Empire of Pain

Finished Empire of Pain, by Patrick Keefe.  I think because of the sources which were available it's more interesting about Arthur Sackler, the elder brother and the initiator of the Sackler empire, than he is about the younger brothers Raymond and Mortimer, the grandson Richard who is most closely connected with oxycodone. and the rest of the descendants.

The New Yorker has an item on another scandal in biomedicine--Theranos, where Elizabeth Holmes is now on trial.  I found this applicable to the Sacklers as well:

It is incredible. I think there’s an entitlement to Elizabeth Holmes and her clan that you can’t underestimate. There’s a combination of self-righteousness and entitlement, and an absolute refusal to concede to mistakes or errors, much less fraud.

For the Sacklers, their contributions to many arts and educational institutions seem to be modern versions of the Catholic church's indulgences, which set off Martin Luther. It is a rejection of complexity, an unconscious assertion that a person is either all good (because of contributions) or all bad.  That's BS.

The Face of Our Nation

Benedict Anderson had the concept of "imagined communities"--essentially the idea that people develop a concept of nationhood through shared media, specifically print. 

I'm thinking about the face of America as I experienced it in my youth (1941-63), and how it has changed now, considering print and broadcast media. The America of my youth was white, basically WASP. I don't mean I didn't know of all the non-WASP residents, but WASP was the default, the presumed identity of any person mentioned in media. 

Our actors were Gary Cooper, Clark Gable, Alan Ladd, John Wayne and actresses were the Hepburns, Marilyn Monroe. Our TV series were Gunsmoke, Wagon Train, Bonanza.  Our radio shows were One Man's Family and Gunsmoke. You'll notice the mythology of my America was Western, the individual trying to do right. Our sex was heterosexual and rarely mentioned; gender was not considered.

These days the face of America as I experience it is multi-racial, multi-cultural, etc. 

I like most of these changes in America, but some, perhaps most, of my demographic cohort has real problems with them.  Change is hard.

Understatement of the Month: China Lobby

 Josh Marshall at TPM writes about foreign policy: "For years in DC there’s been a vocal China Hawk community".  

Actually it was decades, almost a century.  The China Lobby was old in the 1950's.  As I recall, it started with influential figures who were associated with missionaries in China, such as Henry Luce. (My aunt and uncle worked for the Y in China in 1910's-20'.) 

It was influential, meant we didn't recognize the People's Republic of China as real, and permit it to take its seat on the UN Security Council, until Nixon and Kissinger recognized it in the 1970's.  People such as George Will fought consistently against Republican and Democratic presidents on the issue, eventually focusing on the effort to keep Taiwan well armed.

Those Were the Days--Anti-colonialism and Am. Revolution

Lots of tweets relating to the NYTimes 1619 project, almost all of them trying to assess the importance of slavery in the American revolution.

I'm reading Louis Menand's The Free World--about halfway through now.  As I lived through the period and was an aspiring intellectual (😕) I recognize most of the names even if I don't remember the books or ever admired the art.  Possibly I'll comment more on it later.  

But today I want to note the Bandung conference, which was a landmark in the anti-colonial movement of the 1950's.  The nations there represented 54 percent of the world's population, or 1.5 billion people (about 4 billion today).  Menand notes that Sukarno , who had led Indonesia's independence effort and was one of the two main sponsors of the conference gave the opening address and cited Paul Revere's ride (Menand, p. 411) as the "start of the first successful anti-colonial war in history".

It's a reminder that the Revolution had many aspects, including its influence as an example on the world stage.

"Depopulated" ?

When there's a surplus of eggs because of disruptions of supply chains, what do you do?  You "depopulate" some hens?  No, you kill them.  But either way you say it the FSA program won't cover it.

From First to Last

Early on West Virginia was leading the national in rate of vaccinations--their governor had relied on drug store chains.

Today West Virginia has the lowest rate of vaccination (lower than Idaho). 

Dieting and Human Institutions

 Tamar Haspel is one of the people I follow on Twitter.  She and her husband raise oysters in Maine, and she writes on food and diet issues, usually with the refrain that diet panaceas are just that, panaceas not based on hard science.  That's a position I can identify with.

