Did that subject line, "Elasticity of Supply", and the adjacent equation intimidate you?

It should have! Remember, you are reading the words of a hypereducated multiple-degreed full tenured professor. A person who can demolish any of your "lay" arguments (and your reputation!) with just an iota of my enormous reservoir of brainpower, expertise, and jargon.

So, I invite you to unquestioningly accept this lesson in "elasticity of supply" and use it to reinforce your decision to elect Barack Obama as President.

I will now explain how President Obama's plan to raise taxes is as sound as any law of physics.

Let's use Starbucks as an example of a capitalist entity that is swimming in profits on the backs of labor. Yes, the obvious moral solution is to shutter Starbucks and allow the people to drag the Starbucks owners into the gutter for merciless beatings.

But we will save moral arguments for another time, and concentrate for now on science.

And the science, as President Obama knows, is to tax Starbucks to spread the wealth. So, let's say that a cup of coffee costs $5, and President Obama decrees (after legislation is passed in The People's Assembly) that a tax on this item should be $4.

What happens next?

A right-wing propagandist would say, "That would raise the price of a cup to $9. And since no one would pay $9 for coffee, Starbucks would go out of business, no one would get any coffee, and no taxes would be raised anyway.

If only!

If only it were that easy to kill Starbucks!

But even the fascist propaganda has a kernel of truth: "No taxes would be paid anyway."But "no taxes" is the antithesis of a just nation.

Remember:

Nations are judged by how much the rich pay in taxes. (At least until The Revolution is complete.)

Here is what would really happen when a $4 tax is applied to a $5 cup of coffee: Simply put, the price will remain at $5 -- of which $4 will be returned to the people. And this is because of the elasticity of supply.

In common language (for uneducated common people), the "elasticity of supply" refers to how much less (or more) of an item capitalists would be willing to sell if its price declined (or increased). That is, the change in supply divided by the change in price.

In this case, the "Before Obama" profit was $5, and the "After Obama" profit will be $1. So, we need to determine how many fewer cups of coffee Starbucks will be willing to sell if they only received $1 per cup instead of $5 per cup. And the answer is: There would be absolutely no change! How do we know this?

Because the supply elasticity is always zero!

Capitalists and their corporate marketing departments are insensitive to everything, and so will continue to force us to buy things we do not want.

Let's look at the mathematical proof:

A $5 tax is only one penny higher than a $4.99 tax. And does anyone really believe that a difference of one lousy penny would make any difference to anyone? Don't be stupid! Of course not!

And a $4.99 tax is equal to a $4.98 tax. How do we know this? Because we just proved that Starbucks executives will not change their policies based on a difference of just once cent.

Similarly, a $4.98 tax is equal to a $4.97 tax. A $4.97 tax is equal to a $4.96 tax. And continuing, we see that a one-cent tax is equal to no tax at all.

Therefore, a $5 tax has the same effect on supply as no tax at all. The elasticity of supply is zero, and Starbucks will not alter their behavior regardless of how much the taxes are.

So, tax levels have no relation whatsoever to corporate behavior, and President Obama would be justified in taxing the entire $5 of a $5 cup of coffee

Q.E.D.

Of course, that was just a sample exercise. In practice, this 100% taxation model should not be applied to Starbucks -- but should instead be applied to Starbucks, physicians, pharmaceutical companies, automobile manufacturers, home builders, etc., etc., etc.

After all, as Barack Obama Sr. pointed out, "there is nothing that can stop the government from taxing 100% of income."

For extra credit, think about the effects of a tax that exceeds 100%. That is, a $6 tax on a $5 purchase. Where would that money come from? Hint: They're called CAPITALists for a reason.
You can now go ahead and feel smart for having read my words, even if you lack the cognition to understand them.

Not a problem, though; you will always be taken care of when you leave the decisions to people who are smarter than you.

*****

This post is dedicated to the memory of my junior-year microeconomics professor, who in defending the minimum wage, correctly observed that "no supermarket will fire their baggers if their wages increase by afew cents." The present-day ubiquity of supermarket baggers is atestimony to this man's penetrating insights. Rest in peace, comrade; I will carry the torch for you.

