Politics

Opposing Hillary

Posted on by Kenneth Ballard / 0 Comment

Saying to someone “vote for Hillary, you racist, misogynist, transphobic, homophobic bigot!” isn’t going to convince people…

When Hillary’s supporters play the identity politics game we’ve seen constantly played since 2008 (and to some extent before that), is it no surprise that Trump has the support he does? People are sick of the identity politics, especially when it’s played in complete contradiction of facts!

Many point out that Trump has a lot of support from whites. And the reason is because Trump isn’t telling them that they’re responsible for all the world’s ills. Hillary’s supporters and the social justice warriors that make up the bulk of her most vocal supporters and surrogates constantly tell me and people like me that we’re “the problem”. If only I’d just renounce my cisgender hetero-normative straight white male upper-middle class “privilege” — all the while having to dodge being constantly called racist, misogynist, transphobic, homophobic, and classist….

And you wonder why they support Trump?

Cracked actually did an article that outlines in quite stark contrast why many support Trump, even if they don’t think he’s the best thing since sliced bread. It starts by pointing out that Democrat support is actually quite concentrated in a relatively small land area compared to Republican support. Those people living in largely rural areas and small towns don’t like being told by urban elites in their ivory towers how to live. They don’t like those urban elites and arrogant SJW jackasses looking down their noses at them while telling them that they’re “the problem”, that they’re all racists and homophobes when mostly people out in those small towns and rural areas couldn’t care less about your race or sexual orientation so long as they don’t have to keep hearing about it all the time.

And they support Trump because Trump seems like he’ll actually direct some relief toward the rural areas that’ve been hit the hardest since the 2008 recession and have yet to see any meaningful recovery, rather than being blamed for everything that’s wrong in the United States.

Abortion

Aborting black babies

Posted on by Kenneth Ballard / 0 Comment

One idea commonly parroted by those who are anti-abortion or “pro-life” is the idea that the “abortion industry” is targeting minorities, particularly blacks. It is certainly a persistently pressed idea, and there are entire organizations that exist just to perpetuate this claim. Indeed an entire organization exists saying that abortion is “black genocide”.

And when you have an agenda and you find facts that can be twisted to be in support of that agenda, it is easy to take things a little too far and say things that are not true. I’m certainly guilty of this myself, though I feel I’ve been getting better at this over time.

Now anyone who thinks that abortion is a black and white issue (no pun intended) is not thinking things through. It is a complicated issue with many different facets. But all ideas originate somewhere, and I believe this idea is derived from several claims.

Claim #1: Black women have more abortions

The first claim is simply this: the abortion rate among minorities is significantly higher than among whites. After all, if this were not the case, the “pro-life” crowd would not have any leg to stand on with regard to the general idea that the so-called “abortion industry” is targeting minorities.

Earlier in 2016 the Guttmacher Institute published a revision to their “Facts on Induced Abortion in the United States” report showing the demographics of abortion patients for 2014. The breakdown on abortion rates by race shows this:1Jerman J, Jones RK and Onda T, Characteristics of U.S. Abortion Patients in 2014 and Changes Since 2008, New York: Guttmacher Institute, 2016, www.guttmacher.org/report/characteristics-us-abortion-patients-2014.

So black women account for about 28% of all abortions. That’s a pretty big number given that according to census reports, those who are black account for approximately 12.6% of the population according to the 2010 census.2Humes, Karen R., et. al. “Overview of Race and Hispanic Origin: 2010“. (2011, March). And if we presume an even distribution of men and women, that means that 28% of abortions are obtained by 12.6% of women.

According to the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, here are the various pregnancy statistics for all women in the United States for 2008 (per 1,000 women aged 15 to 44 years old):3Ventura, Stephanie J., et. al. (2012, June 20). “Estimated Pregnancy Rates in the United States, 1990-2008: An Update“. National Vital Statistics Report (60):7.

Overall about 18.4% of all pregnancies in 2008 were terminated via abortion. The lowest abortion rate is among white women, with about 1 in 8 pregnancies being terminated. Next lowest is the rate among Hispanic women, with a little over 17% of pregnancies being terminated. And the rate among blacks is the highest, with approximately 36% of pregnancies being terminated, over 1 in 3.

