Your beer and geography open thread

by liberal japonicus

Whoops. I've got no classes on Friday for this new school year, which means that I try to get everything I haven't done all week done, which means I forgot the Friday open thread. So here is is. 

The fact that I had a night out with some others at a place in town that serves Bass Pale Ale draft may have also contributed. The place has a bunch of imported beers, but being able to get a pint seemed like a much more efficient delivery system. Though on a less frenetic day, I'd probably try and order something new. Normally, I'd order something I'd never tried, and, if it was bad, wash it down with something that I knew was good.

I also try to bring the occasional bottle home to drink and explain where it is from to my girls, hit wikipedia with them to find out more about the place. That's right, I'm an educational drinker. As such, I was incredibly pleased to find that the new upscale market in town has a number of new beers, both new to me and ones I've had in the past, but now can bring them home. Up next is Tusker, which I think my youngest will like for the elephant motif. Of course, with Wikipedia, you are not only educating your children, you are preparing them to be the most awesomest Jeopardy players in the world. I mean, what if they remember this:

The brand was first marketed in 1923, shortly after the founder of Kenya Breweries Ltd, George Hurst, was killed by an elephant during a hunting accident. It was in this year that the elephant logo, that is synonymous with Tusker Lager, was incorporated. 

"This alcoholic beverage is advertised with the slogan "Bia Yangu, Nchi Yangu", means "My Beer, My Country" in Swahili."

What is Tusker Beer, Alec.

So, an open thread to talk about beer, geography, or your efforts to educate the youth.

So what's your vice

Comments

[bobbyp]

I've noticed a beer on the shelve recently called "Red Menace" with a drawing of VI Lenin on it. I must say, that's a rather daring marketing strategy.

Alas. It is not very good.

[cleek]

my current fav is Dragon's Milk, from the New Holland brewery. it's awesome on draft: dark, very complex, like a stout but without a lot of the harshness. bottled is not quite a phenomenal, but it's still good.

only place i've seen it on tap is in Georgetown, tho.

[russell]

A kind-of-rare favorite of mine is Old Engine Oil. It's some kind of Scottish ale. It's really black, but I don't think it's a stout.

It's toothsome.

Over the last couple of years, though, I seem to have lost my taste for beer in general. I'm mostly drinking wine these days. Not great wine, just whatever seems likely for $10 a bottle or less.

Also highly recommended is Harpoon's hard cider. It's apples and nothing but apples, and it's dry, not overly sweet. Delicious.

[Doctor Science]

I love that in the last few months the number of microbrewery sampler 12-packs has *exploded*. I'm working on one from Magic Hat at the moment.

[Doctor Science]

Meanwhile, a question!

I recently had lunch at a Japanese restaurant (rubysny.com) and had udon soup with beef & vegetables. I have now definitely come to the conclusion that there is some flavoring agent found in most authentic Japanese food that I just don't care for. To me it has a taste best described as "slightly stale", like a packaged food that's been around too long.

Do you-all know what it might be? It could be one of the seaweed products, or maybe miso, or fish flakes.

[joel hanes]

No geographical beer tour is complete without at least one expensive bottle of Belgian abbey-brewed Tripel. At least five such are available here in California, where 750ml will set you back between $8 to $12. It's _well_ worth it.

And it's not only geographical, it's historical -- you can explain to the kids what a European "abbey" was and meant when these beers were invented, and how some things don't change.

[sapient]

I don't go far afield for beer. My neighbors at Blue Mountain Brewery grow their own hops. It's a nice place to visit if you're ever in the vicinity.

Good that you're teaching your children to see the world in a grain of sand (or a drop of beer), lj. These days, the youth are teaching me more than I am teaching them.

[liberal japonicus]

Hi Doc,
I think what you are reacting to is the dashi. I have to admit, it could be described as that. Because it is a fish stock, it makes it really really hard to be a true vegetarian in Japan. It was this flavor that led to the discovery of the fifth taste (outside sweet, sour, bitter and salty) called umami

joel, that's a great point. My oldest has been interested in Egypt recently, so some talk on the invention of beer may be in order

[Phil]

I think I mentioned before that I'm participating in a local restaurant's annual "World Beer Tour," in which I need to try 100 different beers in 12 months to get a couple of little prizes and participation in a finisher's party. I'm up to 35/100 as of tonight; tonight's dinner included:

1. Bell's Two-Hearted Ale, which at 7.0% ABV packs quite a wallop.
2. Samuel Smith Organic Strawberry Ale. If you're into fruit beers, this is an amazing example of the breed. Good, good stuff.
3. Hofbrauhaus Munchen Hefe Weizen. Love love love love German hefezweizens and Belgian witbiers.

