exits for buildings not surprisingly. the way people flock around them in an emergency is really quite strange & creates all kinds of problems for designing what you'd think would be quite simple (a door)...

i think i still have the material around somewhere. if you want i can bounce you citations.

The pattern of we often find in history where good people fall victim of what is irrational behavior, is often grounded in the leaders good people follow, manipulating information or not exposing people to the big picture of what is occurring. So, the bureaucrat who compiles a list of names, the officer who rounds up those people, the engineer who operates the train, etc. may know what they are doing, but may not know what is being done in its entirety. The main reason why despicable leaders want to control speech and the flow of information.

---------- Post added at 03:29 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:23 PM ----------

At the risk of sounding overly philosophical and stuff, if I ever find what I search for, life will no longer have meaning for me. So, I search for that which can not be found.

{added} And getting back to soaking the "rich", what are you folks going to say when democrats extend the Bush tax cuts for the "rich"?

Regarding ex post labelling, I agree that there aren't really a lot of viable other ways to make sense of people's behavior. However, I think it is important to keep in mind the limitations of the method, and that such a method, while frequently compelling from a common sense standpoint, doesn't really constitute proof of anything.

I don't think that there is some sort of absolute definition of rational. The kind of economic theory espoused by Ace assumes that there is an absolute definition of rational, and clearly I disagree. Hence my statement that the phrase "rational people behave in predictable ways" is a fallacy. One problem with the phrase, as used by Ace, is that the definition of rational that it uses is a theoretical construct that doesn't exist in reality. Another problem is that rational people aren't predictable precisely because there is no absolute definition of rational. In fact, rationality can exist within an irrational framework so that the rational status of a person can depend entirely on the scale at which they are observed.

For example: few would claim that Person A's motivation to spend time working to earn money to buy the things he wants is an irrational motivation. However, if you add a bit more context and mention that the Person A is addicted to buying cats and already has 25 that he can't take care, his motivations become a tad less rational. Is Person A a rational person? Is he predictable? How would he respond to a cat tax?

I agree that the ability to forecast can only exist in the context of general tendencies. I disagree that these general tendencies should be based on what most people would deem rational. I think it is much better policy to base these forecasts on actual data. The phrase "what most people would deem rational" means completely different things to different people. Things that seem rational to an objectivist may be completely counter to the things that seem rational to a socialist. Data doesn't lie. Statistics don't lie (though it is easy to misinterpret them if you don't know what you're doing).

People who say "We should/shouldn't enact this type of fiscal policy because the rational response of the populace will be ___________" are frequently drunk on their own overinflated sense of intellectual superiority. I place a great deal more trust in data than I do people who lack the intellectual humility required to avoid making grand predictions based on ideology. Besides, even with good data and a solid, ideology-free, grasp of historical trends, there is really no excuse for anyone to place a lot of faith in the accuracy of financial forecasting at the governmental level.

Uncertainty is always present. You'd be better of settling for the minimization of uncertainty. You should read Black Swan, it's a good argument against the problem with the illusion of certainty with respect to financial markets.

I am 'soaking the rich'. I have greatly reduced the amount of gas I buy (will be less when I get an electric car I am converting), the amount of fast food I buy, and the products I buy from large chain stores.

One problem with being a "rich" Democrat is that it is hard to do what your "rich" buddies can do and get away with it. Can you spell hypocrite - K-E-R-R-Y.

If Mass. taxes Kerry’s yacht, he’ll pay, aide says - The Boston Globe

I guess Kerry is not really a hypocrite since he is going to pay the taxes, if they send him a bill, if he uses the boat in Mass, if his wife gives him permission, if...

So he pays his taxes only if he gets caught not paying taxes. Just like Tim Geithner.

Why does this work for wealthy Democrats and not for me?

this is hilarious. tony haywood looses bp more than any ceo in its history, costs british pensioners a very considerable amount and he gets pensioned off with a roughly 10 million pound severance package so he can go live on a fucking yacht.

and you think *this* is a problem?

the problem is the class structure brought into being by neo-liberalism itself, not which faction inside the political oligarchy which oversees it manages the more effective tax scam.

and in this particular glenn beck-style non-issue, kerry's already noted his intention to pay.
and i don't like the guy particularly.

it's time for rational people to ignore american conservatives.
they've lost whatever tenuous grip on reality they ever had.

I will try to connect the dots.

BP failed, they should pay a price for that failure - potentially going out of business.

