Rebates from ASUS

I just bought a graphics card from ASUS, which (in case you don't know) is a very reputable maker of computers and computer components. They offer a rebate for certain items purchased in January 2012. After clicking through a fairly complicated form, I reached the following page, which I reproduce here in part:

o No-Wait
Choose our No-Wait-Rebate service. We will mail your Rebate payment via 1st class mail within 5-7 business days from the date of approval of your claim for a small fee of $1.00 which will be deducted from your Rebate payment. If you are in no rush and do not mind waiting 8-10 weeks and at no cost, we will mail your Rebate payment to you via 1st Class mail after we have received your Rebate documentation and have approved your claim.

o Basic
Choose this for our basic service of 8 to 10 weeks.


The American Express ® Reward Card

• This Prepaid Card is a prepaid American Express Card and may be used at merchants in the U.S. that accept American Express® Cards.
• This Card can be used instantly.
• This Card is given to you as a Reward and no consideration, value, or money has been paid by you in exchange for this Card.
• Free replacement of lost or stolen card.
• Card cannot be used at cruise lines, for recurring billing charges, at casinos or ATMs.
• Funds do not expire, service fees apply.
• See Cardholder agreement for complete terms and conditions.
• Cardholder agreement available at www.americanexpress.com/reward.
• Issued by AEPCMC under license from ©2010 American Express Travel Related Services Company, Inc.
• For questions about the Card, including balance inquiries, contact 1-800-297-7327

In other words, for the modest fee of $1.00, I can have my rebate in about a week after it's approved. Otherwise I will wait about 2 and a half months. Why does ASUS do this? Why should a reputable company appear to be chiselers, all for about 15 cents, which is the interest on my rebate ($15.00) for 10 weeks.

California Taxes Compared

California is reputed to be a high tax state. So I've prepared some tables to show whether or not this true. The bottom line is that California taxes are higher than most other states, but not by much. Here are two tables: the first shows the tax rate in dollars per million dollars of state GDP, the second shows tax rate per capita, both sorted in order from high to low.

State	Tax per $Million GDP		State	Tax per Capita
Alaska	103,384.2		Alaska	7,136
Vermont	98,485.4		Wyoming	5,316
Wyoming	78,267.1		Vermont	3,840
West Virginia	77,676.7		North Dakota	3,792
North Dakota	77,352.3		Connecticut	3,614
Arkansas	75,944.3		Hawaii	3,515
Hawaii	73,811.6		New York	3,345
Mississippi	70,980.9		Delaware	3,173
Maine	70,190.6		Minnesota	3,166
Montana	67,075.3		New Jersey	3,015
Minnesota	65,290.1		Massachusetts	2,930
Kentucky	62,361.2		California	2,653
Michigan	61,579.8		West Virginia	2,618
New Mexico	60,721.3		Arkansas	2,597
Wisconsin	60,270.2		Maine	2,571
Idaho	60,133.5		Maryland	2,562
Connecticut	59,801.9		Wisconsin	2,530
Indiana	58,463.7		Washington	2,508
New Jersey	57,242.6		Montana	2,485
New York	56,820.4		New Mexico	2,450
Oklahoma	55,724.0		Pennsylvania	2,390
Maryland	55,342.4		Kansas	2,386
California	54,694.5		Indiana	2,331
Rhode Island	54,602.3		Iowa	2,320
Kansas	54,547.2		Rhode Island	2,316
Pennsylvania	54,348.7		United States	2,305
Massachusetts	53,379.5		Kentucky	2,287
Iowa	51,467.8		Oklahoma	2,272
North Carolina	51,215.7		Ilinois	2,266
Washington	50,836.3		Nebraska	2,262
Ohio	50,799.6		Michigan	2,259
United States	50,486.6		North Carolina	2,193
Utah	49,398.9		Mississippi	2,192
Alabama	48,857.4		Louisiana	2,171
Nebraska	48,046.1		Idaho	2,090
Ilinois	46,186.7		Utah	2,090
Oregon	45,920.4		Ohio	2,069
South Carolina	45,695.4		Nevada	2,068
Delaware	45,384.5		Virginia	2,022
Arizona	45,200.4		Oregon	1,957
Louisiana	45,066.7		Alabama	1,807
Missouri	43,504.5		Colorado	1,797
Florida	42,945.8		Missouri	1,747
Nevada	42,399.2		South Dakota	1,696
Tennessee	41,417.8		Arizona	1,695
Virginia	40,801.2		Georgia	1,677
Georgia	40,421.6		Tennessee	1,676
South Dakota	36,089.6		Florida	1,660
New Hampshire	35,425.7		Texas	1,655
Colorado	34,926.5		South Carolina	1,607
Texas	33,335.9		New Hampshire	1,534

