Plants and Fungi

I thought weeding my yard was hard enough. Now it looks like I have weeds making their way indoors. I found this in my basement window.

All of the heavy rain has resulted in some interesting mushrooms growing in Minneapolis yards. These three seemed to pop up in just a few days, and they seem to be getting bigger by the hour.

I'm guessing it is an example of Macrolepiota procera, or parasol mushrooms. If this identification is accurate then they are edible. If, on the other hand, it is Chlorophyllum molybdites, then it is a toxic mushroom often confused with the edible version.

The subject of plants and fungi gets me thinking about how much biology has changed in my lifetime. It was just 1969 when plants and fungi were grouped together in the same kingdom. For many years fungi had their own kingdom, but now there is an effort to group them together with animals in a kingdom called Opisthokonta. In terms of biology, these mushrooms actually have a lot more in common with you and me than they do with the grass surrounding them.

State Taxes and Billionaires

In past posts I have analyzed the general effect of state tax rates on state economies. A more focused objection to high taxes by the right concerns the tendency for wealthy people to choose to reside in low tax states. Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton recently dropped his demand for an income tax increase on the top 2%. Disagreement over this proposed tax has led to one of the longest state government shutdowns ever. The Star Tribune quoted Scott Wine, CEO of Minnesota based Polaris Industries, saying "I want to be in as low a tax state as possible." Wine said that he might move when he retires. 

Forbes conveniently publishes a list of billionaires each year. This year it lists 412 of them residing in the United States (including three in the District of Columbia), but only categorizes 400 of them by state residence (presumably information on residence of the other nine wasn't available). I charted the number of billionaires per one million residents in each state as a function of the 2010 state tax to gross state product ratio. The results show a slight preference for billionaires to live in low tax states. The national ratio for these 400 billionaires in all 50 states is approximately 1.298 billionaires per one million residents. The chart is skewed by the fact that there are 11 states with no billionaires (for example, both Iowa and Vermont have no billionaires and are therefore ranked equally, even though Iowa's population is about five times that of Vermont's- presumably indicating that billionaires find life in Iowa much less appealing). It should also be noted that the Forbes list is not an exact one person per entry list. The fourth richest U.S. resident, for example, is identified as 'Christy Walton & Family.' The three highest tax states (Vermont, Alaska, and North Dakota) all have no billionaires. Wyoming, a state with an above average tax rate, has by far the greatest ratio of billionaires. 

In case you were wondering, Scott Wine is not a billionaire. 

Voodoo Economics

“After embarking on a record spending binge that left us deeper in debt, where are the jobs?” John Bohner Tweeted during Obama's Twitter Town Hall. Obama responded by talking about tax cuts and the need for infrastructure improvement. What he should have said was “Don't you remember?, we agreed to layoff thousands of workers.” Many were shocked at the June employment report- only 18,000 jobs added. What got less attention was that 39,000 government jobs were lost. This adds to 72,000 government jobs lost during April and May. The writings of Paul Krugman are becoming increasingly relevant. “If all you did was listen to his speeches, you might conclude that he basically shares the G.O.P.'s diagnosis of what ails our economy and what should be done to fix it,” Krugman wrote in “What Obama Wants”.

A simple overview of the situation should come to this conclusion: Obama is trying to give in to as many Republican demands as possible in order to secure his reelection as the moderate candidate who is willing to compromise. The problem is that this is hurting the economy so much that by November 2012 the objective conditions of the American people might trump the traditional political wisdom for being moderate. By election time people might be ready to vote for anybody but Obama.

Krugman notes that “Almost all the high-profile economists who joined the Obama administration early on have either left or are leaving. Nor have they been replaced.” Obama is not an economist, and one must wonder whether he is trusting the Republicans to develop a coherent economic policy for him. Is it possible that the Republicans realize how much influence they have over him, and are guiding his hand toward deliberate economic sabotage for their own political gain?

