Mad Men's Uneven Amazing Finale

So Mad Men is finally over, and the finale was, well, OK. Which is a bit of an anticlimax for a show that started off so very well. The best, I think, that can be said of the finale is that it could have been worse.

Several of the stories ended satisfyingly: Peggy and Stan are finally together, Joan is still trying to balance personal life with ambition, Pete somehow lucked his way into a new lease on life, etc. But Don's ending doesn't really work, and unfortunately that's the critical one.

The show's writers have said that one thing they really tried with this show was not letting the characters change too much. Sure, Don might go on the straight and narrow for a while, but you know he's coming back to his philandering ways soon enough. So at the end we see Don at a yoga retreat in California, presumably breaking through something in himself and starting anew. It's dawn, of course, with obvious symbolism. But this breaks the whole contract of the show. It's a happy ending, I suppose, but we can't really believe it.

The one thing Don is always saying is that he "wants to build something". But he never quite does - he's constantly hemmed in by the strings other people attach. He's also haunted by his own identity crisis, but he doesn't resolve this. (The crisis, by the way, is why the hypothetical ending in which Don switches identities again in order to start anew doesn't work: he hates himself for what he did. Doing it again would be even worse, and he knows it.) It would have been great to see progress on at least one of these problems of Don's, but we don't.

Endings are hard, so not failing is actually better than average. But it could have been so much more.

Update 5/19: And now I finally realize I may have missed something critical: the final commercial for Coke may have told us that Don goes back to work with a new idea. Maybe his final smile was actually inspiration for a new ad campaign. That fits what we know much better, and works as a "resolution" (i.e. it doesn't actually resolve his inner demons, but it keeps the show consistent and shows his ability to rise to ever-greater challenges). Good. Now I feel better.

The Rubio-Lee Tax Plan

Jim Geraghty's daily must-read e-mail "Morning Jolt" discussed the Rubio tax plan a couple of days ago:

Under Rubio’s plan, the top rate drops from 39 percent to 35 percent . . . but it kicks in at $75,000 for individuals, and $150,000 for married couples. There are a decent number of individuals making $75,000 and married couples making $150,000 who will be surprised to learn that they’re in the top tax bracket in the United States. Rubio points out that there are various little steps people can take to reduce their taxable income below that threshold -- put money in a retirement account or health savings account, etc., and Rubio-Lee also includes a $2,500-per-child tax credit, which will do a lot for the parents in that higher category. (The other tax rate under Rubio-Lee? Fifteen percent. Right now, the 15 percent tax rate only applies to single filers making $9,225 to $37,450 and married couples making $18,450 to $74,900.)

If you’re a married couple with a combined taxable income of, say, $140,000, currently playing the 25 percent rate, the Rubio tax plan is terrific! Your rate is dropping to 15 percent! But if you’re a married couple with a combined taxable income of, say, $160,000, currently paying a 28 percent rate . . . Rubio-Lee’s 35 percent rate doesn’t look good at all!

Right... sort of. It's true that the hypothetical $160k earning family would have a higher marginal tax rate (35% vs 28%), but would they have a higher tax bill? Under the existing tax plan they pay $31,851.50. Under the Rubio plan they would pay $26,000, a savings of nearly $6,000. It's possible that such families would be OK with the compromise: a higher marginal rate in exchange for a pretty large overall cut and simpler calculations. The actual crossover point (where tax bills would be identical) occurs at $276,450 for married filing jointly. In this bracket the current tax rate is 33%, so the Rubio plan represents only a 2% hike.

What's also worth looking at is how tax bills change as income rises. This is, after all, the reason why we care about marginal tax rates: the higher your marginal tax rate, the argument goes, the less interested you as a taxpayer will be in increasing your income, since an ever-higher portion of your additional income goes to taxes. So consider Geraghty's hypothetical $140k-earning family. Under current law they will be paying $26,587.50; under Rubio-Lee they would pay $21,000. They are contemplating a change which would result in a $20k increase in income. How much do they get to keep? We already figured out their final tax bills, so this is easy: under current law they'd pay an extra $5,264, and under Rubio-Lee an extra $5,000. So even though their marginal tax rate is higher under Rubio-Lee, they'd still be better off when transitioning into the higher bracket.