Investors should not have invested in BP without knowing and understanding the risk. Investors who assume too much risk should be allowed to fail.

On the other hand oil companies being run properly should be allowed to thrive. Success should not be punished.

Investors who invest in successful companies should be allowed to succeed..

If you try to punish success and those who do things correctly, you get less of it. Or, it moves away, it goes to a place where success can be enjoyed.

Also, if you punish success and bailout failure, you get more failures in your systems. So, when we go after companies doing the right thing or their profits, and protect failure, it does not result in a net benefit to anyone.

Kerry and many liberals embody what is wrong in terms of economic policy, and the hypocrisy of - do as I say, not as I do - is far to obvious to anyone paying attention.

Yes I do. If the Democrats are going to invent all kinds of giveaways of taxpayer money on welfare projects, to the tune of raising the deficit to over $1 trillion dollars, they better be participating in paying the costs of their giveaways.

The only reason Kerry is willing to pay taxes now is that he got caught.

So now Kerry takes over from Charlie Rangel as the Democrat's current poster child for lack of ethics.

And while we are apportioning blame for the BP fiasco, this whole mess is in part just another example of the Obama administration's incompetence, with Obama's administration approving the drilling in the first place.

yeah, i'm not going to waste my time with limbaugh-logic concerning the bp fiasco. i've done far too much research on it and have posted far too much information on this board to bother. if you want to live in an information-lite neo-fascist framed fantasyland, you go right ahead. just don't expect to be treated as though you're trafficking in perspectives that are of any interest. except perhaps as an anthropological matter, were one keeping track of the daily mutation in the "thinking" of american neo-fascism.

Right. Even though Obama's administration approved the drilling, Obama's administration repeatedly refused offers of assistance from other countries early on, and Obama's administration refused to approve plans to reduce the damage, none of this is Obama's fault.

Just as the screwing of the taxpayers by Obama's idiotic stimulus that accomplished very little is not Obama's fault. Or just like his appointing members of his cabinet that thought taxes were optional wasn't his fault.

i am not sure who you imagine yourself to be talking to, dog. o wait that's right: it doesn't matter. you're just following the limbaugh script. it's always impressive to see the ways in which those heroes of individuality on the right repeat the script they're handed by their cretin pundits.

suffice it to say that obama did not put the regulatory apparatus into place that enabled the disaster in the gulf to become a disaster. that bon bon is on the head of the right.

so for that matter is the largest transfer of wealth away from the "middle class" and into the hands of the top five percent in terms of income since such numbers started being kept. that's another consequence of the lunatic policies of conservatives.

profit uber alles. the state is evil. blah blah blah.

and i'm sure that the demon obama whispered into the ear of john kerry's accountant that it'd be a great idea to fuck up his taxes.

idiocy. all of it.

In your world is it rational for people to attempt to save $570,000 in taxes?

Doesn't this little maneuver cost the people of Massachusetts in terms of jobs, taxes collected and severely hurt the boating industry?

Who benefited from Massachusetts tax policy on boats?

Why would a man who represents the people of Massachusetts, the cause of the average man, and taxing the "rich" go out of his way to dock his boat where he does not live?

All these and other questions you won't answer because the answers don't fit neatly into you ideology on this subject, BP and many others, so I ask who is in a fantasy-land, you or me?

ace you haven't the faintest idea what you're talking about.
you don't know anything about "the boating industry" in massachusetts.
do you have any idea how much it costs to get a slip for a season, if you can do it?
do you have any idea how much gas costs if you get it dockside?
do you have any idea how much a boat costs?

who do you think is doing the boating?
do you seriously think people from this social class are affected by a tax on the already quite extortionate cost of owning and keeping a boat?

if you want to talk about the fishing industry, the "boating tax" is the least of their problems.
but you'd have to know what the fuck you're talking about to get to that.
and you don't.


i'm done wasting my time with you.

This is true, but my points have much broader application.

No.

Do you know the reason why it is difficult and costly? Without any direct knowledge I bet the problem is related to government interference.

No. But, I argue that the "rich" alter behavior based on costs. Some argue the opposite point or simply pretend that increasing costs and taxes on the "rich" have no consequences.

Yes.

In general or in Massachusetts? Where I live, boating can be affordable, and even people considered poor have boats (as opposed to yachts like Kerry's, some even use them for a purpose other than pure luxury, i.e. like for fishing). Or in your world is there only one kind of "boating"?