I don't think that Obama can just be given a pass as a progressive who doesn't understand economics very well. The more shocking remarks in his Twitter Town Hall were in response to a person concerned about the recent loss of collective bargaining rights for public sector workers in some states. At a time that unions are under the most vicious attacks they've seen in decades, their supposed ally in the White House said, “In the public sector, what is true is that some of the pension plans that have been in place and the health benefits that are in place are so out of proportion with what's happening in the private sector that a lot of taxpayers start feeling resentful.” He further endorsed the thrust of the anti worker attacks saying, “all of us are going to have to make some adjustments.” He concluded his response by bragging about his two year pay freeze for federal workers. (Apparently not all of us will have to make adjustments; the president, vice president, and members of Congress are exempt from the pay freeze.)

If deliberate economic sabotage seems like a conspiracy theory, my other hypothesis is that Obama has secretly been a Republican all along. Perhaps the past 15 years of his political career were all mapped out in a smoke filled meeting with Newt Gingrich and Haley Barbour before he ran for the Illinois Senate. This, I admit is unlikely.

Governor of Strikes and Shutdowns

It seems that Barack Obama is already putting his campaign into full gear by putting out an attack ad highlighting the past troubles of Republican candidate Tim Pawlenty. The commercial features Metro Transit workers picketing during a 2004 strike, and protestors in front of the Minnesota Capital during a 2005 government shutdown- both of which occurred while Pawlenty was governor of Minnesota. 

Oh, wait no, Pawlenty put this ad out himself! Apparently angry people out of work is the best
image of his accomplishments that Pawlenty could find. 

It should be noted that the Metro Transit strike was a result of the Metropolitan Council's refusal to offer decent compensation to bus drivers and mechanics. Pawlenty was only indirectly a part of that dispute, but I guess he wants to take credit for it anyway. 

Minnesota is now in its sixth day of another government shutdown, but this time neither the Democratic governor nor the Republican legislature are willing to take credit for it.

Debt Ceiling and the Tea Party

The debt ceiling debate has continued, and the Tea Party Patriots (TPP) are demanding no debt ceiling increase under any circumstances. Their website has a list of “Four Big Lies” that members of congress are telling people about the debt ceiling. I thought I'd check the accuracy of some of what they state.

The TPP claims that “Obama increased spending and the size of government more than all previous presidents (from George Washington through George Bush) COBMINED.” I'm not sure how they define size of government (they seem to imply that they define it differently from spending), but it seems that they are basically saying that federal spending has more than doubled since the time Obama took office. My assumptions here are that each budget can generally be assumed to be progressively larger than the last, and that George Washington started at essentially zero. According to the Department of the Treasury, 2010 federal outlays were $3.456 trillion. We don't know exactly how much outlays for 2011 will be, but Obama's budget request was for $3.819 trillion. Obama's presidency began in 2009, but the 2009 budget was based on the final request submitted by George Bush, moreover, the fiscal year ends on September 30. Despite this, we'll be conservative and concede that 2009 was the year that Obama's influence began. Outlays for 2008 were $2.978 trillion. So even by these conservative numbers, Obama only increased spending by 28%, and the TPP claim appears to be utterly false. I thought that the TPP claim might be based on projections of outlays for future years listed in Obama's budget proposal, but even for 2021, the latest year projected (and a year long after Obama will have left the White House), the figure is only $5.697 trillion- still less than twice 2008 spending.

“Don't let socialism win,” the Tea Party Patriots urge in a piece criticizing attempts to get spending cuts or other conservative demands in exchange for raising the debt ceiling. Ironically, some socialists have been demanding that the debt ceiling not be raised for years. Socialist Alternative formerly stated in it's program, “Cancel the national debt with no payment to the big investors. Use the money to rebuild the inner cities and the infrastructure under union conditions and wages.” Also see The Need for Socialist Policies. Of course, the more consistent Republicans have qualified their debt ceiling threats by saying that debt service should be prioritized, and the difference should be made up through other obligations (like social security and unemployment benefits).For now it seems that the Tea Party is living by the principle that you don't have to be responsible as long as you're not in power.