Where Fun Comes to Die

The debate over the fundamental nature of the family rocks the scientific community:

Analysis of a remarkable cluster of graves at a Stone Age burial site near Eulau, Germany, provides the oldest molecular genetic evidence for a nuclear family.

The 13 graves, dating to 4,600 years ago, contained groups of adults and children buried facing each other – hands interlinked in many cases. The family members, ranging in age from very young children to adults 30 years and older, were interred simultaneously.

Perhaps preempting a March-of-the-Penguins-style attempt to co-opt science by conservatives, the religious right, and others interested in promoting traditional family values, the scientists warn:

By establishing the genetic links between the two adults and two children buried together in one grave, we have established the presence of the classic nuclear family in a prehistoric context in Central Europe – to our knowledge the oldest authentic molecular genetic evidence so far.  Their unity in death suggests a unity in life. However, this does not establish the elemental family to be a universal model or the most ancient institution of human communities.

By not providing a similar not-to-be-used-to-promote-your-beliefs disclaimer to the following information, scientists implicitly endorse diplomacy and scorn inbreeding:

The strontium analysis showed that the females spent their childhood in a different region from the males and children. This is an indication of exogamy (marrying out) and patrilocality (the females moving to the location of the males). Such traditions would have been important to avoid inbreeding and to forge kinship networks with other communities.

Post here.

I have a hard time disagreeing with Stone on this one, but I will argue one point. It’s rather difficult to accurately separate laws based on a particular religious belief from those that merely codify a consensus moral viewpoint (independent of or only partially influenced by religious belief). This is the case in American criminal law, a codification of collective moral judgments which are themselves often rooted in the Judeo-Christian worldview of the majority. The difficulty also arises with Proposition 8, making Stone’s confident assertion that the amendment was based purely on religious belief far from obvious to me (although his poll numbers are somewhat persuasive).

(Another most unsurprising take on the issue comes from Richard Epstein in his weekly Libertarian column for Forbes here.)

In his feverish quest to make things as difficult as possible for Obama, Bush has been adopting a bunch of bothersome last-minute regulations.  He’s got nothing left to lose, so now he can do whatever he wants.  It’s like a presidential version of ‘Falling Down.’  However, I think that one of the last-minute regulations has got a lot of merit.

I speak, of course, of the regulation forcing hospitals and pharmacies to employ health care providers who won’t  provide birth control.  I love the idea of having regulations enacted so that fulfilling your religious beliefs is easy and painless.  It’s like getting the government to send a civil servant to go to church in your place.  As Jesus said to his disciples when sending them out to preach, “And if anyone will not receive you or listen, to your words, shake off the dust from your feet when you leave that house or town.  And then go lobby for regulations that will require the townspeople to listen to you politely or else face serious civil penalties.”  Matthew 10:14  

The problem with the rule is that it doesn’t go far enough.  I’m looking forward to a future in which all religiously-minded slackers will be permanently employed by government decree.  Observant Jews could get jobs at the hog farm, where they could read the newspaper, take frequent smoke breaks, and refuse to compromise their moral beliefs by touching unclean animals.  Lazy Quakers could get jobs at munitions factories, and spend the entire day surfing Youtube, and nobody could force them to violate their conscience and actually make some damn munitions.  It would be a paradise for those who observe every one of their faith’s strictures except the prohibition against sloth.   

OK, that’s enough sarcasm for now.  Even by Bush standards, these are some low shenanigans.  Anti-discriminations laws are fine and dandy, but I cannot understand regulations that require employers to hire people whose religious convictions prevent them from doing the job.  We all know that Bush is no fan of reproductive freedom, but why does he hate freedom of contract as well?

Due to stiff opposition (despite a bipartisan agreement in favor), the vote on the auto industry bailout has been delayed until December 8th.  As Nancy Pelosi puts it:

It is all about accountability and viability.  We [need to] see a plan where the auto industry is held accountable. Until they show us the plan, we cannot show them the money.

The big three auto manufacturers have turned into that homeless drug addict that we pass by every morning: we want to help them out, but we don’t want to give them money if they’re just going to spend it on fueling their addiction.  In fact when I was watching the Allison episode of A&E’s “Intervention” yesterday, I couldn’t help but draw parallels between drug addicts and the auto industry.