Looking at the overall numbers between racial groups, we can see that the abortion rate for Hispanics is about 2.5x that of white women, while the abortion rate for black women is almost double that of Hispanic women and almost 5x that of white women. This despite the fact the pregnancy rate for black women isn’t even double that of white women — 144.3 and 87.5 per 100,000 respectively. What could explain that disparity?

That question will be addressed later.

Claim #2: Most abortion clinics are in “black neighborhoods”

The second claim that is commonly provided by anti-abortion organizations is the idea that the majority of abortion clinics are in areas predominantly patronized or occupied by blacks, so-called “black neighborhoods”.  The Guttmacher Institute recently evaluated this claim and published a report on it.4Dreweke, Joerg. (January 2011). “Claim that Most Abortion Clinics are Located in Black Neighborhoods Is False“. They summarize the claim as

Antiabortion activists often claim that most abortion clinics are located in predominantly black neighborhoods. However, this claim—offered as supposed proof that abortion providers “target” African-American women—is never documented.

According to the report, a majority of clinics providing abortion services are located in areas or neighborhoods predominantly occupied by non-Hispanic whites. Here’s the breakdown based on which ethnicity accounts for the majority of the population in a given area around the clinic:

So 15% of clinics are in neighborhoods or areas where there is a significant mix of ethnicities within the population. These clinics could be in non-residential areas as well, but most clinics are in areas where the population is dominated by non-Hispanic whites.

Claim #3: Cascading argument – Abortion = racism, eugenics

This last claim I’m going to call the “cascading” argument because the argument starts with several premises and results in a conclusion, the conclusion being the argument that is attempted. The argument can typically be phrased as this: Planned Parenthood performs more abortions than any other abortion provider, Planned Parenthood was founded by Margaret Sanger, Margaret Sanger supported eugenics, eugenics called for the extermination of blacks and other “lesser” races, therefore abortion is racist or a form of eugenics.

I’m unsure if this is circular reasoning or an attempt to make a slippery slope argument, but that’s a technicality that is immaterial. This argument basically asks or demands the person hearing it to accept the argument without knowing all the applicable facts. The connection seems reasonable on the outset, but breaks down under scrutiny with only a modicum of critical thinking.

Planned Parenthood was founded by Margaret Sanger. Planned Parenthood started as a small birth control clinic in 1916. At the time, dispensing birth control was a crime in the State of New York, and in much of the United States, and Sanger was jailed for doing so. The clinic was reorganized in 1921 to be a member of the newly-formed American Birth Control League, which was organized at the First American Birth Control Conference in New York City that year, but was officially incorporated under the laws of New York in 1922.

In 1942 the league reorganized to become the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, and it is one of the most familiar names in women’s reproductive health services.

Margaret Sanger was a supporter of eugenics, but so were a lot of people 100 years ago. Like slavery, eugenics was once a popular idea that is now seen as abhorrent. Many have accused that Charles Darwin was a supporter of eugenics by way of his published theory of evolution, but the concept of eugenics originated with Darwin’s cousin, Sir Francis Galton, and Darwin wanted nothing to do with it and did not support the idea at all. Eugenics is a bastardization of the concepts inherent to Darwin’s concept of evolution. Its most prominent practitioner was easily Adolf Hitler, though the concept was supported by the likes of Winston Churchill, Theodore Roosevelt, John Maynard Keynes (after whom is named Keynesian economics), and George Barnard Shaw.

The concept of eugenics is in wide practice today, just not on human populations. Instead eugenics is practiced with animal populations, especially that of horses, cattle, dogs, and cats, among others. Basically wherever artificial controls are exerted over the act of reproducing – i.e. by controlling with whom a subject mates or even employing artificial insemination – you have a form of eugenics.

