Brad “DeLing” takes some wingnut law professor to school.
What is it with law profs, btw? And has he thought about going Galt and withdrawing all his productivity?
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You are here: Home / Politics / Glibertarianism / If This Guy Had Any Self-Awareness, This Post Would Humiliate Him
Davis X. Machina
Xenophanes the pre-Socratic used to say that if horses and cattle had hands, and could fashion images of their gods, they would — surprise — have hooves and horns.
When rich people start drawing up tax legislation, I always think of Xenophanes….
Martin
Wingnut does not belong in the same sentence as self-awareness, and humiliation – by definition.
Omnes Omnibus
Elizabeth Warren is a law prof.
Omnes Omnibus
Elizabeth Warren is a law prof.
Comrade Luke
All joking aside, that post by Deling* is a really great explanation of what’s going on in society right now, using language that everyone can understand (except maybe Chicago law professors).
* I know, I know – but it’s too funny to not call him that at least once :)
Davis X. Machina
I’ll never know why Deling ever left private practice for acadamia. Perhaps he didn’t get on with the other senior partner, Wheeling.
Jewish Steel
That was delicious.
But @Davis X. Machina: , from pre-Socratics to plunge down to a pun of that quality?
I think I’ve got the bends.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
as Professor Deling points out, this guy and his wife made a lot of very expensive decisions– buying a big house at the peak of the market, driving expensive cars, having three kids that they feel are too good for public schools–before they paid off their massive student loans. And given the general tone of his post, and the fact that he works a petulant reference to Tony Rezsko into his whine, I’m gonna guess he voted for Bush twice. We should drive the country further into debt for a pair of vain, stupid yuppies who make bad life choices?
Bob Loblaw
You should probably also link to the O’Hare post that set this all off to begin with:
http://www.samefacts.com/2010/09/economics/the-whining-of-the-rich/
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Bob Loblaw: gotta love the way he makes it sound as if their million dollar house and renovations (granite countertops! I’ll bet) is an act of altruism
Amanda in the South Bay
I think its a general problem in America-people who by any rational, sane standard are rich seem to think they have to live a ridiculously affluent lifestyle.
In general, if I made a six figure salary, I could never imagine having a cash flow problem-spending all my money on rich ass fucking shit really isn’t something I’d do.
Davis X. Machina
@Amanda in the South Bay:
Oh, but the books, the books one could buy…….sorry, drifted away there.
I almost empathize with Professor Penurious. Almost.
Whaddaya say we get some of that stimulus money, and use it to revive a dying industry — tumbrel making.
azlib
Brad does a good job taking his argument apart. This guy is so self unaware it is not funny. Yes, he may have a cashflow problem, but he is increasing his equity by an amount much larger than most people’s salaries. He also is doing it because programs like IRAs and 401Ks which he has enough money to contribute to are subsidized by government policy. What a jerk!
sherifffruitfly
Utter and complete pwnage.
New Yorker
@Amanda in the South Bay:
It has to do with who your peers are, I’m sure. I live in a nice middle-class part of Brooklyn (Greenpoint), make a good amount of money more than the median here, and feel relatively affluent. If I moved to, say, Brownsville, I’d probably feel like John D, Rockefeller. On the other hand, if I moved to Brooklyn Heights, I’d probably feel poor.
That’s the problem with all these people who “don’t feel rich” despite making absurd amounts of money relative to the median income in this country: there’s always someone else they know that has more, and they have to sit there seething over the fact that they can drive 2 Mercedes-Benzes, live in Lake Forest, IL, and send their 3 children to private school but GODDAMMIT, STEVE DOWN THE BLOCK HAS A SKI CONDO IN ZERMATT! IT’S NOT FAIR THAT I CAN’T AFFORD THAT! OBVIOUSLY, I’M NOT RICH!
New Yorker
Also, too, DeLong’s takedown was excellent.
Amanda in the South Bay
@Davis X. Machina:
Oh of course; if I made that much money I’d be tempted to blow it all at Powells.
I guess…well, I guess if more adults had to go through periods of being poor, living paycheck to paycheck, then I think you’d see less conspicuous consumption. If your only experience of doing shitty work was working at Burger King in college, then as soon as you graduated started upward mobility, you might, just might fall prey to this malady.
I think there’s something to this; not just growing up poor, but living poor as an adult, having to bring home the bacon and balance the checkbook on your own, it can give people wisdom and maturity.
I guess from my dirt poor perch I’ve long since accepted it as true for all Americans, regardless of their wingnut status, that the more money you make, of course you’re gonna indulge in stuff that leaves you short of cash at the end of the month. And I don’t dare bring it up to most people, because I’m sure that most people, regardless of their political affiliation, would defend it as the product of hard work, sweat, blah de fucking dah.
Sorry for the long rant, some stuff really gets personal.