Wow, that is surprisingly close to a real mathematical argument (something I do have some experience in). We can use this for all kinds of progressive arguments. How about this:

LIBERAL TAXATION THEOREM (LTT):
Taxing the rich until they are poor is the only fair way to tax.

Proof:
Increasing taxes by a dollar on a rich man who has 1 million dollars increases his personal tax burden by a factor of 1/1000000. However, increasing taxes by a dollar on a poor man who has 10 dollars increases his tax burden by a factor of 1/10. Its as if the poor man paying 100000 more in taxes than the rich man! Hence, a large increase in taxes on the wealthy is necessary to ensure that they pay their fair share.

Q.E.D.

Corollary: Money is only valuable to those who don't have any.
Proof: Similar technique as the LTT above.

-Pav

Professor, I bow to you. I had at one time a degree in math but it must have been an inferior one because my professors never let me look into such superior arguments. But then they weren't as smart as you are. I humbly suggest, professor, that only Joe Biden approaches your brilliance. And the Chosen One, of course, when he's not walking on water because that takes a significant time slice out of his PDP-11 CPU. But the case looks <i>real</i> pretty and that purr...

But we are beaten, Comrades. In Sweden traffic fines are judged by how much money you have. This is only fair. If you're a rich capitalist swine, you ought to be rendered up into chicharrones.

I propose an exception though. If you are working for The People, as, say a community organizer, or committing voter fraud, but I repeat myself, then you are representing the poor and oppressed and it <i>their</i> income that should matter. And not the sum but the income of the poorest member of that group. I in fact have on Rancho de Rio Grande a wetback with exactly one serape and two sandals made of rope and old tires. I use him as my base for what I'm taxed on. It doesn't matter that he once was a visitor here with a Rolls and a Rolex. What matters is what he is now.

So, dear Professor, let your blinding intellect shine on, yeah, to illumine our dark path and the dark days until the eventual rise of Socialism, Phoenix-like, or like a herpes sore.

Yes, Pioneer Pavlik, scientific socialism is well-grounded in mathematics.

The entire concept of the Greater Good is based on a maximization of a utility curve. These days, the mathematician who will be our next president has determined that social utility is at a maximum when 95% of the people are provided for by taking from the remaining 5%.

On a smaller scale, if I need something that you have, then it should become mine. You won't miss it, and I will be made happy. You can even quantify it if you like: Say, our joint happiness quotient would be increased from "6" to "9" if you gave me what I wanted.

Math is objective and cannot be disputed.

Prof K, PhD, etc.

Professor, perhaps you can help me. The Mexicans I have tiling my house (doing a really good job too) insist on being paid. I tell them that my having their work will make me happy where they have lots of years left to work for other people who might pay them. But this argument falls on deaf ears.

Mexicans are, as you may know, a practical people who have not in general been enlightened with an Ivy League education and so cannot be expected to know that the greater good is more important than trifles like their rent and feeding their families. They just don't get that.

I don't know what we are to do with them. They insist on working and wanting to be paid. They insist on showing up at my house and making sure that things work they way they should. And at my office too. Now it's entirely fitting that they do that for me, for I'm one of the elite, not as elite as you, dear Professor--no one is except the Chosen one when he's not walking on water--but what if the Mexicans do that <i>all</i> the time?

They won't have time for RAGE! And we can't have that.

A glorious application of the Theory of Induction in service to scientific socialism! You surely will be put on the committee seeking to repeal the laws of Gravity and Thermodynamics in order to make Obama's perpetual motion machine a reality and thus solve the world's energy problems! Or maybe the new Politburo the new Congress will simply legislate the whole mess away and your gigantic brain can be put to work explaining Obama's thoughts to the rest of us mere mortals (if you can, that is, given what a genius Obama is, it would be like Einstein explaining Marx to the Neanderthals!)

Maybe you can take on something simpler first, like explaining Joe Biden.... just what the hell did he mean when he said there would be an international crisis (several crises?) in the first six months of Obama's Reign and that we might not realize Obama was doing the right thing? And that we may come to doubt Obama like we rightfully doubted that chimp idiot Bush? Fool! Nothing can make me doubt Obama. My faith in him is like the anonymous White Star Line's employee's faith in the Titanic; not even God Himself can sink it. Please confirm the infallibility of the Obama.