But while Sanger was a eugenicist, one has a lot of evidence to uncover to support the idea that abortion is either inherently racist or a form of eugenics. For starters, the medical concept of induced abortion predates much of modern medicine and the concept of eugenics by millennia, with the earliest evidence of induced abortions being dated back to 1550 BC in Egypt.5Potts, Malcolm; Martha Campbell (2009). “History of Contraception”. Glob. libr. women’s med..DOI:10.3843/GLOWM.10376. ISSN 1756-2228. The Chinese practiced it as far back as 500 BC, but Chinese folklore dates abortions back approximately 5,000 years.6History of abortion. (2012, June 28). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 19:01, July 28, 2012

All of this being true, Sanger’s views on eugenics are immaterial to the modern practice of abortion. The two are not and cannot be linked. This is especially true given that overall, based on raw numbers, the plurality of abortions are not obtained by blacks, but by whites, as explained in the evaluation of the first claim. It’s about like finding one person at a technology company who is a member of the KKK and then saying the entire organization is racist as a result. Talk about a leap of faith, to say the least.

Further Sanger’s focus was on birth control, not abortion. Sanger’s own writings show that she did not support abortion, calling it a “disgrace to civilization”7Sanger, Margaret. (1920). Contraception or Abortion? In Women and the New Race (p 120). New York: Truth Publishing Company. and saying that birth control was a “cure for abortions”8Gray, p 280, citing 1916 edition: Sanger, Margaret (1917). Family Limitation. p. 5..

Intermission

One point I want to make very, very clear: I am not arguing in favor of abortion, only trying to counter one of the loudest claims made by those who vehemently oppose abortion – basically putting the numbers to the claim to see if there is any merit to it. Fronting a claim that has not been demonstrated to be true just because it sounds good is dishonest, and plenty of people on the pro-life side of this debate are dishonest. This is not to say that there is no one among those considered “pro-choice” that is dishonest as there very likely are.

But let’s summarize the three claims above.

The percentage of abortions obtained by blacks exceeds their representative proportion in the population of the United States, with the former being about twice the latter, and the rate of abortions based on population among blacks is about 5x that among whites.

This does not, on it’s own, mean that the abortion industry is targeting minorities. It’s a disingenuous explanation: blacks are having abortions at a higher rate, so the abortion industry must be targeting blacks.

Further, the pregnancy rate among blacks exceeds the overall pregnancy rate of whites by a significant margin. This alone leans very heavily upon the real explanation of why the abortion rate among blacks is so high. More pregnancies means there will be more abortions. But is it really that simple? Not quite. As we shall see when I attempt to explain in detail why the abortion rate among blacks is much higher.

At this point, being honest requires us to dismiss the claim that the abortion providers are targeting blacks. There is no evidence to support it. While there is evidence suggesting it – such as the vastly higher abortion rate – that evidence has alternate explanations and does not support the claim in exclusion of other possibilities. Unless there is hard evidence that minorities are being targeted directly by abortion providers, that claim must be dismissed.

From here, let us proceed to see if we can explain why blacks have more abortions by examining various counter-claims to the main idea. The explanation is, to say the least, rather complex. From there we should be able to come up with a comprehensive and data-supported method of reducing the abortion rate, among blacks and overall, that will have more success than simply banning it.

Counter-Claim #1: Higher rates of unintended pregnancies

There is a very strong correlation between unintended pregnancy and abortion. Given the high abortion rates among blacks and Hispanics, established above, it is reasonable to predict that such a correlation is to be reflected among blacks and Hispanics.

First, this is a breakdown of the total percentage of pregnancies among whites, blacks, and Hispanics that are unintended for 2011:9Finer, Lawrence B. and Zolna, Mia R. (2016). Declines in Unintended Pregnancy in the United States, 2008–2011. New England Journal of Medicine, 374(9), 843-852. doi: 10.1056/NEJMsa1506575

Overall about 45% of pregnancies were unintended in 2011, down from 51% in 2008. And while high at 64% among blacks, that’s down from a near 7 in 10 unintended pregnancy rate for 2008.

So among blacks, there are about 2 unintended pregnancies for every intended pregnancy, while nearly the opposite among whites. Even among Hispanics, about half of pregnancies are unintended, but Hispanics account for only 1 in 4 abortions. Taking these percentages and applying them to the “overall” number above reveals the rate of pregnancies that are unintended (per 1,000 women aged 15 to 44):

So in 2011 about 1 in 10 black women of reproductive age became unintentionally pregnant. Let that number sink in a little. And that number is just shy of triple the unintended pregnancy rate for whites, with the unintended pregnancy rate for Hispanic women being more than double that of white women.