Karmakin
DeLong, I think has the social part of this exactly right. It’s comparing yourself with those above you, not to those below you and realizing how lucky you are.
It really is a huge cultural issue. And if you ask me, it’s the reason why most politicians do what they do. It’s not corruption or anything like that. It’s simply their background and experience.
The ironic thing is that most of their costs will basically inflate to whatever they can spare. Private school costs so much because their class has made so much money that they can “afford” to pay that much. Same thing with housing. And much the same way with health care. At the end of the day, unless you’re at the top of the mountain, the culture/economy is designed to result in a situation where pretty much everybody is behind the curve.
Batocchio
There are many conservative lawyers and law profs out there, and they all seem to make really crappy arguments. With the professors (Reynolds, Althouse, Colonel Mustard, this Henderson guy) you would think they’d have to be at least marginally competent. But no…
Davis X. Machina
@Amanda in the South Bay:
Oh, do I know those people…. (Insert mp3 file of grinding teeth.) Whatever they do, they must be excused, because for a couple of semesters they walloped pots in the dining hall.
Dickens, I think, in book after book where the hero(ine) lands in affluence’s lap at the end, had it about right. It’s not the money that makes you the asshole, it isn’t even what you do with the money that makes you the asshole, it’s the belief that you’re entitled to the money that makes you the asshole. That’s my takeaway, anyhoo, from recently having finished Little Dorrit..
Omnes Omnibus
@Amanda in the South Bay: People do adjust fairly quickly to have more. It becomes normal. This is not to say that everyone becomes a d-bag, of course.
JGabriel
Davis X. Machina:
Are you sure that’s right? I thought Deling’s partner was Wheelong.
.
JGabriel
@Jewish Steel: __
You get the bends from going up; when you go down you get …
Wow, there’s too just too many directions to go with that one.
.
joe from Lowell
I think we owe Professor Henderson a debt of gratitude for his efforts to stimulate the economy.
His piece is a real shot in the arm for the tiny little violin industry.
Amanda in the South Bay
@Davis X. Machina:
Yeah its…arrgh, this is really personal for me.
Last spring I had a bit of an emotional meltdown (which involved being 5150’d for a night in the hospital and being homeless for two weeks) because I was having trouble finding a place to live.
I’m a poor college student with a part time job-so not destitute, but its hard to find a trans friendly roommate near public trans that is close to work and school that is affordable. So, I spent the month of February stressing to hell about it, then at the end of February when I had to move out of my old place (roommate decided to leave) I sorta had a massive meltdown.
My friends weren’t very supportive; in my bitterness I’ve attributed it to the fact that either they all make shit tons of Silicon Valley money, or its simply been a long time since they’ve been poor and that close to falling off the edge.
Now, I’m sure if you asked them my view may be biased as all fuck, but my experience has led me to believe that affluence corrupts-it corrupts everyone, trans, queer, psychedelic hippie, conservative Catholic Republican-it corrupts everyone and blinds you to what life is like for those below you.
A lot of what I’ve said on this thread has sorta been my own response to what happened and working out my own half assed sociological theories about why things are the way they are.
Davis X. Machina
@JGabriel: Reminds me of The Diary of a Nobody, where the hero, Mr. Pooter, has two friends — a Mr. Cummings, and a Mr. Gowing.
Sharl
This site’s Business and Economics Editor should be all over this one, before his counterpart over at The Atlantic beats him to the punch.
Davis X. Machina
@Amanda in the South Bay:
My mother (82, Irish, Catholic as the day is long) has always told us, over and over again, that while there were lots of commandments the only unforgivable sin is to forget where you came from.
God, did she hate Reagan…..
And on edit: My lovely Jewish wife, who’s fast-breaking across the table here, reminds me that in the Passover Hagadah, we are reminded that each one of us must act as though we, personally, today, were one of the slaves whom He set free from Egypt.
You don’t get to forget.
Ajay
I work on wall street. When the bail out was in progress, dems put a proposal to tax heavily bonuses/income beyond 250K as bailed out firms doled out tons of cash as bonuses to its employees. (It ultimately failed because of heavy lobbying).
I was just shocked to see that all these so called capitalists who were getting handouts from govts, instead of being thankful that they had a job (courtesy of our govt), were enraged that their bonus right was being taken away.
It was eye opener in some respects for me. I do think most Americans are just idiots/morons; I dont think they understand cause and effect. Anti socialists will gladly take socialist money and still hate socialism.
This law prof is simply another idiot because he supported all actions that will cost more and should take away bigger chunk of his salary as taxes. But the disconnect will always be there because he is essentially a Retard.
Bruuuuce
What is it with professors at U of Chicago? The law professors are as incompetent at understanding economics as the ones in the economics department.
Lose the blinders, guys.