The Tour includes lots of stuff from Ohio breweries, too, including my favorite Great Lakes Brewing Co., Akron's Thirsty Dog, and up-and-comer Indigo Imp. If anybody happens to take a trip through Cleveland, let me know and I'll give you the grand beer tour.

[Nell]

bobbyp: "Red Menace" with a drawing of VI Lenin on it. ... a rather daring marketing strategy. Alas. It is not very good.

Is it at least red? If not, that seems like an even more daring marketing strategy. Though I suppose they could fall back on the argument that the 'Menace' part was true...

[bobbyp]

Nope. No red color. Nice bit of socialist realism on the label. I wonder who they were trying to appeal to? They got me, but I am of a demographic that....well, I enjoy reading IOZ. What more can I say?

[CCDG]

Alas, I don't drink anymore and the last local beer I drank was Lone Star Longnecks. Not great but acceptable really cold on a hot Texas day.

On another note, Forbes covered the GE tax hysteria today noting:

Sure, GE has an army of accountants and lobbyists trying to reduce its tax burden, but wouldn't you if you had $150 billion in worldwide revenue and $14.2 billion in pretax income last year?

To see if GE was an aberration, we took a look at the 2010 annual reports of the 20 most profitable U.S. companies. Some of the results may surprise you. The average income tax rate within the group was 25.4%. America's three biggest oil companies, ExxonMobil (NYSE: XOM - News), Chevron (NYSE: CVX - News) and ConocoPhillips (NYSE: COP - News), all endure income tax burdens of more than 40% -- higher than the statutory U.S. rate of 35%. Exxon, with a 45% rate, tallied $21.6 billion in worldwide income taxes for 2010. Wal-Mart Stores (NYSE: WMT - News) paid $7.1 billion (at a rate of 32.4%) in income taxes.

All these tax burdens are higher than the average citizen pays. So where does General Electric (NYSE: GE - News) stand? Contrary to what many in the public seem to think, the conglomerate did pay taxes in 2010. It reported $2.7 billion in cash tax payments during the year, and on its income statement lists a provision for income taxes of $1.05 billion. Considering GE's pretax income of $14.2 billion, that makes for a tax rate of just 7.4%. The only one of the 20 corporate giants with a lower rate was AT&T (NYSE: T - News), at -6.4% -- but that was only because MaBell won a tax settlement with the IRS that reduced its tax liability by $8.3 billion.

(bold mine)

and then why were GE's taxes so low:

Simple: its finance arm, GE Capital, lost a lot of money during the financial meltdown (roughly $30 billion) and it's still carrying those losses forward and deducting them from current income. As GE spokesman Gary Sheffer wrote in his response to the Times story: "Without these financial crisis losses at GE Capital, GE's tax rate would have been near the average of other multinational corporations." He added, "In short, when you lose money, you don't pay taxes."

Read the rest, it covers things like how much of these companies revenue and profits are from overseas, thus how much of their taxes are paid there, how they go out of their way to leave profits there because taxes are lower there and reinvest there for the same reason.

[Doctor Science]

Imma gonna keep lj talking about Japanese food, if you don't mind.

lj, do you find that the Japanese eat about as many, less, or more fresh vegetables than the Americans you know? You're from the Gulf Coast, right? Are you from one of the areas with the really good food, or not? How does it compare to the food most people in Japan eat?

I'm much more familiar with making Chinese food than Japanese, and I find that Japanese recipes tend to call for many more preserved (dried, salted, pickled, fermented) traditional ingredients than Chinese recipes do.

[cleek]

Not great wine, just whatever seems likely for $10 a bottle or less.

i'm super surprised by how good Whole Food's $2.99 house brand is. especially for $2.99.

$2.99, did i mention ?

3 - .01

[geographylady]

geography + beer = heaven

and I'm glad to hear some folks teaching their kids geography - I can't believe how many of my 9th graders don't have a clue where Europe is, and don't know Africa is not one country.

[liberal japonicus]

No worries! There was great food, I was an hour from New Orleans, and fresh seafood from the Gulf Coast, but it was before the foodied boom, so I didn't really know how good it was until later. (The Frugal Gourmet came out when I was in uni, and we had a wok and cooked eggrolls, which amazed people back then, so it was a time where there wasn't a lot of variety)

I do think we eat a lot of fresh veggies here, I don't think that I've seen most canned veggies except at the costco (they have canned corn, because it is not common to have that fresh) Kumamoto where I live is interesting because there was a guy named Janes who was brought over here to start a school during the Meiji Restoration and he felt the Japanese diet was lacking, so he ordered seeds for a number of common US veggies that were not grown here, so there are things like broccoli and potatoes, some which went out to the rest of Japan, others which have stayed locally.

