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A 48-year-old friend with an engineering degree was recently laid off, along with 39 co-workers. Let’s look at the incentives that the government gives him.

He could sue his former employer for age discrimination (EEOC says that the law “forbids age discrimination against people who are age 40 or older”). However, the employer seems to have recognized this, for he reports that “I just signed a release in exchange for six months pay and six months health insurance.”

He could look for another job immediately, but points out that “They pay you $22,000 to not work,” and this entitlement (unemployment benefits) will be lost if he gets a job.

His wife has a high-paying job. If he returns to work and she sues him for divorce, she is on track to win the kids (97 percent of women become the winner parent in Massachusetts, which disfavors 50/50 arrangements), profitable child support, the house, and possibly alimony (if his new job pays better than hers). Suppose that instead he decides that 48 is his retirement age and does not obtain a new job. In the event of a divorce lawsuit, because he has been at home with the kids he improves his chances of getting primary or at least shared custody. This plus his lack of income reduces his exposure to a child support lawsuit. He may retain the house (he needs somewhere to live and doesn’t have any money). He can tap the wife for alimony.

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The bad news is that I have failed as a prophet: “My election prediction: 55/45 popular vote split between Hillary and Trump“. The good news is that through the comments section and email we may have found true prophets.

The actual popular vote ratio between the candidates seems to have been almost exactly 50/50 (latimes). In the comments section of the above-cited posting it looks as though “joecanuck” (presumably one of the folks who is going to be running a Canadian welcome center for my fleeing Facebook friends) called it reasonably well with “49-48-3: Trump-Clinton-Johnson”. Also Reha Gur with “49:48 Hillary:Trump – People who support Trump are keeping their heads low. They really don’t want people to know who they are voting for.”

[I did a little better with the markets: “I think the market will go up about 2-3 percent after the election, whoever wins, due to the removal of uncertainty.” We’ll have to check at the end of the week, but right now the S&P is up slightly.]

Via private email and personal conversations, the true prophets included a retired bond fund manager, a Goldman, Sachs VP, and the 12-year-old son of a conservative friend. Their reasoning was the same as Reha Gur’s: people would be more likely to vote for Trump in the privacy of a secret ballot process than they would be to express support for Trump in response to a pollster (what if someone were to overhear?):

I give Trump 52/48 based on my theory that you have at least a 5% handicap due to people not wanting to acknowledge that they are voting for Trump. We saw this play out in the Brexit vote and with the recent Republican primary.

I think trump will do slightly better than the polls show because [my 12-year-old son] said that people would be embarrassed to tell a stranger they are voting for trump.

One thing that I found interesting at a Boston-area election night party and on Facebook was the idea that if the election had been won by Hillary 49/48 then everything would have been great in the U.S. going forward, but if Hillary lost 48/49 then the country needed to split into two parts, one ruled by Hillary and one by the Trumpenfuhrer.

Having been spectacularly wrong on the popular vote numbers, here’s my analysis of why Hillary lost:

• the inherently corrupt structure of being in elected office and having a personal/family foundation to which government suppliants can donate
• attacking Donald Trump regarding sexual and personal behavior rather than concentrating on issues and competence to govern
• saying that anyone who disagrees with Hillary and Obama is stupid, sexist, and racist

Democrats celebrated the fact that nobody could seemingly prosecute and imprison Hillary for the Clinton Foundation under the “beyond a reasonable doubt” standard. Yet a structure that is immune from prosecution may still be perceived as corrupt. Here’s one of the few on-record Trump supporters I could find in Massachusetts, a self-employed woman: “If you made over a billion dollars then you must have been selling something. Since Hillary’s only job has been politician, what she was selling was us.” (the Washington Post says that the real number is over $2 billion) Hillary supporters, including at the election night party, concentrated on the fact that the Clinton Foundation per se was found to comply with the various rules that apply to foundations. They simply could not anything questionable about a structure in which a politician can say “donate money here that my daughter will be able to spend on Gulfstream charter 20 years from now”. (Note that if someone had paid Hillary directly to do a favor and she wanted to pass that money down to Chelsea, it would be taxed at a rate of 90 percent; if the money goes into the foundation it is tax-free on receipt, tax-free when invested, and tax-free when controlled is passed to Chelsea. The reduction of the tax rate from 90 percent to 0 is counterbalanced by the fact that Chelsea will have some restrictions on how she can spend the money, e.g., she can organize a big party in Paris but she can’t buy clothes for herself.)