LarsThorwald
I think Brod Deling has hit the nail, and spotted the rub.
Progressives tend to look down and see those who have it worse and wonder how the fuck they got so lucky and (for the most part) how they can help the guy right there with them or worse off than them. Conservatives (or what passes for them these days) look up and see who has it better. And how they can get there.
So why does the low-middle class white guy driving a beater 1987 Tercel with the bulging midsection and the shitty job with shitty pay from shitty management always nod in agreement with Rush and pull that voting booth lever against his own self interests every. single. time?
Because of his contempt for those who have it better, not just economically, but socially. Those blacks who get what he can’t because they are welfare cheats. Those fags with disposable income prancing around with their San Francisco Values and who are always so goddamned happy. Why are they so happy? More importantly, why isn’t he that happy? Fuck them. And those college educated bastards earning more than him? Latte sipping elites. All helped by a libveral media who wants to help Those People, but keep Captain Tercel down.
So he identifies himself in ways that put him in his own 1% bracket of Real Merikans, his own 1% bracket of patriots, his own 1% bracket of the Truly Chosen by Providence. Because that gives him comfort until he can think of a way to get into that real 1% economically. And if it never happens, well, then, we know whose fault that is, don’t we?
Democrats are pathetic because they can’t get unified. But the Republican base, the Tea Party Express…those types of folks I have real pity for because they are willingly being used and they don’t fucking know it or care either way.
Henderson should know better, he has a brain. And he got the beating from Brud DuLange he so richly deserved.
JPL(formerly demo woman)
John, How are you feeling? It’s been a while since we’ve the animals at the zoo, so if you are feeling up to it, pictures would be appreciated.
joe from Lowell
Democrats look at the poor and think, “There but for the grace of God go I.”
Republicans look at the poor and think, “God (and/or The Invisible Hand, same thing) likes me better than those people.” And then think, “Hey, if God likes me, how come I’m driving this 300 series instead of the 700 series?” The answer they come up with is usually black, urban, and Democratic.
Bob Loblaw
@Bruuuuce:
This is unintentionally amusing given who the President and newest Supreme Court justice are and where they came from.
ruemara
@Amanda in the South Bay:
If you were in NoCal, you could shack up in my hippie hut, but I am glad that you passed through that fire and are stable now.
This was some awesomesauce take down of a pompous windbag, but I am sure that self awareness will elude him for the rest of his life.
I could use a touch of help, not to threadjack. Got any favourite “I hate the gubmint” type quote from elected or campaigning conservatives. I’ve been sorting through the wit and wisdom of these guys for days, and I need as many as I can find, yet my stomach and mind seem to be feeling queasy.
Maude
@Amanda in the South Bay:
You werer stressing about survival issues, not whether your manicure was faulty. Some people need to feel superior and money seems to be one thing that they cling to as proof that they are indeed better than. Religion, also, too.
I’m so sorry that happened to you. These are bad times.
Lot of mean folk out there.
cleter
I really don’t have any sympathy for a guy struggling to eke out a living on half a million dollars a year. Boo frickin’ hoo.
Honus
He’s not a tax lawyer, so he doesn’t completely understand the proposed changes in the code? I am, and the big secret is, it’s not that complicated, at least on his level, unless you’re obsessive about minimizing every tiny sliver of taxes you might pay, both short and long term, then it gets impossible, because, well, you can’t predict the future.
He’s a fucking law professor at the University of Chicago, and he can’t figure out his own goddam section of the tax code? What does he teach? I mean what the hell does one of the top 5 law schools in the country think he can impart to his students if he’s too stupid or lazy to figure out his own tax picture on more than a third-grade arithmetic level?
And still get it wrong. The guy is saving almost $150,000 per year, and calling it an expense. He’s paying an extra 15k per year in equity on his house, and also pays 60K on his student loans, on which the interest is higher and not deductible. And this guy is a putative educator of attorneys.
Honus
Oh, and his taxes aren’t going up much at all because as far as I can tell from his itemization, only about 300k of his income is taxable.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Honus: You get to a couple of questions I had– I wasn’t sure about the interest rate/deductibility of student loans, or if they can be paid off early, etc. Aside from all the lookitme/high status choices this narcissistic yuppie asshole has convinced himself are necessities, does it make any financial sense, the way market returns and interest rates are, to be saving instead of paying off those loans? Also he ‘can’t afford’ to hire a CPA? Please.
also, too, I majored in lit at a third tier school and I understand marginal tax rates. This fucknutz has an engineering degree from Princeton and he can’t even figure out basic personal finance.
leftyjoe
Mr Cole:
Becoming a law professor IS going Galt. Trust me.
fasteddie9318
I need to say something in defense of my former school: the whole place isn’t populated by douchebags like this. Get rid of the law school, the economics school, the business school, the public policy school, the medical school…OK, fuck, that’s a lot of assholes for one campus. But still, the faculty in some of the other disciplines (coincidentally, or not, they tend to be in the the fields where they don’t pay faculty a quarter million per) are really great.
hilzoy
Wow. That guy has caused me to have something that is (mercifully) very, very rare: an actual Maoist moment. Because I think this couple would be greatly improved by spending a couple of years in the countryside being barefoot doctors and lawyers, living in a trailer park, and trying to get by on, oh, say, minimum wage. (See? I’m nicer than Mao! Also, no dunce caps!)
