Talking Taxes

 Somewhere around 2.5 years into the FDR era....the President came came up and got the Revenue Act of 1935 passed via the House and Senate (30 Aug 1935).

The basic background of the act?  It raised the federal income tax on high income wage earners....taking up to 75-percent of the highest income earners. 

Unofficially?  It was always worded as the wealth tax.

A year later, the Revenue Act of 1936 occurred....aimed at corporations, instead of people.

The CATO Institute does a good job of telling the effects of the two acts, and I strongly recommend a read (it's a good 30 to 40 minute read).

Generally, because of the increased taxes....you come to three obvious occurrences:

1.  Risky ventures are cut to the bone, and you see this effect for several years.

2.  There is some suggestion that two separate depressions occurred....one owing itself to Wall Street crisis, and the other coming later with the tax acts being passed.

3.  People often miss the point that Hoover himself.....had a tax increase deal done in 1932, and probably did more to harm goods and services....rather than individual income itself.  

The general problem with major tax increases...is that you end up funding governmental programs which tend to show little to no success in helping the common 'little-guy' on the street.  A bunch of middle people carve off their chunk of the loot, and you just sit there....mostly amazed....that so much loot was grabbed, and your take was next to nothing. 

Three General Rules of an Insurrection

 Rule 1:  There are two elements of the dividing line.  One element is generally a governmental authority.  The other element is the anti-governmental authority.  If you have a situation where neither 'authority' represents a government, then it's not really an insurrection. 

Rule 2: Both 'authorities' have to have guns or weapons.  If you have an insurrection going on, and ONLY one side has guns/weapons....it's clearly not an insurrection.

Rule 3: Typically, in 99-percent of all past rebellions or insurrections held in the US....the news media has generally talked at length about the antigovernmental authority and given them a lot of positive coverage.  If you have a case where more than half of the news media is talking really positive over the governmental side....then it's a pretty high chance that this is not an insurrection.  

This Arizona Hand-Recount of the 2.1-Million Absentee Ballots

 The state senate of Arizona ordered the hand-recount.  I will make four observations over this effort.

1.  I expect some state judge to attempt to halt the recount, but the state senate is within it's authority to do this.

2.  Even it you had 25 individuals doing this....I see this taking a minimum of three weeks.

3.  The odds that there will be 100-vote difference between the hand-recount and the machine-count?  Under normal conditions....I would take a guess that it'd be fewer than 100 votes of difference.

4.  If there is a 10,000 vote difference?  Well....it shifts into a fairly serious situation, and would invite a lot of people to look  over the other four states (Georgia, Michigan, Penn, and Wisconsin).

So I'll just offer this assessment....once done and if serious differences exist....the whole computer voting business will slip into a deep pit of distrust.  If there is only a 100-odd votes of difference....things can continue on with no real problems.  

There is this other odd situation....if there is 10,000 or so votes of difference....what about the Senate race?  The Democratic guy running for Senator won only by 2-percent.  A  recount changing this outcome?  Just makes you wonder. 

Can Artificial Intelligence Be Programmed to Grasp Sarcasm or Cynicism?

 Over the past week, I read a couple of pieces over AI and the problem of getting it 'trained' to recognize cynicism or sarcasm.  A fair number of code-people or programmers.....will admit it's going to be nearly impossible to teach some system to recognize these human features.  One individual even admitted that getting humans to readily recognize sarcasm is pretty difficult.  

You can go back 2,000 years and find that the Greeks were fairly into sarcasm.  They recognized it's values, and potential.

The same story can be said over the Romans, and their use of cynicism.

In recent years, I'd say our general weekly use of both traits have doubled-up.  We use these almost routinely now.

So I drift back to AI and ask the question....if you can't train AI to recognize these situations, how can AI take over our lives?