MELBOURNE - tania, little collins street, 11/29/10

The Simpson-Bowles Social Security Plan

Chuck Blahous identifies the winners and losers.  The three main groups of winners:

1) Low-income workers (and their advocates);
2) Fiscal conservatives concerned about the growth of system costs;
3) Advocates of bipartisan accomplishment.

And three main groups of losers:

1) Advocates of making substantial tax increases inevitable through prolonged inaction;
2) Advocates of improving intergenerational equity via personal accounts;
3) Senior-scaring political opportunists.

MELBOURNE - nicolette, jessica & kathlyne, federation square & swanston street, 11/27/10

More Melbourne photos on my visual diary.

How to Improve Dodd-Frank

Oliver Hart and Luigi Zingales have a suggestion about how to improve the financial reform law.  Their goal is to "spare the most vibrant financial institutions from the rigidities and bureaucratization that a strict application of the Dodd-Frank bill would entail."

SOFTWARE BELAJAR TAJWID

Pengen belajar Tajwid Gratis ?

Nih, saya bagi2 software tajwid. Lumayan lengkap. Ada suaranya pula

Softwarenya dibikin pake Flash. Bukan buatan saya lho� ilmunya blom nyampe

Alhamdulillah sudah saya unggah. Silahkan langsung diunduh disini

Ini beberapa gambar dari software tsb

Bisa dengar contoh suara/pengucapannya juga lho

MELBOURNE - josh & renata, cbd, 11/24-25/10

I ATE and DRANK too MUCH on THANKSGIVING!

The following are Holiday Season lifestyle and dietary conditions (called dis-eases by allopathic medicine) for which I have given new names:

1) "Traveler's Acidic Consequence" is a result of the sum total consumption and behaviors of a traveler during their more unusual or some what different from normal lifestyle than when they were not traveling. A typical traveler's day will upset one's normal metabolism and alkalizing digestive habits. They eat and drink different foods at different times and different volumes than usual, which creates an over-acidic state and a need for more alkaline buffers (bicarbonates likepHour salts) leading to indigestion, nausea, acid reflux, heartburn, belching, flatulence, vomiting, constipation, dehydration and further problems of acidity, depending on the degree of irregularity. "Traveler's Acidic Consequence" is commonly blamed by allopathic medical science on a particular site on the traveler's path as if he/she caught something. This current medical ideology is based on Pasteur's illusionary germ theory and is a scientific myth. The true cause of this condition is the result of the traveler's acidic lifestyle dietary choices and the lack of alkaline hydration, nutrition and hygiene that can result in this over-acidic condition. All the above symptoms is the body in preservation mode trying its best to re-establish the alkaline pH of the internal environment at 7.365 to 7.4.

2) Holiday Season - "I Ate and Drank Too Much "S!!!"Dis-Ease" is a result of the sum total consumption and behaviors of a person during the Holiday season eating and drinking everything in site from "swine to wine." This over indulgence may cause belching and flatulence and eventual heart burn, acid reflux, nausea, constipation and even brain, breast, lung, liver and bowel parasites for which medical science will often prescribe the purple pill. This Holiday Season condition may then lead to the third Holiday Season consequence -

3) "Holiday Season Food Drunkedness" is a result of over-eating and over-drinking acidic foods and liquids and then falling into a drunken state on the sofa or bed for several hours or even days to sleep off all the excess acidity. Falling asleep after a heavy acidic Holiday meal is a common occurrence for acid over-eaters and acid drinkers.

4) "Holiday Season Influenza" (The Flu) is a result of the sum total consumption and behaviors of a person during a so-called Holiday acid feast. A person will consume acidic foods and drinks that they may not know or know that are not healthy or alkalizing, i.e., more sugar or sugar substitutes than normal, alcohol, meats (especially the tape and fluke worm favorites such as pork, beef, turkey, chicken and fish (especially raw fish) and much of this at greater volumes than normal. This person becomes detrimentally influenced physically and emotionally by Holiday acidic foods and drinks. According to medical savants, "Holiday Season Influenza" is commonly blamed on a particular virus contracted from another person(s) and not from acidic lifestyle and dietary choices of that person. Like the acidic traveler, a person chooses to consume on their own as many acidic foods and drinks during the Holiday Season and as a result are suffering from the consequences of their poor dietary acidic choices -- this condition is not from some phantom (does not exist) flu virus! The flu is nothing more than the body increasing body temperature to improve circulation to remove excess acidity through perspiration, respiration, defecation and urination.

Also, please keep in mind it doesn't take either traveling or Holidays for someone to express the symptoms of "Traveler's Acidic Consequence,"and/or "I Ate and Drank Too Much S!!! Disease," and/or "Holiday Season Food Drunk," and/or "Holiday Season Influenza." All you need to do is consume excessive amounts of acidic meats (especially pork,turkey and chicken), chocolate, ice cream, cake, alcohol or other acidic mind boggling thrillers. Any of these four non-contagious lifestyle and dietary conditions can happen anytime during the year. But,the Holiday Season seems to be the time when most people over-indulge in highly acidic lifestyles and diets!

