There was today an interesting paper about Watergate and the tapes transcripts by Patricia Cohen in the New York Times.
When you have a job and kids, you listen to the news, have a look at the paper, but you never have the time to study a political subject in depth. That is how a lot us ignore the facts an dwelve into conspiration theories or faulty judgments. For example, I never believed that I was told the whole truth about what happened to Apollo 13: every day when the accident happened the news stories were confusing and there was no objective link between all the things that went wrong: no explanation. It did not dawn on me that nobody knew at the time what was going on ; I only understood what happened when Tom Hanks, blessed his soul, made a movie about it.
During Watergate, I misjudged what happened because I candidly believed what the White House was saying. It did not come to my mind that the President of the United States would tell blatant lies. Since I retired, I had the time to read about 15 books on Watergate, and then I bought the tapes. You got to listen to the original tapes, though they are very difficult to understand, because listening to a "reading" by an actor gives you a very different take of what was said.
For what it is worth, here is what I think about Watergate:
1) Republicans who say that Nixon was a victim because "everybody else does it" never listened to the tapes. It is like saying nowadays that everybody is a Blagojevich: only fascists would say that.
2) President Nixon often sounds very uncertain, seeking advice: he lowers his voice, leaves his sentences unfinished and sounds rather pitiful. His "advisers" never have the guts to give him any advice at all. I do know that Nixon did not like to be contradicted, so this may be a catastrophe of his own making, but at some times President Nixon sounds unbearably lonely and surrounded by cowards.There is a lot of Richard III in Nixon, from the paranoia to Despair and die!
3) The tapes are extremely difficult, and instead of attacking Stanley I. Kutler for errors and omissions, one should just publish corrections and be thankful to the man. But of course it is less conductive to publicity than to attack him.
4) Howard Dean comes out as the worst lawyer in the history of mankind. And not a very decent person to boot.
Saturday, January 31, 2009
Sunday, January 25, 2009
Best paper of the month: JULIE CRESWELL, LANDON THOMAS Jr.
There are always great papers on the international scene, but I had trouble finding a good paper made in the USA this month. Of course, the inauguration of a new President gets so many expected comments, not much stands out.
I was very pleased to find in the New York Times a paper entitled The talented Mr Madoff, by Julie Creswell and Landon Thomas Jr. It presents Madoff as a psychopath, a possibility I examined here too. There are only two ways to detect a psychopath: you studied them because it is your job, or you have been the victim of one, which gives you more needed insight.
There was a paper earlier in the NYT by Allen Salkin (Jan 16th) about Madoff and his frat brothers: people hardly remembered him; it is interesting to note as it was also a a characteristic of The Talented Mr Ripley, one of the best descriptions of a psychopath in literature. Mr Madoff ruined many personal friends of his: he used their loyalty against them. It is also very typical: a psychopath sees your friendship for him as your weak point and thrives on his victories over you.
There is an old guy like that living on my street: everybody thinks that he is a nice person. But he once told me that the best moment of his life was when he was very young: he had built a kite with a razor blade attached to it, and he used it to cut loose the kites of the other children. The children would cry and run to their mothers, but they did not guess that he was responsible for the disaster and it amplified his fun.
The old man has not changed: he did not have the education of Madoff, so he is reduced to play lesser games, such as stealing mail and letting his dog run after the neighbor's cats.
I was very pleased to find in the New York Times a paper entitled The talented Mr Madoff, by Julie Creswell and Landon Thomas Jr. It presents Madoff as a psychopath, a possibility I examined here too. There are only two ways to detect a psychopath: you studied them because it is your job, or you have been the victim of one, which gives you more needed insight.
There was a paper earlier in the NYT by Allen Salkin (Jan 16th) about Madoff and his frat brothers: people hardly remembered him; it is interesting to note as it was also a a characteristic of The Talented Mr Ripley, one of the best descriptions of a psychopath in literature. Mr Madoff ruined many personal friends of his: he used their loyalty against them. It is also very typical: a psychopath sees your friendship for him as your weak point and thrives on his victories over you.
