Sling us a web, you're the spiderman

[cyrano]

"Girls are complicated. The instruction manual that comes with girls is 800 pages, with chapters 14, 19, 26 and 32 missing, and it's badly translated, hard to figure out."
--Hugh Laurie

---

I just found out that Ellen Datlow and Cory Doctorow are the guests of honor at OryCon this year, and it has renewed my desire to attend, despite budgeting issues.
I already have the membership, bought last year on closing day, so it's not like there's a rush on that point. It's just figuring out if I can come up with the finances to miss work and stay at the hotel.

---

And speaking of money, it appears that the federal bill to raise the minimum wage is going to sink into the Pit of Recession. Some of our congressmen feel that it would be a good idea to anticipate tips and pay down the minimum for jobs which are supposed to get them (my thoughts on tipping held for another post), and then of course there are those who feel that if only we eliminated the estate tax then all those small businesses would be able to afford to pay a higher wage to workers. (For all I know, this may be true, but instinctively I feel that very few small businesses get dinged by the estate tax, and then very infrequently.) These riders have caused some division in the chambers and it seems likely that they'll be unable to straighten it out before the rapidly approaching recess.
However, I do notice that they seem to have no problem passing themselves a pay raise on a pretty regular basis. Because that comes out of tax money, which no small businesses have to pay.

---

I was so pleased and relieved last week when the hot weather broke that I pretty much forgot that the rest of the world is still sweltering. Sorry, rest of the world.

---

And in today's Commie Liberal Leftist Rag is this story, where they have found a huge unexpected pocket of cold water that they think is left over from the Krakatoa explosion in 1883. They further think that this huge cold pocket has ameliorated the warming of the ocean by as much as a full degree. The Senate Committee on the Study of Global Warming Which Doesn't Even Exist is currently looking into plans to drop warfield-ready nuclear weapons into currently dormant volcanoes in order to solve the problem, which does not (they repeat) exist.

Comments

[phillipalden.livejournal.com]

it's a whacky world out there.

[ebonlock.livejournal.com]

...then of course there are those who feel that if only we eliminated the estate tax then all those small businesses would be able to afford to pay a higher wage to workers. (For all I know, this may be true, but instinctively I feel that very few small businesses get dinged by the estate tax, and then very infrequently.)

To answer your question, an actual economist responds to the idea in a piece titled " House Moves to Boost Defenses Against Martians"

The House came up with the brilliant idea of linking the partial repeal of the estate tax with raising the minimum wage. In the words of West Virginia Representative Shelley Moore Capito, this linkage made sense because, "the sustaining of small businesses by keeping their vital assets will allow those making the minimum wage to continue working. This is a jobs bill."

I'm sorry, this is nuts. Only a tiny percentage of small businesses will ever be liable for the estate tax and it is paid out after they are dead. It has no obvious effect on how they would operate their business. It is hard to see how cutting the estate tax will save even a single minimum wage job.

Just so you know ;)

[cyranocyrano.livejournal.com]

I had what one might call strong suspicions, but it is good to have an actual economist confirm them. (:

[ebonlock.livejournal.com]

If you should ever need a sure fire way to stay awake at night try reading his stuff on the housing bubble. Scarier than any horror movie I've seen in the past 15 years.