Are you getting your share of American Pie?

There has been a growing movement of late to counter the Occupy Wall Street (99%) Movement. They call themselves the 53%; as in the 53 percent who pay federal income tax. They are proud of the fact that that they pay their taxes. They are right to be proud. I am proud to be one of the 53%.

These competing movements exists because there are two ways to look at our current economic situation:

1. Too many people are living off the government because 47% of people don't pay federal income tax.

Conclusion: The poor are lazy.

2. Our current economic system isn't working because 47% do not make enough money to pay federal income tax.

Conclusion: The poor are victims.

I would like to break this down with a metaphor so we can see which of these conclusions is right.


Picture all the money in our economy as a pie. A nice big beautiful warm American Apple Pie. If the amount of money in our economy was contracting, then we could argue that productivity is dropping and we are creating less wealth. In this case we could understand why there are so many poor. There are more people making a smaller pie. People are becoming less productive (or lazy if you prefer). But this is not the case. In the 2nd quarter of 2011 our economy grew 1.3%. So our pie is growing, but some people are getting bigger pieces than others. This is normal in capitalism: winners and losers as they say. But if we were to sort all the pieces of our American Pie from biggest to smallest and take the top 1% of all pieces, they would add up to 40% of our pie. Twenty five years ago, that figure would have been 33%.

So if you are one of the 53%, where is more of your money going - the rich or the poor? The answer is in the pie, my friends. Some poor people are lazy, and they should put on a pair of oven mitts and help out if they are capable. But even more of them are victims. They're cleaning the oven, kneading the dough, and producing the sweet apple filling. And they are getting very little in return. Forty seven percent of people not paying taxes is not a premise. It is a symptom.

I am one of the 53%. But I am also one of the 99%. And I'm hungry for some pie that I helped bake, damn it!

A Few of my Favorite Things

In Wisconsin, you have to Pay to Vote.

If I stood in front of a polling location on election day telling people they needed to pay in order to gain entrance to vote, I'd be hauled out of town and tried for crimes against humanity. But that's essentially what's happening in Wisconsin with the Voter ID Bill.

Those arguing against this bill on the merits that it disenfranchises people are picking the weakest point of the plethora of problems. In order to vote, citizens are now going to have to take a couple of days off from work to visit the notoriously unresponsive DMV to pay $30 for a state ID for what is a fundamental right. Yes, you need a picture id for doing many other things such as driving, renting a car, banking, buying booze, getting a lap dance from Fantasia at your favorite nudie bar.. But these things are not fundamental rights. Voting is a right. And we have a right to not have to pay to do it.

The solution is simple. The Republicans could have allocated the $25 million dollars it would have cost to offer free photo ids to the 870,000 people who don't drive. Of course not all these folks would seek out ids even if they were free, and certainly not all of them would turn out to vote, but that doesn't matter. In the case of voting, the State owes it to the electorate to provide the means to get through all hurdles to proving identity with as little red tape and in as little time as possible.

As for those of us with a driver's license, we're not out of the woods either. In some cases, the bill calls for county clerks to record license numbers. The law does not call for all license numbers to be recorded, but for ease of process, I can see the confused elderly election volunteers in some locales recording everyone's number or even photocopying licenses to ensure compliance. This is a privacy nightmare since operator license numbers are considered personally identifiable information by HIPAA and certainly recording of PII should not be necessary for most cases (I can prove I am who I say I am and be checked off by name and address without being associated with other data attributes). In other cases, like moving to a new home, I'm not going to update my license with my new address before I move there, and within the first 28 days of moving the last thing I'm thinking about is getting acquainted with the local DMV for a new ID. I think a root canal is higher on my priority list at that point. Furthermore, even more questions arise around circumstances like what if your wallet or purse is lost or stolen before the election? What if you get pulled over for speeding and the officer asks you to surrender your license to ensure you show up to court or pay the fine? I think we will find many other unforeseen aggravations as these rules are rolled out.

Then we need to examine possible political motivations. Since many poor tend to vote Democrat, you eliminate them first with any barriers since they have the fewest resources at their disposal to break through barriers. If Republicans were ever so inclined to give themselves a slightly better edge in the next election, all they would need to do is raise the cost of getting an operator's license or state id. Eliminate those on tight budgets and increase revenue at the same time to help close any budget gaps without raising taxes. A win-win!

I think the process of voting itself bears more scrutiny than who we keep from voting. Certainly ballot forms, display of candidates, marking methods, tabulating machines, poll workers, certifying authorities, results reporting and laws about felon's rights to vote could and should be standardized and documented within the state and even across our nation before we go on voter fraud crusade like this; a solution largely in search of a problem.

The $12 Diet: Your Plan and Cutting Cravings

Chapters 2 and 3 have been added (Pages 4-10).

I am not an expert in weight loss and nutrition. This is simply what has worked for me. It is not medical advice, explicit or implied. See your physician before starting any weight loss plan.