There is an old guy like that living on my street: everybody thinks that he is a nice person. But he once told me that the best moment of his life was when he was very young: he had built a kite with a razor blade attached to it, and he used it to cut loose the kites of the other children. The children would cry and run to their mothers, but they did not guess that he was responsible for the disaster and it amplified his fun.
The old man has not changed: he did not have the education of Madoff, so he is reduced to play lesser games, such as stealing mail and letting his dog run after the neighbor's cats.
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Robert Gibbs: torture, outsmarting the bad guys
It is ironic that I came to this country because it was against torture: I was not sure about any other country, but I was sure about this one. I found it extraordinary that many journalists today seem to imply by their questions to Robert Gibbs that torture is the only way to acquire knowledge of the enemy. Of course it is not: do not believe an instant that the CIA is powerless without torture!
I had in the past worked for several human rights agencies and collected stories from people who had been tortured East, in communist countries, and in Greece under the colonels and West, specially in South America, and South from Spain to Iran to South Africa. Keeping notes of torture was a despairing job: torture was almost everywhere in the 70s, but it was nothing like seeing the results with your own eyes. I do remember people with burns, people without nails, and people with arms or legs torn and unusable: I still have nightmares filled with blood. The Prime Minister of the “New Yugoslavia” was once interrogated about Kosovo, in London, and answered: "All history books should be kept away from children." This gave me a bitter pleasure.
To me the Nazis tortured and lost the war, the British and the Americans used another weapon: they outsmarted them.
When each generation comes to war, there is a temptation to save lives by forcing some people to talk under torture. It is easy to find young men who believe that by torturing, they achieve a greater good, save lives of their countrymen, protect their own. And then, they are not sissies; they have to do what has to be done. The discourse is successful in any country. It was in France in the 60’s, a country that has many faults but is generally considered civilized.
The problem is that we never really know who knows, so we torture innocent people. The problem is that most of our enemies don’t know squat, and they tell us what we want to hear. The problem is that with each wrongdoing, each atrocity, we create a century of hate. I know exactly what the Germans did to my family in 1914. Armenians know exactly what the Turks did. Black people remember their history. You will have a hard time finding Japanese Americans who do not know that their grandparents were in camps during the war. None of us wants to forget 9/11. It is a pity that each generation has to be explained this again and again and again, and that so many governments hide bad deeds, poor administration and stupid revenge under the guise of a need for information.
Legal wartime behavior is not easy to achieve: there is the pressure of war, the rage of seeing your friends killed, the fear, the sense of urgency. So I do not condemn soldiers who go too far: wanting to pummel somebody’s face to get to the truth is very human. What I criticize is the executive for its lack of vision and for the lack of training in appropriate techniques of war when it will boil down to man-to-man contact.
What do we want after the war ends? All wars end. It used to be that Americans, specially the army, were admired worldwide for their restraint as opposed to the Nazis’ immorality and for the way they carefully protected works of art in all of Europe during wartime. We seem to have lost our interest in protecting art.
At the end of the day, let us be efficient and use restraint, protect children, protect history, protect art. But let us also outsmart the bad guys. We got a weakness there that waterboarding never compensated for.
I had in the past worked for several human rights agencies and collected stories from people who had been tortured East, in communist countries, and in Greece under the colonels and West, specially in South America, and South from Spain to Iran to South Africa. Keeping notes of torture was a despairing job: torture was almost everywhere in the 70s, but it was nothing like seeing the results with your own eyes. I do remember people with burns, people without nails, and people with arms or legs torn and unusable: I still have nightmares filled with blood. The Prime Minister of the “New Yugoslavia” was once interrogated about Kosovo, in London, and answered: "All history books should be kept away from children." This gave me a bitter pleasure.
To me the Nazis tortured and lost the war, the British and the Americans used another weapon: they outsmarted them.