Republicans attacked Hillary for being corrupt (the $100+ million in her pocket and the $2+ billion to the foundation) and incompetent (trillions of tax dollars spent either by her or President Obama to little effect). Plainly Hillary supporters would disagree regarding the merits of these attacks but at least they were in the category of job-related items. Democrat attacks on Trump were basically the same as a typical American custody and child support plaintiff’s attacks on a rich defendant: he sexually assaulted women, he raped children, he wasn’t the kind of person that an impressionable person should be around. These allegations in family court play out in front of a sympathetic audience, i.e., a judge who has chosen to take a job where the daily task is taking money away from a person who works and give it to a person who doesn’t work (or who earns less). (See Real World Divorce for how well this can work.) The family court judge is predisposed to rule in favor of the lower-income plaintiff and may just be looking for some convenient justifications. But the American voter is a neutral audience that can ask simple questions such as “If Donald Trump wanted to have sex with teenagers, instead of exposing his multi-billion-dollar fortune to civil lawsuit plaintiffs, why wouldn’t he fly his personal Boeing 757 to a country where that was legal?” This focus on Trump’s sexual and personal behavior was apparently hugely satisfying to my Facebook friends and Hillary supporters in general but an intelligent listener might respond “If all that they have against Trump is the 22-year-old rape allegation that can’t even be proven under the 51-percent civil lawsuit standard then he probably isn’t that bad.”

A recurring theme in my Facebook feed (see “Haiku contest: Summarize your Facebook feed” and “Facebook makes Americans hate each other?” and “My Facebook Feed on Election Day“) is that anyone who disagrees with Obama or Hillary is stupid, sexist, and racist. This tends to shorten arguments but if anything it reinforces Trump supporters’ position that the Democrats are self-serving elitists. I tried to convince at least 100 Democrats, both on Facebook and face-to-face here in Massachusetts, that it was possible that a person could support Trump due to having a different economic situation from theirs, rather than stupidity, sexism, and racism. That, for example, a Walmart cashier whose job could be taken by an immigrant could legitimately have a different view on immigration policy from them. I can’t remember ever being successful. The answer was always the same: stupidity, sexism, racism. This makes Democrats feel good, certainly. They are the smart and tolerant ones. But it is tough to win votes from people if you dismiss their concerns as being motivated by stupidity, sexism, and racism (or sometimes as stemming from failure and bitterness).

[The “Trump gets sued all the time” meme was popular but also not convincing. One of my friends linked to an article where it turned out that the Trump Organization (not Trump personally) had been sued more than 500 times by the U.S. slip-and-fall personal injury industry. That might be a good reason not to do business in the U.S. (civil law jurisdictions such as Germany eliminate this kind of liability), but it is hardly relevant to Trump the candidate.]

How did suburban Bostonians take the news? The election-night party, in a town where 18 percent of the voters ultimately chose hatred, consisted of all Hillary-supporters with the exception of two pilots, only one of whom revealed (at 2:00 am) her secret attachment to libertarianism. Median income was probably roughly $150,000 per year from a range of jobs including user interface designer, CFO of a public company, music teacher, charter school teacher, public school teacher, successful divorce plaintiff, young lover of successful divorce plaintiff (fortunately I had not made the mistake of bringing this wine to the party), professional pilot, landscape designer-contractor, digital animator, etc. They were familiar with and comfortable with the U.S. welfare state. A young woman said “All that you have to do is pop out a baby. My friend in San Francisco lives in a $5,000/month apartment with her fiance and pays $300/month.” To this another woman responded with a story about, thanks to having obtained custody of a 12-year-old boy “who takes care of himself,” a welfare parent living comfortably without working in Steamboat Springs, Colorado. The face-to-face disagreements at the party were much more civil than Facebook “discussions.” The enthusiastic charter school teacher could talk about his experience as a unionized public school teacher (“no incentive to work” and “most kids didn’t learn that much”) without being shouted down by opponents of the charter school ballot question. All party guests expressed shock regarding the unfolding ascendancy of the Trumpenfuhrer, but the musicians seemed to take the news best. When Trump’s acceptance speech came on around 3:00 am Eastern time, the remaining guests had little reaction. (For me it was only the second time I had seen Donald Trump on television, the first being during the first debate, and I didn’t find anything to fault.)