Yes.

Some "rich" people got that way because they put effort into saving a half a million here and there.

Not the least, but they do have other problems other than taxes.

Only if you say so.


So he says for the umpteenth time!

Roach, be a man of your word or interact on a higher level. The choice is yours. I regularly interact with you because I am flawed and I know what my problem is, do you know what your flaw is?

Actually, I don't spend any time listening to Limbaugh, Rush or any of the other commentators from either the conservatives or liberals. They are all pretty much paid to bring listeners to their advertisers.

However, I have learned a few things in the 36 years I've been earning a living.

Regardless how clever the government thinks it is in taking money away from the rich, the rich are going to find loopholes or find other places where they can take their money. I'd rather the rich keep their money in the US.

I can whine about how the rich are keeping all the wealth and expect the government to redistribute the rich man's money to me. Then I can complain some more when the government giveaways end and I have to fend for myself. I can also decide to do something to improve my lot and make myself a decent living. I figure I've been a whole lot more successful fending for myself than living on the government dole.

When the government says they are here to help, they really aren't. All they are trying to do is buy some votes. When some more gullible voters come along, government priorities change.

You may be right. However, this rig was approved in 2009. Obama's presidency, Obama's responsibility. Obama's continuing to blame his problems on Bush after a year and a half is getting pretty tiresome and not very credible.

Harry Truman got one thing right, with a sign on his desk that said "The buck stops here". Obama is no Harry Truman.

What I find amusing is that with all the claims of the disintegration of the middle class, there are statistics that the number of millionaires in the US in increasing as time goes by. For instance, here Millionaire - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


If that's contributing to the disintegration of the middle class, then I'd like to see more disintegration. I know my living standards are way better now than they were 20 years ago and better than they were 10 years ago, and I'm just a working guy.

Um, you're making it sound as though people are on welfare if they aren't wealthy. Are you ignoring the middle class?

For every new millionaire, how many people have had their real incomes eroded? I think the disintegration is happening far faster from the bottom down than it is from the top up.

I'm happy to hear about your situation though. However, I don't think a lot of people are experiencing what you have.

I have little experience outside of the US, but the current standard of living in this country is as high as it has ever been and the trend line has been consistently up. In this country "rich" people get rich, but everyone benefits. I don;t think there is any basis for your statement as it applies to the US. In corrupt nations or nations with corrupt leaders, I know this is not always true.

This might be true for many, and it certainly looks that way if you look at averages. If you parse the data, you have something that looks like this:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi..._1947-2007.svg

You will notice that those in the bottom 20th percentile has seen barely an increase in overall income since the '70s. Those in the 40th percentile have seen a modest increase. Those in the 60th are doing pretty well. However, if you're in the 80th and especially the 95th percentile, you've clearly seen the most growth.

So I guess you could say an overall increase has happened. However, the bottom 20th looks dangerously like a flat line. I wonder what the numbers look like since 2008.

01 ) 83% of all U.S. stocks are in the hands of 1% of the people.


02 ) 61% of Americans "always or usually" live paycheck to paycheck, which was up from 49% in 2008 and 43% in 2007.


03 ) 66% of the income growth between 2001 and 2007 went to the top 1% of all Americans.


04 ) 36% of Americans say that they don't contribute anything to retirement savings.


05 ) A staggering 43% of Americans have less than $10,000 saved up for retirement.


06 ) 24% of American workers say that they have postponed their planned retirement age in the past year.


07 ) Over 1.4 million Americans filed for personal bankruptcy in 2009, which represented a 32% increase over 2008.


08 ) Only the top 5% of U.S. households have earned enough additional income to match the rise in housing costs since 1975.


09 ) For the first time in U.S. history, banks own a greater share of residential housing net worth in the United States than all individual Americans put together.


10 ) In 1950, the ratio of the average executive's paycheck to the average worker's paycheck was about 30 to 1. Since the year 2000, that ratio has exploded to between 300 to 500 to 1.


11 ) As of 2007, the bottom 80% of American households held about 7% of the liquid financial assets.


12 ) The bottom 50% of income earners in the United States now collectively own less than 1% of the nation’s wealth.


13 ) Average Wall Street bonuses for 2009 were up 17% when compared with 2008.


14 ) In the United States, the average federal worker now earns 60% MORE than the average worker in the private sector.


15 ) The top 1% of U.S. households own nearly twice as much of America's corporate wealth as they did just 15 years ago.