When each generation comes to war, there is a temptation to save lives by forcing some people to talk under torture. It is easy to find young men who believe that by torturing, they achieve a greater good, save lives of their countrymen, protect their own. And then, they are not sissies; they have to do what has to be done. The discourse is successful in any country. It was in France in the 60’s, a country that has many faults but is generally considered civilized.
The problem is that we never really know who knows, so we torture innocent people. The problem is that most of our enemies don’t know squat, and they tell us what we want to hear. The problem is that with each wrongdoing, each atrocity, we create a century of hate. I know exactly what the Germans did to my family in 1914. Armenians know exactly what the Turks did. Black people remember their history. You will have a hard time finding Japanese Americans who do not know that their grandparents were in camps during the war. None of us wants to forget 9/11. It is a pity that each generation has to be explained this again and again and again, and that so many governments hide bad deeds, poor administration and stupid revenge under the guise of a need for information.
Legal wartime behavior is not easy to achieve: there is the pressure of war, the rage of seeing your friends killed, the fear, the sense of urgency. So I do not condemn soldiers who go too far: wanting to pummel somebody’s face to get to the truth is very human. What I criticize is the executive for its lack of vision and for the lack of training in appropriate techniques of war when it will boil down to man-to-man contact.
What do we want after the war ends? All wars end. It used to be that Americans, specially the army, were admired worldwide for their restraint as opposed to the Nazis’ immorality and for the way they carefully protected works of art in all of Europe during wartime. We seem to have lost our interest in protecting art.
At the end of the day, let us be efficient and use restraint, protect children, protect history, protect art. But let us also outsmart the bad guys. We got a weakness there that waterboarding never compensated for.
Monday, January 19, 2009
The perfect car
I understand that engineers want to add a television, a GPS, an all electric/gasoline choice, an automated parking, all kinds of electronic controls (the more the better), electric windows which change tint with the sun and a seat that calculates the best position for you. It was all in Detroit and it is not what I want.
I want a small basic car light but secure with very low gas consumption, a tight turning circle, a low repair expectancy and a cost of less than 7,000 dollars.
Am I the only customer for it?
I want a small basic car light but secure with very low gas consumption, a tight turning circle, a low repair expectancy and a cost of less than 7,000 dollars.
Am I the only customer for it?
Saturday, January 17, 2009
Madoff and Scott Peterson : psychopaths at large
You remember Scott Peterson who killed his wife Laci and unborn child? Everybody said he was such a nice reliable young man. Some children have a knack for discovering how to please, and everybody likes them. Sometimes such children develop as unique Pleasers. That is what they live for: approval, until one day they have forged a personality that they present to the world and they have no idea who they really are.
It is like they have developed an outside envelope at such a price that there is nobody inside: no plan, no guidelines, no empathy, no principles, not much emotion, little feelings. Some rotten trees are like that: only the bark holds them up. They remain unnoticed for a long time amongst other trees.
There is lot of that in the Madoff couple: Mr Madoff did not even invest for his clients at all: his swindle was deliberate from the get go. It makes him a very different guy from somebody who started lying after his affairs went south. That is the difference between a psychopath and a dishonest man. Mrs Madoff was probably all about appearances too: she had a ghost writer for a cookbook published under her name because it was "fun". So the Madoffs were a couple united by their outside shell.
How do you discover that somebody is a psychopath? You cannot: all the external signs are fooling you. Unless of course, you have been victimized before: then you learn to pay attention to all the small signs that tell you if there is a person inside.
It is like they have developed an outside envelope at such a price that there is nobody inside: no plan, no guidelines, no empathy, no principles, not much emotion, little feelings. Some rotten trees are like that: only the bark holds them up. They remain unnoticed for a long time amongst other trees.
There is lot of that in the Madoff couple: Mr Madoff did not even invest for his clients at all: his swindle was deliberate from the get go. It makes him a very different guy from somebody who started lying after his affairs went south. That is the difference between a psychopath and a dishonest man. Mrs Madoff was probably all about appearances too: she had a ghost writer for a cookbook published under her name because it was "fun". So the Madoffs were a couple united by their outside shell.