Intervention is a reality TV show profiling addicts.  In this episode, Allison is a former pre med Boston U student who huffs 10-12 cans of electronics cleaner a day.  She’s most famous for her drug induced catch phrase, “It’s like I’m walking on sunshine,” parodied here.  Her intervention specialist explained to the family that she will never get better until she hits rock bottom:

There’s nothing we won’t do to help you get together, but there’s nothing we will do to help this continue one more second.  This is done.  Ok, and she can say, “screw you” and go be an addict by herself.  But the truth is, most addicts, if it was just up to them, do not have the resources in and of themselves to even be an addict: somebody’s paying the bills, somebody’s making excuses, somebody’s bailing them out.

We want to help.  Of course we want to help.  But is a $25 billion bailout going to help?  Or will it just get shot up like the rest of the cash the auto industry is burning through at a dangerous rate?

And whatever we do, we can’t trust anything the big three say because we all know addicts will say anything to maintain their current lifestyle.  As Allison said,  “I don’t care if I sacrifice the life of another, I need it now.”

For my maiden voyage on this blog, I’ve decided to class up the joint with a little “celebrity” gossip (well, considering the subject, perhaps quasi-celebrity) and food talk. (Oh yes, we are definitely heading in the right direction.)

Today’s post is brought to you by the pear tart at Patisserie Claude, a tiny little place near me with a proprietor by the name of — you guessed it — Claude. Monsieur Claude reminds me of dear old Professor Helmholz — a notorious curmudgeon until you discover that, underneath it all, he is really just an ooey gooey softie.  Claude’s pear tart makes me squeal. The shell with buttery layer after layer of flaky crust tenderly cups the thin wedges of pear as it makes its way directly into my piehole. Yum.

While I’m on the topic of tarts, the career arc of Ashley Alexandra Dupré (a.k.a. the Eliot Spitzer “escort,” the quasi-celebrity portion of this post) may merit closer inspection in these economically uncertain times.  Ms. Dupré’s interview in People magazine this week brought a few things to mind. While I’m NOT saying that we should all run out and commit some misdemeanors, let us consider these facts: (1) already offered $1 million to pose for Hustler, she has millions of dollars in potential income as a result of (2) her participation in a crime for which she has received immunity, for which she will not be punished (by the law), and (3) for which she continues to receive (undue?) national attention in People magazine and an interview with Diane Sawyer. Her punishment obviously lies in the eyes of the public and the tainted reputation she totes with her from that day forward, but this leads me to the question “how does one value a reputation?” Or, in these circumstances, perhaps more appropriately “what is the value of morality?”

With perfect information, would people actually choose the above path? Are there people out there who may envy an ex-escort her (possible) millions, regardless of the baggage and reputation (or lack thereof) that she carries along with her?

Fame is fleeting, and fame acquired through these means rather distateful in my opinion.  But in this celebrity-obsessed world, fame is almost always followed by some degree (or, in the case of Ms. Dupré, likely millions of dollars worth) of fortune. I wonder, then: Is it true that everyone has his/her price?

Let’s say you manage a fair-sized division in a regular Office-Space scenario. You have a large number of employees and were responsible for their final products. Let’s say you bargained with those employees, sometimes without recourse, over how they wanted their office environment to be kept – just so that you could personally assure the completion of their final product, and hence, your pay check. You really didn’t take into account the interactions between your employees, between your employees and other teams in your company, how the current environment might affect future productivity. You just got paid – that’s all that was important to you. Sure you liked to give some morning pep talks about how the office was making some green-friendly moves – recycle bins in every cubicle, energy saving through unplugging the computers every night. But in reality, your bottom line was all that matter. Let’s say over time the public doesn’t like your product as much – for what ever reason you can imagine. You have competitors that tend to make other versions of your product better – at least in the eyes of the public. How should you be held accountable? Does it make a difference if you are the major employee for Small Town, USA? For a state? At what point does your company then deserve some assistance? Now extrapolate out… A little further… And a little more…

Yes, the automobile industry has been poorly managed. Yes, they have spent ridiculous lobbying dollars. Yes, they have perpetuated somewhat destructive labor relations, and are still nowhere near their foreign competitors as far as benefits. Yes, there have been multiple missteps over many years. But how do we protect those workers who are currently struggling in the current recession situation? Do we just let the industry go bankrupt – and risk their jobs in the process? Do we fault the industry – or just the managers instead?

We already have a bailout plan in place. If we are willing to help out the many banks that have also selfishly been led by their spa-going CEOs for the sake of national economic security, why would we not also include the automobile industry, one of America’s most fundamental industries? We need to protect our own American industries – and by allowing the automobile industry to supposedly regulate themselves through the bankruptcy option, there will continue to be very little oversight over their already misdirected handlings. Through the bailout plan, we can provide more detailed directions – in fact, we can REQUIRE the development of future strategic planning concerning management, employment, health care, and energy saving.