However, Japanese food is primarily based around seafood, and I read that while Chinese has a lot of proverbs about farm animals and such, the equivalent proverbs in Japanese are usually related to fish and the sea. As such, there is probably a lot less notion of fresh, and more dried/preserved/fermented stuff, especially in something traditional. However, a recent poll of children showed that their 3 most favorite meals were hamburger steak (like our salisbury steak), fried chicken and curry rice, which tells you a bit about the shift in tastes. I'm not sure what a 'regular' family eats, our cuisine seems much more eclectic than the average, but I think we do eat as much fresh veggies as Americans do, but a lot less meat.

I'll try to find some more info for you later today

[Tony P.]

On beer: many years ago, I spent a couple of summers in a small town called Kaufbeuren in Bavaria drinking hefe-weizen. Loved it and the enormous mugs it came in. But the thing that still lingers in my memory is a sort of beer-based brandy I sampled once, in the restaurant of the hotel we stayed in for a few days. The hotel was part of an abbey just outside of town. I don't know whether the abbey was still a going religious concern, but the artisanal brewery on the premises was still operating. The beer brandy was also the abbey's own traditional product. I have never encountered the stuff anywhere else. If Hartmut reads this, I'd be curious to know whether he is familiar with it or something like it.

On open threads: I've noticed that comments in them are often more "on-topic" than on other threads. Not saying that's a bad thing, but I do commend CCDG for bringing up a totally different subject.

And ON that subject, this bit struck me:

Sure, GE has an army of accountants and lobbyists trying to reduce its tax burden, but wouldn't you if you had $150 billion in worldwide revenue and $14.2 billion in pretax income last year?

Why, no. No, I wouldn't. If I had $14 billion in pretax income last year, I might be indifferent to letting a deduction or two slide.

--TP

[Hartmut]

Tony P., unfortunately I am not fond of beer at all (or Bavaria for that matter, we should have never bribed them to join and left them to the Austrian instead). My yearly intake of alcoholic beverages of any kind is about half a bottle of sparkling wine (red viscous Crimean please, champagne will end in the drain). So, my knowledge is extremly limited there. Just a slight historic morsel. When the Nazis came to power one of the largest producers of beer (Engelhardt) was Jewish owned. The story how the company got Arianized reads like a thriller. Several high-ranking Nazis were interested and used all means foul (definitely not fair) against the owner* and each other. The crime still pays since formally the company got not seized but bought, so the surviving heirs had not the least chance to get it back after the war.

*surprisingly he survived

[hairshirthedonist]

Maredsous Triple is what one would drink every day in my verion of heaven. In the earthly realm, it's too expensive.

Pre-Soviet marketing: Old Rasputin Russian Imperial Stout has a nice, creepy label with portrait of Rasputin staring out at you. It's not cheap, either.

I had Great Lakes' Commodore Perry IPA a month or two ago. It's very good, if you like IPAs, which I do.

When I don't want to spend too much or get really buzzed off of two or three beers (see all the above, the first two especially), I like Negra Modelo. It's a good everyday beer, great with spicy food.

[Laura Koerbeer]

I am going to change the subject! We have a new family member: Izzy, aka Rat Dog, Widget, Little Bit, Foo Foo, or Dust Bunny.

I have acquired a Maltese.

I wanted my next dog to be a pitbull, but...

Anyway Rat Dog was stolen from a abusive owner and dumped, nearly dead, at a dog rescue kennel. Since dogs get dumped a the kennel all the time no one assumed that he was stolen. We just bathed the shit off him, de-flead him and took him to the vet where eight abcessed teeth were removed. A few days later an irate woman called up screaming that we had stolen her dog. Actaully the dog had been stolen by some freind or relative of the irate lady. But, once infomred that her treatment of the dog put her in violation of the law, the irate lady decided she didn't own him after all, so now he belongs to the dog rescue.

SO I took him home to foster.

PRoblem is he has really bad separation anxiety and barks incessantly when left alone. I figure my husband and I can work through this with him, but how can we adopt him to someone else? He'll have to go through the whole adjustment again! BEsides how many people want a dog that can bark continuously from one in the morning to seven in the morning?

Not much choice: we are adopting him.

So I have become one of those old ladies who carries around a small dog like an accessroy. And yes, he wears a sweater.

[Phil]

HSH, I have never had a bad beer from Great Lakes. Their stuff is always top quality. We had a tour of the brewery back in March, and it's a really impressive facility, which engages in a lot of sustainable business practices. One of the simplest but most impressive: During the winter months, being located northeast Ohio, they simply let the natural cold into their cooler rather than engage in expensive and environmentally damaging artificial refrigeration.

[hairshirthedonist]

I did read a bit about their environment-friendly practices on the box or label when I had the IPA. In fact, I read it to my wife, only because of the contrast with her family members in Cleveland, who said they would refuse to recycle if it were ever required of them. Next time I'm out there, I'm going to try to fit in a visit to the brewery. I imagine we'll make the trip before summer's over. It's been a while. I'll let you know, Phil, in case we can meet up.