Security Advice for your Online Accounts

As an IT security administrator, I've picked up a few tricks over the years to help keep accounts secure from hackers and phishers. Security Breaches happen every day. By following these points of advice, you avoid becoming a victim or at least isolate the damage.

1. Open a "junk mail" account. So many forms require you to fill in an email account. This is how you get spammed. Set up an account with a free email service like Yahoo, Google or MSN that you use only for online forms and account registrations.
   
   
2. Don't save your password file in the clear. If someone gets their hands on it, you're toast. Encrypt it first. Even if you have a Word document with your passwords in it, password protect this one file with a password you won't forget. (File | Save As | Tools | General Options). If you write your passwords on a piece of paper, keep it in safe. If you don't have a safe, don't write your passwords directly. For example, if your Facebook password is "516happy" write down "Mom & Dad's house number + weekend feeling".
   
   
3. Backup your password file and keep it in another safe place. Although having an extra copy is a liability, it is is offset by knowing which account passwords you need to change if your password list is lost, stolen, corrupted or compromised.
   
   
4. Most people use one password for everything. Bad idea. If someone hacks into a company you have an account with and finds your user name, password, and email for that site, the first thing they'll try is logging into that listed email with that listed password. Once they have your email, they can reset any of your other accounts with the "Forgot your Password?" button which as you know emails a temporary password or a verification link to your email. You need at least three passwords: One for all your email accounts, one for all your financial accounts, and one for everything else.
   
   
5. When choosing a password, use something you can remember and yet is secure. Most sites have common minimum requirements for a password (every once in a while an account admin gets a God complex and has some silly obscure requirements which means you end up with a password like A5fjk32sx). I recommend creating passwords that are exactly 8 characters. Perhaps use a six letter word starting with or ending with 2 numbers (e.g. 13powder or worlds11) or use an eight letter word replacing the vowels with numbers (e.g. gr33nf0x for greenfox - a=9, E=3, i=1, o=0 (zero), u=6, y=7).
   
   
6. Update your passwords from time to time. I know it's work, but it's worth the effort every year. You can make it easier on yourself by rotating the numbers by some amount. For example, if your password is guitar10, keep adding 10 to it, so next year's passwords are guitar20 and so on.
   
   
7. Never navigate to a site from a link in an email. Copy and paste the link from your email into your browser, or type the site name directly into the browser. Also, ignore any email that claims to need you to reset your password or enter any other personally identifiable information. A legitimate site wouldn't need this because they already have it, or they would wait for your next login and then require the update or change at that time.
   
   
8. Before entering any credit card info or your social security number on a site, make sure your browser shows a padlock icon and that the web address starts with "https://". If it doesn't, move on.
   
   
9. Google yourself from time to time. It's not vain, it's PR. You need to know what's out there about yourself. You can't fix what you don't know. You can also manage information sharing. Most accounts allow you to control what information is public, what is private and what is protected. For blogs or other publicly shared information, it helps to have a pseudonym (pen name).
   
   
10. Finally, install good security software on all your PCs. Your Internet Service Provider may offer you free software, so look into it! Avoid pirating software. Not because it's wrong to do so (even though it is), but because it's dirtier than a cheap motel.
    

Hope that helps! Happy safe surfing!

The $12 Diet: Getting Started

I have written a three page article! I will add chapters as time permits.

I am not an expert in weight loss and nutrition. This is simply what has worked for me. It is not medical advice, explicit or implied. See your physician before starting any weight loss plan.

Why Tax Cuts for Businesses Don't Create Jobs

Fiscal conservatives argue that if you cut taxes on Business, they will hire more employees. The problem with that logic is that businesses don't hire people because they have more money. In fact, the opposite may be true. Businesses will be less incentivized to grow their way out of a rut if they receive money for doing nothing. In fact, this is the very argument against welfare for the poor - no incentive to work. And while everyone appreciates free money, most who already have enough would just as soon add it to their stack, say thank you very much and continue waiting for the recovery. After all, the rich didn't become rich by spending all their money (or letting it "trickle away" from them for that matter)!

So again, businesses don't hire people because they have money, they hire people because they have more work than people to perform that work. And they have more work because people buy their products and services. And people buy their products and services because they have some but not too much discretionary income (at some point extra income is better spent working for you than in buying extra things you don't need). And just who are these magic people? Why, the working class and middle class of course!

To make a long story short, if you give money to households earning less than $100,000, they typically spend it; sometimes out of necessity and sometimes just for the intangibles that make life bearable (fashion, entertainment, hobbies, etc). The businesses that provide these services ultimately benefit and soon need more people to provide these services, which gives more people money to buy more things, and the virtuous cycle continues.

The beauty of this approach is that as you give tax breaks to those who spend it, you have fewer people relying on services formerly funded by those tax dollars since their spending undeniably creates jobs. I shall call it "up yours economics" - a nice jest to those who formerly "trickled" down our backs and called it rain.

I think Henry Ford said it best: "It is not the employer who pays the wages. Employers only handle the money. It is the customer who pays the wages.”