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Suspicious Discontinuities (2020)

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Re: Suspicious Discontinuities (2020)

#71

Post by collabs »

I sincerely believe that a better idea in my opinion is to eliminate all means testing in government benefits altogether. No, higher taxes is not means testing. They are not the same thing at all. Removing means testing means we want the service to be used by all, which means the service should be at least usable by people who have the option to use something else. On a similar note, medicare clawback rules are cruel and unusual punishment. To punish the stupid and ill prepared while rewarding those who did tax planning five years or more before retirement is cruel.

Extra taxes on the stupid should be illegal.

Re: Suspicious Discontinuities (2020)

#72

Post by hack1312 »

collabs wrote: post #71

I sincerely believe that a better idea in my opinion is to eliminate all means testing in government benefits altogether. No, higher taxes is not means testing. They are not the same thing at all. Removing means testing means we want the service to be used by all, which means the service should be at least usable by people who have the option to use something else. On a similar note, medicare clawback rules are cruel…

Yes, exactly. Means-testing just makes a service more expensive by inserting needless middlemen.

Re: Suspicious Discontinuities (2020)

#73

Post by SiempreViernes »

alok-g wrote: post #56
Obscurity4340 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why cant they just scan the minor's texts/calls, send them to therapy and rehabillitation and RICO the fuck out of their "superiors"?

I am not sure. What I have heard is that the minor pleads guilty for the entire crime (possibly in exchange for some money behind the scenes). The broader point is that being a couple days or months younger or older than eighteen years should not result in a drastically different outcomes to begin with.

> The broader point is that being a couple days or months younger or older than eighteen years should not result in a drastically different outcomes to begin with.

The problem is that anytime you create a division there are always some cases just on the border, and if the outcome difference is sized to the difference between the centers of the classes the jump from on size of the border to another gets large.

But on the other hand if the jump isn't large you end up saying that 13 year olds and 30 year olds should be treated the same, which is clearly just worse.

You can try smoothing out the jump at the edges by adding more cuts and doing less changes from one step to the next, but I don't think you gain much in terms of recruitment of youths compared to just pushing the breakpoint fore lenient sentences to larger ages than 18.

Re: Suspicious Discontinuities (2020)

#74

Post by SiempreViernes »

Obscurity4340 wrote: post #55
alok-g wrote: post #38

Indian laws have the same too. For taxation 'surcharge' applied to high income groups, a patchwork called "marginal relief" fixes it [1], however, leaves ranges in income where 100% of incremental income goes away in taxes. [1] https://cleartax.in/s/marginal-relief-surcharge Another place where thresholding is misplaced is minors (below the age of 18 years) being subject to different laws (this is for India at least)…

Why cant they just scan the minor's texts/calls, send them to therapy and rehabillitation and RICO the fuck out of their "superiors"?

Generally organised crime groups has some skill at avoiding being provably responsible for crimes, it's a precondition for remaining active.

Re: Suspicious Discontinuities (2020)

#75

Post by SiempreViernes »

cadamsdotcom wrote: post #53

The marathon one has a simple - and fun - explanation: it’s great to run with people! Many (most?) marathons have pace runners who run the course, hewing to each 30 minute and 15 minute finish. So there’ll be a 3:30:00 pacer, a 3:45:00 pacer and so on. Your local pacer might even have their pace on their shirt and may even have a flag so they’re super hard to miss as you’re running. One friend of mine runs with a spe…

> One of the most common comments I've seen online about this graph and/or this paper is that this is due to pace runners provided by the marathon. Section 4.4 of the paper gives multiple explanations for why this cannot be the case, once again indicating that people tend to comment without reading the paper.

Re: Suspicious Discontinuities (2020)

#76

Post by manwe150 »

SiempreViernes wrote: post #73
alok-g wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not sure. What I have heard is that the minor pleads guilty for the entire crime (possibly in exchange for some money behind the scenes). The broader point is that being a couple days or months younger or older than eighteen years should not result in a drastically different outcomes to begin with.

> The broader point is that being a couple days or months younger or older than eighteen years should not result in a drastically different outcomes to begin with. The problem is that anytime you create a division there are always some cases just on the border, and if the outcome difference is sized to the difference between the centers of the classes the jump from on size of the border to another gets large. But on…

I was on a jury for a case like that. The charges included committing the other crimes in the presence of a minor. The minor in reference was a few days away from his 18th birthday, clearly acting on his own volition, and my understanding is the minor bad already been given essentially a slap on the wrist and his record cleared when he turned 18. The judge explained after the trial was over that his sentencing has significant flexibility to take those kinds of factors into account.

Re: Suspicious Discontinuities (2020)

#77

Post by etothepii »

collabs wrote: post #71

I sincerely believe that a better idea in my opinion is to eliminate all means testing in government benefits altogether. No, higher taxes is not means testing. They are not the same thing at all. Removing means testing means we want the service to be used by all, which means the service should be at least usable by people who have the option to use something else. On a similar note, medicare clawback rules are cruel…

If we are going to tax things that we want less of; would not taxing stupidity seem like good public policy?

Re: Suspicious Discontinuities (2020)

#78

Post by t-3 »

alok-g wrote: post #38

Indian laws have the same too. For taxation 'surcharge' applied to high income groups, a patchwork called "marginal relief" fixes it [1], however, leaves ranges in income where 100% of incremental income goes away in taxes. [1] https://cleartax.in/s/marginal-relief-surcharge Another place where thresholding is misplaced is minors (below the age of 18 years) being subject to different laws (this is for India at least)…

> Another place where thresholding is misplaced is minors (below the age of 18 years) being subject to different laws (this is for India at least), e.g., seriously different punishments for crimes like homicide or rape. I have heard that crime groups then purposefully involve minors, push the blames on them if caught, and effectively get away for much less.

This also used to be common in the US, but nowadays for (violent?) crimes minors can be charged as adults, so this kind of thing is only done for drugs and organized stealing rather than murders and violent crimes.

Re: Suspicious Discontinuities (2020)

#79

Post by loeg »

t-3 wrote: post #78
alok-g wrote: post #38

Indian laws have the same too. For taxation 'surcharge' applied to high income groups, a patchwork called "marginal relief" fixes it [1], however, leaves ranges in income where 100% of incremental income goes away in taxes. [1] https://cleartax.in/s/marginal-relief-surcharge Another place where thresholding is misplaced is minors (below the age of 18 years) being subject to different laws (this is for India at least)…

> Another place where thresholding is misplaced is minors (below the age of 18 years) being subject to different laws (this is for India at least), e.g., seriously different punishments for crimes like homicide or rape. I have heard that crime groups then purposefully involve minors, push the blames on them if caught, and effectively get away for much less. This also used to be common in the US, but nowadays for (vio…

> This also used to be common in the US

I think it more or less still is. (Memorialized in The Offspring's Come Out and Play: "If you're under 18, you won't be doing any time.")

> but nowadays for (violent?) crimes minors can be charged as adults, so this kind of thing is only done for drugs and organized stealing rather than murders and violent crimes.

Minors are very occasionally charged as adults, but still mostly get lesser sentences for all kinds of crimes. Gangs prefer to recruit minors, probably in part because minors are stupid/immature enough to join gang life.

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