But do these numbers explain why the abortion rate among blacks and Hispanics is significantly higher than among whites? Not entirely.

First, we need to determine why blacks and Hispanics are becoming pregnant unintentionally at a much higher rate. Only two predictions can be made from this, and they work in tandem: they are more sexually active and/or less likely to use contraception consistently and correctly.

Counter-Claim #2: More sexually active

Recall from above that blacks became pregnant at a rate of 144.3 per 1,000 women in 2008 compared to 87.5 in 1,000 white women. That’s about a 65% higher rate. Even among Hispanics the pregnancy rate was about 56.5% higher than among whites — 136.9 in 1,000 compared to 87.5 in 1,000. Higher pregnancy rates infer more sexual activity.

The United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention publishes on a bi-annual basis a report regarding risky behaviors among high school students as part of the Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System.10Centers for Disease Control and Prevention – Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System As of the time of this writing, the most recent statistics available are for 2015. The data are viewable online, and a nice interface for filtering the data is provided, so I encourage you to take a look at the web site and look at the data for yourself. If you notice any disparities in the data versus what I provide here, I welcome the feedback.

The data are provided with overall numbers and numbers for males and females. For the most part, I will be looking only at the overall numbers. Let’s look at a few key numbers. Among surveyed students, the percentages reporting having ever had sexual intercourse are (95% CI):

So the overall numbers are pretty well in line with the pregnancy and abortion numbers. Overall the highest rates of pregnancy, unintended pregnancy, and sexual activity are among blacks, with Hispanics still higher than whites but less than blacks.

Now these sexual activity numbers are for high school, and the percentages do converge more in the higher grades but never cross. And it’s reasonable to presume that sexual activity among blacks will remain higher than among whites and Hispanics even in adult years.

This is especially true when talking about the number of respondents reporting having had sex before age 13. According to the survey, 8.3% of surveyed black high school students reported having sex before the age of 13, compared to only 5.0% of Hispanic high school students and 2.5% of white high school students.

And 13% of surveyed black male freshmen and 4.3% of surveyed black female freshmen reported having 4 or more sex partners in their life. At senior high school grades, the numbers jump to 46.1% of surveyed black men and 20.1% of surveyed black women report having 4 or more sex partners. For whites at the senior grade, it is 18.2% of surveyed men, and 16.8% of surveyed women. For Hispanics at the senior grade, it’s 23.5% of surveyed men and 12.8% of surveyed women.

All of this means exposure to a higher risk of unintended pregnancies not only during high school but also later in life unless their ways change.

Counter-Claim #3: Less likely to use contraceptives or use them properly

The sexual activity statistics alone do not account for the high rate of unintended pregnancies among blacks and Hispanics. There must be a complementary factor, and the only complementary factor is a lack of proper contraceptive use.

Given the overall pregnancy rate among teens aged 15 to 17 was 39.5 in 2008, with about 1 in 4 of those ending in abortion, that’s a likely factor. The pregnancy rate among blacks aged 15 to 17 in 2008, however, was 72.8 in 1,000. And the abortion rate was 26.7, meaning over 1 in 3 pregnancies among black teens aged 15 to 17 ended in abortion.11Ventura, Stephanie J., et. al. (2012, June 20). “Estimated Pregnancy Rates in the United States, 1990-2008: An Update“. National Vital Statistics Report (60):7.

The data from the CDC Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System does not appear to support this notion among high school students, at least in overall statistics. But the one thing to bear in mind is that these statistics are among high school students. Further the question that is asked is whether they used a condom during their last sexual encounter. The question about birth control does not ask how long the student had been using it, or whether they were complying with the administration instructions, only if they were self-administering it at all.

But one thing that is of note: condom use among black students is negatively correlated with age, with more 12 grade black students reporting they did not use a condom than 9th grade black students. Again, though, the question is about their most recent sexual encounter, and does not attempt to determine whether that use was consistent or even correct.

In November 2015, the CDC published an analysis of contraceptive use for 2011 to 2013 in the United States among women aged 15 to 44.12Daniels, Kimberly, et. al. “Current Contraceptive Use and Variation by Characteristics Among Women Aged 15–44: United States, 2011–2013“. (2015, November 10). It showed that about 6.9% of respondents reported having had intercourse within the 3 months preceding the survey while not expressing any desire to become pregnant.

