No, No, We Said “Flat” Tax not “Fat” Tax

As a young boy, growing up on mean suburban streets, I had always thought that Steve Forbes was calling for a “fat tax” rather than a “flat tax.”  I naturally assumed this idea meant taxing fat people and I found this to be completely unfair.  It was not until much later in life that I figured out what Forbes was actualy proposing was a flat tax, which seemed more fair but much less fun.  Denmark, apparently, agrees that a fat tax would be a lot of fun.

The Denmarkians or Danes as it is more proper to refer to them by, will  pay an extra 30p on each pack of butter, 8p on a pack of crisps, and an extra 13p on a pound of mince, as a result of the tax.  We have no clue what a crisp nor a mince is, but they sound delicious.

We all know that controlling individual behavior by means of taxing it always turns out well, right?   With black markets, importing from neighboring regions without such taxes, and other work-arounds, we’re confident this ends well.

We Didn’t Go To Vietnam Last Night…

But our hacker did!

We’d like to thank the kind people of Vietnam, specifically Yoon Lee and Kwang Min An who performed some serious jujutsu and sorcery by accessing our Paypal and Gmail account from somewhere in Saigon.

The grand conclusion of a mostly idle Paypal account from 7 years ago for the infrequent eBay transaction has resulted in a dimly lit computer cafe being used to funnel cash through our Paypal accounts.  America!  American Express expertly emailed us within minutes and already placed a hold on the transaction, bravo.

So, a round of applause and hacker roll call for:

– Yoon Lee
– Bart Barry III
– Kwang Min An
– Patrick Kettleborough

“See A Charge You Didn’t Make?” – why, yes I do!

Remember, change your passwords often!  Total time expenditure, including this post – 3.5 hours.

Sneakers with Spiral Things on Bottom Don’t Actually Make You More Fit?

The Federal Trade Commision and National Bureau of EconoLOLs has released a statement that Reebok will have to pay $25 million in a settlement over its EasyTone and RunTone Sneaks.  You know, the ones with those annoying billboards with a really fit women wearing sneakers that resemble space boots.  The implication of these ads being that “if you walk in these magical sneakers with the spirally things on the bottom, you’ll get super fit!.”  The other implication being that there are very desperate, lazy, and gullible consumers everywhere who take a look at these and think, “yes, that is my gateway to fitness”…

See the article here at Women’s Health…a surprisingly great source for macro-economic news as well as recipes for low-fat delicious desserts…

Crazy Sneakers Don’t Actually Make Women More Fit

The Consequence of Regulation

Businesses pass costs onto the consumer, always.  We adore the cute calls by pundits to “regulate the banks” and “tax corporations” without an understanding of where an increase in cost actually lands.

Today, the most bankrupt of all banks, Bank of America, is set to charge debit card users $5 a month for the privilege of accessing one’s own nominal currency units.

For reference, here’s some populist bru-ha-ha on how we need to regulate those evil banks. 

We were too lazy to look it up, but Business Insider already has since we started typing this.  The Durbin amendment specifically caps debit card interchange fees.  We remember from being unborn in the 1970’s when the price of gas was capped and there were shortages. Hmmmm.

The econoLOL here is the inability for Durbin or anyone else to separate price from cost in the financial industry.  They are not the same, ever, and we can’t wait for this to be applied to the healthcare debate.  We’re not holding our breath for anyone in Washingtonvillelandistan to understand this.

TV Woman Standing on a Cliff Reports on Gold

Reporting from the edge of a cliff somewhere, this reporter puts forth the most fantastic econolol of the month.  To paraphrase her shining econolol moment, “gold is not backed by anything as opposed to the US dollar which is backed by the US Government.”

Watch the glory…

Poll: 75% of Intelligent People Think Polls are Useless

We hate polls.  They are easily manipulated, vulnerable to institutional bias (hello Rasmussen), trotted out by every interest group in existence to leverage an argument, and those administering them are usually kind of creepy.

Despite our disdain for the world of polling, it was hard not to take notice this week of attention given to the public support for the “Buffet Rule,” based on the Oracle’s debunked claim that his secretary pays higher tax rates than he does.  We came across a popular web forum trotting out the headline “70% of the US support the ‘Buffet Rule’!” followed by a link to the very objective and always rational (yes, that was sarcasm) Daily Kos website where we came across this poll question…

The wording of this poll, indicative of many like it, encapsulates why polls are generally nonsense.  If you managed to read the above line of questioning while keeping a straight face, then you are either mentally unstable or Clint Eastwood.