If they contemplated another $20k increase, then we finally see the marginal rate taking effect: they'd pay an extra $5,600 under current law, but $7,000 under Rubio-Lee. However, as I noted before, they'd still be paying a lower overall bill under Rubio-Lee. Marginal rates are important, but so are overall bills.

So let's recap: Under Rubio-Lee, the top marginal rate is lowered. Actual tax bills are lowered in most cases (the most extra a married filing jointly filer would pay is $2,701 for earnings of $411,500: $111,324 under current law and $114,025 under Rubio-Lee). The marginal rate is increased as much as 7% for some filers, but for those filers their total tax bill is decreased, and marginal rates are decreased for the meaty part of the earnings bell curve (filers currently in the 25% bracket would be reduced to 15%). Nothing is perfect, but this plan seems to balance a number of factors pretty well.

One (French) Soldier's Opinion of U.S. Troops

I've been meaning to link to this for a while. A taste:

And combat? If you have seen Rambo you have seen it all - always coming to the rescue when one of our teams gets in trouble, and always in the shortest delay. That is one of their tricks: they switch from T-shirt and sandals to combat ready in three minutes. Arriving in contact with the enemy, the way they fight is simple and disconcerting: they just charge! They disembark and assault in stride, they bomb first and ask questions later - which cuts any pussyfooting short.Honor, motherland - everything here reminds of that: the American flag floating in the wind above the outpost, just like the one on the post parcels. Even if recruits often originate from the hearth of American cities and gang territory, no one here has any goal other than to hold high and proud the star spangled banner. Each man knows he can count on the support of a whole people who provides them through the mail all that an American could miss in such a remote front-line location: books, chewing gums, razorblades, Gatorade, toothpaste etc. in such way that every man is aware of how much the American people backs him in his difficult mission. And that is a first shock to our preconceptions: the American soldier is no individualist. The team, the group, the combat team are the focus of all his attention.

It occurs to me that this is the first generation of Heinlein's Mobile Infantry from Starship Troopers (the book, I mean, not the fascists in the movie). They're not wearing powered combat suits - yet. But they are highly trained, with excellent equipment, and skilled in the martial arts from hand-to-hand to high explosives. And that was the M.I.: not grunt foot-sloggers trained only to march and shoot, but valuable and valued citizen soldiers.

If all it took to win wars was great soldiers, we'd be set. But it also takes leadership from the top. Let's get on that.

The Problem of Homeless Kids

This morning NPR had a show about a spike in child homelessness. Of course our hearts go out to those affected. But two points.

First, the measurement problem is important. One reason for the surprising extent of the problem ("1 in 30 children in the United States is homeless") is that it measures any child who was in "less than adequate" housing over the past year. This includes kids who are "doubled up", staying in residential motels, couch-surfing, etc. Now I don't deny this is a problem, but it's not homelessness. I defy anyone who has had to sleep on the street for a month to seriously claim that having a roof over one's head, even an impermanent one, is a lot better than not. So we should be calling this an "inadequate housing problem", or something like that. Calling it homelessness is needlessly incendiary.

Second, and more importantly, NPR is shocked, shocked, to discover that California is third worst in the nation in this category. I am not. The reason for the extent of the problem here is high housing prices. The proposed solution... wait for it... is subsidized housing.