Here are links to spreadsheets for these tables:
Full data for comparison of states by tax rate per $Million GDP: Here
Full data for comparison of states by tax rate per capita: Here
Comparison of states by rate per $Million GDP (left table above): Here
Comparison of states by rate per Capita (right table above): Here

An open letter to Andrew Bacevich

I found your interview with Terry Gross:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=94505191

to be truly extraordinarily interesting. It has inspired me to reactivate my blog, which has lain long rusting. Here is my posting:

• You said that the Bush administration is attempting to change the whole Islamic world. Bush bet his presidency on success on Iraq, but he didn't take out any insurance on his policy. His best expert on such things, General Shinseki, told the Congress that it would take about 400,000 troops to occupy Iraq successfully; they weren't provided. It was obvious to anyone following the situation that the looting which began immediately after the fall of Baghdad showed that more troops and a new policy were required; nothing was done for more than three years – too late and too little.
  
  It doesn't look like the administration is serious about the war. The administration may not be serious about anything except cutting taxes and winning elections.
  

• You said that Americans overestimate what can be done with military force. I think Americans overestimate what can be done by government in general. Social conservatives think that government can prevent abortion; it never could and it never will. Almost everyone thinks that government can prevent the use of mind affecting chemicals; it never could and it never will. Government can do many things: it can provide pretty decent health care; it can reduce crime (though it can't eliminate it); and so on. But putting too great a load on government will break it down and make it incapable of doing the things that it could do otherwise.
  

• You said that the U.S. is facing bankruptcy. This is true in a most literal sense. There are proposals to “fix” Social Security by reducing benefits. The Social Security Trust Fund is in good enough shape to pay benefits without change till about 2040 – which is about as far into the future as it makes sense to make such predictions. People with incomes up to $97,500 (in 2007, proportionately less in earlier years) have been paying about 3% of their income into the Trust Fund with the idea that they would recover the money in their old age. To cut them short is in fact nothing other than national bankruptcy.
  

• You said that we should remove our forces from the Greater Middle East, where they are a constant irritant to the people who live there. You are surely familiar with David Hackett Fisher's two books Paul Revere's Ride and Washington's Crossing. Paul Revere's Ride makes the point that the Revolution began in Boston very largely because this was the site of the British garrison in North America. Similarly in Washington's Crossing he writes that New Jersey was fairly friendly to the British forces immediately after their invasion in 1776, but that there was constant friction between the British troops and the local population, which led to guerrilla war by the Americans against the British, and that this made the success of Washington's raid at Trenton possible.
  

  Something we should remember is that people would usually rather be ruled by their own thugs and monsters than by foreigners, however competent and well meaning.

You said that you think of yourself as a conservative. I think that many people who believe they are “on the left” now find themselves to be conservatives. I have been struck by the similarity of the electoral maps of the last two elections and the maps of the elections of 1856 and 1860 with the colors reversed. What can this mean?

Very Sincerely - Jonathan Ryshpan

What's a Billion

We see more and more big numbers in the news, numbers so big that it's not easy to understand what they mean. A simple way to estimate the meaning is the cost to an individual American. Here are two simple ways to figure out what a billion dollars of U.S. Government expenditure means to such a person:

Way 1 (By the share of the population): The Bureau of the Census estimates the U.S. population to be 298,444,215. So if the Government spends $1,000,000,000 (one billion dollars) your share of it is about $3.35:

     $3.35 = $1,000,000,000 / 298,444,215
           = A billion dollars divided by the population.

Say $3+1/3 per billion spent by the government.

Way 2 (By the share of the money): The Department of Commerce estimates the U.S. Gross Domestic Product to be about $13,220,000,000,000 ($13.22 trillion dollars). So if the Government spends $1,000,000,000 your share is about 7+1/2 cents for each thousand dollars you earn:

   $0.076 = ($1,000,000,000 / $13,220,000,000,000) * $1,000
          = A billion dollars share of the GDP times a thousand dollars.

Say seven and a half cents per thousand dollars earned per billion dollars spent by the Government.

As an example, what has the war in Iraq cost a somewhat prosperous family, of two people earning, $40,000 each? So far the appropriations for the war come to about $350,000,000,000 (three hundred billion)

Way 1:  350 Billion spent by the Government
          2 people
      $3.35 cost per billion spent
     $2,345 TOTAL = 350 * 2 * $3.35
     Not enough to buy a car, but enough to notice.