How do you discover that somebody is a psychopath? You cannot: all the external signs are fooling you. Unless of course, you have been victimized before: then you learn to pay attention to all the small signs that tell you if there is a person inside.
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
Maddening madddening maddening
Some small things make me mad. You got to read this paper (wow, this is great journalism under a bad title) from Peter Finn in the Washington Post: so it appears that the office of military commissions has accidentally withdrawn the charges against everybody at Guantanamo Bay and had to refer them again?
Is there any limit to incompetence?
Is there any limit to incompetence?
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Ways to treat civilians in Afghanistan
This from a CNN documentary. You could see some American soldiers coming to a remote village of Afghanistan armed to the teeth. They came with a translator and asked if there was any terrorist around. My heart bleeds for these soldiers, because I think that the way they have been told to act is not right and that it puts them in more peril than it should.
What would you think if you were an old Afghan peasant who never saw a foreigner before? Now suppose you yourself go to work and there is a Martian there with big weapons asking you if there are terrorists around? What would you say?
A lot of Afghans have no idea what a terrorist is to start with. It is not the right question, because Afghan have a whole series of subdivisions in their mind, and Talibans is too big a word: some they like, some they dont. Explain that you are there for peace, ask them if there are problems with robbers or armed people that you can help with, but asking for terrorists or even Talibans directly are not good words and it is no way to start a conversation. It is like saying we came to kill more neighbors of yours, not a great idea.
You know this, but people forget: there is a cultural difference between people who live from agriculture and city people. You can see that in the United States: the values, the rhythm of life, the politics are different. In general, agricultural societies are more set in their ways and live more by rules, because they see less diversity.
I did work next door to an Afghan young man many years: we were in France; he could not go back to his country thanks to the Russians. He was a very peaceful and nice gentleman with no sense of time. He was also very sensitive to what is polite and what is not: it is basic in all agricultural societies. There are ways to talk to people. Many years ago, I worked in Ireland and I observed the same thing: the sense of time was not the same as mine, and the rules of politeness could not be overlooked. In Ireland, for instance, it is impolite to ask a direct question before you have a conversation, it is why Gallup answers were so unreliable at the time: many people considered that the method was offensive; I do not know if that has changed. My guess is that it has not changed much in the western part of the island.
The mistake here is to come as a bare army: why on earth, at least on the documentary I saw on CNN did not they come to a remote small village with some elders from the next village, it they were willing? They would, as a courtesy, because they are very polite and neighborly people, and they want to protect visitors. They would of course if they did not think of us as the new invader. To say the least, soldiers need to come with more people in civilian clothing: people that old civilans can relate to. It takes more time, but it is the way it should be done: make friends here, go to the next place. Why on earth are our soldiers not told to have a conversation before they ask about terrorists? If there was one in the surroundings, the elders would not tell us anyway, because the perception of us is not good, so it is just as well to spend five minutes talking about the weather and the fact that we are on a peaceful mission, and ask if they have enough food. It is basic politeness, folks. Being blunt and efficient is not the way Afghans work.
I am not saying that all Afghans are "nice", I know that there is a lot of armed people and small tribes of thugs, drug dealers and terrorists, but how are we going to find them in that difficult terrain if we behave like the Russians? There is a U.S. Army/Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual that every soldier should read: it is full of good advice, and it is not that complicated; in one sentence: Talk to people as if they were your grandparents, but do not believe that they will behave as your grandparents would.
We need the population to help us, and it will not, if we do not respect its customs and if they do not understand what we want. Let me recommend the book of LCOL John A. Nagl Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife: Counterinsurgency Lessons from Malaya and Vietnam. It is a fantastic read for anybody interested in our success in Afghanistan. If one of your loved ones is in Afghanistan, send this book over: it could save lives.
What would you think if you were an old Afghan peasant who never saw a foreigner before? Now suppose you yourself go to work and there is a Martian there with big weapons asking you if there are terrorists around? What would you say?