Honus
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: And even a lit major from a 3rd tier school can probably figure out that since the guy has an income of 455k and has budgeted 80k in state and federal taxes, his effective federal tax rate is less than 20%, and probably less than 15%. (remember, he says the 80k is state AND federal)
El Cid
DeLong did a great job, but I just wanted to say that I fucking hate this god-damned ungrateful son of a bitch. He can fuck off and die, as far as I’m concerned.
morzer
@hilzoy:
Tempting as it might be to send the wretched little beast down to the country, one must remember that the laonong (peasants) live there too. What have they done to deserve this self-pitying burden?
Jewish Steel
@JGabriel:
Oh, dude. Of course.
Maybe you get this:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Ao3Z5I6FI8
Or is that from coming up again? I can’t swim anyway…
300baud
@morzer:
The nice thing about America is that we have enough land that we can set up whole towns run by former law professors, wall street traders, Fox News anchors, think-tank pundits, lobbyists, and other people who are unclear on the benefits of honest work. No need to ruin things for current country folk.
As government programs go, it would be a cheap one to run. I figure we just fence in 50 square miles of land and let ’em go to it. Maybe we can install some cameras first and sell TV rights. If their Galtian fantasies are right, they should do very well. And if not, well, their lord-of-the-flies meltdown should be well timed for the fall viewing season.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@Martin: “Wingnut does not belong in the same sentence as self-awareness, and humiliation – by definition. “
By definition, a wingnut lacks self-awareness and is incapable of humiliation.
My FSM, this asshole makes nine times the median income, thinks he is just struggling along making it from day to day and increasing his taxes is unfair? Like it or not, we are all responsible for the debt our nation carries, regardless of whether or not we supported what created it. We own it, or rather it owns us and too many refuse to see that.
This guy seems to be doing quite well in America and more power to him for his accomplishments. If he didn’t live in this country his lot in life might be a bit different. Progressive tax rates means (to me) that ‘to each according to their means’. If you are doing very well in life then you should be willing to pay increased taxes to support the society that made that possible.
Nope, it’s ‘I made it to the top and everything is mine so keep your grubby hands off of it!’
JasonF
I’m a graduate of U of C law and I have never been more embarrassed to type that sentence than I am right now. The one redeeming factor is that I never had a class with Prof. Henderson (I’m not even sure he was teaching yet when I was there).
Anyway, Hyde Park is a gorgeous neighborhood with lots of million dollar homes. It also has lots of working class people, and if you walked just a block or two from the law school, you’d see one of the poorest urban neighborhoods in America. Anybody in his position who doesn’t realize how good he has it must be blind or stupid (or both).
JasonF
Henderson responds here.
Emma
LeftyJoe: I was going to comment, but yours is much better. And perfectly accurate.
Jewish Steel
Henderson:
Didn’t Reagan
1) Raise taxes?
2) Expand the government?
And wasn’t the marginal tax rate higher then?
Anecdotally, everyone I’ve ever met from The University of Chicago has been a sweetly clueless brainiac nerd.
If that description makes any sense.
Amanda in the South Bay
I posted a rather…strong comment in reply to his response. I noticed its still in moderation, so I don’t know if he’ll ever get around to posting it.
Still, I didn’t hold back.
Cacti
As one of the commenters in Prof. Deling’s blog pointed out, when someone who can afford to spend more than the median household income on…
1. Pre-tax retirement savings
2. Sending three kids to private school
And then complains about how tough they have it…
It’s the reason why the poor occasionally revolt, riot and drag out the guillotines.
Amanda in the South Bay
@ruemara:
Ah, I am in NoCal! At least if you define the Bay Area as No Cal, as opposed to points futher north.
The “South Bay” in my nom de internet refers to Santa Clara County.
mai naem
This guy is a freaking maroon. And a WATB at that. “Wahhhhhh, so this is how it feels to be attacked by people who don’t know you.” Are you kidding me? Man up dude. “My grandaddee was a coal miner wahhhh” Hey, maroon, a good part of your income is coming from the government. I am willing to bet that his wife(oooh she treats kids with cancer, wahhhhhh see what a good person she is) has a good chunk of her income coming from government programs. And a good bunch of his income is from government student loans, grants etc. so maroon STFU. OMG, where do these people come from? And who is paying $60k in loans 7-10 yrs after they graduated? Also too, maroon, nobody told you to produce 3-4 kids. Nobody told you to buy a million dollar home. And BTW maroon, how about we take your mortgage interest deduction away.