16 ) In America today, the average time needed to find a job has risen to a record 35.2 weeks.


17 ) More than 40% of Americans who actually are employed are now working in service jobs, which are often very low paying.


18 ) For the first time in U.S. history, more than 40 million Americans are on food stamps, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture projects that number will go up to 43 million Americans in 2011.


19 ) This is what American workers now must compete against: in China a garment worker makes approximately 86 cents an hour and in Cambodia a garment worker makes approximately 22 cents an hour.


20 ) Despite the financial crisis, the number of millionaires in the United States rose a whopping 16% to 7.8 million in 2009.


21 ) Approximately 21% of all children in the United States are living below the poverty line in 2010 - the highest rate in 20 years.


22 ) The top 10% of Americans now earn around 50% of our national income.

No, there's a fair sized middle class that still exists in the US, which does manage to get by without government handouts.

I don't have any statistics on that. But the fact that there are more millionaires now than in prior years proves to me that it's all not the doom and gloom that the liberals make it out to be. Besides which, if the number of millionaires is growing over time, that implies to me that there's growth in the number of people who haven't made it to millionaire status yet.

---------- Post added at 10:31 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:24 PM ----------

I can see a half a dozen or so of the items on your list that could very well be lifestyle choices. I could be making $250,000/year and still living paycheck to paycheck, no savings, delayed retirement, etc.

I'm also unconvinced that anyone deserves a nice standard of living just because they show up to work and collect a paycheck. If the guy working a low skill job has as good a living standard as the guy who has a high pressure, complex job, then why wouldn't the majority of the people just opt for the easy job?

Holy shit, I didn't know that. That's insane. Over 1/3 of Americans aren't even in a position to save for life after 55 and people still insist there's no problem? That's gotta be some tasty cognitive dissonance kool-aid.

BTW, it's totally rock-n-roll to be quoted in a signature. Now I know what Journey feels like. :thumbsup:

How many of that 36% can't save for retirement and how many of that 36% don't save because they think the government will save them? How many of the 36% that can't save can't because they have blown all their money on McMansions, fancy toys, etc.?

Canada often has mirror-like statistics to the U.S. with things like these. I'm a part of this group. It's not just a case where I have no retirement savings; I have a negative net worth. This being a result of borrowing for post-secondary education (my only option, unless I wanted to make it in the world with a high-school diploma) and following a path of underemployment. The latter is something I am slowly (but hopefully surely) rectifying. When I was finished with school, my education debt load exceeded my annual salary. Do the math. Now put "extraneous" credit card debt (i.e. living expenses) on top of that. And I even worked part time while going to school full time.

My situation might be uncommon, but I don't think it's rare to have graduates today starting out in the "real world" with a burden that would make baby boomers lose their shit.

I think a small proportion honestly think the government can take care of them. Even in "socialist Canada," most of us know the eroding value of the Canada Pension Plan. I'll be lucky to be able to draw as much as $600 per month from that in today's dollars. Mind you, this isn't a "hand out"; it's something we pay into.

Regardless, those with McMansions, toys, etc., are likely in a better position to save for retirement than those who can't get these things due to a lack of cash flow. You see, to save for retirement, you need cash flow above and beyond what you pay for rent, utilities, clothing, food, and other expenses, plus whatever discretionary spending you do. And the problem is with those with little discretionary cash available after the necessities have been paid for.

While I'm sure many people waste money on going out, TVs, lattes, fast food, etc., I find it hard to judge people for wanting a piece of the pie that is popular culture. It really sucks living under a rock. I can't allocate more than $100 per month in discretionary spending without going into the red. How far do you think that goes each month? And I try not to spend any of that because I'd rather put it on my credit cards. You wouldn't believe the shit I miss out on. And to think that I owed money after doing my taxes.

I'm not even thinking about retirement.

just wanted to point out that the GOP Obstructionism 2010 Tour has gotten so out of hand that today they fillibustered a Senate Bill that would have provided $30 billion in loans and tax breaks for small businesses.

why?

because they tried attaching bullshit amendments, including a repeal of the health care act.

So now the party of "no" has gotten to the point where it's voting against its own political platform.

Not that Republicans have EVER given two shits about small business......it's just a talking point/single issue voter ploy for votes (like gun rights and abortion)

Income is not a true measure of standard of living. when we look at people in this country at the lowest income levels, it does not account for the goods and services that they receive not requiring income.