Opiate, how wise you are to invoke the theory of induction. For deduction is so hard, so hard. It requires <i>thinking</i> which I swore I would never do. Brain in a Jar, Ivan Betinov, has voluntarily put his brain in a jar to avoid thinking. And he's a professor. Of history. He knows which side his brain is bettered on.

Once, when I was merely a student sitting at the feet of my pedagogues, I was told to study a nine-page proof by induction of a theory in formal languages. I could not do it. It seems that the first symbol ought to have been not a phi but a theta.

I have learned from this, Opiate, I have learned from this. I drove around Houston for two hours in the middle of night listening to C&W music taking the lesson of the insoluble proof. Which proved nothing.

I had not then risen to the level of being a Comrade of the People, and so did not understand the Current Truth. Had I understood the Current Truth I would have gone to Dr. Blattner and said, "Meera, this makes no sense. I shall fix it." And then would have done so to the acclaim of the people for my brave and decisive action.

Ah, Opiate. How wise of you to bring up proof by induction. Because if you're careful you can prove anything, and the Current Truth is what we say it is.™

Forgive me comrade Kurgan, for I have only gone to state run institutions. Therefore I only know how to put on a condom and I know that if I try real hard 3+3 doesn't necessarily have to equal 6. So my self esteem is pretty good. But what you're saying is that Obama's taxes will be ridiculously high, and unrealistic, da?

Commissar Theocritus wrote:I drove around Houston for two hours in the middle of night listening to C&W music taking the lesson of the insoluble proof. Which proved nothing.

I knew it! We went to school together!! (at least same town)

But as I drove around Houston trying to induct the truth of Fourier transforms, I took a wrong turn and ended getting inducted into Naval Brigade to fight Ronnie Raygun's evil empires.

If only John F'in Kerry would have warned me against dropping out and ending up in Bu$hitler's military. Yah, it took me over 20 years to find the way out, not that I enjoyed terrorizing....Oh, sorry, wrong blog thread.



But you are correct, with mathematical proof you can prove that reality is irrelevant and thus Hope is Change...or was it that Change is Hope? Either way...The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind...which brings up why we need Obama and his Weathermen friends to bring change.




Comrade “Pul”
Tiglath-Pileser III
Over 2753 Years of Organizing Communities

Comrade Pul, I was immerded at Rice, graduating in 1978. How I wish that I had Professor Fishbein, who was in the psychology department. She was such a stalwart person. She had only one sentence, "Women have to get control of their bodies."

Whereas not a single person that I knew had any desires whatsoever for hers, leaving control of her body entirely and completely, totally and with absolute certitude, up to her.

Rice '85. Ah, so we missed each other by just 4 years. I ignobly left Rice in my 4th year, rather than change my major. In the end, I had no job, no place to live—for nearly a month I slept in the study lounge at Hanszen and ate handouts in Valhalla. I always had free Shiner Bock. I was the only undergrad bar tender at the grad lounge; a volunteer bar tender that worked for free peanuts and free beer.

Obama could only hope for that kind of progressive paradise.

The Navy looked good after a month of stale sandwiches and peanuts.

But if Starbucks is making an unfair profit on the backs of Labor, wouldn't it make sense to simply mandate that Starbucks only charge $1.00 for a cup of coffee? Then the money that is rightfully the worker's stays in the worker's pocket without all the rigamarole.

Margaret! To the reeducation camps for you. Instanter! Hear and believe, young woman. The <i>stated</i> point of the exercise is money in the hands of the people. The <i>real</i> point of the exercise is <b>getting control of that money</b>. Who gives a shit how much and where as long as we control it.


Pul, I am also a Hanszen member although I only spent 1 year on campus. The non-existant room 101 in the Old Tower. The old commons, which burned. Too bad for I left some graffiti there which was memorialized. I had a war with a man named Mandell, who thought I'd insulted a friend of his and started attacking me. I left this

There was a young man named Mandell
Whose presence put others in hell.
It's often been said
When he thought of the eead
That his penis would instantly swell.