What was the semi-public reaction of my friends on Facebook?

sequence from an Ivy-educated Berkeley resident: OMG, I can’t watch. What is WRONG with people?! … My son is still glued to the live election coverage. He thinks there’s still a chance HRC could pull it off. How do you tell your kid there’s no hope? … This is a day of mourning. Even those who think they won last night (which, remember, is LESS than half of American voters) are going to discover soon that their lives will become worse, not better. Yes, even the 1%, whose riches will be eroded by the global recession that has already started. … I couldn’t sleep last night for thinking about all the ways in which things are going to get worse: Climate change will accelerate; The worldwide recession will destroy jobs and lives; Racism, homophobia, antisemitism, misogyny–all the prejudices against which we’ve made inroads in the last few decades will resurge; Women’s rights will be rolled back, including the right to choose and the right not to be groped.

old (male) California computer programmer: I need to go pick up my daughter. How can I tell her the guy who brags about sexual assault appears to be winning?

old (male) Boston-area computer programmer: I thought the electoral college was my friend. I feel so betrayed. … I’m happy the market is up but WHY?

Female California burner: We will need to find our courage, maintain our voice, protect those more vulnerable and bring the light…Bright.

Woman in LA: I have started hoping for an intruder to club me over the head with a frying pan.

New England business manager: I woke up this morning so dismayed and troubled that I didn’t want to get out of bed. I feel betrayed by my country. I had always assumed that I could rely on “never here” – that the American people at the end of the day would do what’s right. As with any betrayal I can never trust like that again. … Last night hate trumped love. We may have lost the battle, but we can still win the war.

Boston-area veterinarian: Evil and hatred trumps hope and love.

Successful photographer and publisher in Manhattan: There are no words to describe how this feels other than total despair – I don’t even know where to begin – or try to make sense of this to the kids – Supreme Court, Obamacare, racism, misogyny, the wall, LGBT rights, migrants, world despots like Putin challenging taunting playing him, the environment, clean energy, science, FACTS,

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A week ago I wrote “Massachusetts unionized teachers demonstrate how to kill public support for charter schools” and the ballot question result was 62/38 against charters.

(Is there any good news for kids who are bored in whatever environment their local public school system chooses to provide? Yes! We voted 53.5/46.5 to legalize marijuana. And if Massachusetts citizens get the munchies after smoking all of their legal weed, we will be consuming products from animals raised in less confining conditions (78/22). On ballot question 1, whether or not a stoned citizen can go to a new slot machine parlor, we voted 61/39 against.)

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My Facebook feed on Election Day is kind of interesting. Women, especially, who live in states that are guaranteed to vote for a Democrat, are posting that they are “proud” to have voted for Hillary. Example: “What a cool time in history to have the chance to vote for a female president! So proud! #imwithher” The implication is that it is a courageous act to vote as most neighbors will. The more solidly an area favors Democrats, the more likely the Facebooker is to include a hash tag such as ImWithHer (as opposed to just “I voted”). Posts from Northern California and Boston are filled with warm personal feelings regarding Hillary, e.g., a woman with a $200,000+/year government job in Boston: “I’m wearing a pantsuit, and I voted. #imwithher”

[Separately, I find it interesting that women can be “proud” of what some other woman has done. With more than 3.7 billion women on the planet, it seems like a significant achievement to convince women that if Hillary achieves something then they themselves have also achieved something. I’m not sure that female Russian peasants felt this same sense of pride to see Catherine the Great ruling as Empress. Tribute to modern PR and media? Note that the women who are most likely to report vicarious pride seem to be stay-at-home wives, single women living off money earned by a father or a (male) child support defendant, and government workers. The women who express the most skepticism regarding Hillary (but never on Facebook!) are those who own and run small businesses or those who are managers (up to the CEO or “SheEO” level) in private companies. In other words, the women who have spent the fewest years in the workforce identify most strongly with Hillary and are most likely to adopt Hillary’s professional achievements as their own.]