For example a person in the lowest income category can obtain a college degree at no cost, but the cost to a person in a higher income category may spend $100K+. Further the increasing costs of higher education has been going up faster than inflation, so the value for the poor is greater today than it was in the past.

There are many such examples.

---------- Post added at 10:38 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:33 PM ----------

We can take these points one at a time or just the one of your choice and drill down into and give it meaning other than the obvious, or we can take a more general approach, I will give you the choice. My premise is that the standard of living in this country is as high as it has ever been and the major trend has consistently been up. Is that what you dispute?

define "standard of living"

I post this from IBD editorial pages for two reasons: one, to highlight the foolishness of ad hominem arguments often presented by those against "conservative" publications when they are not familiar with them. IBD consistently presents "left" view points on its opinion pages. Two, it further illustrates a fundamental problem with looking at the issues of income, taxation and living standards.

Overtaxed Rich Is A Fairy Tale Of Supply Side - IBD - Investors.com

I first point to the paragraph in bold. 30% of $35 million is $10.5 million. 16.6% of $139 million is $23 million. In addition the top 400 in 2007 are not the same people as the top 400 in 1992. In this country the dynamics of wealth creation means those without generat new wealth, new wealth benefits everyone - even the tax collector.

---------- Post added at 11:02 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:56 PM ----------

Objectively, I would say the dollar value of goods and services received and/or used to live. Subjectively, I would look at things like available leisure time, how its used, life span, quality of medical care, etc. I have never seen a detailed study based on my objective definition. If I ever decided to go into academia, and on the tax payers dime, I would request a government grant to look at this. I doubt, I would get a favorable peer review, what do you think?

I was thinking about the issue of income disparity today and the fallacy in how some look at the issue. And I truly don't know if they purposefully ignore what is happening or if they just don't know.

For example:

If family (Two children, two adults) A makes $1 million more than family B over a twenty year period all other things being equal but:

Family B's two children get full scholarships to a university costing $100,000 and family A pays the full tuition. the $1 million difference drops to $800,000.

Family B's two children got free health insurance through a SCHIP program valued at $100,000 over 22 years, but Family A paid for the coverage. The $800,000 difference is now $700,000.

Family A was in a tax bracket where they paid taxes and Family B got tax credits. Let's say on the $1 million difference the difference in taxes paid was 20% or $200,000. Now the $700,000 difference is $500,000.

Etc.

Etc.

The point is that the $1 million dollar difference can easily go to $0 and both families may not have lived materially different. But if we looked at statistics simply related to income the picture painted would be totally different.

This article by P. Krugman not only details how and why Bush pushed through his tax cuts but it also predicted financial crisis.

Link

And he wrote that in 2003. Not surprisingly the financial crisis did indeed occur but it happened right on schedule as Bush was walking out the door.

Krugman presents interesting points of view and is often either wrong or misleading.

It is true, that I for one, supported Bush because of his campaign promises to cut taxes. So yes, the tax cuts played to Bush's base, that is in the - isn't it obvious category. However the reason people like me support tax cuts is because we believe people do a better job of spending their own money than the folks in Washington. So there is much more to the story, that Krugman ignores.

On the impact of the tax cuts - the deficits that followed Bush's tax cuts were due to spending. Tax dollars collected rose while Bush was in office, however spending rose faster. The additional spending was for things like two wars, entitlements, national security and a few other things. No one, even Bush, had the discipline to reduce spending. Obama and the Democrats in Congress have made it worse.

Economic cycles are normal and fit into patterns. There was a recession when Bush took office, and it should not have surprised a real economist that another recession would occur 8 years later. the difference is that Bush cut taxes (across the board, even for the rich) and it minimized the impact of the recession. Obama has not cut taxes (his argument that ~95% got about a $10 cut in their payroll deductions is a joke), and taxes are feared to go up - freezing a lot of potential economic activity.

Actually that's not quite accurate. Bush did not take office a recession things may have been trending that way but it was not a recession.

One of many claims the neo-cons have used to defend Bush and his policies that are either false or mostly False.

I am never sure how to discuss these issues here, because normal business cycles occur normally and Presidential policy often takes years if not decades before they start to have an impact on the economy. So, to me, I see Reagan's policies impacting most of the 90's, not Clinton. And I see the housing bubble being born during Clinton's term. Most of Bush's policy was consumed by war and nation building in Iraq.

