Cracking the Code, Chapter Eleven

Continuing from this post.

We also need to understand why the above works, how our brains function. Our experience is filtered in three ways: deletion, distortion and generalization. When we focus on one thing, like reading this, we delete many sensory input like the temperature of the room or what's on the tellie playing in the next room. We distort experiences in order to simplify and make emotional sense of them, particularly memories. We generalize input based on our predisposed worldviews, like liberal or conservative, friend or enemy etc. Even more broadly, the latter is a function of our basic differentiating categories, like what constitutes a room or a chair.

Cracking the Code, Chapter Ten

Continuing from this post.

Framing is another tool in this kit. It's in the way one uses words to describe a situation to evoke our feelings into supporting a particular worldview. One example is in how the estate tax was framed. Conservatives called it the “IRS death tax,” invoking fear through the images of large government control through taxes and that much dreaded image, death. Early American framers like Jefferson argued for an estate tax, realizing that such accumulated wealth would likely lead to a return of the very landed aristocracy which America fought to overcome with its new democracy. Unfortunately such a tax was not instituted until 1916, when ordinary people rose up against just such an American aristocracy of robber barons and monopolists controlling our society. It was Teddy Roosevelt, a Republican no less, that proposed the estate tax, framing it as the wealthy having higher obligations to the State due to the special advantages granted them by said State. We don't see Republicans like that anymore.

Taxes and the economy

Finally, the solution to climate change

And from an unexpected source: climate change is ruining wine! In the linked article hotter climates in the best growing regions is changing wines drastically, and it will only get worse. The hotter nights in CA growing regions are causing the alcohol content to go up, causing one to get drunker faster and consume less, hence less sales. But even worse, the hotter nights cut down on the acid production needed to counterbalance the sweet taste, thus making for duller tasting wine. Increased heat will also push grape production from the current growing regions closer to the poles, where soil and other conditions will drastically alter the taste. This move will also incur heavy costs that will increase the price. Wine will taste worse and cost more.

So how is this a solution to climate change?

Over the Edge

The Pope is too liberal for regressives

See this article. A recent bill introduced in the house honoring the Pope for his stance on redressing inequality and promoting solidarity, most famously in his diatribe against trickle-down economics. Only 19 of the 221 backers are Republicans. One of those Republican backers speculates that there aren't more from his Party because those remarks a economics seem too liberal to most of the regressives. Recall that the regressive frontman for their Party, Rush Limbaugh, called the Pope a socialist and there you have their recalcitrance.

Cracking the Code, Chapters 8 & 9

Continuing from this post.

Chapter Eight

A learning trance is like any other trance, in that it encourages a person to focus their attention so narrowly on one object so as to filter out all other sensations, thoughts or data. One way to induce the learning trance is anchoring (see Chapter Five). Another is to shift quickly form one sensory modality to another. This requires intent focus to keep up with the shifts. Pacing utilizes dramatic pauses to focus attention by creating an expectant attitude. It creates an attentional on-off pulsing that requires focus to keep up with the changes. This can be done with changes in cadence as well, as well as sound volume, by lowering or raising our voices for effect, as well as speeding up or slowing down our speech at key times.

Chapter Nine

Good job Mr. President

From SEIU:

Good news for working people: President Obama took bold action today to protect the wages and safety of millions of American workers. The executive order he signed will help alleviate wage theft in our federal contracting system and protect taxpayer dollars from going to companies that consistently break the law.

Tell your friends, colleagues and family members on Facebook why today is a great day for workers. 

More than one in five workers in the U.S. today are employed by companies that do business with the federal government. Far too many have been routinely denied leave, placed in harm's way, discriminated against and cheated out of pay by federal contractors. As workers around the country stand up to demand a living wage and a union, President Obama is doing his part to make sure employers treat their workers with the respect they deserve, support collective bargaining and have clean labor records.

As Rep. Keith Ellison put it, "If you are a federal contractor and you want to do business with the United States, you should be fair to your workers." Amen!

Share this good news for working people on Facebook now.

In solidarity,

Kate Thomas
SEIU.org

Senator Warren on a Bill to fix corporate inversion

Sign up now to show your support for the Stop Corporate Inversions Act. Let's make giant corporations pay their fair share.

Huge corporations hire armies of lawyers and lobbyists to create, expand, and protect every last corporate loophole. That's how we end up with a tax code that makes teachers and bus drivers and small business owners pay, but that allows some huge American corporations to make billions of dollars and not pay a single dime in taxes. Simply put, the tax code is rigged.

Apparently, even this rigged game doesn't go far enough for some corporations. Those companies are taking advantage of a new move: a loophole that allows them to maintain all their operations in America, but claim foreign citizenship so they can cut their US taxes even further. That means American companies can hire a bunch of lawyers and Wall Street bankers, fill out some paperwork, and dodge their US taxes. Tax lawyers call this process a "corporate inversion." But don't let that bland name fool you – these companies are renouncing their American citizenship, turning their backs on this country, simply to boost their profits.

If a person did that, we'd call them a freeloader and insist that they pay their fair share. And that's exactly what our tax laws do for people who renounce their American citizenship. But when corporations do it, they don't suffer any consequences at all. Forget whether corporations are people – in this corner of the tax code, we're treating corporations better than people.

That's not right. That's why I've teamed up with Senator Levin and more than a dozen of our Democratic colleagues to introduce the Stop Corporate Inversions Act. The bill is simple: it allows American corporations to renounce their citizenship only if they truly give up control of their company to a foreign corporation and truly move their operations overseas.

President Obama on inversion

This article has a transcript of his radio address last Saturday, wherein he falls short of calling such corps traitors but instead they are "unpatriotic." Corps are making their highest profit margins ever but no, that's not enough for them. And the are making such profits due to selling their products in our US markets. But screw the country that makes them rich because their tax rate is higher than countries that don't give them anything other than lower tax rates.

As a result of inversion they hurt the hand that feeds them. The lack of tax revenue adds to our deficit. It's harder to have the finances to invest in necessary infrastructure that these corps enjoy. And it plays a further burden on the rest of us who are struggling to get by as it is. This is the thanks we get for making them richer than their wildest dreams. Seems that dream has become a nightmare for everyone else while stoking their monumental greed.