“What Washington must ensure is that Detroit is never able to return to business as usual. If the Big Three are to survive, there must be fundamental changes…” (New York Post, November 19, 2008) Like President-Elect Obama says, forget the blank check – let’s get the real negotiations on…

Dieting has become a staple of American culture, as central to daily life as going to work or driving a car.  If the American dieter can choose from a veritable garden of diet options, from Atkins to Hot Zone to South Beach, the yo-yo diet is often perceived as the dreaded weed.  Yo-yo dieting, also known as weight cycling, describes the process in which one repeatedly loses and gains weight.  Even with its bad reputation, it has remained wildly popular as the dieting option in which you can have your cake and eat it too.

There are two common criticisms about yo-yo dieting that have made it the traditional villain of the dieting world: (1) it is unhealthy and (2) it is a result of low self control.  However, recent studies suggest that yo-yo dieting may not deserve the bad rep it’s gotten after all.  These studies show that yo-yo dieting alone does not present a significant health risk.  In fact, studies have shown that remaining overweight can be much worse for your health than losing and gaining weight.

Nor can we blame yo-yo dieting on the weak-willed.  In recent years, yo-yo dieting has been negatively compared to “life change” dieting, in which a dieter loses weight and keeps it off by maintaining a stable eating lifestyle.  Life change dieters are perceived as the ones who have the ability to stay on the wagon, while yo-yo dieters are the ones who just can’t muster the discipline to stay on.

Consider the possibility that yo-yo dieters aren’t falling off the wagon; instead, they’re intentionally leaping off for the thrill of it.  Perhaps some dieters actually prefer to lose and gain weight in cycles rather than to maintain a consistent weight, whether they realize it or not.  It may not be for everyone, but it may be the “right” choice for some based on their individual preferences.

People are strange creatures.  Some people like country music, some even like Ford automobiles.  Bizarre or self-destructive behavior for one person may be a rational choice for another.  Rational decision makers don’t always make the best choices, especially when we have incomplete information.  But as rational decision makers, we make the best choices for us given our preferences and the information we have.  Because we typically make the best choice for us, examining our behavior can give us insight into what we truly prefer when forced to make a choice.

Both the yo-yo dieter and the life change dieter have plenty of incentives to jump on the dieting bandwagon.  Committing to a diet can give the dieter a sense of control.  Although denying herself pleasures from food, she may gain other pleasures from dieting, such as seeing a lower number on the scale or fitting into smaller clothing.  Once her weight and appearance match what is on her driver’s license, she can stop dreading airport security ID checks.  She may revel in compliments from coworkers and family members.  She may even find herself the victim of construction site catcalls.  Apart from having a sense of accomplishment that she has set a goal and achieved it, she will feel moral superiority over those who are heftier than she.  Cost of special meals?  $120 a month.  Subscription to Weight Watchers?  $80 a month.  Gym membership?  $60 a month.  Looking scornfully at the fat person spilling out of the seat next to you-priceless.

Up to this point, both the yo-yo dieter and the consistent “life change” dieter experience similar benefits.  Unfortunately for the life change dieter, this is where the pleasure stops.  Variety is the spice of life, and although the first few catcalls may induce a perversely novel pleasure for our dieter, they’ll grow old quickly, as will her walking shoes from her extended construction-site-avoiding commute.  She’ll forget the fear she ever felt regarding her driver’s license weight and friends will stop complimenting her.  As she tires of her newfound pleasures, the law of diminishing returns suggests that the benefits from her weight loss will exponentially decay to almost nothing.  Moreover, negative effects from the weight reduction may develop, such as jealousy from friends and irritability from hunger.  The life change dieter will start out feeling healthier and happier from the weight loss, but after a short while, her happiness will level off or even decline.

In contrast, once the novelty of losing weight diminishes the yo-yo dieter moves on to greener pastures.  The law of diminishing returns works both ways, so while the value of losing weight goes down for the yo-yo dieter, the value of French fries goes up.  At first it does not take much of a “cheat” from the diet to give the dieter a great deal of pleasure.  After a month with no French fries, one or two may be titillating enough to satisfy her cravings.  Like a drug addict returning to her pharmaceutical mistress, however, the dieter will eventually need to indulge more and more to gain the same high as the initial cheat.  A few French fries turns into a basket of French fries, then some chili cheese fries, and then a chocolate dipped French fry fudge sundae with crème fraiche.  Not only does the dieter stop dieting, she gains back the weight in a flourish of saturated fat calories.  But eventually the dieter will realize that fudge and French fry sundaes are disgusting, and the junk food binges will have lost their novelty.  Meanwhile the benefits of dieting have regained their novelty, and so the cycle of dieting starts over.