Way 2:  350 Billion spent by the Government
        $80 Family income in thousands
     $0.075 Cost per thousand earned per billion spent
      2,100 TOTAL = 350 * 80 * 0.075

One Call rents them all

"...which is only a single line of a verse well known to
the wise"

One call to rent them all
One call to get them
One call to bring them all
And on the job site set them.

Copyright Issues ...

In a recent issue of The New Republic, I read the following:

A scientist's plea for Christian environmentalism.

Apocalypse Now

by Edward O. Wilson
Post date 08.28.06 | Issue date 09.04.06

Because of copyright issues, this article is not available online.
Subscribers can download it in PDF format here. ...

What are these copyright issues? How do they prevent the article from being posted in HTML while permitting it to be posted in PDF? What's going on here?

The Washboard of the Lord

Every rocky mountain slope
A corrugated washing board,
Every snowflake Fuller's soap.
And the dirty land
Scrubbed by His hand
On the washboard of the Lord.

Much too much about Iraq

Like the rest of you, I've been thinking about the Iraq war for the last four years. Finally something is written; of course it's much too long.

• There's only one policy for Iraq that makes any sense. The U.S. must announce that it will remove its forces from Iraq unless the Iraqi government and the surrounding countries can agree on a way to restore order to Iraq; the U.S. should invite them to a conference to arrive at such agreement. If such agreement can be reached and if these powers want it, the U.S. must be prepared to keep forces in Iraq for the foreseeable future, say for as long as ten years. Otherwise we should withdraw them as quickly is possible.
  
  A serious U.S. threat to withdraw its forces is a powerful one, and likely to bring these somewhat ruthless powers to reason. If the U.S. withdraws without preparations being made to suppress the civil war in Iraq, the consequence is likely to be that civil war will continue and that many of the surrounding countries will intervene: namely Turkey, Iran, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Syria. Also civil war in Lebanon will likely begin again. I don't think any of these countries wants this.
  
  If it's not possible for these powers to come to an agreement, the U.S. must do as it says and withdraw its troops. Very likely the consequence will be as bad as I fear. Very likely the U.S. will be asked by some or most of these countries to intervene again; but at least in this case we will intervene with allies.
  
  Unfortunately, under our Constitution, this policy can only be carried out by the President. He's not likely to do it.
  
  
• The Democrats, and the peace party in general, have a very difficult problem. If they force a withdrawal from Iraq and bad things happen, as they very likely will, half the country will blame them for it. A good part of the country still blames them for the U.S. defeat in Vietnam.
  
  A terrible parallel is the German reaction to their defeat in World War I. After the Allied offensive in the summer of 1918, the German generals knew they were beaten; the best prospect for the preservation of the German state was to end the war as quickly as possible; they forced the Kaiser to abdicate and told the government that the war would have to end. The government did end the war, but they never got the generals to declare publicly what the situation was, so much the German public, seeing German armies everywhere well outside Germany's frontiers, was unable to understand that the army had been defeated, and concluded that the army had been "stabbed in the back" by politicians and revolutionaries. This lack of understanding bred a deep distrust of politics by about half the German public, and was a very important cause for the rise of the Nazi party.
  
  The danger that the public will blame the peace party for ending the war, and not the national security party (the "military industrial complex") for starting it, is great enough that it may be best for the war to continue, and for American troops and Iraqis of all kinds to die, if this has the result that the truth is made clear to the American people.
  
  
• Therefor, the best thing for the peace party to do is this: to say that foreign policy and war can be carried out only by the president, who has made his decision. The Congress will provide the troops and the money to carry it out, despite the fact that they are convinced that the policy is a bad one, which will almost surely fail. They must say that they hope for its success, as I do hope for its success, but that if it fails, and there must be benchmarks -- a time limit and ways to measure success -- there must be a new policy, which might be a conference, as I proposed above. However by this time there may be nothing to do but simply admit defeat and withdraw the troops.
  
  
• It may be unfortunate that these discussions have to be carried out in public, with the possibility of discouraging the troops and heartening the enemy. That's the way it is in a republic. No-one can whisper in the king's ear in private; the people are sovereign. As for the troops, we can only hope that if they see a better chance of success than the people or the Congress does, they will only redouble their efforts, so as to show us up for the fools that they think we are. As for the enemy, they won't be the first to be confused in this way by the strange workings of republican government.
  
  
• Finally, I think that the President and his Administration have never been serious about this war. They were told at its start by General Shinseki, their best expert in these things, how many troops it would take to police Iraq; they didn't send them. They were told by many people, as soon as the looting started after the fall of Baghdad that Iraq needed rebuilding and civil order, and that in order to achieve this a new policy was needed; they have never considered changing their policy till this year -- too late and too little. They appear to be serious about nothing except about tax cuts and about winning elections, which the war was supposed to do for them.