Men took part in self-congratulation as well. From an older Boston-area programmer: “I voted today. For me, it was not a political decision, but a moral imperative. I chose to take a stand against hate, against bigotry, against misogyny. May God have mercy on us all and bring us healing and reconciliation.” (i.e., he “chose to take a stand” by doing something (voting in Massachusetts) that cannot possibly have any effect)

People who have spent the last year fearfully linking to articles about expected voter intimidation by Trump supporters are gleefully linking (sometimes with heart symbols) to “Trump Booed at His Own Polling Place”, in which it turns out that residents of the East Side in Manhattan (PS59 address) attempt to intimidate a voter via booing and heckling. (Bostonians take a more direct approach, with “Kill Your Local Trump Supporter” spray-painted on the side of the School of the Museum of Fine Arts (Boston Herald)).

From a female liberal arts college undergraduate: “If you do not vote, you are only helping Donald Trump and his ilk. … I don’t like to swear on FB. But if you don’t vote, FUCK you.”

A woman who sued her rich husband (i.e., now simply “a rich woman”) posted a picture of herself with Bill Clinton (let’s hope that her close relationship with Mr. Clinton was not the cause of the divorce!). [Massachusetts family law put a high price on her brief career as a wife and follow-on career as alimony and child support plaintiff; I wonder if she is concerned that the rise of a female leader will be followed by the elimination of alimony, as it did in Germany.]

Female Facebookers are self-identifying as “Nasty Women” and talking about wearing pants suits.

Male Facebookers are saying that we need to elect Hillary to protect women. (Same argument that we use for our military interventions against traditional Muslims in Afghanistan and other places?)

One male Facebooker continues to push the Trump = violence theme. In a country of 325 million he found six crimes that could be called “hate crimes” and in which Trump was somehow referenced by the criminal. Thus if Trump is elected there will be a tidal wave of hate crimes in the U.S. I asked “Wouldn’t it be equally valid to conjecture that Trump’s election would be associated with a reduction in hate crimes? If we assume that you are correct that people who support Trump are haters then wouldn’t they be less motivated to take personal action if they think that the government is acting in their interest instead of against their interest? Wouldn’t it be just as likely that Trump supporters would be calmed by a Trump victory as it is to say that Trump supporters would be calmed by a Hillary victory?” (The answer to these question is a resounding “no”. Nothing would be more likely to get the KKK and other racists to see the error of their ways than a slight majority of Americans voting for Hillary.)

On the “allow more charter schools” question (2) in Massachusetts: an ad to “Join Our Revolution, Senator Elizabeth Warren, and Attorney General Maura Healey in the fight to save our public schools. Vote NO on Question 2 this Nov. 8th.” (i.e., continuing to have just one school choice and for that school to be operated by unionized teachers is “a revolution”)

From a Miami-born friend:

The perennial humor of people posting ‘si se puede’ or #SiSePuede.

PSA: that means ‘if we can’. Chavez’s rallying cry was ‘Sí se puede’. Not quite the rousing assertion intended.

Might seem minor to non-Hispanophones, but it’s an error comparable to that other favorite ‘feliz ano nuevo’ which means ‘happy new anus’, rather than happy new year. … it underscores how much of this liberal ‘Latino’ stuff from the left is a bullshit veneer, not much better than American tourists wearing berets in Paris.

My free-market-oriented friends are keeping quiet (lest they be defriended!), for the most part. One hater, though, tried to throw some cold water over the “feminist revolution” angle with

Today, the United States has a unique chance to join the ranks of such progressive countries as Central African Republic, Transnistria, Pakistan, Myanmar, Bangladesh, Turkey, Burundi, Rwanda, Haiti, Guyana, Mongolia, Senegal, Mali, Peru, and last, but not least the United Kingdom and Germany to show them what a difference female political leadership makes if it is done right. (Wikipedia page of female elected or appointed heads of state)

He was quickly shouted down by a Hillary-supporting man: “What you wrote is not even offensive, it is plain stupid.” (As he should have been, for forgetting to highlight Argentina, which has twice been led by the wife of the former leader.)