A lot of Afghans have no idea what a terrorist is to start with. It is not the right question, because Afghan have a whole series of subdivisions in their mind, and Talibans is too big a word: some they like, some they dont. Explain that you are there for peace, ask them if there are problems with robbers or armed people that you can help with, but asking for terrorists or even Talibans directly are not good words and it is no way to start a conversation. It is like saying we came to kill more neighbors of yours, not a great idea.
You know this, but people forget: there is a cultural difference between people who live from agriculture and city people. You can see that in the United States: the values, the rhythm of life, the politics are different. In general, agricultural societies are more set in their ways and live more by rules, because they see less diversity.
I did work next door to an Afghan young man many years: we were in France; he could not go back to his country thanks to the Russians. He was a very peaceful and nice gentleman with no sense of time. He was also very sensitive to what is polite and what is not: it is basic in all agricultural societies. There are ways to talk to people. Many years ago, I worked in Ireland and I observed the same thing: the sense of time was not the same as mine, and the rules of politeness could not be overlooked. In Ireland, for instance, it is impolite to ask a direct question before you have a conversation, it is why Gallup answers were so unreliable at the time: many people considered that the method was offensive; I do not know if that has changed. My guess is that it has not changed much in the western part of the island.
The mistake here is to come as a bare army: why on earth, at least on the documentary I saw on CNN did not they come to a remote small village with some elders from the next village, it they were willing? They would, as a courtesy, because they are very polite and neighborly people, and they want to protect visitors. They would of course if they did not think of us as the new invader. To say the least, soldiers need to come with more people in civilian clothing: people that old civilans can relate to. It takes more time, but it is the way it should be done: make friends here, go to the next place. Why on earth are our soldiers not told to have a conversation before they ask about terrorists? If there was one in the surroundings, the elders would not tell us anyway, because the perception of us is not good, so it is just as well to spend five minutes talking about the weather and the fact that we are on a peaceful mission, and ask if they have enough food. It is basic politeness, folks. Being blunt and efficient is not the way Afghans work.
I am not saying that all Afghans are "nice", I know that there is a lot of armed people and small tribes of thugs, drug dealers and terrorists, but how are we going to find them in that difficult terrain if we behave like the Russians? There is a U.S. Army/Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual that every soldier should read: it is full of good advice, and it is not that complicated; in one sentence: Talk to people as if they were your grandparents, but do not believe that they will behave as your grandparents would.
We need the population to help us, and it will not, if we do not respect its customs and if they do not understand what we want. Let me recommend the book of LCOL John A. Nagl Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife: Counterinsurgency Lessons from Malaya and Vietnam. It is a fantastic read for anybody interested in our success in Afghanistan. If one of your loved ones is in Afghanistan, send this book over: it could save lives.
Monday, January 12, 2009
New Sacrifices? Lower Salaries? or New Aims?
Please follow my reasoning before jumping in the air:
1) I am all for sacrifices when they are required and lowering salaries to keep one's job. Got to do what we got to do.
2) I am all in favor of other countries doing better, specially in the third world. If young people in the Islam world had a job, we would have less suicides and less terrorists. Peace comes with opportunities, criminal minds are forged in despair with the money of some misfits. It means that I am against protectionism: historically, it never did us any good.
3) Nobody has demonstrated that if we are more miserable, the other countries will do better for it. In fact most economists do not believe that. So let us encourage the others countries to go up, that is good for everybody, but do not let us go down: it is bad for everybody.
4)Illegal immigration is a new form of slavery: it is cheap work and no taxes and no rights. I am against it. It is just as immoral as slavery. But I am against the hypocrisy behind it all: how come these guys find jobs? Who gives them jobs? We should be clear: we still need the work of a lot of immigrants that are here: then they should have the same rights as anybody. It is better to give a tax relief to some categories of employers than to close our eyes on illegal immigrants because the American employers could not pay their social security. And the rest should not be here as a constant menace for security and the organization of society. If nobody lied about this, it would be easy to solve. All that talk about punishment and rewarding illegality is jazz. It is millions of people. Let us solve this.