My dad who came from a much much humbler background who did real well for himself didn’t have a problem with paying taxes because as he used to say, that is your price of admission to living in this country. If you don’t want to pay it,moron, I suggest a move to low tax Somalia.
And one more piece of advice moron look for a good public school. Yes, they are out there.
Odie Hugh Manatee
This guy is just pathetic in his response to DeLong.
Absolutely pathetic.
Bruuuuce
@Bob Loblaw: Not that unintentional. I think the Prez ought to have pushed harder for the bigger stimulus the Dems originally wanted, and that he could have laid it out plainly and clearly, before the screeching hordes got to the media. (I also agree with the letter recently sent by 300 economists urging him not to worry about the deficit, if it means creating jobs.) Maybe it was Barbie whispering in his ear (“math is HARD“) :-(
dww44
@joe from Lowell:
Last Saturday I listened to PHC with GK on my public radio and laughed out loud at the following, which really is a whole lot better heard than read. Turns out, though, that Mr. Keillor actually did this part originally a decade or so ago. It was part of a skit on various denominations, starting with and ending with the Lutherans, of course.
It has ever been thus with those of that persuasion.
Mike G
@LarsThorwald:
Because they’re full of hate and have low tolerance for complexity and ambiguity, and the Repigs give them nice, clear targets for their hate that the Dems don’t. Maybe it’s as simple as that.
Captain Tercel thought he’d be, nay deserved to be because he’s a Real Murkan(TM), a pro athlete or a movie star or rock star or fighter pilot or zillionaire by the age of 30. It can’t be his fault, and he can’t criticize the prevalent bullshitty culture of unrealistic daydreams he bought into because that would be Hating Murka, so it must be the fault of the Others.
Turn Rush up louder, and drown out the troubling complexity, mental conflict and uncertainty with a pure minty-clean blast of hate; it’s all so simple now.
d0n camillo
@Amanda in the South Bay: It’s up there. I think this guy is like McMegan. He doesn’t realize he’s fighting above his weight class and he’s going to keep swinging until Professor DeLing takes pity on him and knocks him out of the ring.
different church-lady
Shorter Professor Todd: “OMG! AFTER I SPEND ALL OF THE VAST AMOUNT OF MONEY I MAKE EACH YEAR I DON’T HAVE ANY LEFT!!!”
These people make my head hurt…
asiangrrlMN
@different church-lady: I like your shorter. It encapsulates this asshat’s thinking entirely. And, As Brad said, you don’t like not having discretionary income at the end of the month, then don’t buy the other shit. It pretty much is that simple.
Brad’s take-down is simply brilliant. He eviscerates the not-so-good law professor.
Holy shit. I just read his own comment in his response section, and he’s STILL justifying the expenses. “A nanny is a must for a two-income household.” Really, mofo? I can guarantee you it is not. Suck it up and STFU, asshole. Seriously.
Odie Hugh Manatee
Fix’t.
asiangrrlMN
OK, one more. I think the thing that bothers me the most about the professor is how he just doesn’t get it. He thinks he’s just your average working joe (what is it about law prof/doc combos?), and he’s threatening to get rid of the hired help–the lawn guy he pays twenty bucks a week! Seriously. One less trip to Mickey D’s with the family would cover that–under the expiration of W’s tax cuts. That’s just fucking petty.
ETA: And his victim mentality is annoying, too. “Wah wah wah. All these mean people hurt my feelings!” Well, don’t say something stupid, and you won’t get called stupid.
@Odie Hugh Manatee: You know, I don’t fully get your nym, but I love the fact that you have ‘manatee’ in it–and that it abbreviates to OHM.
Wilson Heath
Someone made the point about Elizabeth Warren being a law prof. There are plenty of sane, non-wingnutty law profs. They tend to be busier dealing with facts as they lie in the real world than whining about current tax law remaining current tax law or whatever else the political hack pant loads due. The best two profs I had I found out after the fact seem to have a liberal tilt. They happened to be the best profs I had not ’cause of politics — they didn’t espouse any in class. They were practical and taught reasoning instead of a platform. And they thrived even in a pretty conservative law school because they were damned good at what they do. Being reality-based helps that — it’s an edge when you’re up against hacks.
As for the tax rate stuff, the whining schmuck is better off than he is under current law under Dr. Utopia’s proposal. The lower brackets would remain the same as now and his income that falls in the lower brackets would be lower taxed than it would once the Bush Tax Deferral lapses.
