Ignorance. Again.

Nattering Naybob: Hello, The Red Ranger. A particular theme that I come back to time and time again, both in our little blog and in pre-Second Grade Minds emails that we have exchanged (on our companys’ time I might add), is ignorance of the general public and the decreasing level of intellectual curiosity among our populus. Oh, we generally know which are the hottest iPhone and Android apps, and we can decipher the complex mechanism of the latest smartphone we have purchased, and how to transfer pictures from said phone, via our TV, thru our MiFi device, and divide half of the gallery and send one half to our desktop computer in the attic and the other half of the gallery to our spouse’s smartphone (“You mean you don’t know how to do that? It’s simple….”), but when it comes to basic knowledge about civics, government, current affairs, or anything not related to amusement, electronic gadgets, or entertainment, most people don’t care anymore.

This article by CNBC’s Dan Mangan that appears NBCnews.com, shows how the general public’s ignorance of how the new features of Obamacare (the President himself calls it that), is costing us money and restricting us from taking advantage of some of the hard-earned victories of the Health Care battle.

Here is a key passage from the article

Making the job of selling the brand-new exchanges even more difficult is the public’s general ignorance about health insurance. A recent Journal of Health Economics study found that just 14 percent of people were able to correctly define all of four insurance terms that could affect plan-buying decisions: deductibles, copays, coinsurance and maximum out of pocket costs.

But the persistent ignorance about the Obamacare exchanges is striking given extensive news coverage of the health-reform law upheld by the Supreme Court last year as well as a presidential election, which was seen as a referendum on President Barack Obama’s championing of the legislation.

Now I know what you are going to say, Red Ranger: that the Health Care plan is too complicated and too confusing. That may have some credence, and I am sure that the President and his staff did not do the best job they could have in explaining its features. But still, is it not another example of how in this age of supposed unprecedented access to learning (especially via the internet), the general knowledge level, and maybe more importantly, the desire of citizens to learn about topics that affect them, is a sad commentary on the state of our society. Now wouldn’t you agree with that, The Red Ranger.

The Red Ranger: I do agree with you that the general public does not take the time to educate themselves in regard to many of the issues that impact them the most.  How else could you explain an inexperienced, buffoon like Obama being elected President.

However, I too am not all that well informed about how the exchanges work.  One of the key reasons being that I have insurance thru my employer and I was ensured by Obama during the debate regarding Obamacare that I would be able to keep this insurance so there really is no reason for me to spend time learning about the exchanges at this point since I should not need to avail myself to their services.

For something as large as Obamacare the government should have undertaken a media information campaign similar to all the infomercials that are on TV.  They should have created short 30 minute max, informational videos and then bought time on the airwaves and posted on YouTube, Netflix, Hulu, Facebook, Twitter and any other social media site that people are flocking to these days.  For an administration that is supposedly so media savvy they really haven’t done a good job here.

Nattering Naybob: With the exception of a couple of absurd sentences, I find some merit in your retort, especially the last paragraph. That is essentially the crux of my point, that all the social media and internet-based means of communication should be put to better use than simply showing videos of people walking out of restrooms with toilet paper stuck to their shoe. And you are right, some of the ingenuity and innovation that went into his two election victories, should have been employed in the public review portion of Project Obamacare.

Estate Tax Lunacy

The Red Ranger: Since the Nattering Naybob is an artist I thought this might be an interesting topic.

A wealthy art dealer died in NY leaving their art collection valued at close to 1 billion dollars to her heirs.  Of course this triggered a massive tax bill of which about $471 million has been paid.  Strangely there is one piece of art which contained a bald eagle that the IRS valued at $69M triggering a tax due of $29M.  However, the heirs cannot sell the item since it is illegal to sell/possess a bald eagle.  Christie’s has placed a value of zero on the item.  After paying $471 million in taxes you would think that the IRS could cut them some slack on this item.

Aside from the crazy insistence of the IRS to try to continue to collect the tax on this item, the mere existence of the estate tax seems unfair.  I believe currently the first $5M of an estate is exempt from taxation but then the estate is subject to taxes up to 35% at the federal level with additional taxes being possible at the state level.  In 2013, the federal amounts are schedule to change to only a $1M exemption and top tax rates of 55%.

