Pun Salad

• IRS wants to be your friendly financial panopticon. Kidding about the "friendly". Daniel J. Pilla explains something that should be shouted from the rooftops about Biden's tax plan: It Calls for Indiscriminate Spying. You know that bit about how "we" (i.e., Uncle Stupid) were losing money due to tax evasion by those nasty "millionaires and billionaires"? Well…

  The Treasury Department recently released its “General Explanations of the Administration’s FY 2022 Revenue Proposals.” This is the so-called Treasury “Green Book.” Dated May 2021, the Green Book explains exactly how various elements of the Biden administration’s tax plan will operate.

  In addition to the tax increases that have been discussed at length, the administration would set up a comprehensive financial spying operation that would impact every American. The proposal is to establish a “comprehensive financial account information reporting regime.” The purpose is to track activities in all financial accounts and report them to the federal government. The law would require an annual report to the government showing “gross inflows and outflows with a breakdown for physical cash, transactions with a foreign account, and transfers to and from another account with the same owner.”

  To say that this is a system of “comprehensive” spying is not hyperbole. The Green Book states:

  This requirement would apply to all business and personal accounts from financial institutions, including bank, loan, and investment accounts, with the exception of accounts below a low de minimis gross flow threshold of $600 or fair market value of $600.

  Sure, that's where the malefactors of great wealth stash their filthy lucre: in $600 bank accounts.

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• In our "Watch what they do, not what they say" Department: Eric Boehm notes the Dems’ Plan To ‘Tax the Rich’ Might Include a Huge Tax Break for the Rich.

  Before Democrats in Congress can pass a massive spending plan that comes with huge tax increases aimed largely at wealthier Americans, they might have to approve a huge tax break that would almost exclusively benefit the wealthiest Americans.

  One of the major stumbling blocks for Democrats as they try to push President Joe Biden's $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill through Congress is the state and local tax (SALT) deduction, which was capped at $10,000 as part of the 2017 tax reforms. Lifting that cap, or repealing it entirely, has been a major priority for members of Congress who represent wealthy districts in high-tax states, and some Democrats are threatening to withhold their support for Biden's Build Back Better plan unless it addresses the so-called "SALT cap."

  The rhetoric being used to justify repealing the SALT cap is some of the most disingenuous that you'll hear from lawmakers debating tax policy—and that's saying something.

  I really hope all the Congresscritters threatening to sink the bills (both bills) do so. Unfortunately, I'm used to lying untrustworthy pols.

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• I'm sure there's a good reason. Like "We have to keep our phony baloney jobs, gentlemen!" Jeffrey A. Singer (appropriately) asks the musical question: Why Does The DEA Wait Until Today To Issue A Public Warning About Counterfeit Prescription Pain Pills?

  Today [actually Monday 9/27] the Drug Enforcement Administration released a Public Safety Alert warning the public about “the alarming increase in the lethality and availability of fake prescription pills containing fentanyl and methamphetamine.”

  International and domestic criminal drug networks are mass‐producing fake pills, falsely marketing them as legitimate prescription pills, and killing unsuspecting Americans. These counterfeit pills are easy to purchase, widely available, and often contain deadly doses of fentanyl. Pills purchased outside of a licensed pharmacy are illegal, dangerous, and potentially lethal. This alert does not apply to legitimate pharmaceutical medications prescribed by medical professionals and dispensed by pharmacists.

  A press release accompanying the Alert, stated fentanyl and methamphetamine are primarily made in labs south of the border with China supplying the chemicals to make fentanyl and its analogs. Drug dealers and cartels use pill presses to convert the products into counterfeit prescription opioids pills, as well as counterfeit Adderall (amphetamine mixed with dextroamphetamine) and Xanax (a benzodiazepine tranquilizer).

  Our local TV news "reported" the DEA warning so vaguely that I wasn't sure if I was supposed to worry about my blood pressure meds. I wasn't, apparently. But I'm sure a lot of folks were even more confused than I.

  Of course (as Singer points out) this is old news. And it demonstrates once again (a) that the War on Drugs was a tragic failure that ends and ruins lives; (b) the opioid overdose crisis isn't/wasn't caused by doctor-prescribed opioids.