True, the recession became official after Bush took office. I think most agree the excess of the dot com bubble laid the foundation for the recession, this build up occurred before Bush took office and the peak occurred shortly after he was sworn in.

Here is a quot and a link to an interesting recap of some of the data during the period:

The U.S. Recession of 2001-2002

So then I assume by that account Bush and the neo-con policies are completely responsible for the mess we're currently in, right?

Always take "Enron Paul" Krugman with a large grain of salt. The number of times the Wall Street Journal has caught him in outright lies is an embarrassment...or it would be, to anyone but a former Enron shill.

Yes when all else fails blame the messenger. Or in this case discredit the messenger, The whole Enron connection has been repeatedly been touted as proof that no one should listen to Krugman.


From Wiki-


So how about debating the facts of the article instead of trying to tar and feather the author?

The irony about the current debate about allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire is that the party who is currently demanding that everything be "paid for" has yet to explain how keeping the tax cuts will be paid for (when they are projected to add $800 billion to the deficit)

The financial deregulation everyone was up in arms about (not me) was signed into law under Clinton.

Bush's legacy is going to be defined by the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. If Iraq (primary) turns out to be a worthy cause, Bush's administration should be looked at favorably. The investment of life and treasury in that war far exceeds anything else he did. If the effort proves to have been a waste, he should be measured accordingly. Bush, mostly had a singular focus, and it was the "war on terror". Only time will tell what the impact will be.

---------- Post added at 08:03 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:54 PM ----------

Look at it this way - taxes are like a price. Just like we pay a price for a computer or a cell phone, reducing the price doesn't mean a company makes less money - it doesn't mean a company will go into debt. When the price is cut, the desire is that more volume will off-set the price cut - increasing revenues. Debt has nothing to do with price, and everything to do with spending or finding the proper balance between price and volume.

---------- Post added at 08:10 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:03 PM ----------

I can not find the fortune article written by Krugman on Enron, do you have a link to it?

it's stunning to me that anything like this sort of debate is still happening. because it's stunning to me that anyone takes conservative economic theory or the way it organizes data and defines what is and is not important seriously. maybe this 2008 piece from psychology today speaks to it:

http://www.psychologytoday.com/print/1733

Demagoguery has been an effective strategy, but it is beginning to fail. At some point logic prevails, for example:

Isn't it a given that at an excessively high marginal tax rate, taxes collected are negatively impacted and that lowering those rates will result in greater taxes collected?

Perhaps you don't take such a question seriously, but many do, conservative or not.

Serious thinkers also know that on the other extreme - an increase in taxes collected can also occur - hence the search for equilibrium.

Given that at an excessive low marginal tax rate, taxes collected are negatively impacted and that increasing those rates will result in greater taxes collected.

Supply sider's understand the challenge in these kinds of questions, even if others do not or want to play pretend game and use demagoguery.

ace, look the hell around you. supply side was never a coherent body of thinking. it excludes more than it includes. it's predictive value has proven to be rubbish. the regulatory actions that were implemented based on it have proven to open pathways to fiasco unheard of since before world war 2.

it is a hodge-podge of antiquated simplistic notions patched together for the purposes of allowing vast transfers of money away from the state and into the hands of...well who?...a patronage system that pulls the strings of the republican party.

you and people like you have fuck all to say about job creation--except let's give more money to the patronage system that supports the republican party by way of dismantling the redistributive state---while making sure to keep the repressive state expanding and armed to the teeth---because---well why? so that patronage network can count on a well-armed police force to keep people away from their gated communities when they figure out they've been had? the bush tax cuts did NOTHING to expand employment. neither did the reagan tax cuts. NOTHING that supply side has advocated has helped. because it's not about that. it's about increasingly class stratification. taking the money and hiding out.

and you have fuck all to say about the actual structure of the actual economy. you're obsessed with the hydraulics of taxes as if that were a fundamental problem. that you can devise hydraulic relations around a variable says nothing--at all--about why that variable should be central. you can't argue the case because for you it's all just part of some rigid system the operating logic of which is basically that of shampoo directions:

lather repeat, lather repeat.

you won't even address the self-evident problems of unemployment (for example) presumably because you think the people who are out of work deserve their lot or they'd get all bootstrappy and pick themselves up. because, in your world, nothing is actually wrong, it's all normal, part of ordinary bidness cycles.