What is the rationale for forcing a family to dismantle something that has been accumulated over time with dollars that have already been taxed just because a person dies?  This is just another means to force the 1% to pay for the 50% who do not pay any federal income tax.  I would love to know how that $471M that the estate has paid already in taxes was spent.  Was some of it used to pay for Obama’s vacations on Martha’s Vineyard?

Here is the link to the full story.

Nattering Naybob: To answer your last point first, yes, I guess a case can be made that indirectly any tax revenue that comes into the US Treasury, may potentially be used to subsidize the expenses connected with President Obama’s vacations… the same way that taxpayer money has been used to subsidize the vacations of all Presidents prior to Barack Obama, most recently and perhaps most notably one George W. Bush, who spent approximately 32% of his 8 years as President, on vacation according to some sources (since Presidents are always “on call” and sometimes entertain other leaders or hold meetings while on “vacation”, the number of days a President really spends on vacation is always open to interpretation.)

Now onto your polemic about Estate Taxes, am I to understand that an actual live bald eagle was considered a “work of art” in the first place, and furthermore worth $69 million? Anyone crazy enough to consider a live bald eagle to be a work of art deserves to get taxed to the greatest extent of the law, and then some.

I find it odd that Republicans such as yourself are always saying that each individual must make his or her own way in the world, yet you have no qualms about wealth that is churned over and over within families, often times to latter-day heirs that conceivably bring no value to society whatsoever. Likewise, I do not buy into another traditional Republican talking point that says entrepreneurs will not unleash their full creative or industrial firepower because they are afraid that most of their subsequent earnings will be seized by the IRS. Reminds me of when Victoria Jackson (former squeaky-voiced ca. 1995 cast member of Saturday Night Live) once said on Fox News that the reason you have not seen her performing much anymore is that she does not want to do the hard work required to perform if “Obama” is going to turn around and take most of her money in taxes. No, Victoria, the reason you are not performing is that nobody thinks you’re funny anymore, if they even did in the first place.

How we wound up on Victoria Jackson from a bald eagle that is considered art, I have no explanation for, expect for the fact that both concepts are equally absurd.

The Red Ranger:  While not officially on vacation I am sure that if you include all the rounds of golf and fund raisers that Obama attends he puts his “out of office” reply on more than Bush did.  I can just imagine his out of office reply, “Thank you for your message.  I am currently playing golf/attending a fund raiser.  If this message is of an emergency nature please contact Joe Biden at 1-800-NO-OBAMA.”

I do not think that the bald eagle was actually alive.  I think is was a stuffed bald eagle that was worked into the piece of art.

I find it odd that Democrats such as yourself would criticize the passing of wealth onto heirs who you would view as contributing no value to society when your basic premise is to redistribute wealth to those who contribute no value to society whatsoever.

As far as Victoria Jackson goes, I believe that the basic thought is that while an entrepreneur will work to get to a certain station in life the cost of achieving more in a high tax environment is greater than the benefit received thereby making the effort counterproductive.

Nattering Naybob:  I don’t think you can classify the effort required by entrepreneurs to be “counter-productive”. The Estate tax is not a complete negation of the profits that can be achieved by someone who brings to market a product that the public wants or needs (or of which the public can be convinced they want or need). For example, do you think that the genius of the Beatles, or their creative output, was stymied, or that they did not try as hard, because the tax rate in Great Britain was extremely high back in the 1960s? I think the theory that high tax rates or less-than-ideal economic conditions thwarts ingenuity, is largely a red herring. While not directly related to taxes per se’, remember that the iPhone and iPad was developed and rolled out to market, primarily during the darkest days of the economic collapse of 2008. Those economic conditions certainly did not discourage Steve Jobs, nor did the fluctuation of the tax rates over the years.

The Red Ranger:  The effort to the economy as a whole may not be counter productive but it is to the individual.

Work began on the iPhone in 2005 and it was rolled out in 2007.  Work on the iPad actually started before the iPhone but was shelved for a while as it was identified that the iPhone would do a lot of things that the iPad could.  So to your point these great technological advancements were accomplished during the period of reduced taxes under Bush.  Let’s see what happens in the next few years under Obama’s ever-present tax raising cloud. Next topic.