[CCDG]

TP, I might limit them to a division or two. It is difficult enough to know where to pay what to justify a few battalions, some reasonably responsible deductions from a shareholder perspective are in order, etc. It would probably be easier for me, personally, to overlook a few. After the first 10B I would probably feel ok for my income that year.

[Phil]

Yeah, definitely do -- even if you just have dinner at the brewpub there, it's totally worth it. They have a cheddar cheese soup that's to die for.

[Countme--In]

After my first 10 billion of income, I'd devote any excess to paying politicians' to cut teacher, police, and fireman pay and benefits, and take mornings off to picket Medicaid parasites outside hospital emergency rooms.

I'd finish my evenings indulging in play time with my Dagny Taggert blow-up doll, which I've filled with the last breaths of my expired lessers.

Shes the girl of my dreams; she gets her lipstick on me and can express the requisite contempt simultaneously.

She's so imperiously multi-dimensional. She could keep Paul Ryan's pocket rosary stiff on cold nights.

She takes the train, reserving all of the seats for herself, outbidding the collective.

She (half floating, mouth agape) and George Will retire to the sleeper for his weekly enema, the product of which is published in the Washington Post.

[wj]

CMI, that was really awesome.

But I think that, after the first million a year, anything else is either point-scoring vs others in the same situation (or competing with your own record, if you are internally motivated, rather than externally), of pushing for things from ideological motivations, rather than because they make a real difference to you personally. Perhaps I just lack sufficient imagination. But I can't really see needing to spend more than a million a year. I could probably find a way to spend it, but a need?

[joel hanes]

Tony : could you be talking about Klosterbrauerei Andechs ?

http://www.munich-today.de/munichtour/biergaerten/klosterbrauereiandechs/e_klosterbrauereiandechs.htm

In 1975, a VW van full of lifeguards and sailing instructors made the trip from Chiemsee to Andechs to try the Doppelbock Dunkel at the source, and I was fortunate enough to be among them. Liter mugs were the order of the day. I still have the round pasteboard coaster "deckel".

If it's not Andechs you're remembering (the monastery sits atop an isolated hill in the flat Bavarian countryside, a striking and memorable sight as you approach) perhaps googling the word "klosterbrauerei" will include your forgotten place in the hit list and jog some pleasant memories.

[joel hanes]

Ah. I'll bet Tony's talking about Irseer Klosterbrau Kaufbeuren
http://www.holidaycheck.de/hotel-Reiseinformationen_Hotel+Irseer+Klosterbraeu-hid_217418.html

[Anarch]

I live in Wisconsin. What's more to say?

Oh, except to note to Phil that our student union has Bell's Two-Hearted on tap. (:

[Bernard Yomtov]

CCDG,

In discussing corporate taxes it is very important to distinguish between what is accrued on the financial statement and what actually ends up being paid. Your quote from Forbes is not clear on this point.

[JanieM]

hairshirt: I imagine we'll make the trip before summer's over. It's been a while.

I'll be in northeastern Ohio at some point in the summer too. I know things get hectic on a family trip, but if you see a window of opportunity for getting together for a meal (or even a beer :), shoot me an email in case I'm out there at the same time.

[Slartibartfast]

My current favorites are:

Siberian Night Imperial Stout, the only one of which I had at the Winking Lizard nearly two years ago, and have not forgotten it.

Smuttynose Robust Porter

Steelhead IPA

Paulaner Salvatore, which to my taste is one of the best beers of any kind, anywhere.

Bell's, including the aforementioned Two Hearted Ale (available locally), and Oberon. I can't recall if I've tried the Expedition Stout; that's the only other of Bell's that I've even seen around Orlando.

I'm still mourning the loss of Mackeson's Triple Stout, which is no longer available in the US. And I haven't been able to find Old Peculier around here anywhere. Those were some of my favorites back when I could ever get them, which was years ago.

All of which is moot, as I'm on self-imposed hiatus until such time as I can get my weight down below 185. Incentive, yaknow.

OT: Thomas Nephew is now on the author list.

[CCDG]

In discussing corporate taxes it is very important to distinguish between what is accrued on the financial statement and what actually ends up being paid. Your quote from Forbes is not clear on this point.

If you click through to the article it does mention the difference in a few places. However, for US taxes it is not a good thing to make Uncle Sam wait. So any significant accrual usually has a quarterly payment along with it to avoid penalties. In the part I quoted above it does state

It reported $2.7 billion in cash tax payments during the year,

[hairshirthedonist]

I'm still mourning the loss of Mackeson's Triple Stout, which is no longer available in the US.