Hillary supporters responding to questions regarding their logic or factual basis for a statement:

Your arguments are flawed and logic is weak. If you want a course in ethics, i’ll recommend you to some professors. I haven’t the time to school you on facebook.

This is some A+ trolling.

Stop posting fallacies.

Just stop.

The fact that Trump has promoted racist, violent, and misogynist views is what is at issue here – that he has been in no way what most US citizens in the past would have called “presidential” in his bearing, his thinking, or his manner of speaking.

What I’ve shared was my most sincere concern for people who don’t look a certain way, believe in a particular God, or choose to love someone of the same gender. Hate, violence, building walls, misogyny, racism, and the persecution of people is wildly concerning, not political

 

(Hard to find these as it seems that my Facebook friends don’t have any friends willing to go on record as supporting Trump, so there were no Hillary-Trump exchanges, only Hillary-lovers-versus-Hillary-lukewarms or Hillary-lovers-versus-libertarians.)

Nobody was posting about a local story: “Past Harvard Men’s Cross Country Teams Wrote ‘Sexually Explicit’ Comments About Women’s Team”. These guys voluntarily released their spreadsheets and I am wondering if they timed it for just before the election when it would be drowned out by Hillary euphoria or Trumpenfuhrer paranoia? (the article surprised me mostly because it reveals the existence of people younger than 30 who know how to use a spreadsheet application)

[Amidst all of this, something else interesting in today’s feed: “If you’re a single-digit millionaire like Hulk Hogan, you have no effective access to our legal system,” he explained. “It costs too much.” (nytimes article on Peter Thiel and why he bankrolled Hulk Hogan).]

Readers; What’s the most interesting stuff you’ve seen on Facebook today?

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Some of the senior citizens I know are cowering with fear after reading a year’s worth of news about what would befall the U.S. after the election of the Trumpenfuhrer. Lifelong Republicans are now voting for Hillary with roughly the same motivation that leads them to forward dire warnings of various email viruses. What’s even scarier than a compromised AOL account? Marvel’s Dr. Strange movie. Eight of us went to see this the other night, lured by a 94-percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes (now down to 90). Except for the two kids, we all hated it.

*** spoiler alert ***

The first things that we learn from Dr. Strange are (1) don’t try to drive and do radiology at the same time, (2) buy a Tesla and leave it on autopilot.

After a car accident that results from violating the above principles, Dr. Strange learns about using magic, casting spells, etc. If you don’t believe in magic you will be bored for the rest of the film. If you do believe in magic you will question its power. If these people are all so learned and can use magic, how come they spend most of their time in fistfights? There is not a lot of creativity here regarding what could happen if people had certain magical powers.

A regular Marvel movie is actually more plausible. Aliens show up with superhuman powers. Why not? The universe is a big place. We may not be special. The laws of physics still apply to the aliens and us, but the aliens happen to be stronger and smarter.

Readers: Who else saw this movie? What did you think?

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Happy Election Day!

Multinational companies vote every day with their dollars, deciding where to invest based on prospects for growth. This cheerfully titled Wall Street Journal article presents a rosy 2.9 percent annual growth rate by adhering to the American convention of not adjusting for population growth (about 0.8 percent annual rate). The chart in the middle, however, shows that business investment is more or less flat (down for equipment and slightly up for software and structures). Adjust that for population growth and business investment per capita is actually shrinking in the U.S. A vote of no confidence from the world’s business community.

How does it look on the micro scale? I had dinner the other night with a VP for a multinational medical diagnostic equipment company. She works from India and manages about 650 people in Europe and India. Her husband is a professor here in the U.S. and she’d like to move back here, but “my company won’t transfer me here at my level; they’re expanding in Shanghai, Singapore, India, and a bunch of other places,” she noted, “but trying not to hire anyone in the U.S.” She travels (business class) about two-thirds of the time. I asked her what airlines she likes to fly between the U.S. and India: “KLM, Emirates, or Qatar,” she responded, “but Emirates is my favorite.” Would she fly a U.S. airline? “No.” In other words, her company is no longer investing in the U.S. and she herself chooses foreign-run vendors when it is a personal decision.