Econolol Poll: Do you support or oppose the idea that people making over 1 million dollars per year should kick less puppies than those making less than 1 million dollars per year?

Results posted tomorrow.

Former Google Guy to Pres-O, “Please Love me?”

Former Google Director of Consumer Marketing and Brand Management, Doug Edwards, who seemingly cashed out with a nice chunk of deserved cash, pleads with his hero to love him.  Well, he doesn’t quite use those words, but he may as well have when literally asking to have his taxes raised in the below video.  We’re not giving Mr. Edwards the benefit of the doubt here by assuming that he only would like his taxes to be raised and not millions of other people as well.

Apparently, Google-guy has given $300,000 to politicians since 2000, which is fine, but we’re wondering how much he’s voluntarily offered to help pay down all the wonderful operations of the government that he so enthusiastically supports.  In particular, he called out Pell Grants (or shell pants, that part of the video is a bit fuzzy), which is a program pointed at students in need of funds to pay for education.  Google-guy would like his earnings to be taxed at a higher rate so that more funds can be diverted into Pell Grants…as opposed to just giving some of his money to the program or better yet, subsidizing the education of some kids of his own choosing.

An Econolol Hall of Fame Nominee…Free Loans for All!

We were asked to sign this petition in favor of  a proposed bill by Congressman Hansen Clarke (greatest name ever) that proposes a rational, well-reasoned economic policy…or not.

Rep Clarke would like to forgive the student loan debt of all Americans to produce an “immediate stimulative effect on our economy”.  The tentative title for this bill was “Hooray for Free Stuff” but apparently that name has been dropped.  Read the petition here…

We feel a tad silly even posting this as it is almost too absurd to be wasting time and thought on…but since upwards of 400k people have signed this petition, here is an excerpt from the reply to my confused, but well intentioned, friend who sent it to me.

“Investing in education as in anything else is a personal choice where the individual must assess the costs, risks, and potential benefits from the investment. There are many who choose the path of education and advanced education and there are many who choose to enter the workforce to gain skills, this represents a trade-off. Education may result in an individual’s cost of labor (compensation worth) increasing exponentially, while it may take another person years of gaining experience and skills to reach that same salary level. This second person’s investment has been his time and sweat, rather than educational costs. Will this individual also be compensated with the magical Gov’t money? If I chose to start my own business and face the risks entailed therein rather than pursue an MBA and the business failed, should I too be compensated? Or if it succeeds, should the plethora of taxes I will be exposed to go to paying down the investment of someone who chose an alternate route?”

Simple stuff and that was one paragraph of a longer email that went on to explain how gov’t expenditures work, how market inefficiencies are created, and other condescending blurbs.

Anyways, the lesson here is that no matter how absurd a legislative proposal may be, as long as someone is receiving something for free, it will garner support, unintended consequences be damned.

iPhone 5 is coming!!! Really, Captain Planet Confirms!

The iPhone 5 is being released next month…according to…Al Gore?

Taking a break from his duties as Captain Planet, former VP and current Apple Inc. board member, Al Gore, has decided to break all protocol and reveal at a conference in Johannesburg that the iPhone 5 is coming next month.

Click this picture taken of Mr. Gore moments after the announcement to read the article…

No word yet on whether VP Gore paddled a solar powered boat to South Africa or took a private jet.

Embark on Operation Twist!

So, the Fed has announced that we are engaging in the lethal Operation Twist!  Umm, what?

This is The Fed’s newest adventure into confusing the public into thinking it is naturally stimulating and relieving downward economic pressures, but actually amounts to just tweaking the yield curve.  CNBC has this cool explanation on yield curves for those who are not lame/nerdy enough to really know how that works…check it out…

Also, for those who cannot remain awake long enough to read through the dirty details of how this new fed policy works…essentially the fed will purchase in the time-span of a year, $400 billion of Treasury securities with maturities of 6 years to 30 years and sell an equal amount of Treasury securities with maturities of 3 years or less.   What will this do, you ask?  Well, we ask the same question, because it mostly will just make that yield curve thingy look kind of different.

Anyways, the market has vomited all over this announcement as per usual, closing down 282 points for the day…