Say what?! Last I knew, it was being brewed in the US, Cincy if I remember right. That was a couple years ago. I had bought some at what seemed to be a very low price, and discovered that the cap was a twist-off, which got me curious. I either read something on the packaging or on-line about the rights being bought by an American brewer or their making some kind of deal with someone to have it brewed in the US to reduce shipping costs. Damn, I hope you're wrong, Slart.

[hairshirthedonist]

...shoot me an email in case I'm out there at the same time.

I most definitely will, Janie. Don't forget to e-mail me if you ever come to Philly. (You, too, McKinney. Which reminds me, I haven't seen Hogan around here for a while and have been too strapped for cash to schedule a happy hour with him. I should e-mail him just to check in.)

[CCDG]

hsh, According to the Mackeson Facebook page you can't get it here no more.

[russell]

Smuttynose Robust Porter

Smutty!! The taste of Portsmouth!

Also - Mackeson Triple is (was?) my favorite stout, anywhere, anytime.

Old Peculier, also a winner.

Anybody here dig Old Speckled Hen?

Maybe I need to get back into the beer thing....

Hey, northeast OH folks, I'm out that way (near Kent) a couple of times a year.

Hey, Philly folks, I'm down that way once a year or so.

Just saying.

We need an ObWi moveable feast.

[CCDG]

russell, anywhere near The Fours(Boston) on Wednesday?

[hairshirthedonist]

Hey, Philly folks, I'm down that way once a year or so.

Just saying.

We need an ObWi moveable feast.

Keep me in the loop, homeskillet.

I would love to say, "We'll meet at Ortlieb's Jazzhaus," but it is no more, sadly. I had some times there back in the day and thought you might have heard of it, russell, if not having been there yourself.

I'm sure we could pull something off, despite the lack of jazzhaus.

[liberal japonicus]

Hey Doc,
First, a reference for you is here It actually seems that per capita consumption is more than the US. From the link, it says Japan eats about 128 kilos a year, compared to 200 by Southern Europe and 87 by Americans. However, that doesn't account for class differences, I think, so it may be the case that middle/upper class americans eat more. Or not, I'm not sure.

I have to confess, as a kid I only ate salad veggies (lettuce, tomato, cukes) and corn until I was 14. My folks didn't force me, assuming that I would realize it in good time, which I did. My daughters were resistant to eating veggies, and my youngest still won't eat tomatoes, but they have expanded quite a bit, and my elementary school, 2nd or 3rd grade, the oldest was eating anything we threw at her as long as it wasn't spicy. I have often wondered why I didn't like veggies for so long, and I think it was because we never got fresh vegetables back then, everything was canned. Then, living all over the place as a college student or a language teacher and not being settled reduces your ability to eat fresh veggies, so while I'm sure I eat a lot more fresh veggies than I did in the US, I'm not sure if that tells a lot about the comparative amounts.

Also, I mentioned that I'm not sure if we eat as a typical Japanese family does. My wife makes a lot of one plate dishes (often a stir-fry with rice) that is easy to serve. All our schedules are very unsettled, so though we often eat together, we don't have a sit down meal very often, so the idea of a main course with two or 3 sides doesn't really happen. One good thing is that in Japan, the amount of meat consumed is much less because meat is considered something like an addition that brings flavor to the food rather than a separate dish. We've also benefitted from the Japanese ability to not be constrained in combining things. For example, we had 'taco rice' last night. It is a dish that is popular in Okinawa, basically the makings of a taco dumped on top of a bowl of rice. I'm told that the influence of Americans there was responsible. In 7-11, you can get things like spaghetti sandwiches and wasabi ice cream. I am not a complete convert to the spaghetti sandwich and my wife's addition of green peas in the potato salad still leaves me cold, but the lack of rigidity makes a difference, I think.

That's just some thoughts off the top of my head, hth.

[bobbyp]

So there I was, peacefully wasting a perfectly good Sunday afternoon cruising the internets on my 3rd boilermaker (Manny's and Pendleton) when I can across Countme's post above and totally lost it. Whiskey all over the monitor....what a waste, but a stiff rosary for George Will's enema?

Priceless.

[Snarki, child of Loki]

Belgian: Fruit Defendu [french], aka Verboden Vruct [flemish]: Forbidden Fruit

Yum.

[dr ngo]

Oddly ontopic for an open thread, when I think "beer and geography" my mind immediately turns to the difference between San Miguel (Pale Porter) in the Philippines, which is excellent, and the same brand in Hong Kong, where it is the #1 local beer (and usually cheapest) and tastes like Pale P*ss. Must be the water, say I, and all who have drunk the two, but SM Corporation swears up and down & sideways that there's NO DIFFERENCE between them. (But if you're so minded, you can easily get Philippine SM in HK. For a premium, natch.)