This won't work, though, at least not as one would hope. The problem is one of supply: it takes time to add housing. In California there is only so much of it, and as anyone who has looked for an apartment recently can attest, it's largely occupied. Subsidizing it just puts more dollars chasing the same number of units, with the result that the price per unit will go up. But this won't increase the number of units. If the housing market were entirely free, we would expect an increase in supply to come from the rise in prices, and after some lag to allow for building, the market would clear. But this is California: building requires zoning, and approvals, and inspections, and it isn't quick or easy and many cities don't really want it. So the most likely result of subsidies will just be to push prices up, especially on low-end apartments, which will of course hurt those occupying (or competing for) those same units who aren't getting the subsidy. Whether this will actually help anyone is an open question, but it's quite possible that it won't, net-net. We know for sure that any subsidy program will transfer X% of the taxpayer dollars used to landlords (who benefit from the higher rents). The only question is: what's X?

It's hard to ignore the fact that the problem, and the proposed solution, are very much like Obamacare. We have a limited supply of health care (represented by doctors, nurses, hospitals, etc.). Obamacare regulates prices (which certainly won't expand the supply) and subsidizes demand (which increases it), with the result that we'll have shortages. We're already seeing that. Will liberals ever learn a lesson here? In the eighty years since FDR, it's not clear that they have.

World Cup Notes

My opinion: it's been the best World Cup ever, or at least since I've been paying much attention to them (about 20 years). So many exciting games, so many late goals, so many lead changes, so many good teams out early. I decided to compile some data about this.

In 2006, the average number of goals scored was 2.30/game and the average margin of victory was 1.42. The decisive goal (i.e. the one that either tied the game or gave the winning team its final lead) came in the 46th minute, and there were 1.45 lead changes per game.

In 2010, scoring was down a bit: 2.27/game with a margin of 1.23/game. The decisive goal came in the 50th minute and there were 1.34 lead changes per game.

Compare to 2014, where we've played 56 of the 64 games of the tournament. Thus far, we've seen 2.75 goals/game, with an average margin of 1.39. But the decisive goal came in the 59th minute, with 1.77 lead changes per game. Those last two numbers are the most interesting ones: much later decisive goals and many more lead changes. So it isn't just an impression: this is actually happening.

Finally, how many decisive goals came late? In 2006, there were 28 in the 2nd half and 5 after 90 minutes. In 2010, 30 in the 2nd half and 4 after 90. But this year, it's 34 in the 2nd half and fully 9 after 90 minutes. And still 8 games left.

Let's just hope the final match is a good one. After all this action, it would be disappointing to see a 1-0 snoozer where Germany scores in the 22nd minute and then just holds off Argentina for the remaining 68.

Are We Living In a Simulation?

Dr. Nick Bostrom of Oxford says: probably. The basic argument is thus: Suppose that it is possible to make simulations rich enough to fool its inhabitants into thinking they are real. Then such simulations are probably common, given the ease of using computational power. So we are probably living in one rather than in a "real" world.

But really such arguments are specious. Bostrom tries to rigorize his argument by postulating that posthuman civilizations run "ancestor-simulations", but they might just as well run some other form of simulation, perhaps one in which only one observer (you, dear reader, of course!) is self aware, and everyone else is simulated just enough to continue the illusion. In which case his formula is significantly off. So his postulate #2 ("any posthuman civilization is extremely unlikely to run a significant number of simulations of their evolutionary history (or variations thereof)") is in fact quite likely to be true - or maybe it is, how could we know? But once that one is true, the others' truth values become unknown. In fact, in any scenario in which #2 is not followed precisely, Bostrom's math stops working.

This is often the problem with anthropic-principle arguments, and this one is no exception. You might be living in a simulation, but this paper is not a convincing argument.

Hope and Change

The only people who should have been surprised by this are journalists: "America drops to #47 in World Press Freedom Index". This is not the change we were waiting for, I don't think.

Followup: I can't imagine this will help:

But under the Obama administration, the Federal Communications Commission is planning to send government contractors into the nation's newsrooms to determine whether journalists are producing articles, television reports, Internet content, and commentary that meets the public's "critical information needs." Those "needs" will be defined by the administration, and news outlets that do not comply with the government's standards could face an uncertain future. It's hard to imagine a project more at odds with the First Amendment.