5) I strongly believe that a person working hard for 8 hours a day should have enough money to survive. If you work, you should not wear the stamp of poverty. I found a good site where you can see how much money you need in any state. Verify here:
http://www.livingwage.geog.psu.edu/
You select your location, the number of people you are responsible for, and they give you a number. It is not complicated. Survival money should be the basic salary: in many places, it is not..
6) How come so many people have to work two jobs? Because businesses are in for the money. It is their legal responsibility to bring as much money to the stockholders as they can. We are a bit between a stone and a hard rock: communism we do not want because it does not work and brings endless miseries of all kinds (including the death of democracy), on the other hand capitalism is only about greed. Today's capitalists who say that everything works out in the end do not take into account the cost of human misery; they are a bit like the 19th century priests in Europe claiming that workers suffer now to get paradise in the end.
7) So we need businesses and industries to develop a conscience at the same time as they come out of the economic mess. There have been many examples in the past and until now of a conscience in small to big firms, and some have been the stuff of legends like Hershey or Ben and Jerry. But they became legends because they were the exception.
8) We need to look at the new list of Fortune 100 best companies to work for and study these companies to come up with a chart of business morality.
Then we need to teach it in business schools and try to enforce it: it is not just about money. It is about avoiding to create another generation of business people who behave like psychopaths, because that is what they learn in business schools.
9) The time to do that is now: we must regain ethics at the same time as we regain customers. Waiting for the economic recovery hoping that we can ameliorate workers situation "later" is a pipe dream.These steps have to work out together.
10)We should also look in our own closets. How come we spend so much time on TV and in our lives talking about obesity rather than talking about our own kids? What kind of society is this with one million children abused and neglected every year, and thirty million people who take illegal drugs regularly?
1) I am all for sacrifices when they are required and lowering salaries to keep one's job. Got to do what we got to do.
2) I am all in favor of other countries doing better, specially in the third world. If young people in the Islam world had a job, we would have less suicides and less terrorists. Peace comes with opportunities, criminal minds are forged in despair with the money of some misfits. It means that I am against protectionism: historically, it never did us any good.
3) Nobody has demonstrated that if we are more miserable, the other countries will do better for it. In fact most economists do not believe that. So let us encourage the others countries to go up, that is good for everybody, but do not let us go down: it is bad for everybody.
4)Illegal immigration is a new form of slavery: it is cheap work and no taxes and no rights. I am against it. It is just as immoral as slavery. But I am against the hypocrisy behind it all: how come these guys find jobs? Who gives them jobs? We should be clear: we still need the work of a lot of immigrants that are here: then they should have the same rights as anybody. It is better to give a tax relief to some categories of employers than to close our eyes on illegal immigrants because the American employers could not pay their social security. And the rest should not be here as a constant menace for security and the organization of society. If nobody lied about this, it would be easy to solve. All that talk about punishment and rewarding illegality is jazz. It is millions of people. Let us solve this.
5) I strongly believe that a person working hard for 8 hours a day should have enough money to survive. If you work, you should not wear the stamp of poverty. I found a good site where you can see how much money you need in any state. Verify here:
http://www.livingwage.geog.psu.edu/
You select your location, the number of people you are responsible for, and they give you a number. It is not complicated. Survival money should be the basic salary: in many places, it is not..
6) How come so many people have to work two jobs? Because businesses are in for the money. It is their legal responsibility to bring as much money to the stockholders as they can. We are a bit between a stone and a hard rock: communism we do not want because it does not work and brings endless miseries of all kinds (including the death of democracy), on the other hand capitalism is only about greed. Today's capitalists who say that everything works out in the end do not take into account the cost of human misery; they are a bit like the 19th century priests in Europe claiming that workers suffer now to get paradise in the end.
7) So we need businesses and industries to develop a conscience at the same time as they come out of the economic mess. There have been many examples in the past and until now of a conscience in small to big firms, and some have been the stuff of legends like Hershey or Ben and Jerry. But they became legends because they were the exception.
8) We need to look at the new list of Fortune 100 best companies to work for and study these companies to come up with a chart of business morality.
