JayB

More on the same topic http://www.slate.com/id/2116731/ "There's a cancer at the heart of our increasingly complex tax code. A special deduction that disproportionately benefits the wealthy and distorts economic activity has grown rapidly in size and could cost taxpayers nearly $100 billion annually by 2009. Eliminating it would allow us to reduce levies on income and rationalize the system. According to Martin Sullivan, a contributing editor of Tax Notes, its existence "means the economy has less business capital, lower productivity, lower real wages, and a lower standard of living." Who wouldn't want to excise such a tumor from the mighty American economy? President Bush, Congress, oh, and you, too And we probably should. The Internal Revenue Code routinely favors one kind of spending over another. For decades, legislators have been using tax deductions to provide incentives or effective subsidies for people and companies to purchase health care, to donate to charity, to invest in energy efficiency, or to save for retirement. The home mortgage deduction is among the single largest such incentives. Introduced along with the income tax in 1913, it wasn't widely used until the 1950s. In the last few decades, with the massive expansion of the home-finance and mortgage-backed-securities markets, housing debt has risen smartly. And so too has the home-mortgage deduction, from about $20 billion in 1981 to $38.8 billion in 2002 to nearly $70 billion in 2003, according to estimates from the Joint Committee on Taxation. Today, individuals can deduct interest on up to $1 million in mortgage indebtedness, plus interest on another $100,000 in home equity loans. This year, the deduction will sap an estimated $72.6 billion from the Treasury. And the Joint Committee projects (scroll down to the 33rd page) that the deduction will total $434.2 billion over the next five years. As Cleveland State University College of Law professor Deborah Geier notes in a recent working paper, the home-mortgage deduction is the third-largest single "tax expenditure" behind the deductions companies take for contributions to pension plans and for health-care premiums. Clearly, we've gotten some bang for all these bucks. The United States has an enviably high rate of home ownership and a highly developed infrastructure—secondary markets in mortgage-backed securities, online mortgage companies, etc.—that supports the construction and purchase of homes. But the once-modest deduction has evolved into a very large and highly inefficient rent subsidy. The deduction plainly causes distortions. People are willing to pay more for houses and buy bigger houses than they otherwise would because they can deduct the interest from their taxes. "When Americans invest the bulk of their life savings in housing, that's a redistribution of capital from the productive business sector," said Sullivan. What's more, the expansion of the deduction seems occasionally to have more to do with stimulating the financial-services industry than with allowing Americans to turn their homes into assets. Consider the growth of interest-only mortgages. With the deduction, the government is effectively subsidizing your monthly payment. But you're not building any equity, you're just paying rent. It's hard to say how an interest-only loan encourages home "ownership." Then there are home-equity loans. The proceeds from home-equity loans can be used to pay for an addition or repairs, but also for a television or for a trip to Jamaica. And the taxpayer foots a portion of the bill. What does this have to do with encouraging homeownership? What's more, it's remarkably unprogressive. One of the biggest obstacles to homeownership is the inability to come up with a down payment. The deduction doesn't help you there. Taxpayers who don't itemize deductions—generally people in the lower income brackets—don't receive any benefit from the home-mortgage deduction. And the more you borrow, and the higher your tax bracket, the more valuable the deduction becomes. So, what would happen if the home-mortgage deduction were slowly phased out? For the sectors of the housing market where homeowners tend not to itemize deductions, the impact would probably be minimal. At the higher end, housing prices might be expected to adjust, but not to crash. Consider a home buyer in the 25 percent tax bracket with an 8 percent mortgage. Thanks to the interest deduction, he effectively pays 6 percent on the mortgage. Losing the deduction would have the same effect on his personal finances and mentality as a rise in mortgage rates from 6 percent to 8 percent would. A bummer? Certainly. But such moves have happened frequently without causing crises. And if the elimination of the deduction were accompanied by a reduction in rates elsewhere, it would be a wash for many homeowners. The real harm would come to the home-building industry. And that's the real reason we shouldn't bet the house on eliminating or reducing the mortgage deduction. The home-building, home-selling, and home-buying industries, which claim to speak for homeowners, would bitterly oppose such a move. And so it's no surprise that earlier this year, when President Bush penned instructions to the advisory panel on tax reform, he told them to "recognize[e] the importance of homeownership."

I think I've responded to that one before, so just search for my response if you feel the need. With respect to the mortgage interest deduction, you are actually mistaken with respect to who it benefits. Even your cohorts on the Left disagree with you - "End the Mortgage-Interest Deduction! Why the left should embrace the Bush tax commission's most radical proposal. By Jason Furman Posted Thursday, Nov. 10, 2005, at 12:13 PM ET" http://www.slate.com/id/2130017/ I care less about the progressive side of the argument and more about the market distortion and subsidy side, but here's a case where the two seem to intersect. There's really no way to defend this one on an economic or social-policy basis.