What about today’s election? She’s a U.S. citizen and was planning to vote. Did she have any reservations about voting for Hillary to continue the Obama Administration’s policies that have led her company to direct its attention and investment dollars elsewhere? No. Why not? Based on media reports she believed Donald Trump to be guilty of “sexual assault.” (some kids age 5-12 were also at the table so I didn’t feel that it was a good time to ask for details on whether she found the porn star or some other woman in the news to be most credible).

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In April 2015 I predicted a Hillary Clinton victory. That posting suggested a 54:45 ratio between Hillary votes and votes for any Republican. It has been 1.5 years. We know who the Republican challenger is. What’s my prediction now? I’m going to bump this up to 55:45 for Hillary:Trump votes (not 55:45 total because at least some people will vote for Gary Johnson, for example).

Additional support for my theory is that Hugo Chavez prevailed over his opponent by approximately 55:45 in the 2012 Venezuelan Presidential election. Chavez lays out a blueprint for any would-be successful politician in a democracy (summary of his biography). Hillary and Chavez promise essentially the same things: prosperity without hard work; increased government handouts; soaking the rich with higher taxes; fairness insured by central planning; more parts of the economy controlled by the government or centrally directed. I don’t think that there is a significant difference between Americans and Venezuelans. So it seems safe to assume that approximately the same number of Venezuelans who were persuaded by Chavez will be persuaded by Hillary.

That’s my prediction! Let’s circle back on Wednesday morning to see who got closest!

Readers: What’s your prediction of the ratio of popular votes between Hillary and Trump? First prize for getting it right (not just with a number but also an explanation for the prediction): I buy lunch next time we’re both in the same city. Second prize: two lunches with me!

Related:

• update on life in Venezuela from New Yorker magazine (compare to 2001 article regarding Chavez in the same magazine)
• Evaluating my election prediction from December 2011
• Election 2008 Prediction: Obama wins by 5 percent; we will all be depressed (and November 2008 follow-up)

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I’m wondering if Facebook is at least partially to blame for Americans’ anger toward people who don’t vote the same way as they do. For my face-to-face friends (a.k.a. “real friends”) and neighbors I don’t know a whole lot about their political views. If politics does come up in conversation they tend to moderate their speech so as to avoid offense. If a Trump supporter were at a cocktail party at our town, most people would try not to say that Trump supporters were “stupid, sexist, and racist”. (That said, the one Trump supporter I know had his “Trump/Pence” lawn sign stolen within a couple of days. And the minister at the local Unitarian church filled a sermon with “What to do if you’re stuck at a family dinner with that crazy uncle who belongs to the NRA”. My friend, a retired military officer, thought “I’m that uncle and I don’t think that I’m crazy.” (The minister, who is married to another man and has two adopted children, neither of whom is of the same race as either the minister or his husband, works “diversity” into every sermon, but apparently an NRA member at the table is not as welcome as a Syrian migrant.))

With Facebook, however, we not only can see what everyone thinks about politics but see those views expressed in the strongest possible language.

Example from a anti-welfare-state friend: “[my former graduate school thesis advisor]’s Facebook feed is non-stop liberal hate.” I’m also friends with the guy and indeed his postings do seem hostile to American Deplorables:

Did Don the Con forget to mention his foundation was just SHUT DOWN by the A.G. in New York?

Shame on the WSJ for this editorial complaining that AG Schneiderman’s letter ordering the Trump Foundation to suspend operations and comply with the law is politically motivated and timed.

Bruce is right [when Springsteen talks about Trump having “no sense of decency”]

An ignorant thug gets his comeuppance. [over an article about Trump “groping women”]

Scientific American grades the candidates on science. Trump gets an F:

Washington Post follows with another huge slam: “It’s beyond debate that Donald Trump is unfit to be president.”