Unlike the life change dieter, the yo-yo dieter gets a great deal of utility from both ends of the cycle.  From the weight loss, she gains the pleasure of taking control of her life and receiving compliments from friends and loved ones.  When those pleasures lose their sheen, she switches her attentions to the pleasures of indulging and splurging.  Without gaining the weight, she would never have gained the pleasure of losing the weight; without losing it, she would never have gained the pleasure of gaining it all back.  By alternating between the two, she has created a perpetual motion machine of constant pleasure.

The value of yo-yo dieting should not be a surprise, as these same principles apply to most of our activities.  Human beings do not like maintenance.  Most of us do not vacuum and dust our homes everyday, nor do we keep up to date on world affairs, maintain our foreign language skills, or practice the multiplication tables.  We have limited time and resources and there is simply not enough value involved with maintenance to warrant the effort involved.  Our lives thrive on variety and yo-yo dieters get exactly that.

If yo-yo dieting is so great, why doesn’t everyone do it?  The answer is that everyone does engage in a bit of yo-yo dieting, for example, when we splurge during the holidays and then make New Year’s resolutions to cut back.  If yo-yo dieting can be analogized to alcohol, most of us can happily and healthily imbibe in moderation.  But there is also the dieter’s equivalent of the alcoholic, those with diabetes or a heart condition that can’t tolerate weight fluctuation.  Others may need to maintain a certain weight for their profession, such as models and sumo wrestlers.  There are a myriad of reasons for an individual to decide that yo-yo dieting is the bad choice for him or her.

If you find yourself in that situation, there is no reason you can’t have any fun.  You might apply the lessons learned from yo-yo dieting about the power of preferences and incentives to find some pleasure in weight loss activities.  Even if you hate to run by yourself, you may find it fun to run with a friend.  Biking along the beach might be appealing to you, whereas biking on a treadmill in a gym is not.  If you are a people pleaser, joining a weight-loss support group would give you the added benefit of winning people’s approval in exchange for losing weight.  If you have a green streak, you could focus on ways to save both the planet and your waistline, for instance by eating whole foods.  Signing up for your favorite co-ed sport could give you a competition high that may be stronger and last longer than a normal runner’s high.  You could even make some money off your efforts by winning a bet with a friend to lose weight.  By examining your personal compulsions and preferences and setting up an incentive program linking those to diet and exercise, you can construct your own proverbial spoon-full-of-sugar that will help you better enjoy losing or maintaining weight.

The silver lining to all of that weight loss is that the more you lose, the more you can gain back.  After all, there must be a reason why plump people are so jolly.

An LA Times article wonders what happened to the reparations movement:

Just a few years ago, at roughly the turn of the millennium, slavery reparations seemed the coming thing. A New York Times article in June 2001 reported that the movement to obtain compensation for slaves’ descendants had “taken on substantial force” and was “gaining steam” both in the nation’s universities and in the black community.

All the major black organizations had signed on, including the NAACP, the Urban League and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Randall Robinson’s book, “The Debt: What America Owes to Blacks,” had hit the bestseller lists in 2000. Many state and local Democratic politicians started to talk up the idea.

Then: nothing. Today, reparations seem to have completely disappeared from the national agenda. Few mention them anymore. What happened?

With the election of Barack Obama, many have hoped for a reopening of the reparations discussion, however Obama himself opposes monetary reparations:

I have said in the past _ and I’ll repeat again _ that the best reparations we can provide are good schools in the inner city and jobs for people who are unemployed.

This response reminds me of those houses that give out toothbrushes and raisins for Halloween. The implicit acknowledgment in Obama’s statement is that this country owes reparations to ancestors of slaves, just that it shouldn’t be money. What is Obama so afraid of? People spending money on things they want instead of things he thinks they need? In the current economic climate, that might not be so much of a worry. Most people could probably find a lot of “needs” to put the money towards – mortgage payments, food, paying off debt, etc.  But is there anything wrong with people spending the money on wants as well? In the reparations scenario envisioned by the movie Barbershop, Cedric the Entertainer’s character argues that reparations “ain’t gonna do nothing but make Cadillac the number one car dealership in America.” Wouldn’t we rather have that than an American auto industry bailout?