Nothing compares to Chilling on the deck outside the Longhorn at the base of Blackcomb with Extremo while sporting the one-piece and the Elvis shades... Rip.It.Up.

None taken. I never even wanted to learn to ride, but after an ACL tear that I sustained on skis I figured riding-for-rehab would beat sitting out a season so I bought the gear and rode for a couple of years, and now it's 80/20 in favor of skis again. Definitely fun, but yea - the truth is I'm not really a snowboarder. Another factor that will forever keep me out of the real snowboarder camp is that my limited time on the board I was able link turns in steep moguls, and never shaved a foot of fresh off of a line while side-sliding down a run that I had no business being on.....

I ski and ride a board and think that most of the problem is due to skiers and boarders just being "out of phase" with each other. Seems like when I'm on a board I have way more close calls with skiers and vice versa. With respect to the youth thing, I think that snowboarding was the cool new edgy thing in the late 80's, but that's been nearly 20 years ago. My hunch is that young folks who want to something different than their friends ski instead of boarding, but who knows. I have to say that fat skis in powder seem to deliver the best of both worlds. High speeds, long swoopy turns - and the ability to keep moving when things flatten out and gravity is no longer there to help you.

Seattle to Kirkland for about a month. Phinney ridge to Capitol Hill by bike and bike via Dexter kind of sucked because any savings on fuel costs were more than negated by the additional money that I spent on food to fuel the trips back and forth.

Pricing unskilled labor out of the market definitely helps the poor and the young.

I'm flattered by the response but there'se no way that I'll have the time to respond to every question for a while. Maybe PP can chime in with the charts and stats that you've requested. Seems to come down to a question of whether one places a greater premium a tax-structure that optimizes revenue, growth, and employment, and shifts the burden of actual taxes paid onto the wealthiest, or a tax structure which does none of the above but validates one's preconceptions about what constitutes fairness. Speaking of which - I hope all of you Progressive folks what are currently taking advantage of the mortgage tax deduction are writing your Congressmen and demanding that they rescind it - that'd be $60 billion more for the government to invest elsewhere, would eliminate a tax-subsidy that actually hurts the poor by inflating the price of housing, encourages a misallocation of capital into a manifestly non-productive asset-class, etc, etc, etc. Or just refuse the deduction and send the extra money to the government in advance of any change to the tax code. It's really the least that you could do.

Despite this the're paying the vast majority of income taxes. A simpler tax-structure with fewer deductions, and lower marginal rates would likely increase government revenues and eliminate these loopholes - so there'd be more money for the government to spend.

The short answer is no. If people today lived in the conditions that my grandparents grew up in, they'd be considered desperately poor - although both of them were in the middle class of their day. The poor seeing their real incomes and material prosperity grow more slowly than the wealthy, and the "poor getting poorer" are two different things. IMO the best way to reduce poverty and increase real wages is to increase demand for their skills and labor by increasing labor productivity and profitability, which translates into more jobs. The people who are least likely to see their real standard of living increase in any economy are those who have no job. My sense is that if you are a poor person you are better of having an increasing real income and lower marginal rates, than a declining real income - or no income - and increasing marginal rates for those in the tax brackets above you.

The figures show that as the top marginal rate has been progressively lowered, the both the real income and the material-wealth of the poorest 20% of Americans has increased, and their percentage of total federal taxes paid has decreased. I'd elaborate more but I'm too busy at the moment. The poor haven't been getting poorer under this system, they just haven't seen their income and standard of living increase as rapidly as everyone else.

Avoidance is definitely the key, unless you like to hit the lines by loveland pass, in which case just wait for the dudes you carried up in the back of your truck to finish off the bongload and they will gladly test-out even the sketchiest wind-loaded-slab-over-depth hoar line out for you - no questions asked. Buy the burliest stuff that you'll actually be willing to carry, learn how to use it, and ski in a way that insures that you'll never have to. My default pattern has been to ski steep stuff in-bounds in the winter most of the time, stick to mild stuff otherwise, and wait for spring conditions to ski steeper stuff. Just the way it's worked out, which also keeps the avy risk pretty low. YMMV.

http://www.cbo.gov/showdoc.cfm?index=1545&from=4&sequence=0 Percentage of Households with: Poor Households, 1994 All Households, 1971 Washing Machine 71.7 71.3 Clothes Dryer 50.2 44.5 Refrigerator 97.9 83.3 Stove 97.7 87.0 Color Television 92.5 43.3 Telephone 76.7 93.0 Air-conditioner 49.6 31.8 One or more cars 71.8 79.5 Income Status mean real* income, 1966 mean real income, 1999 Top 20 percent $123.7 $254.8 Second 20 percent 80.5 147.8 Middle 20 percent 47.2 72.2 Next 20 percent 35.3 48.9 Bottom 20 percent 24.7 31.0 Help: *Adjusted for inflation. http://www.census.gov/hhes/income/histinc/f03.html