[dr ngo]

"Pale Pilsner," that is. Sheesh.

[joel hanes]

How do the rest of you manage to produce comments with href links?

At first I assumed that comments with links triggered moderation, but the last two times I've tried to post something with proper links to supporting evidence, the comment never showed up at all.

Is there a limit to the number of links per comment?

[liberal japonicus]

Joel, it's limited to 4 links, I believe, but I tend to go with 3 in an abundance of caution.

[Hartmut]

'Klosterbrauerei' (made by monks ;-) )is seen as such a marker of quality that the breweries that can trace their history to an actual monastery have to fight off impostors on a regular base. It has gone so far that the German courts ban the depiction of monks on the label unless the brewery can bring proof of its clerical history.

[Slartibartfast]

Ah. Maybe there's something discriminating about my palate after all.

The Salvator: not one monk, but two.

[russell]

russell, anywhere near The Fours(Boston) on Wednesday?

Sadly no. Another time?

I would love to say, "We'll meet at Ortlieb's Jazzhaus," but it is no more, sadly.

Damn. I know Ortlieb's only through YouTube clips of guys playing there. Sorry it's gone.

Next time I'm in Philly I will give a shout out.

For Belgians, I dig a Westvleteren Abt 12. Nap-time afterwards, though.

[CCDG]

"Sadly no. Another time?"

Sure, wasn't firm anyway. :)

[Phil]

Forgot to mention, I just received notice the other day that I've been asked to attend in-person screenings/auditions for Jeopardy!, having passed their online test a couple of months ago. This will be my second time through the grinder -- I auditioned in Chicago a couple of years ago, but never got the call to be on the show. (If you pass the in-person test and screening, you're on the potential cast list for 18 months, but you never know unless you get the call.) This time I'll be heading down to Washington, DC, spending a few days there, May 23-25. If anyone's around there and interested in getting together then, shoot me an email at phil-dot-p-dot-dennison at gmail dot com.

[CCDG]

I found this in the comments ection on Yahoo finance, I thought it was appropriate for a beer and geography open thread:

THE TAX SYSTEM EXPLAINED IN BEER

Suppose that every day, ten men go out for beer and the bill for all ten comes to $100.
If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this...

The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing
The fifth would pay $1
The sixth would pay $3
The seventh would pay $7
The eighth would pay $12
The ninth would pay $18
The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59

So, that's what they decided to do.

The ten men drank in the bar every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement, until one day, the owner threw them a curve ball. "Since you are all such good customers," he said, "I'm going to reduce the cost of your daily beer by $20". Drinks for the ten men would now cost just $80.

The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes. So the first four men were unaffected. They would still drink for free. But what about the other six men ? How could they divide the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his fair share?

They realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they subtracted that from everybody's share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would each end up being paid to drink his beer.

So, the bar owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man's bill by a higher percentage the poorer he was, to follow the principle of the tax system they had been using, and he proceeded to work out the amounts he suggested that each should now pay.

And so the fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100% saving).
The sixth now paid $2 instead of $3 (33% saving).
The seventh now paid $5 instead of $7 (28% saving).
The eighth now paid $9 instead of $12 (25% saving).
The ninth now paid $14 instead of $18 (22% saving).
The tenth now paid $49 instead of $59 (16% saving).

Each of the six was better off than before. And the first four continued to drink for free. But, once outside the bar, the men began to compare their savings.

"I only got a dollar out of the $20 saving," declared the sixth man. He pointed to the tenth man, “but he got $10!"

"Yeah, that's right," exclaimed the fifth man. "I only saved a dollar too. It's unfair that he got ten times more benefit than me!"

"That's true!" shouted the seventh man. "Why should he get $10 back, when I got only $2? The wealthy get all the breaks!"

"Wait a minute," yelled the first four men in unison, "we didn't get anything at all. This new tax system exploits the poor!"

The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up.

The next night the tenth man didn't show up for drinks so the nine sat down and had their beers without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important. They didn't have enough money between all of them for even half of the bill!

And that, boys and girls, journalists and government ministers, is how our tax system works. The people who already pay the highest taxes will naturally get the most benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up anymore. In fact, they might start drinking overseas, where the atmosphere is somewhat friendlier.

David R. Kamerschen, Ph.D.
Professor of Economics.

For those who understand, no explanation is needed.
For those who do not understand, no explanation is possible

[Ugh]

Hey someone mentioned taxes upthread! A few comments:

1. The Forbes piece is a mess, to say the least. I'll just pick out this quote:

If you want to blame someone for shipping jobs and capital overseas, blame Congress. There would be no reason for GE or any company to engage in accounting contortions if Congress just reduced corporate taxes to be competitive with the rest of the world--say 25%.