This coming Holiday Season may you resolve not to succumb to the acidic choices that lead to "Traveler's Acidic Consequence," or "I Ate and Drank Too MuchS!!! Dis-ease," "Holiday Season Food Drunk" and/or"Holiday Season Influenza."

In love and healing alkaline light,

Dr. Robert O. Young

PS This year before sitting down to a highly acidic Holiday Season meal, watch the following youtube video. You cannot kill parasites with heat. All you can do is put them to sleep and risk them waking up inside your body. Also, watching this video might change your mind about eating that left-over Thanksgiving ham or even urine laced turkey. It is by no coincidence that turkey and chicken are referred to as "foul." Birds like turkey and chicken have no urinary tract system and are therefore more likely to adsorb their own urine into their tissues. But, that's what makes them so juicy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYvxbhIOuEo

PSS I hope we can all learn to take responsibility for our own lifestyle and dietary choices and the consequences we may experience rather then blaming it or transferring personal responsibility to a phantom or harmless virus - like the Swine Flu virus, Ebola virus, HIV virus, HPV virus, West Nile virus, Bird flu virus, Spanish Flu, N1H1, Turkey Flu, Pig Flu and the list goes on and on and on! So-called viruses DO NOT cause sickness or disease - our acidic lifestyle and diet choices do!

You do health by making healthy choices or you can do sickness and disease by making unhealthy lifestyle and dietary choices. Making acidic lifestyle and dietary choices the last 3 months of the year can take 10 yearsoff your life at age 40 and 20 years off your life at age 80.

You can live a healthy and fit life to 100 and beyond if you will make better alkaline lifestyle and dietary choices NOW!

PSSS To learn how to prevent (without an acidic dis-easecausing vaccine) "Holiday Season Influenza,"may I suggest watching the following DVD's or listeningto the following CD's: The pH Miracle - Full version Shopping with Shelley 1 & 2, Back to the House of Health 2, The pH Miracle for Healthy Weight Loss, The pH Miracle for Men and Women, The pH Miracle for Cancer, The Harvard Lecture, Younga Yoga Vol I and II, Cooking with Shelley and our latest book, The pH Miracle Revised and Updated.

http://www.phmiracleliving.com/c-25-books-dvds-audios.aspx

PSSSS Check out our healthy Holiday Gift Packs and may I suggest the "Box" which includes a free 1 day Retreat at The Rancho del Sol:

www. phmiracleliving.com

MELBOURNE - maeve, stacey & kym, cbd, 11/22-24/11

Barro on QE2

Via the Economist.

MELBOURNE - cbd, 11/22/10

If you are in town... I'll be signing copies of my book on Saturday at Metropolis at 12PM.

Department of "Huh"? (Why Oh Why Can't We Have a Better Blogosphere? Brad DeLong Edition)

Brad DeLong objects to my recent NY Times column by displaying some Tax Policy Center data that, he says, shows the Bowles-Simpson tax plan is hard on the poor and easy on the rich.  Progressives, he concludes, should oppose the plan.

The problem, however, is the benchmark used in this particular table: current law as of 2015.  Under current law, all of the Bush tax cuts expire, and millions of new taxpayers are hit by the AMT.  That is an outcome that has never been in effect and that neither political party endorses.  It is an artifact of legislative history.

A better benchmark, as noted by Howard Gleckman of the Tax Policy Center, is current policy.  Here are those results.  The implication is exactly the opposite.  All income groups take a hit, particularly those at the top of the distribution.

LOS ANGELES, ceren, beverly hills, 11/19/10

Taxes, Spending, and Semantics

Click here to read my column in Sunday's New York Times.

NEW YORK - emma, nolita & shane, lafayette street, 11/18/10

AUSTRALIA & ASIA TOUR 2010

After one 'long' year, I'm finally coming back to that gorgeous part of the world. And this time I'll have my book with me. 9 signing events are planned in 7 countries.

LOS ANGELES: Nov. 19-20

MELBOURNE: Nov. 22 - Dec. 5
Nov. 27, 12 PM @ Metropolis Bookshop, Curtin House, Level 3, 252 Swanston St
on Facebook
Dec. 2, 6.30PM @ Readings, 112 Acland St, St Kilda, on Facebook

SYDNEY: Dec. 6-14
Dec. 8, 7PM @ Ariel Booksellers, 42 Oxford Street, on Facebook

SINGAPORE: Dec. 16
7-9PM, Q&A and book signing
@ A Curious Teepee, 2 Orchard Link, #02-24, on Facebook

KUALA LUMPUR: Dec. 17-18
The event on the 18th afternoon with be announced soon.

