[mikeh]

 cherdano, on 2013-July-13, 02:42, said:

Wow, you didn't realize that barmar's post was essentially a quote? You guys must have a really big wall at the border to prevent you from noticing anything that's said on the Southern side of the fence.

In any case, Merriam Webster lists both meanings for "insure".

of course I thought it was 'essentially a quote'. My error was not realizing it was a precisely accurate quote in the spelling.

All I did was make a foolish attempt at mild humour by expressing a 'peeve': a topic on which BBF has an entire WC thread. I made a mistake: I have apologized. Obviously I overeacted to what I thought was then a mistaken criticism of me and rose tothe bait after being called 'laughable', when in fact it was all a misunderstanding brought about by my original error and the perils of internet postings with the lack of immediate interaction, which no doubt would have led to my identifying my error earlier than I did. Had someone said, early on: barmar was quoting accurately, all this fuss would have been avoided. I am NOT blaming anyone but myself, but in face to face, no doubt it would have been sorted out in 60 seconds, all concerned would have had a laugh at my expense, me included, and no flame war would have ensued.

It appears that you like piling on, even after the fact. Maybe it helps you feel superior?

[hrothgar]

 blackshoe, on 2013-July-12, 19:49, said:

How many of those "top economists" were of the Austrian School? If you ask 20 "top" Precision players what the best bidding system is, how many of them will say "Standard American"?

Of course not. You don't go to a phrenologist when you have brain cancer, and you don't consult members of the Austrian school when you have questions about how the economy functions. Cherdano made the following comment:

Quote

The problem is that libertarians have created their own world of macroeconomic illiteracy in which they reinforce each others' macroeconomic views, without any input from the universal consensus by the people who do know about macroeconomics (i.e., economists).

The Austrian school definitely falls with this camp. Members of the Austrian school are frail little hothouse flowers who are unable to compete in the real world. The only place where the school has any prominence is in crank think tanks and an isolated outpost at George Mason University who were able to gain a foothold after Koch brothers contributed a massive endowment.

[Winstonm]

My bold additions:

 hrothgar, on 2013-July-13, 08:11, said:

Of course not. You don't go to a phrenologist when you have brain cancer....

Trouble is, some do this, which is why homeopathy and other worthless alternative medicine "treatments" continue to thrive.


The Austrian school definitely falls with this camp. Members of the Austrian school are frail little hothouse flowers who are unable to compete in the real world. The only place where the school has any prominence is in crank think tanks and an isolated outpost at George Mason University who were able to gain a foothold after Koch brothers contributed a massive endowment.

Like most sophisticated scams, the Austrian school uses the assumption recipe which mixes a little fact with a lot of speculation and ends up with a single half-baked idea.

[jonottawa]

I don't have much to say about the actual topic. But if Congress started hearings against me for targeting 'conservative' (that's one of MY pet peeves, the appropriation of the term 'conservative' by a bunch of oligarchical, corporatist, or neo-fascist people) groups, and I don't immediately make it clear that we targeted ALL politically active groups more-or-less equally, that's on me. If instead I do little more than waffle and equivocate, I can't blame people for assuming that I'm expressing culpability.

As for going to a phrenologist when suffering from brain cancer, I once went to a chiropractor when I was experiencing chest pain (and suspected I had experienced some sort of heart 'event'.) Being born in Canada and spending the first 18+ years of my life there apparently didn't make me Canadian enough to qualify for free medical treatment. (I am a man of means by no means fwiw.)

Ironically, I left that visit to a health care professional, for one of the first times in my life, NOT thinking to myself 'That guy is a quack.'

[mike777]

"These are just simple examples of areas in which we, as society, see it fit to act and we, as society, create a government to do for us collectively that which we, as individuals or small groups, can't do ourselves.

I could expand on this at length, but most here already understand the basics of what has been called the social contract, and those like BS who cling to their delusional notions about the very nature of society can't learn anyway. It's called cognitive dissonance and while most of us are subject to that in some aspects of our lives, libertarian and religious fundies seem to make it a fetish."

yes MikeH summarizes the argument quite well.

The trade off of perceived security and stability for freedom, a freedom that comes with risk and failures.

The debate of where the line is for a safety net for those who really need one and the further intrusion of a central govt in our lives. Of at what point do we as a society discourage self reliance for dependence.

To put the question a bit differently, at what point does an ever growing power and influence of govt erode the moral underpinnings of a society and the diminution of personal responsibility?

James Clerk Maxwell showed in 1867 that tightly controlling the speed of engines leads to instability. In other words pseudo-stabilization can lead to hidden long term fragility.