If companies are, in fact, shipping jobs and capital overseas then it's not just merely "accounting contortions" going on. And I'm not sure why a 25% rate is somehow going to elminate the incentive for accounting distortions, last time I checked 0% (the rate in many tax havens) is less than 25%, so is 12.5% (the rate in Ireland). So, that quote is just flat out nonsense, you can infer the accuracy of the rest of the analysis/opinion/whatever it is in the article from that and not be far off base.

2. One of the primary ways MNCs are able to save so much on US taxes is that US law will respect two (or more) corporate entities as separate even if they have identical owners. Thus, a wholly owned Company X Sub 1 in Germany can make interest payments to wholly owned Company X Sub 2 in the Caymans, getting a deduction in Germany reducing Company X's German income tax and "earning" the interest income in the Caymans while paying, surprise, a 0% rate on such income.* The only backstop to this is that the law requires payments between the entities to be "at arm's length," which is turning out to be unenforceable in most cases (and even if it was, it does not address my example, assuming the interest rate is set appropriately). It astonishes me that large countries let corporations get away with this.

3. What we're seeing across countries is a good old fashioned race to the bottom on corporate income taxes. You can guess who the winner is going to be.

*this is a simplified example of how things work generally

[Phil]

Man our rich people suffer so much, please hold while I pour one out for them. RIP rich people. ;_;

[Ugh]

David R. Kamerschen, Ph.D.
Professor of Economics.

If you google him, you get this web page, which has the following as its second and third sentences:

Contrary to Internet folklore, Dr. Kamerschen is NOT the author of "Tax Cuts: A Simple Lesson in Economics" or "Bar Stool Economics" or anything similar to that. Additionally, he does NOT know who wrote it and he has no opinion on its merits.

I can only assume those sentences refer to the comment Marty quotes above.

[CCDG]

Mea Culpa, I thought it was funny anyway.

[Countme--In]

Plus, the unattributed parable doesn't explain why the thousands of overtaxed brewpubs and entrepreneurial craft beer makers in the country haven't left the country in resentment, leaving the beer drinkers of various tax brackets high and dry.

Then there is Ireland.

Beer, low taxes, and the Irish emigrating anyway.

[Countme--In]

This guy is going to leave the country feet first.

http://www.angryblacklady.com/2011/04/17/teabilly-racism-is-so-old-school-its-hard-not-to-laugh-at-it/

Via John Cole.

The Confederate Tea Party and Republican Party menace will not be defeated without massive violence.

[Slartibartfast]

That sounds an awful lot like a call for violence, John. If so, that is not permitted here.

Oh, how we all pine for the heady days of the French Revolution, when haircuts were free, but frequently too close.

[Hartmut]

Is guillotine produced meat kosher?
Iirc it was not the business class that got shortened that way and if, it was old not new money that got hit. Wouldn't really improve the situation. I'd rather return to the practice of selling military commissions making them sought-after status symbols and then start a war where the officers are expected to lead the bayonet charges personally (guns in front of them, blades to the back of them. Into the alley of death charged the Fortune 500).

[Ugh]

That sounds an awful lot like a call for violence, John. If so, that is not permitted here.

Eh, sounds more like an opinion on the state of play. And who is John, BTW? ;-)

[hairshirthedonist]

For those who understand, no explanation is needed.
For those who do not understand, no explanation is possible

What's missing is that the tenth guy gets to decide what music is played in the bar, gets to sit wherever he likes (even if someone has to move to accommodate his wishes), has his own personal bathroom (with bidet), gets a massage from the St. Pauli girl (happy ending?), and gets to spit in everyone else's beer. The first four guys get to drink for free, but they get the spillover from the trough under the taps, have to stand, and are not allowed to use the restroom. And the owner isn't lowering the cost of the beer to $80. He's keeping it the same, but really needs to raise prices to pay for the bar he blew up down the street. Instead, he's watering down the beer for the fifth, sixth and seventh guy. Oh, and the tenth guy knows that the last tenth guy to leave for an overseas bar got the sh!t kicked out him (not to mention the diarrhea the crappy beer gave him) because that bar's owner was too cheap to pay a bouncer to break up fights, so he's not going anywhere if he's smart.

[John]

What?

[Countme-In]

The line in front of the OBWI beer garden uni-sex bathroom was a little long, so I stumbled outside to water the tree of liberty.

My bladder, you see. A river runs through it.

I nearly tripped over Michelle Bachmann and Sharron Angle, who were squatting primly as they considered whether kicking it up a notch and going Number Two might further fertilize the mighty tree and juke their appeal to their violence-loving constituents, while they got a little number one all over the shoes of their fellow Republican officeholders, who were in turn busy wondering whether they should save their number ones for C-Span, but were also enamored of the manly streams of Grover Norquist, Erick Erickson, Wayne La Pierre, and any number of Tea Party stalwarts who steadied their dummmies with one hand (no offense to Moe Lane) and, with the other hand, held aloft signs declaring "Next time, we pass multiple high-caliber kidney stones at the liberals and the nigras!"