The rest of the schedule is still in the making. The next cities will probably be: Bangkok, Hong Kong, Taipei and Manilla! Like always, you can follow my adventures on my visual diary and Twitter.

Sydney, November 2009

The Progressivity of Bowles-Simpson

Howard Gleckman reports,

The Tax Policy Center has taken a preliminary look at one version of the tax plan offered by Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson. And Paul Krugman & friends can rest easy. The Bowles-Simpson proposal is indeed an across-the-board tax increase-- and a fairly progressive one at that. In 2015, the lowest earners would face an average cut in their after-tax income of 3.4 percent or about $400. Middle-income households (those earning an average of about $60,000) would see their after-tax incomes fall by 4 percent or about $1,900. On the other end of the economic food chain, the top one percent of earners (who earn an average of about $2 million) would lose about $77,000 (5.3 percent) while the top 0.1 percent would see their after-tax incomes cut by nearly 8 percent, or close to $500,000.

The TPC estimate comes with a number of caveats. It assumes essentially the law we had in 2009. The 2001 and 2003 tax cuts still apply in 2015, about 25 million middle-income households continue to be protected from the Alternative Minimum Tax, and the 2009 estate tax is back on the books. Given political realities these days, that guess is a good as any, but it is a guess....

The TPC estimate is also static, thus it assumes no behavioral response to the proposed tax law changes. However, thanks to lower marginal rates and the smaller deficit in the overall plan, the economy could grow faster than the co-chairs predict and generate more tax revenue....

Thus, Bowles and Simpson have a clear goal: They want to raise taxes across the board while lowering rates. And TPC�s preliminary projections suggest that�s pretty much what they�d do.

NEW YORK - justine & mitchell, meatpacking, 11/17/10

QE2

Several people have asked my opinion of the Federal Reserve's new round of quantitative easing.  In particular, some have noted that I did not sign the open letter by conservative economists critical of recent Fed actions.

My view is that QE2 is a modestly good idea.  I say it is a "good idea" because, like Ben Bernanke, I am more worried at the moment about Japanese-style deflation and stagnation than I am about excessive inflation.  By lowering long-term real interest rates below where they otherwise would be, QE2 should help expand aggregate demand.  I include the modifier "modestly" because I don't expect these actions to have a very large effect.

Moreover, I do see some potential downsides.  In particular, the Fed is making its portfolio riskier.  By borrowing short and investing long, the Fed is in some ways becoming the hedge fund of last resort.  If future events require higher interest rates, the Fed will end up making losses on its portfolio.  And even if doesn't recognize these losses (by not marking to market), it could end up paying more interest on newly expanded reserves than it is earning on its newly acquired portfolio of long bonds.  Such a cash-flow deficit could potentially undermine the Fed's political independence (which is already not very popular in some circles).  Yet if the Fed tries to avoid these losses by failing to raise rates when needed, inflation could indeed become a problem down the road.  I trust the team at the Fed enough to think they will avoid that mistake.

So, in the end, I judge QE2 to be a small but risky step in the right direction.

-----

Addendum: While I do not agree with its conclusion, I did find this video on QE2 amusing.

NEW YORK - dumbo park, 29th street & lafayette street, 11/15/10

Hubbard on the Bowles-Simpson Tax Plan

Glenn likes it.

NEW YORK - todd, mulberry street, 11/14/10

All my photos of San Francisco are up on my visual diary.

You Fix the Federal Budget

It takes about a minute.  Persuading your fellow citizens may take a bit longer.

NEW YORK - laura, lafayette street, 11/13/10

Help me find the photographer

The above picture, taken in the midst of the Zimbabwe hyperinflation and posted around the internet, illustrates well how fiat money can become nearly worthless when the central bank creates too much of it.  I was hoping to put the photo in the next edition of my textbook, but my publisher is having trouble locating the photographer from whom to obtain reprint permission.  If you are photographer, or know his name and contact information, or have a similar picture for which you hold copyright, please contact me.

SAN FRANCISCO - chantal, nopa, 11/11/10

All my LA photos are up on my visual diary.

The Simpson-Bowles Social Security Plan

Chuck Blahous explains it.

LOS ANGELES - james, los feliz, 11/07/10

BERKELEY COLLEGE panel on Thursday

Good Signs from the Deficit Commission

Early reports suggest the Bipartisan Deficit Commission is considering some good ideas: a higher retirement age, lower tax rates coupled with broader tax bases, eliminating tax expenditures such as the mortgage interest deduction, and a higher gasoline tax.

My regular readers will know that these are ideas I have long embraced.  I look forward to seeing more details.

Update: Some details are here.

Raise the Early Retirement Age

Says Andrew Biggs.

NEW YORK - sophia, crosby street, 11/05/10

More photos of my stay in NYC on my visual diary.

costa rica etsy sampler: nuestra luna de miel

{each photo links to its shop}

we're on honeymoon! at last. day two. m�s aventuras despues.