but today when, for example, the uk market freaks out because the carefully worded statement from the exchequer indicates that there's a good likelihood of a depression that we haven't even fucking gotten to yet, and the fed releases yesterday a statement on actual activity rates within the economy that are tending toward zero and new trade data shows that the export/import gap has done the opposite of what the conservative economic pundit class has been saying it will.....unemployment continues to go up and the only reason it's not a Crisis on its own is that feature of the rates, that self-adjusting feature which is that people out of work more than 6 months aren't counted.

and people who think the way you do are opposing extensions of unemployment benefits.
people who think like you you oppose attempts to divert money into supporting or enabling the growing of new businesses.
people who think like you oppose all attempts to actually address real problems.

people who think like you do imagine that giving more money to the social class that controls approximately, what, 70% of capital, will do something.

it hasn't worked. it's not supposed to. working people don't support the republican order. so fuck em, right ace? worse than that, they have in the past organized themselves into unions--GASP---and tried to take power from holders of capital---the Horror!

it's pretty clearly time to try something else.

The problem is that you describe as "excessively high" a tax rate that is historically low (much lower than during the Reagan years), as well as low as compared to most other Western countries (countries who don't go around in circles with issues like health care and alarming poverty, for example)

Ace- I think you're looking for this... The Ascent of E-Man

Of course I'm really not sure, you said you couldn't find it. All I did was google the title and this was the first hit.

Right now I don't have time to research more, have things to do.

If supply siders really thought seriously about marginal tax rates and their effect on tax receipts one would expect them to occasionally favor tax increases. Seems odd that they're always calling for tax cuts.

I don't know what the equilibrium tax rate is, it is illusive given the complexity of our economy and all of the variables going into the "marginal tax rate". What I do find interesting is how marginal tax rates on the poor and middle class can be obviously excessively high and many pretend that those rates have no impact. Like I have said, the "rich" can manage their taxes, they have options everyone else does not have. The people seeking to improve their economic status in life take the brunt of our tax system. That is wrong.

There's plenty of blame to go around. Yes, Clinton was waist deep in the deregulation game just as bush was waist deep in the stimulus. Saying otherwise is simply rewriting history. Her's a story that discusses who did what and when- Link

I didn't Google the full title, it happens.

But, Krugman's defense focusing on journalistic ethics is honorable, but misses the bigger question of how wrong he was in his views either then or now. It is not clear how he reconciles the conflicts in his writings since the E-man article.

How can you claim they are "obviously excessively high" when tax rates are at levels not seen since the Truman Administration? Obvious to who?

---------- Post added at 05:36 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:34 PM ----------

What articles? What writings since E-Man are in conflict with it?

Different people have different definitions of "supply-sider". In it's purest form, from my point of view, a supply sider would favor increases in local taxes to pay for local services as compared to the federal government taxing everyone and then re-distributing those taxes based on political considerations. For example in the latest, bail-out bill to save teaching jobs - why is the federal government involved? States should manage and prioritize based on their own needs and tax accordingly. It is clear the federal government is going to take from states who showed discipline and give to those states that lacked it. This encourages inefficiency and rewords irresponsible behavior.

http://usjamerica.files.wordpress.co...ng?w=550&h=375

here's a nice list:
source page with a neat-o graphic that shows the united states alone accounting for 48% of global spending on the military. how many countries total outlays have to be added together, starting with number 2 on the list, to reach that of the united states?

wait, here's another little chart that does the work for you:

http://www.1psheet.com/wp-content/Ch...yspend2009.gif

right. so it's obvious that there's no rational basis for present levels of military spending. it's obvious that there's no rational basis for maintaining the national security state. except that the national security state is an institutional structure that seems to have real power. plus they benefit from the conservative preference to govern from panic-to-state-of-emergency.

military expenditures account for about a quarter of federal government spending. it is the largest single sector (conservatives like to add together social security and medicaid and call them a single thing so that it looks bigger than the military).

fact is that all this supply-side focus on taxation as in itself the problem is hooey. the problem is in allocation. it's in priorities. and the biggest problem is the continuance of the national security state.

but it's also obvious to anyone who looks at actual history as opposed to econ 101 cliff-note versions of it that since the reagan administration its been supply side bullshit when the political target is the redistributive functions of the state but keynesian all the way when it comes to military spending.

why is that?

And people wonder why we go to war for seemingly no reason whatsoever and try to make enemies. If we didn't, how could we possibly excuse that obscene expenditure?