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• In other news, fish "overlook" the water they swim in. Sally Satel has an important and interesting article at the Atlantic: How Experts Overlooked Left-Wing Authoritarianism.

  Donald Trump’s rise to power generated a flood of media coverage and academic research on authoritarianism—or at least the kind of authoritarianism that exists on the political right. Over the past several years, some researchers have theorized that Trump couldn’t have won in 2016 without support from Americans who deplore political compromise and want leaders to rule with a strong hand. Although right-wing authoritarianism is well documented, social psychologists do not all agree that a leftist version even exists. In February 2020, the Society for Personality and Social Psychology held a symposium called “Is Left-Wing Authoritarianism Real? Evidence on Both Sides of the Debate.”

  An ambitious new study on the subject by the Emory University researcher Thomas H. Costello and five colleagues should settle the question. It proposes a rigorous new measure of antidemocratic attitudes on the left. And, by drawing on a survey of 7,258 adults, Costello’s team firmly establishes that such attitudes exist on both sides of the American electorate. […] Intriguingly, the researchers found some common traits between left-wing and right-wing authoritarians, including a “preference for social uniformity, prejudice towards different others, willingness to wield group authority to coerce behavior, cognitive rigidity, aggression and punitiveness towards perceived enemies, outsized concern for hierarchy, and moral absolutism.”

  This should not surprise anyone who looks at current arguments and proposals with an open mind.

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• 

  Book rec. An excerpt from Steven Pinker's new book at Quillette: Be Rational. See what you think. I pre-ordered the Kindle version long ago. Here's his take on a recurring Pun Salad theme:

  Instead of feeling any need to persuade, people who are certain they are correct can impose their beliefs by force. In theocracies and autocracies, authorities censor, imprison, exile, or burn those with the wrong opinions. In democracies the force is less brutish, but people still find means to impose a belief rather than argue for it. Modern universities—oddly enough, given that their mission is to evaluate ideas—have been at the forefront of finding ways to suppress opinions, including disinviting and drowning out speakers, removing controversial teachers from the classroom, revoking offers of jobs and support, expunging contentious articles from archives, and classifying differences of opinion as punishable harassment and discrimination. They respond as Ring Lardner recalled his father doing when the writer was a boy: “‘Shut up,’ he explained.”

  Bingo. An enthusiastic recommendation for the book, and I haven't even read it yet.

Goodreads claims that the Washington Post has deemed the author, Mary Roach, to be "America's funniest science writer." As far as I know, that's accurate. Probably the funniest science writer in the world, unless there's some unexpected humor in Uttar Pradesh of which I'm unaware. Especially now since Jonathan P. Dowling has passed away.

Sometimes when reading "out there" pop-science books, I imagine the author commenting: Did I just blow your mind, reader? Here, I imagined Ms. Roach saying things like Did I just gross you out? or even Did you just toss your cookies? She doesn't shy away from the gross, the disgusting, the icky. It's science! (And sometimes, even better, quackery.)

As the name implies, it's a trip down your digestive tract, starting at the top, proceeding to the you-know-what. But she's the opposite of methodical; she talks about what interests her, and if you want a detailed discussion of intestinal villi or taste buds, you'll want to go to some more boring books. (They might be listed in this book's extensive bibliography, I haven't checked.)

So roughly, we have explorations of flavor sensing (diverting into the secrets of pet food); our arbitrary rules governing which animal organs/parts are just too nasty to consume; Fletcherism (chew your food, roughly forever). Perhaps more than you wanted to know about coprophagia (a highfalutin word about a lofalutin practice) in beast and man. Sometimes recycling advocates go too far.

If you eat something living, how long does it survive? Can it chew its way out? Can you eat yourself to death? What's the straight scoop on smuggling illicit items, er, down there? Fecal transplants, anyone?

And finally, Ms. Roach's discussion of Elvis's colon shows no reverence whatsoever to the King.

All presented with broad, wicked humor and (otherwise) fine, accessible writing. This book won't turn you into a gastroenterologist, but you'll have a good time.