NYT offers a wordy, highbrow takedown of Donald Trump. In few words: He’s a bigot and a liar.

Why mince words, @latimes ? Trump is the biggest liar to run for president.

“Trump isn’t even qualified to be human, much less President.” Choice words here.

Trump’s campaign: built on racism and lies because he’s a racist and a liar.

Watching Michelle Obama speak now. She’s so good, so compelling. The presidential qualifications she speaks of rise far about party lines. [i.e., the spouse of a current or recent leader is a source of political guidance]

If not for Facebook both of us would likely be unaware of this guy’s (1) hatred for Trump and Trump supporters, and (2) hero(ine)-worship of Michelle Obama.

For my part, I was defriended after commenting on a posting demanding that Clarence Thomas resign because of a story quoting a woman who says the he touched her in 1999. (I asked “If I can find a woman to say that you touched her 17 years ago, will you give up your job and paycheck?”) I lost another “friend” after he celebrated the firing of Billy Bush based on a recording made surreptitiously 11 years ago. (I asked “Would you want your employer to make secret recordings of you and then decide whether or not to continue to employ you based on comments that you had expected to remain private? What if a Republican employer used these recordings to fire all of the most vocal Hillary supporters?”)

What do folks think? People are saying that Americans are more polarized than ever. Could it be that the rise of polarization with each election cycle is tracking the increasing popularity of Facebook? Another factor, of course, is that government consumes a larger percentage of the economy every year (now up to about 50 percent of GDP; compare to less than 20 percent in Singapore where, presumably, they aren’t bickering all the time). So of course people fight more about how the central planners in Washington, D.C. and state/local ministries will spend this increasing percentage, just as a family discussion over what new car or house to buy is more intense than a discussion about whether to buy a book or movie. But with Facebook we’re a lot more aware of what other citizens are advocating.

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“N.F.L. Stadium in Las Vegas May Be an Ego Boost, but Not an Economic One” (nytimes) is interesting for what it reveals about Americans and their understanding of economics. The basic idea approved by state politicians is somewhat similar to Hillary Clinton’s economic plan. Taxes will be raised (in this case on hotel stays; for “the rich” in Hillary’s case) but the people paying the higher tax won’t change their behavior. So there will be free money coming from tourists and that will be used to fund most of the stadium and the roads to feed the stadium. The “business” journalist at the New York Times doesn’t ask “Well, if this is free money, why not spend it on something else?” nor “Won’t there be a reduction in hotel stays, just like if you tax cigarettes people smoke fewer packs?” Neither do the 74 commenters.

[One unarguable fact is that the football players, if they move from Oakland, will reduce their radar cross-section when being targeted by child support plaintiffs. California offers unlimited profits for a pregnancy resulting from a one-night encounter; Nevada caps the revenue yield from a child at $13,000 per year. There could still be venue litigation following out-of-state sex.]

Related:

• California taxpayers buy a $474 million college football stadium

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Scott Adams posted yesterday about how Hillary Clinton’s proposed extension of the current tax regime will result in a tax rate of 75 percent. He figures that a 50 percent income tax and then a 50 percent estate tax rate will result in the government getting 75 percent of marginal earnings. (Note that Adams lives in California, where a state estate tax is prohibited by the constitution. The estate tax rate would be higher for someone who lived in Massachusetts or New York, for example.)

Adams is obviously a smart guy so this posting shows how easy it is for citizens to miscalculate their true tax rates. A Harvard economics professor, Gregory Mankiw, made a more thorough attempt in the New York Times. He came up with a 90-percent rate by including taxes on earnings from investing the money between earning and dying. (Adams’s 75-percent figure would still be incorrect assuming that the money were stuffed under a mattress because government-generated inflation would in that case tax the value away gradually.)

[Note that Hillary herself skips out on both income and estate taxes for most of her compensation. If, in return for access or a favor, someone gives money to the Clinton Foundation via this web page, her daughter Chelsea can spend that money chartering a Gulfstream 20 years from now and there will be no taxes at all (assuming that Chelsea can come up with a Foundation-related reason why she needed to fly to Europe).]

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