There is one mild point i will concede, and it’s been a point that’s held since ’86 — highly compensated professionals really don’t belong at the same marginal rate bracket as the ultra-rich. Declining marginal utility of money keeps on rolling. This isn’t to say that the $250k bracket shouldn’t reset. It’s just to say that tax rates should probably recognize some of the gradation in wealth that happens up there. Add more brackets with gradation at higher income thresholds. Why not? Are the greedheads going to start hoarding all the cash they’re already hoarding when rates go up? Nice non-threat.
Winger economists will tell you that temporary tax cuts aren’t very effective at stimulating spending because people budget with the expiration in mind. This guy didn’t . And he does “law & Economics” per his faculty profile. U Chicago style economics, I guess.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@asiangrrlMN: It is amazing, isn’t it? The UofC law faculty must be far gentler than any academic dept I’ve ever known if this delicate little flower can’t handle the blogosphere. Especially since he comes across as an incredibly smarmy, nasty little man– did you catch the snide reference to Tony Reszko? The whole tone of both of his posts that I’ve read is just grating. The way he insists on mentioning that all his (for lack of a better word) domestic help are immigrants–legal immigrants, as he keeps repeating– irritates me too.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@asiangrrlMN:
I kinda combined “Oh the humanity!” with the plight of the manatee, one of many species that is endangered by the actions (and inactions) of humans. That and I am an electronics nut and OHM is a unit in the measure of electrical resistance, but that was a side benefit…lol
That and chanting “OHMMMMMM” is kinda relaxing (if you are so inclined). :)
My wife read the DeLong bit and the Dear Professor’s Response to him. Her take? This professor lives in a bubble and all he cares about is getting his bubble to float higher. That and someone needs to pop it. People like to complain about the costs of a college education? Well it’s pompous overpaid assholes like this one who are partly responsible for that situation. Productive member of society? What the fuck does he produce? Lawyers? The fucker can’t even be bothered to care for his lawn, he just throws money at it. He isn’t much of a producer in my book. People who make shit happen are the ones who get shit done for everyone else.
I bet I have been far more productive in my life than that asshole ever has been. Let the fucker go Galt, I could give a shit.
Xenos
Among the various aspects of the Henderson’s lack of self awareness, the main one is that he does not realize that well more than half of his income is from the government. The students who pay high tuitions at UC because of subsidized loans, the tax breaks for the University, the tax breaks for families paying tuitions… If not for the Federal and State of Illinois tax schemes that subsidize the Universities, tuition would be no more than the market could bear (maybe $10,000 per year) and he would be making $60,000 tops as a prof.
And I won’t even go into the government support for the medicine his wife practices. He ought to look into the relative incomes for doctors from 50 years ago and today, and what sort of government programs make the difference today.
He is his own enemy, in more ways than one.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@Wilson Heath:
The people who pine for ‘the good ol’ days of the fifties’ like to forget about the tax rates. The economy was doing quite well yet the top tax rate was 90%! How could that be? Maybe the higher rates kept executive compensation in line and forced the companies to reinvest that money in their business via things like plant upgrades and better employee compensation? You know, maybe paying their employees enough that they could actually afford to buy the shit they are selling? This used to make sense but now we have corporations who exist solely to suck all of the wealth out of the economy they can, regardless of the consequences, almost like there is an endless supply of money.
Lowering tax rates on the rich has to be one of the dumbest things we have ever done as a nation. All it did was encourage greed and an IGMFY attitude.
asiangrrlMN
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I must admit that I skimmed both post because I don’t have much stomach for self-righteous indignation laced with nastiness. “Don’t lecture me on the huddled masses! My grandfather was a coal miner! I grew up middle class!” And, you know, I wouldn’t even begrudge him his money and things if he weren’t so damn petty as to threaten to fire his LEGAL (as you keep pointing out) immigrant workers who make twenty bucks a week if any of his tax rate went up. It’s the whole, “I am the victim here” mentality that just makes me irate.
@Odie Hugh Manatee: Good lord. How did I not get that? I blame lack of sleep. At any rate, I like all your reasons for your nym. (I was going for the chanting ohm, but I see why you would like the other one, too. Although, come to think of it, the chant is om. Oh well!).
trollhattan
@JasonF:
Gets his ass handed to him in a tureen made of the finest pink Himalayan salt in comments, too. Fuckhead ought to start a law firm with Putz and they can both find out a little bit of what life’s like in the actual world…before going Galt of course.
Odie Hugh Manatee
Yes, but it does sound like OHMMMMMMMM, right? ;)
Xenos
@Odie Hugh Manatee:
More to the point, he is an educator. He is a public servant, as much as any prof at the University of Illinois, only that his income is washed through tax breaks and charitable institutions that for some reason enable him to get twice the pay as the prof at UI.
His wife, as a cancer doctor, has nothing to do with the private sector. Without state and federal support, including massive indirect subsidies for the for-profit insurance companies that put a patina of Galtiness on a few of her -customers- patients, she would be bringing in half or a third of her current income.
