Robert is reading some of the papers in debate of the US Constitution, something he has not done since college, and, err, not well even then.

The first paper in the book he is reading is Benjamin Franklin’s Speech at the Conclusion of the Constitutional Convention, which, as the title suggests, are the comments that Ben Franklin gave in September 1987 at the closing of the convention where the first version of the Constitution was issued to the people for discussion and approval or rejection. Franklin was a little over 80 years old and, as we all know, an accomplished person of many attributes.

The main idea of Franklin’s speech is summed up in its first sentence.

“I confess that I do not entirely approve of this Constitution at present, but Sir, I am not sure I shall never approve it.”

It is not clear whether Franklin was trying to be humorous.  But his point, it seems, was that the draft constitution was imperfect. He signed it because he trusted the men who put it together and he  heard no better alternatives during the convention.

Franklin’s speech did not give the draft high praise, that’s for sure. And the point was not lost on the first few antifederalist commentators who published statements on the draft Constitution in the newspapers.

“Z,” a writer of an essay in the Independent Chronicle of Boston in December 1787 should have titled his remarks “WTF.”  Z asks what federalist in his right mind would try to support the notion of a national government using the argument that Franklin, a great philosopher, did not entirely approve of the Constitution at the very moment he signed it? According to Z, that Franklin may, at one time or another, approve of the Constitution, gave the federalists faint support. And this was only so far as the federalists could rely on Franklin’s judgment at all.

The notion that Franklin was operating with a few loose marbles by the time of the conclusion of the constitutional convention appears to have been a favorite one of the antifederalists.

So Robert gets to play Andre all day.

The Pierces like . . . Forbidden Island.

“Our current corporate tax system is outdated, unfair and inefficient. It provides tax breaks for moving jobs and profits overseas and hits companies that choose to stay in America with one of the highest tax rates in the world. It is unnecessarily complicated and forces America’s small businesses to spend countless hours and dollars filing their taxes. It’s not right and it needs to change.”

Barack Obama, 2012

Did you say 20% deduction?

http://www.abajournal.com/news/article/consensus_tax_bill_includes_law_firms_in_pass_through_tax_relief_with_limit/?utm_source=maestro&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=weekly_email

Law firms and other professional service entities won’t be entirely excluded from tax relief for pass-through entities in the final version of the tax bill that is awaiting passage.

The consensus provision on pass-through businesses is in many ways a victory for the ABA. The association had lobbied Congress to accept the Senate version of the tax bill giving a tax deduction to owners of pass-through businesses, including professional service firms.

The House version of the bill would have excluded law firms and all other professional service business from pass-through tax relief, and it would have lowered the maximum tax rate rather than provide for a deduction.

Pass-through businesses include partnerships, Subchapter S corporations and sole proprietorships. Income for such entities pass through to the owners’ individual returns, where it is currently taxed at ordinary income tax rates.

Under the consensus bill, owners of pass-through businesses can take a 20 percent deduction for qualified business income they receive from the entity, according to the Washington Post, the conference report (PDF) and the conference committee’s joint explanatory statement (PDF, see pages 20-40). Qualified business income is nonwage income that is calculated according to a formula. The deduction in the original Senate bill was 23 percent.

The tax deduction is phased out for owners of professional services businesses whose taxable income exceeds $315,000 for married individuals filing jointly or $157,500 for individuals. The threshold in the consensus bill is lower than the thresholds of $500,000 and $250,000 that were in the original Senate bill.

The Pierces were finally able to attend a holiday party at the magnificent home of Jerry Peters in Lucas Valley.  That is, overlooking Lucas Valley.  The kids baked cookies and played ping pong. Robert enjoyed the superb bar.

Nice table from Miller, Foreign Born in the United States Army During World War II, With Special Reference to the Alien, INS Monthly Review, October 1948.

During World War II, the United States was very permissive in allowing non-citizens to join the military and was then permissive in allowing citizenship for those who served.  This table says that during the war, 109,382 members of the armed services were naturalized.  Of those, 9,741 were from Mexico.

Nice discussion of the concept of preference falsification.

What comes to Robert’s mind is all the camping (or whatever you want to call it) going on in the streets of San Francisco. Everyone is sort of walking around the city, thinking to themselves, “eventually these people are going to have to be removed,” but the political will is not there (yet) at the decision-making layer.  It will come.  And it will come fast.  Human nature.

https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-10-17/why-weinstein-held-on-for-so-long-and-fell-so-fast?utm_content=buffere6ebc&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

Q: What is preference falsification?

A: It’s the act of misrepresenting one’s wants because of perceived social pressures. It aims specifically to manipulate the perceptions of others about one’s motivations or dispositions.

Q: What are some examples?

A: Intellectual preference falsification occurs when scholars refrain from expressing skepticism of a theory for fear of being ridiculed or losing friends. A closeted gay man is engaged in a form of sexual preference falsification. On college campuses, conservative students and faculty commonly falsify their political preferences for fear of ostracism. Political preference falsification was also a survival tool in Eastern Europe before 1989, where support for communism was mostly feigned.