Variations also act as purges and for similar reasons stability is not good for the economy.

Fluctuat nec mergitur

[GreenMan]

 mikeh, on 2013-July-12, 19:37, said:

I did a little research and find that my assumptions were in error. I apologize. I now see why greenman was so bent out of shape: he thought I was expressing a peeve about the actual uasge employed in the preamble to US Constitution while I thought, mistakenly, that barmar had either mispelled the word or made an improper usage. So I offended greenman, for sure, and implicitly insulted barmar. I apologize to both.

I still remain peeved by those who conflate the two terms these days

I wasn't offended, just annoyed (which happens to me more easily than it should, and for that I apologize), but now that I see we were talking past each other I am not anymore. No blood, no foul, as the kids say.

[barmar]

 mikeh, on 2013-July-13, 06:55, said:

of course I thought it was 'essentially a quote'. My error was not realizing it was a precisely accurate quote in the spelling.

Except for adding the numbering, it was a cut and paste from a web site containing the text of the Preamble. So if there were any misspellings, they weren't mine.

It could have been worse. If I were copying from a hand-written document of the time, I could easily have spelled many words with an "f" where an "s" belongs.

[GreenMan]

 barmar, on 2013-July-13, 23:53, said:

It could have been worse. If I were copying from a hand-written document of the time, I could easily have spelled many words with an "f" where an "s" belongs.

You'd have heard from someone about that. Those aren't F's, they're S's; in those days English writing had medial (mid-word) and terminal forms of that letter, and the long S looks a lot like a lowercase F. Some writing systems, notably Arabic, have different medial and terminal forms for each character to this day, but they've mostly disappeared from Western orthography.

[ArtK78]

Since the issue of the retroactive effect of the Supreme Court ruling declaring that parts of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) are unconstitutional was discussed in this thread, I thought I would provide an update.

The Internal Revenue Service has ruled, in Revenue Ruling 2013-17, that same-sex couples will have the right to file their income tax returns as married filing jointly (joint returns) as long as they were married in a state which recognized same-sex marriages as legal at the time they were married. Furthermore, should they thereafter move to a state which does not recognize same-sex marriages as legal, the IRS will continue to recognize them as married and they will still have the right to file joint returns.

As for the retroactive effect of the ruling, I quote from the ruling:

The holdings of this ruling will be applied prospectively as of September 16, 2013.

Except as provided below, affected taxpayers also may rely on this revenue ruling for the purpose of filing original returns, amended returns, adjusted returns, or claims for credit or refund for any overpayment of tax resulting from these holdings, provided the applicable limitations period for filing such claim under section 6511 has not expired. If an affected taxpayer files an original return, amended return, adjusted return, or claim for credit or refund in reliance on this revenue ruling, all items required to be reported on the return or claim that are affected by the marital status of the taxpayer must be adjusted to be consistent with the marital status reported on the return or claim.

Taxpayers may rely (subject to the conditions in the preceding paragraph regarding the applicable limitations period and consistency within the return or claim) on this revenue ruling retroactively with respect to any employee benefit plan or arrangement or any benefit provided thereunder only for purposes of filing original returns, amended returns, adjusted returns, or claims for credit or refund of an overpayment of tax concerning employment tax and income tax with respect to employerprovided health coverage benefits or fringe benefits that were provided by the employer and are excludable from income under sections 106, 117(d), 119, 129, or 132 based on an individual's marital status. For purposes of the preceding sentence, if an employee made a pre-tax salary-reduction election for health coverage under a section 125 cafeteria plan sponsored by an employer and also elected to provide health coverage for a same-sex spouse on an after-tax basis under a group health plan sponsored by that employer, an affected taxpayer may treat the amounts that were paid by the employee for the coverage of the same-sex spouse on an after-tax basis as pre-tax salary reduction amounts.

The Service intends to issue further guidance on the retroactive application of the Supreme Court's opinion in Windsor to other employee benefits and employee benefit plans and arrangements. Such guidance will take into account the potential consequences of retroactive application to all taxpayers involved, including the plan sponsor, the plan or arrangement, employers, affected employees and beneficiaries. The Service anticipates that the future guidance will provide sufficient time for plan amendments and any necessary corrections so that the plan and benefits will retain favorable tax treatment for which they otherwise qualify.

So, as long as the period for fling amended returns has not expired, a same-sex couple can file an amended return on or after September 16, 2013, covering a period of time prior to September 16, 2013. They can also file original returns for any period if they have not already done so, and the return will be treated the same as if a different-sex couple (is that the correct phrase?) had filed a late original return.

And the IRS intends to issue further guidance on the subject in the future.