Then we need to teach it in business schools and try to enforce it: it is not just about money. It is about avoiding to create another generation of business people who behave like psychopaths, because that is what they learn in business schools.
9) The time to do that is now: we must regain ethics at the same time as we regain customers. Waiting for the economic recovery hoping that we can ameliorate workers situation "later" is a pipe dream.These steps have to work out together.
10)We should also look in our own closets. How come we spend so much time on TV and in our lives talking about obesity rather than talking about our own kids? What kind of society is this with one million children abused and neglected every year, and thirty million people who take illegal drugs regularly?
Saturday, January 10, 2009
Too young, too old, no experience, lacks skills, overskilled?
Unemployment was for most of my life much larger in European countries than in North America. So, here, you had a chance to hear that you were skilled and good to work with, whereas in Europe, finding a job has always been an unpleasant journey.
This unpleasantness is coming to America.
I was too young at 25 and too old at 40. I have been lacking experience, and an instant later I was told I was overskilled. And soon enough, my skills became obsolete. Then I was a "woman" and I was going to get pregnant (it is not legal to say it any more, don't imagine they do not think it any more). And if you are part of a minority, disabled, or just a small size person, your prospect is worse even if that does not have anything to do with the position you apply for. Handling rejection can be tough: you got to think it has nothing to do with you while always trying to get better at obtaining a job: it is a fine line.
I always found work, though. I would say it is because:
1) I am pretty sure I am good at what I do.
2) I am obstinate: I kept trying.
3) I am not picky: a little money is much more than nothing, and a small job away is better than no job here.
4) I have been very lucky.
There was a neat discussion of unemployment numbers in the Curious Capitalist. If you wonder how so many people are unemployed and do not even look for a job, think of it this way: it is like arthritis, one gets used to it, because it is a human skill of survival to get used to bad things. In cases like this, it can be deadly: I have seen friends losing appreciation for how to dress for a job, when to get up for a job, how to talk to the boss and how to look for a job altogether. So it is best to keep trying.
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
Never bring a blog post to a gunfight: kill the EITC
The excellent blog of the Curious Capitalist earned this comment from a reader called Dumdedumdum: Never bring a blog post to a gunfight I like that. Of course it will have to be about taxes. Here is what bothers me about the earned income tax credit.
I thought, until I came to America, that the French tax system was the most ridiculous in the world. I changed my mind: the American tax system is to say the least, the most bizarre. So I had to register to one of these free tax courses to become a tax preparer in order to understand what is going on.Disclosure: I am a democrat, what I want to show is that the best intentions do not always suffice.
Take the celebrated earned income tax credit (EITC). The generous idea to encourage people with low salaries and to help them is fine with me. But in Savannah, most people who benefit this have little capacity in mathematics. They want the largest earned income possible, which leads them to the unwanted conclusion that they do not want to work more than for the amount allowing the maximum earned income.
Suppose that you are in 2006, a single dad with one kid and an income of $12,000. Then your EITC is $ 2740 which means that over the whole year you enjoyed 12000+2740= $ 14740. If your income was 18000 your EITC would be only 2230 and your total for the year $ 20230. I did interview about 100 people making their taxes in Savannah, the vast majority would say that if they had only $ 2230 this year (compared to, for instance, 2740 last year), they should work less next year. That is because they never add the numbers together, and it is hard to make them accept that in the second case, they have less EITC but they still enjoyed 20230 – 14740 = $ 5490 more. The difficulty for them to understand this is that during the year, they made over three thousand dollars more than the year before, but they have already spent it: they only look at the future money. Therefore, it is not a good law, it needs to be changed: we want people to make more money, not less.