I remarked on the efficacy of their tactics and the next thing you know the OBWI Beer Garden's bouncer was having a word with ME (while calling me John; is it good policy to let the bouncers drink, too?), while the rest of the UriNation crowd jumped in their cars to catch the next teacher lynching, extoll the liberty-enhancing properties of urea at Redrum, and then win the whole pissing contest so they can run the stinking country.

I think my statement above is absolutely true.

The fact that nothing will be done about it merely shows that I'm no Abraham Lincoln.

[liberal japonicus]

OK, this is real open thread material here. Not off topic enough, well, you asked for it.

Past 3 years, the flow has been a bit down. The river hasn't been running, it was more like a little crick. I attributed this to simply getting old. ONe of my best friends, who is very into kampo yaki, Chinese herbal medicine, recomende Saw Palmetto, which reduces the prostate. Sounded like a good idea. Did that for about a year, but things were getting worse. It was like some people I knew in college, I'd look at a glass of ice tea and have to head to the men's and was getting up twice at night with the reduction in sleep.

I should also note that my dad had prostate cancer, so this was something on my mind, but going to a Japanese proctologist was not on my list of things I really wanted to do, and at any rate, I was always too busy to set out the time.

When I was back home, I went to our family's physician and asked for a blood panel and consult, just so when I went to the Japanese doctor, I could have an idea of what I needed to ask, what vocabulary I needed, etc. Well, he said that I had a low grade infection and gave me a 1 month course of antibiotics and told me to get a blood panel when that course was finished, which I will do next week. But boy, it's made a huge difference.

This is probably more than you wanted to know and I see the bounder heading over here, so I'll finish there. Pee happy.

[Slartibartfast]

This is all good, lj. See, I am turning 50 this year, and falling over the cliff into yearly prostate exams and the like.

Hopefully I won't be forced by events to take a more pointed interest; I'm blessed to have both sides of the family clear of prostate issues.

So far. Who knows; I might be one of the unlucky ones.

[Countme-In]

We need many, many more and bigger guns and high-capacity clips and less Sharia in this country.

Google: "Quran-burning pastor's gun goes off in Dearborn Michigan"

[Countme-In]

Governor Rick Perry prays for rain.

That better not be Federally-funded precipitation he's praying for.

I pray for fire, secession, and then hotter fires.

I'd like to the fires spread to the deadly dry tinder of their school textbooks.

[Ugh]

Governor Rick Perry prays for rain.

But what if God is punishing Texas with the fires?

[russell]

I am turning 50 this year, and falling over the cliff into yearly prostate exams and the like.

The prep is a drag but the meds are great. I slept through mine.

Oddly, it helped me get past a long-time fear of flying. If a simple med could make a colonoscopy a non-issue, how bad could a plane flight (mediated through a mg or two of lorazepam) be?

The fringe benefits of modern medicine.

Quran-burning pastor's gun goes off in Dearborn Michigan

Somebody needs to take that brother aside and explain to him that his 15 minutes are up.

People are getting killed so this guy can get his face on the TV.

[russell]

Governor Rick Perry prays for rain.

But what if God is punishing Texas with the fires?

Who knows what god thinks about stuff. I sure don't.

But I often imagine god hearing things like people in TX praying for rain and thinking to him or her self, "If they want rain, why the hell did they move to Texas?"

[CCDG]

"But I often imagine god hearing things like people in TX praying for rain and thinking to him or her self, "If they want rain, why the hell did they move to Texas?""

Well, Palo Pinto, which has been partially evacuated, averages about 32 inches of rain per year, not Bostons 42 but it isn't the desert. On the other hand, El Paso averages around 8 inches a year and it is a perfectly valid question.

However, Texas has some places that are down right swamps with Port Arthur being the 8th most rained on city in the 48 contiguous states averaging 61 inches annually.

All of the top ten are from Alabama, Florida, Louisiana and Texas and before anyone asks Seattle is 24th. If you are actually interested at this point, doubtful, the study is referenced in this link but not actually linked to so I just went with it.

[russell]

that's cool ccdg, i'm just working from my own cartoon version of texas. you know, like in the movies. i appreciate the reality check.

hope folks down that way get some rain if that's what they need.

[CCDG]

No problem russell :) It really is a big place. When the fires start getting close to the metroplex then it is clearly out of desert country. The satellites photos are really amazing to see and my sister sent me a picture of an really burnt orange sunset from the smoke travelling hundreds of miles.

[CCDG]

NASA satellite image