There might still be a plutonomy, but the Hendersons would be outside looking in, instead of being at the bottom of it and looking up.
But if the problem is a bloated civil service causing a need for high taxes, the Hendersons need only look in the mirror. They are like the mercenaries in Iraq doing the same job as soldiers, only costing three times as much.
asiangrrlMN
@Odie Hugh Manatee: Yes, it does. You are right. I feel better now. Ohhhhhhhm!
@Xenos: Yeah, that point cracks me up, too. Government interference? How the hell you making a living, buddy?
Chris
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
What he’s saying is “some of my
best friendsemployees areblackimmigrants”.d0n camillo
This guy is just a perfect example of the economic stratification of the US. It wouldn’t surprise me if he had never known a blue collar person outside of an officer – enlisted or employer – employee relationship in his life. He clearly has no fucking clue what has been happening to a lot of people in just the last 3 years who used to be solidly middle class and earning comfortable livings but whose jobs are gone and unlikely to ever return.
He has no idea just how lucky and privileged he is, with emphasis on the word lucky. I think it’s the fact that he is complaining about having to pay slightly more taxes to enjoy a life that he lucked into in the first place that is pissing off so many commenters here and elsewhere.
fraught
Who mows the lawns and cleans the houses in Galt Gulch? Does Dagny Taggert do her own nails?
Odie Hugh Manatee
@Xenos:
Shorter version: They both work in professions that reward them well, professions that are well funded via large investments by the government. Large investments that are funded via taxes paid to that government. Taxes that they don’t want to pay a fair share of now that they ‘got theirs’.
Jager
A wise old man told me the worst thing you can do is make 500k a year, because you start to think you’re rich!
300baud
@Odie Hugh Manatee:
Odie ( and Asian Girl), are you familiar with this meme?
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ulrichp/1362599/
It’s one of my favorites.
Regarding the law professor’s productivity, it could well be he’s negatively productive. Lawyers are like guns: the more your enemies have, the more you need to have. Some lawyering is certainly useful, but some studies suggest the US is well past that level.
asiangrrlMN
@300baud: Aw! That’s soooo cute. I like manatees.
@fraught: Latino male (on the former) and Thai female (on the latter. Though, to be technical, she’s the nanny. Still. They are immigrants. But they are legal).
Andy K
@asiangrrlMN:
To be fair, the $20 bucks a week is for lawn service, which in Chicago is a once-a-week job for roughly 6 months. But the perfesser is an idiot if he thinks that a lawn service is going to miss his $520.00 a year.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@300baud:
I have seen that before and still think it’s funny as hell. I love some of the comments though:
These two comments really made me laugh:
and
lol!
different church-lady
@Xenos:
He also seems to be completely unaware of how much of his lifestyle is underwritten with tax policy (deductions for mortgage and property tax, etc.). I’d point it out to him, but I’m too lazy to write up a watertight rejoinder.
kay
@leftyjoe:
Snicker, snicker. A kindred spirit. There’s, um, truth in that.
My experience might be unique (I’ll consider it!) but Ann Althouse may be more the norm than the exception, in terms of real-world or interpersonal skills of law professors.
Those odd and inexplicable conclusions she draws? How she often completely misses what or why people might do what they do, even when they state it?
I had to let my adviser off the hook after one meeting, and I never went back, because the whole one-on-one experience seemed to make him deeply uncomfortable, although he insisted I meet with him, so he could check his “meeting” box. It was an act of mercy, on my part. I couldn’t put him through that again.
Wilson Heath
@different church-lady:
Yep. Tax myopia is ridiculous. Let’s spot the tax advantages on his return: home mortgage interest and PMI, federal deduction for state taxes paid, child tax credit, student loan interest (assuming he really is not wealth so it’s in a spot below phase-out), and savings accounts stuffed out of pre-tax income.
All of these are what academics would call “tax expenditures” for budgetary analysis, but we might as well just call them preferences. They aren’t normative. They are politically bestowed goodies given through the beneficence of Congress. There’s nothing unconstitutional (the increasingly favorite BS whine of the moment)*** about Congress taking all of these away if they really get serious about deficit reduction (and if you believe that, I’ve got a flying pig to sell you . . . ). Knowing the deficit is just sitting there, a rational person shouldn’t plan their personal budget with the idea that these are all sacrosanct. (Yeah, I know that I don’t figure on my taxes going up next year because my preferences will go away, but Dingus is a Serious Person and teaches Law & Economics, U of C style!)
*** Not for this thread, but WTF is with up this growing routine of all the wingers tagging themselves and each other as “constitutional conservatives”? I’m assuming “constitutional” as in “inherent in the character of a person’s mind or body” and not “beneficial to one’s constitution.” Certainly not related to the document they fetishize while not reading and wanting to selectively shred. Of course, my read also requires some critical examination of what conservative means anymore, given the loons its attached to.