He was pre-med and I saw, over a decade later, that he was a pathologist at Harvard. I am a career counselor.

Margaret -

Starbucks should not be compelled to charge $1 for a cup of coffe; they should instead be compelled to give it away for free.

Remember: "Property" is just a false abstract notion; everything belongs to the people.

Prof. K, PhD etc.

Commissar Theocritis:

A most fitting position for that infidel Mandell. And, although I am cowering down, I must plead with you not to send Margaret to the re-education camp. She is like me. It's so hard to grasp the concept of this excercise. That is why I leave such matters to the inner Party to determine, as they MUST.
Also, please, what is immerded? I am lacking the proper dictionary or perhaps spelling to look it up. Is there a especial dictionary for us lowly proles to consult so that we may absorb the Party's message all the more clearly and save you having to correct us endlessly?

Praise you for your attention,

Che' Gourmet

<i>Immerded</i>, a word I learned from Christopher Hitchens, once the noble literary editor of a Marxist magazine, but now, sadly, one of those who attacked the Glorious Clintons, means "covered in shit." I'm sure from the French <i>merde</i>, meaning nothing more or less than "shit."

Cf. German <i>Scheisse</i>. Latin <i>fimus</i>. Or any word with the stem <i>copro</i> in it, from the Greek. Never forget that in any language <i>caca</i> will usually have the same effect.

It's good for a party member to know these things. After all, do you only have one name for a bullet?

Thanks Professor. Now I can pretend to understand economics even more better!

Oh yes, Margaret, of course. I too pretend to understand things. We all pretend to understand things, except of course for the Chosen One, who as taken over from Our Many Titted Empress as being the most brilliant person on the face of the earth.

But, and this is in camera, in the middle of the night I woke up and had a horrible dream that the Chosen One was actually a puppet that looks real good.

I shot myself for the heresy.

Commissar Theocritus wrote:For deduction is so hard, so hard.

I dunno.... the gubmint has no trouble doing deduction to my paycheck.

Opiate, I mean mathematical deduction. The government's REduction of your paycheck is not a mathematical one. It is merely common, garden-variety brigandry.

Your vast knowledge of the incidence of tax proves you are a TRAITOR! You have been educated beyond the STATE's CURRICULUM!

...dispatching goons from the gulag....prepare for re-education!
<br>www.offeringcommonsense.blogspot.com

Shouldn't elitist know it alls be forced to undergo lobotomies so the ungifted will feel better about themselves? Shouldn't Kurgman undergo his surgery in a government hospital with government surgeons? Color me unimpressed by this nitwits theories. It is I who has smarts real good. Ever outwit and pummel a man who held a gun to your bat Kurggles? Didn't think so. That's some real man thinking, you Poser. Can't believe I put down my shot glass and paused Urban Cowboy to read this crap. Here is a question Kurggles. How much Vodka would a man who weighed 220 pds have to drink in order to reach a BAC. of .22, after eating 3 chicken pot pies and a quart of Rocky Road? LIAR! You know nothing! Wait, this is my favorite part of the movie:

"Hell I know, I pretty near lost Corrine and the kids a couple of times just 'cause of pride. You know you think that ol' pride's gonna choke you going down but I tell you what ain't a night goes by I don't thank the boss up there for giving me a big enough throat. 'Cause without Corrine and them kids hell I'd just be another pile of dog shit in the canteloupe patch just drawing flys"

Looking for love.. in all the wrong places...Uh...ohhh..I think I'm going to throw up.

Union Boss, Professor Krugman or whatever does grate but sometimes we have to put up with it. Joe the Biden yells at people in the audience all the time, "I think I'm smarter than you." Personally I think he's drunker, not smarter. Watch the eyes.

Think of the brainiacs we have. Robert Reich, the haughty homunculus. When he wasn't secretary of labor he was consulting with God over the angels' contracts. Which they didn't have until Reich insisted on it.

What we need to fear is education because that lets people think. But that's under control. The National Educational Agency sucks up more and more money and does a worse and worse job.

That's great.