She tweeted this about two new promising obesity drugs (more in the thread):

For all y'all dissing obesity drugs:

EVERYONE would prefer it if we could all just eat healthful foods we enjoy to be the weight we want to be.

But we can't, and if you insist that's the only possible solution you're abandoning people, often desperate, who want to lose weight https://t.co/JuvPuut4b9

— Tamar Haspel (@TamarHaspel) September 16, 2021

Her point is that we eat not because of hunger but because of temptation.  It got me thinking.  As I've written, I think, I'm a creature of habit. I'm also skinny. Are the two facts related?  I think they are: for whatever reason I have the habit of regarding food as fuel, to be consumed as soon as possible without wasting any time or energy in savoring, or in deciding what to eat.  So my meals, at least the ones I make or buy as opposed to those my wife prepares, tend to be the same from day to day.

So my decisions on what to eat don't allow much room for temptation by food.  (Nor, since I eat regularly, does feeling hungry have much to do with it--by eating at the times and with the food I'm habituated to I avoid hungry.)  

I'll jump from this analysis of me to extrapolate to human institutions--most institutions are based on habits.  That's part of what upsets us about covid-19; the pandemic has upset our habits which means undermining the foundations of some of our institutions. 

Farm Estate Taxes

There's been maneuvering in the House over how to handle the estate tax, particularly with regard to farms.  The argument is that increasing the estate tax (has the term "death tax" been obsoleted?) means that heirs of farmers will be forced to sell out to pay the tax, rather than continue to farm the family's heritage. This is regarded as obviously wrong and evil, especially by farmers. 

Saw that recently about 75 acres of Iowa farmland were sold for $22K an acre, which is incredibly high. I suspect economists might say there are benefits to forcing land onto the market, rather than passing it on from parents to children.  The alternative to selling would be to take a loan backed by the acreage to pay the taxes, which seems to be the strategy the billionaires use to get spending money from their stockholdings in their IRAs. Presumably an increased estate tax would cut the market value of the land. 

At any rate, it seems the farmers' political power remains high, and there won't be big changes in the estate tax for farms.  Here are some facts:

Under current estate tax law, $11.7 million in assets are exempt from taxes for heirs. In 2019 -- the last available year from the IRS -- the exemption was $11.18 million. That year. there were 2,570 estates that paid taxes on $77.2 billion in assets (on average about $30 million per estate). There were 269 taxable estates that reported farm assets worth $1.3 billion (on average $4.9 million per estate). With the exemption, that means those farm estates averaged about $16.1 million in value. The average overall tax rate paid that year was 17%, according to IRS statistics.

https://www.dtnpf.com/agriculture/web/ag/blogs/ag-policy-blog/blog-post/2021/09/10/know-debate-stepped-basis-capital-2?referrer=twitter#.YTuhj6GcPjc.twitter

"Worth" Movie and FSA Programs

 Saw some publicity for the movie "Worth", a dramatization of Kenneth Feinberg's management of the distribution of the funds for relatives of 9/11 victims. The title relates to the problem of determining "worth": do you assess worth based on economic losses or regard everyone as equal?  

We see the same conflict in public assessments of some FSA farm programs: do you issue payments based on economics: the amount of production, the acreage, the losses of production due to disaster OR do you regard all producers as equal.

Judging by recent stories on agricultural programs, many people believe that farm programs should treat each farmer equally.  But a third criterion is also raised--"deserving" which might include "need" and "reparations." Very few of those who aren't farmers are willing to support programs which compensate for economic losses, which means big farmers get more.

I'll be interested to see the movie.

Logistics of Segregated Buses

 Talking with my cousin about her experience living under Jim Crow laws caused me to think about the logistics, or the daily experience.

Some things were clear and definite: separate schools, separate swimming pools (or days of availability), separate drinking fountains.  Once you knew the rules, complying with them was relatively straightforward.

But some situations were not so clear and fixed.  For example, on the bus, a bus that's heavily used by both blacks and whites. At the beginning whites sit at the front and blacks at the back. But once it gets full, if you're a 10-year white girl boarding the bus you're forcing a black to give up her/his seat, regardless of the age or condition of the black.  If it's full and a black is the next to board, she's forced to stand unless another black yields his seat.

Depending on the rearing and beliefs of the girl, she may accept causing inconvenience to the black as her right and due, or as a violation of treating people as equals.