J
@Wilson Heath: Want to endorse both your points:
(1) need for more brackets (Henderson keeps throwing in the term ‘super rich’ as though it is being used of people who are in his income bracket, which I don’t think is true–he is extremely well off not super rich)
(2) fact, overlooked even by most of those of us bashing Prof. Henderson (as well we should) that he has completely misrepresented matters. If Henderson’s taxes go up it will not be because President Obama or the Democrats raised them, but because a long-expected return to the earlier rate comes into effect on schedule after the temporary ‘Bush tax cuts’. In fact, if Obama has his way, the Henderson family will be paying less in tax than they would have had those cuts been allowed to expire as originally planned. If Henderson and his wife, who presumably owe their place very high up if not at the very top of the country’s economic ladder to intellectual accomplishments, haven’t been anticipating a bump in their taxes when a well known provision in a LAW comes into effect, they’ve been pretty bloody stupid.
Mary
Oh, M.Todd. Such a nice man who really does care about students, but so utterly utterly UTTERLY un-self aware. He, like many of his generation at the UofC Law School, has been carefully crafting his eccentric professor persona for several years now in the hopes of achieving the legendary status of Epstein and Sunstein before him. But DeLong is absolutely right about M.Todd’s perspective. He’s the classic case of someone who wants what they don’t have. He’s like the Great Gatsby of law professors. I think that he actually did a come from relatively modest background, and I suspect he spent his all of his undergrad years at Princeton wishing he was as rich as his classmates. Unfortunately, instead of giving him some perspective on what life is really like for the average person, he experiences have convinced him that he is the average person, and it’s not because he isn’t aware that he makes more money than most people, it’s because he still feels so inadequate relative to his peers.
Jay C
@Honus:
Word. Prof. Henderson has all that education, all that income, all those expenses and debts, and his level of financial management is still stuck at the kitchen-table level (“I can’t afford fancy accountants”, “I do TurboTax”) ??
Fuck “fancy” accountancy, Todd: it never occur to you that even a half-way competent CPA/financial advisor might be able to save your whiny ass enough though careful planning each year to offset at least some of that Hideous Confiscatory Super-Rich Tax that Kim-Il-Obama is going to sock your poor beleaguered family with? Still less the couple of grand fee they might charge?
Asshat.
b
This is so bad, it has to be a plant….come’on which one of you guys wrote this? ‘Fess up.
John Bird
A lot of law professors are awesome.
John Bird
To make a more substantive point, sociology has an idea called relative deprivation that narrows this further: not only are most people concerned with people who have more than them instead of people who have less, they are most concerned with those who have a little bit more than them – the people they see, that is, not the people they read about. Someone making $50,000 a year measures himself in comparison to someone making $75,000 a year, not someone making $5 million a year.
But get into those upper brackets and combine it with, oh, a law degree, and yeah, I think it’s safe to say that Henderson probably runs into people who make massively more money than he does, and has a chance to compare.
This is the current curse of the prestigious, Ivy League, well-paid lawyer both in and out of the private sector: quite often you’re going to be running into people who work the same or fewer hours than you, but who make an incredible amount of money and sustain a lifestyle you could never support – that is, people in finance and media figures of the middling variety. And if you feel, as many top-school attorneys do, that you got where you are by proving that you are one of the hardest workers in the country today, this will chap your ass.
Apparently, if you’re already a Republican and you come to the belated conclusion that you can’t be as rich as the people you know even though you went to all the right schools and got the right job, you will blame it on Taxes.
Older
This guy not only wants to live above his income, he wants to talk above his income. If you have read his defense of his original whine, you will have seen that what he calls a “nanny” the rest of us wage-slaves call “day-care”.
No kidding, he and the wife take their precious snowflakes to this lady’s house, where she watches them, as well as several other equally deserving kids.
Long ago, when I was better off than I am now, I had nannies for my kids. I even had live-in help sometimes. And I was not nearly as well-off as this guy, nor did I have two incomes to play with.
He’s a pretentious nitwit, who doesn’t actually want to pay for child care in his home, but he wants to talk like he does.
Daniel X
I had to read the entire piece by Professor Henderson (and DeLong’s post) twice to make sure it wasn’t an Onion satire. My first reaction was to think something along these lines….y’know, if I had $455k a year coming in and had cash flow problems, I just might reconsider my existing spending priorities. My second was thinking of the note to be spray painted on this professor’s office door.
Dear Professor Henderson:
1. Stop spending so much money and see a financial planner.
2. Grow the fuck up.
3. If you don’t like the negative feedback, try not being a WATB
(that’s Whiny Ass Titty Baby), Sparky.
Love,
The Proles