Congrats to Obama, here’s hoping for strong and enlightened leadership over the next four years.  But will somebody please explain to me the following statement from Obama’s acceptance speech:

Let us remember that if this financial crisis taught us anything, it’s that we cannot have a thriving Wall Street while Main Street suffers – in this country, we rise or fall as one nation; as one people.

Is this a normative or positive statement?  In other words, is Obama saying that Main Street’s suffering led to Wall Street’s collapse?  Or is he saying that we shouldn’t allow Wall Street to do well if Main Street is suffering?  If the former, I’d like to understand what the theory of causation is.  If the latter, what would be the method of enforcement?

According to their facebook statuses, most people I know are very eager to have the elections done with.  Without the elections, though, we might never have learned how easy it is to amend the California constitution or about the existence of refundable tax credits.

Shocking revelation for me: you can receive a bigger tax refund check than the total amount of money you paid in income tax.  With refundable tax credits, you can owe negative income taxes and actually get the government to pay you the difference.  According to this article:

For the most part, the government enacts tax credits to encourage certain behavior. For instance, the Saver’s Credit is designed to give low-income workers incentives to fund retirement accounts.

Making tax credits refundable allows lower-income workers to take advantage of them, said Robert Greenstein, executive director of the left-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Since many lower-income workers pay little or no tax, a non-refundable credit such as the Saver’s Credit isn’t much use to them. Obama wants to make the Saver’s Credit refundable.

McCain calls refundable tax credits an expansion of welfare because,

Republicans oppose sending money without restrictions on its use to people who don’t pay tax, said Douglas Holtz-Eakin, McCain’s senior economic policy adviser. And the GOP doesn’t like paying for it by increasing taxes on wealthier Americans, which they say is another example of Obama’s ideological drive to redistribute wealth, he said.

If you believe a penny saved is a penny earned, then there seems to be no distinction between a tax credit of $200 to someone who doesn’t owe taxes and a tax credit of $200 to someone who does owe taxes.  Tax credits target and reward certain behavior, whereas welfare benefits target and reward need.  I think that is the better argument for the Obama camp to make, rather than the argument they do make:

Obama supporters . . . take issue with the Republican view that the refundable credits would go to people who pay no tax. Those who don’t pay income taxes still support their state and federal governments through payroll taxes for Social Security and Medicare, sales taxes, property taxes and gas taxes.

Can’t you make the everyone-pays-taxes argument for anyone who has ever bought groceries or gas?  The problem is literally everyone pays taxes, Including everyone on welfare.  It’s not necessarily true that people who pay sales tax are supporting the government vs. being supported by the government.  If that is the justification for Obama’s increase in the number and amount of refundable tax credits, I can see why it looks a lot like welfare to the McCain camp, particularly with quotes like this from the above-mentioned Robert Greenstein:

If you are a millionaire, you get the child care tax credit. But if you make $20,000, you are denied it because you don’t make enough. It ends up going to the least needy.

It’s one thing to argue that the person making $20,000 will probably derive greater utility from the tax credit than someone making $200,000, but “the least needy”?  I know the target audience for that sort of statement is probably not libertarians, but how can people not get a little nauseous from reading such blatant paternalism?

I am not even sure if the utility argument is legitimate.  Yes the government may be getting a bigger bang for its buck by giving a tax credit to people who don’t earn enough to pay income tax than to people who earn $200,000.  But the biggest bang for the government’s buck would be to give the credit to those in the lowest tax bracket.  If my income is just under the tax cut off, I have very little incentive to make a little more money because then my entire income gets taxed.  In a normal tax credit world, you could at least argue that there is some marginal benefit to people who begin to pay taxes because they can start to access the various tax credits.  Tax credits, unlike tax deductions, can offset additional income many times larger than the amount of the credit itself, adding even more benefit to the taxpayer.  For instance, each couple hundred dollars in tax credits could mean another thousand dollars or more in income a taxpayer could earn tax free.  The value of the tax credit then is not only the money given and the utility received, but also the added incentive for the worker to earn maybe 5-10% more of their income than they otherwise would.  In a refundable tax credit world, there would be no such incentive to earn enough to enter the lowest tax bracket. If we made all tax credits refundable, it would conflict with some of the desired purposes of the tax credits themselves, e.g. the “making work pay” credit.  It could also arguably over-incentivize tax credits such as the child/dependent tax credit.

Most shocking/sickening revelation of the entire article:

“Most people pay more in Social Security taxes than in income taxes,” said John Irons, research and policy director at the liberal Economic Policy Institute.

Luckily the wealthy still benefit from the social security cap, right wealthy? (wicked laugh, twist of capitalist mustache)