The survey reported that 61.7 women were actively using contraception. This doesn’t mean they are using it consistently or correctly. Blacks are slightly more likely to rely on condoms and the withdrawal method, slightly more likely to use the patch or ring, but 40% less likely to use either the pill or intra-uterine device (IUD). Blacks also get the intravenous contraception (Depo-Provera) at over 3x the rate of whites.

Among overall contraceptive usage among all race classifications, the percentages reported for blacks were the lowest at 54.5%. Contraception usage among whites the highest at 64.7% of respondents.

In 2014 the CDC published a data brief13Daniels, Kimberly, et. al. Current Contraceptive Status Among Women Aged 15–44: United States, 2011–2013. (Dember 2014). from the 2013 National Survey of Family Growth that included contraceptive use among interviewees. Several findings are key:

  • Contraceptive use was higher among women aged 25 or higher compared to women aged 15-24
  • White women were more likely to use contraception (65.3%) than blacks (57.9%) and Hispanics (57.3%)
  • 6.9% of women between 15 and 44 who are sexually active do not employ contraceptives
  • Education level had little impact on contraceptive use
  • Condom use among 15-24 and 25-34 age ranges was similar, but lower in the 35-44 age range. Race was not a factor in determining condom use.

In a special tabulation, the National Center for Health Statistics determined that that shy of 1 in 4 women surveyed (24.3%) used a condom at their most recent sexual encounter. The condom was still the leading choice for contraceptive use for first intercourse, but for established sexual relationships appeared to not be preferred. It’s overall use among women surveyed was about 9.4%.

Less than 1 in 5 women and less than 1 in 4 men report using a condom every time they have sex.

Back in 2010 the CDC published another study regarding contraceptive use that followed several different time frames, the most recent being 2008.14“Use of Contraception in the United States: 1982-2008“. That study noted that slightly over 1 in 10 women who responded to the survey who were at risk for an unintended pregnancy were not using any form of contraception.

Among age breakdown, that number becomes 18.7% for women aged 15-19 years, 14.3% for women aged 20-24 years, and 11.9% for women aged 25-29 years. Among women with no high school diploma, non-contraception use among women at risk for unintended pregnancies is at 11.9%, with that rate dropping to 9.3% for women with a high school diploma, 9.1% for women with less than a bachelor’s degree, and 8.2% for women with a bachelor degree or higher.

Further, women below the poverty line are most likely to not use contraception: 12.6% of at-risk women between 0% and 99% the poverty level income don’t use contraception. Overall of women under 150% their poverty level, the percentage of non-contraceptive use is 12.3%. This drops to 10.3% for women between 150% and 299% poverty level, and drops to 7.9% for women at or above 300% poverty level.

And going back to race, the numbers again are quite telling. Among black women, 16.3% of black women at risk for an unintended pregnancy did not use contraception, while the percentage among white women was only 9.4%. For Hispanic women, the percentage was 13.8%.

This, however, begs another question: why is contraceptive use lacking when they wish to prevent pregnancy? The survey asked women who became unintentionally pregnant as to why they did not employ contraception. The results showed that 43.9% of women were not aware they were at risk for a pregnancy, while 16.2% of the women were concerned about side effects from the contraception – makes me wonder what kind of contraceptive methods they considered employing.

Here’s a startling number: 16.9% of the women who responded said their male partner didn’t want to use contraception. Another one: 14.1% of the women responded said they didn’t expect to have sex. So overall we have a general problem of both men and women not really understanding how female fertility and contraception works so they know best how to avoid pregnancy when they want to.

Further the numbers clearly show that blacks are less likely to employ contraception than whites, and slightly less likely than Hispanics. Those who are younger and at risk for an unintended pregnancy are also less likely to employ contraception. And women who are at or below the poverty line are also less likely to employ contraception, as are women who are lesser educated.

So young, undereducated, impoverished black women seem to be the least likely to use contraception given the numbers. And given the rate of unintended pregnancies, they are also significantly more likely to not use it properly when they are at risk of becoming pregnant and want to prevent it.