One of the strangest consequences of the EITC is the constant swapping of children. People in Savannah are savvy: they know that the EITC for three or four children is the same as for two children. So if they have three kids, they will give one (on paper) to cousin Smith, so cousin Smith who has no kid yet, came claim one, which would give him $ 2740 (for a 12000 income). The extra EITC money will then be split between the two families. Every January, there is a huge children swap in Savannah and no end to the discussions about who will get the desirable “extra children” on paper. I do not claim that it is illegal: many kids live before and after school with different members of the family. It may not be illegal, but it is not the spirit of the law. The taxpayers have learned how to maximize the benefits of the EITC. It has, however, unhealthy consequences: a lot of mothers with genuine rights to declare their kids, probably, as a rough estimate, 3 to 5 percent of taxpayers, come to discover at tax time that their tax return is rejected because somebody else already claimed their kids. Of course, they can appeal, but all the situations of poor people are complex, family relations are complex, and most of the time the injustice will be committed and will not be corrected. These women do not want to go to trial against their family, they got enough problems, and therefore we do not have reliable statistics.
I met in Savannah one great accountant who told me that such tax laws should be changed every five years, because in five years time, people learn how to distort the system. In the meantime, absurdity reigns: the first woman who told me to “scratch this kid” and added: “It is not my kid any more this year” plunged me in abysmal perplexity.
One young college student, who was making very good money as a golf caddy, asked me how he could increase his EITC. What was I supposed to say? “Get four kids, spread them around, and don’t work too hard?”
I thought, until I came to America, that the French tax system was the most ridiculous in the world. I changed my mind: the American tax system is to say the least, the most bizarre. So I had to register to one of these free tax courses to become a tax preparer in order to understand what is going on.Disclosure: I am a democrat, what I want to show is that the best intentions do not always suffice.
Take the celebrated earned income tax credit (EITC). The generous idea to encourage people with low salaries and to help them is fine with me. But in Savannah, most people who benefit this have little capacity in mathematics. They want the largest earned income possible, which leads them to the unwanted conclusion that they do not want to work more than for the amount allowing the maximum earned income.
Suppose that you are in 2006, a single dad with one kid and an income of $12,000. Then your EITC is $ 2740 which means that over the whole year you enjoyed 12000+2740= $ 14740. If your income was 18000 your EITC would be only 2230 and your total for the year $ 20230. I did interview about 100 people making their taxes in Savannah, the vast majority would say that if they had only $ 2230 this year (compared to, for instance, 2740 last year), they should work less next year. That is because they never add the numbers together, and it is hard to make them accept that in the second case, they have less EITC but they still enjoyed 20230 – 14740 = $ 5490 more. The difficulty for them to understand this is that during the year, they made over three thousand dollars more than the year before, but they have already spent it: they only look at the future money. Therefore, it is not a good law, it needs to be changed: we want people to make more money, not less.
One of the strangest consequences of the EITC is the constant swapping of children. People in Savannah are savvy: they know that the EITC for three or four children is the same as for two children. So if they have three kids, they will give one (on paper) to cousin Smith, so cousin Smith who has no kid yet, came claim one, which would give him $ 2740 (for a 12000 income). The extra EITC money will then be split between the two families. Every January, there is a huge children swap in Savannah and no end to the discussions about who will get the desirable “extra children” on paper. I do not claim that it is illegal: many kids live before and after school with different members of the family. It may not be illegal, but it is not the spirit of the law. The taxpayers have learned how to maximize the benefits of the EITC. It has, however, unhealthy consequences: a lot of mothers with genuine rights to declare their kids, probably, as a rough estimate, 3 to 5 percent of taxpayers, come to discover at tax time that their tax return is rejected because somebody else already claimed their kids. Of course, they can appeal, but all the situations of poor people are complex, family relations are complex, and most of the time the injustice will be committed and will not be corrected. These women do not want to go to trial against their family, they got enough problems, and therefore we do not have reliable statistics.
I met in Savannah one great accountant who told me that such tax laws should be changed every five years, because in five years time, people learn how to distort the system. In the meantime, absurdity reigns: the first woman who told me to “scratch this kid” and added: “It is not my kid any more this year” plunged me in abysmal perplexity.
One young college student, who was making very good money as a golf caddy, asked me how he could increase his EITC. What was I supposed to say? “Get four kids, spread them around, and don’t work too hard?”
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