US House Gerrymandering

Wikipedia notes that the Republicans in the US House have a majority of seats in the 2012 Congress, despite having received a smaller number of votes than the Democrats, and that this is the first time this has happened since 1996.  So I have investigated the history. I built up a little spreadsheet to see how long this pattern has been going on.  The numbers come from Wikipedia, modified slightly to assign 7 undecided races to the way they are leaning now. 

 

Year	Votes Rep.	Seats Rep.	Votes/Seat Rep.	Votes Dem.	Seats Dem.	Votes/Seat Dem.	Votes/Seat(Dem) / Votes/Seat(Rep)
1986	26,384,083	177	149,063	32,338,342	258	125,342	0.841
1988	37,015,851	175	211,519	43,473,080	260	167,204	0.790
1990	27,402,036	167	164,084	32,397,732	267	121,340	0.739
1992	43,498,015	176	247,148	48,550,096	258	188,179	0.761
1994	36,325,809	230	157,938	31,542,823	204	154,622	0.979
1996	43,120,872	228	189,127	43,393,580	206	210,648	1.114
1998	31,983,612	223	143,424	31,391,834	211	148,776	1.037
2000	46,750,175	221	211,539	46,411,559	212	218,922	1.035
2002	37,091,270	229	161,971	33,642,142	204	164,912	1.018
2004	55,713,412	232	240,144	52,745,121	202	261,114	1.087
2006	35,674,808	202	176,608	42,082,311	233	180,611	1.023
2008	51,952,981	178	291,871	64,888,090	257	252,483	0.865
2010	44,593,666	242	184,271	38,854,459	193	201,318	1.093
2012	53,822,442	235	229,032	54,301,095	200	271,505	1.185

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.