William F. Buckley dies at 82

NEW YORK (AP) — Author and conservative commentator William F. Buckley Jr. has died at age 82. His assistant Linda Bridges says Buckley died Wednesday morning at his home in Stamford, Connecticut. Buckley became famous for his intellectual political writings in his magazine, the National Review.

William Frank “Bill” Buckley, Jr. (November 24, 1925 - February 27, 2008) was an American author and conservative commentator. He founded the political magazine National Review in 1955, hosted the television show Firing Line from 1966 until 1999, and was a nationally syndicated newspaper columnist. His writing style was famed for its eloquence, wit, and use of uncommon words. (from Wikipedia)

Our Tax System Explained: Bar Stool Economics

I was trolling around Google for some economics stuff and came across this gem.  If you want to see a very lame response to it (basically someone trying to act intelligent, but failing miserably), see the post on Daily Kos.

Suppose that every day, ten men go out for beer and the bill for all ten comes to $100. If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this:

The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing.

The fifth would pay $1.

The sixth would pay $3.

The seventh would pay $7.

The eighth would pay $12.

The ninth would pay $18.

The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59.

So, that’s what they decided to do.

The ten men drank in the bar every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement, until one day, the owner threw them a curve. ‘Since you are all such good customers,’ he said, ‘I’m going to reduce the cost of your daily beer by $20.’ Drinks for the ten now cost just $80.

The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes so the first four men were unaffected. They would still drink for free.

But what about the other six men - the paying customers? How could they divide the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his ‘fair share?’

They realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they subtracted that from everybody’s share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would each end up being paid to drink his beer. So, the bar owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man’s bill by roughly the same amount, and he proceeded to work out the amounts each should pay.

And so:

The fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100% savings).

The sixth now paid $2 instead of $3 (33%savings).

The seventh now pay $5 instead of $7 (28%savings).

The eighth now paid $9 instead of $12 (25% savings).

The ninth now paid $14 instead of $18 (22% savings).

The tenth now paid $49 instead of $59 (16% savings).

Each of the six was better off than before. And the first four continued to drink for free. But once outside the restaurant, the men began to compare their savings.

‘I only got a dollar out of the $20,’declared the sixth man. He pointed to the tenth man,’ but he got $10!’

‘Yeah, that’s right,’ exclaimed the fifth man. ‘I only saved a dollar, too. It’s unfair that he got ten times more than I got’

‘That’s true!!’ shouted the seventh man. ‘Why should he get $10 back when I got only two? The wealthy get all the breaks!’

‘Wait a minute,’ yelled the first four men in unison. ‘We didn’t get anything at all. The system exploits the poor!’

The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up.

The next night the tenth man didn’t show up for drinks so the nine sat down and had beers without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important. They didn’t have enough money between all of them for even half of the bill!

And that, ladies and gentlemen, journalists and college professors, is how our tax system works. The people who pay the highest taxes get the most benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up anymore. In fact, they might start drinking overseas where the atmosphere is somewhat friendlier.

David R. Kamerschen, Ph.D.

Professor of Economics

University of Georgia

For those who understand, no explanation is needed.

For those who do not understand, no explanation is possible.

Why The MBA is a Kick in the Ass

For ten weeks, we have our standard assignments that include significant reading, an essay, and some lively discussion. After one gets into a groove, it’s a lot easier to manage the workload. It hasn’t ever been “easy”, but it is manageable. The last week of the term (this week) is going to be hell.

Not only do we have a 2,000-word essay due that describes the unique challenges of strategic resource management for a manufacturing company that has businesses in four countries (USA, Mexico, France, and Turkey) where we have to address human capital, information capital, organizational capital, strategy alignment, and enterprise continuity management, but we also have an online final exam.

Next, we have a case study due that is a group project! All of this is due at the end of the week. The workload has tripled. I guess the motto my school has (Expect Challenge) is no joke.

The Dallas World Aquarium

We went to The Dallas World Aquarium today. It is an indoor zoo for the most part, focusing on a jungle and underwater theme. It was pretty neat, but in terms of taking photos, it sucked!

I got 58 decent photos out of the place, but had almost twice that number that were horrible. I need to check the settings on my camera. But since a lot of them came out OK, I am blaming the environment. The gallery can be found here.

Houston Zoo Photos…Again

Took another walk through the Houston Zoo today. I got some good pics. I would have taken more, but I was a llittle rushed. Some of the ones in the gallery should gave turned out better than they did, but here are a few. See all of them here.

Plants and a Dog

Plants and dogs … more in the photo gallery.

Review: ASUS eee PC 701

I like to buy gadgets. Recently I have been looking at attaining some level of mobility that lets me do some of the same things I normally do with my desktop-replacement Dell XPS M1710.

I recently bought and played around with the somewhat new Nokia N800 Internet Tablet. While it is good for certain things, it’s not what I was looking for. I had contemplated buying the eee PC for a while. I am glad I finally did.

Before we get to the good things, let’s get the (very few) bad things out of the way. The hybrid Linux system that came with it was not impressive to me. I suppose if I were just looking to surf the web or use Open Office to create a few documents, it would have been just fine. But I needed this thing for specific purposes.

Second, the keyboard is a little weird because it is so small. That’s what is expected for something so small and mobile. It just takes some time to get used to. I bought a small external USB keyboard. Problem resolved!

Now for the good parts.

CPU: 900-MHz Intel Celeron Processor

HDD: 4GB SSD

DISPLAY: 7 inches/800 x 480

VIDEO: Integrated graphics/64MB

Wi-Fi: 802.11b/g integrated

PORTS: Three USB 2.0, Ethernet, modem, headphone, mic

Laptop Magazine called this thing “Pound for pound, the best value-priced notebook on the planet.” CNET says “7.5 out of 10 … a near perfect choice for a highly portable second or backup laptop.” PC Magazine says “4 out of 5 - Ample software and a substantial feature set that’s well worth the money.” Notebook Review says “This little machine was as powerful as notebooks four to five times its price.”

To solve the problem with the very small keyboard, I bought an ultra-slim keyboard that is just slightly wider than the PC itself, but has bigger keys. It compliments the PC just fine. The next thing I did was to install Windows XP with SP2. I did all of the updates that I needed and compressed the drive. At the end of the day, I had 500MB free with no loss of speed. The OS is still very snappy.

I bought a 16G SD card from Crucial so I would have room to install my applications. The OS install went fine. The drivers for the Wi-Fi, video, etc.. are on the CD that came with the PC. I then installed MS Office 2003 and a ton of other things that I use on a regular basis. I also upgraded the standard 512M of RAM with a 2G stick purchased from Crucial. I think this is a necessity when using XP on any system.

The eee PC weighs almost nothing. It’s the ultimate mobile tool once you get it to the level of functionality you need. I was going to get the 8G version, but they were back-ordered. I may get one when they do come out in a couple of months.

Overall, this is one of the best products I’ve ever bought.