BLING BLING MUDDAFUGS!!!! "....MAGNUM!!!"

www.neice.com www.neclimbs.com

If I had to choose a single photo that summarizes continental socialism's worldview in one photo, that'd definitely be it. Yes - burn down all of the McDonalds franchises, and dwindling competitiveness, calcified labor markets that effectively render those on the low end of the skill-spectrum enemployable, plunging birthrates, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc will all dissappear.

Hey - I thought that you might have wandered over the horizon, and gone until someone turned the story of a young man who renounced Western civilization in favor of the nomadic life on the high plains into a PBS docudrama - "Dances with Yaks." Sounds pretty sweet over there. Post some more photos if you get a chance, and be sure to master the art of the impromptu far-out-mystical-eastern-enlightenment-long-gone-traveler routine to pick up chicks with when you get back to the states and go to grad school....

They've also clearly been obscuring the truth about the direct connection between the Bush administration's policies and the ongoing riots in France. Stunning omission.

I also suspect that in most European states its easier for the governments to seize property for public works projects. Could be wrong, but in general they seem less concerned with property rights.

I agree wit ya on principle but I believe there's a significant difference. Smoking and driving have a high potential to affect others especially in areas frequented by large numbers of people. Climbing on the other hand is less likely to affect others on a similar scale, with the exception of climbing at tourist sites. I think there are already prohibitions in place to restrict climbing activities in these areas. There have been some highly publicized accounts of climbing related deaths and accidents. But I believe that climbing as a recreational activity will not register on the legislator's radar. There also are existing laws such as No Trespassing that restrict climbing in certain areas. As far as safety regulations, the manufacturers of climbing equipment already incorporate safety standards into their equipment so the long arm of additional regulatory oversight is unneeded. The climber's equivalent to safety belts and helmets are seen in ropes and harnesses which are constructed to a safety standard. I suppose there could be a 'slippery slope' concern here but I believe it's unlikely. The only exception that I can think of, off the top of my head, are those moveable mechanical climbing walls that have a rope attached to a winch or something, you know, the things that show up at the mall. The main point was simply that helmet laws are a case where the "Yea - it's your brain and your life that you are putting at risk, but were the ones who are going to have to shell out the money for decades when you become a ward of the state as a result of your injury, so we have the authority to force you to wear a helmet" principle in action. Seemed like Chuck's concern about this kind of logic being applied to a wider spectrum of individual behaviors after the advent of completely socialized medicine probably has some merit if this is indeed the logic that lead to the advent of the mandatory helmet laws for motorcyclists. Maybe I am wrong about the logic that lead to the adoption of these rules though.

I'm not opposed to helmet and seatbelt laws - just brought them up to illustrate a point. The reason I brought up motorcycles is that they generate a significant number of brain injuries in young men who become a multi-decade responsibility for the state. My understanding was that here especially the argument was - if you crash and become disabled, your care is most likely going to be on the state's dime, so the state is justified in restricting your ability to ride without a helmet. I could be totally off base here, but I got the sense that most legislatures looked at seat-belts for drivers and helmets for motorcyclists in a slightly different manner, and the link between the authority to regulate behavior and financial liability was a bit more explicit in the case of the motorcyclists. IMO there's no reason in principle why this couldn't be applied to climbers as well, the demographics are largely the same and the risk of a permanently debilitating brain injury are probably just as high - except for the fact that in the case of climbers it would be impossible to enforce. There's also the fact that climbers are a lower profile group.

"This is the only worry I would have about socialized medicine. Worry-warts might start using the perceived excess burden added to the common healthcare system as an argument to prohibit any voluntary activity that they deem unworthy. Soon any risky activity that only a minority partakes in would have a good chance of being prohibited." We're already there - mandatory helmet laws. Interesting side note - heard somewhere that groups associated with organ transfers usually oppose these measures when they come up for a vote. Strange bedfellows.

Did our man in Mongolia go native? Trade bouldering shoes for yurt, yak, and harem?

Before I started knocking off 7-11's and cooking-up batches of meth in the outhouse.... (1991 Passport photo) Damn you, dihydrotestosterone sensitive follicles, damn you....

They keep asking me to use my access to the Sigma catalog to send them the benzyl-methyl-ketone they need to get around the supply crunch that they've been dealing with now that they can no longer buy 600 boxes of Sudafed at once, but other than that I don't hear from them much...