Counter-Claim #4: More black individuals live below 200% of the poverty definition

According to the United States Census Bureau, here is the poverty breakdown in the United States for 2010 by race:15Carmen DeNavas, Bernadette D. Proctor, Jessica C. Smith. (September 2011). “Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2010“. United States Census Bureau: P60-239.

Now the definition of “poverty” varies based on household. The government definition of what constitutes the poverty threshold is determined by the Census Bureau.16Poverty thresholds. US Census Bureau. A person who lives alone is considered impoverished if their annual income is less than $11,344 for 2010. The poverty level for a single parent with a child is $15,030, and the level goes up incrementally based on the size of the household, and the threshold is determined based on a calculated cost of living.

So a single person living alone is at 200% the poverty threshold when they have an annual income of $22,688 – the equivalent of an hourly wage of $10.90 for a 40-hour work week.

There is a clear correlation between poverty and abortion. Those below the poverty line are significantly more likely to obtain an abortion when there is an unwanted pregnancy. The majority of abortions are obtained by women living below 200% the definition of poverty for that individual. This according to the Guttmacher Institute:17Jerman J, Jones RK and Onda T, Characteristics of U.S. Abortion Patients in 2014 and Changes Since 2008, New York: Guttmacher Institute, 2016, www.guttmacher.org/report/characteristics-us-abortion-patients-2014.

According to the data 75% of abortions, 3 in 4, were obtained by people living below 200% the poverty definition, with almost half of all abortions obtained by individuals living at or below the definition of poverty. Using the 2008 figure of 1.2 million abortions, that’s 600,000 abortions obtained by individuals at or below poverty, with another approximately 312 thousand obtained by individuals living above the poverty level but below 200% the level of poverty. That is a significant number unto itself.

So let’s summarize the data for this claim:

  • shy of half of all abortions are obtained by women meeting the Federal definition of poverty
  • another 1 in 4 are obtained by women between 100% and 199% the Federal definition of poverty
  • the poverty rate among blacks is more than 2 ½ times that among non-Hispanic whites

So poverty is clearly correlated with the rate of abortions. And blacks and Hispanics are more likely to be impoverished than whites. And blacks and Hispanics are more likely to become unexpectedly pregnant, and more likely to terminate that pregnancy via abortion.

Conclusions

The data do not support the claim that the so-called “abortion industry” is targeting minorities. There is no “black genocide” with regard to abortion, and in particular with regard to Planned Parenthood.

While clear that blacks do have the higher incidence of abortion, and they are seeking abortion services at a higher rate than other ethnicities, they also have a much higher rate of unintended pregnancies – almost 2 in 3 pregnancies among blacks are unintended. The rate of unintended pregnancies is so high because blacks are more sexually active and less likely to use contraceptives in a consistent and correct manner. The unanswered question being why.

So if they are having a much higher rate of unintended pregnancies, it is reasonable to presume that they will seek abortion services at a higher rate, especially given that blacks are more likely to be living below the poverty line. Half of all abortions are obtained by women living at or below the poverty line, with overall 3 in 4 abortions obtained by women living below 200% poverty definition.

Contrary to seemingly popular belief among anti-abortion activists, the majority of abortion clinics are not in areas predominantly frequented or occupied by blacks. That fact alone casts serious doubt to the claim the “abortion industry” is targeting blacks.

To support the claim that the “abortion industry” is targeting blacks for “black genocide”, you must demonstrate that abortion providers are

  • encouraging blacks to be more sexually active, and to become sexually active at a younger age
  • discouraging blacks from consistently and correctly using contraception to prevent pregnancy, such that they become unexpectedly pregnant
  • encouraging unexpectedly pregnant black women to seek abortion services rather than carrying the pregnancy to term

The explanation that the “abortion industry” is targeting blacks is without evidence, and without merit. There is plenty of evidence supporting contrary explanations. To put it simply, without hard evidence of direct marketing or targeting of blacks by abortion providers, the claim can be shown by the numbers to have no merit at all.

Reducing the number of abortions

Many pro-life organizations would have you believe that outlawing abortion is the solution to the issue of abortion, as if the law will operate like some magic spell and cure that issue. Except the world, unfortunately, doesn’t work that way.

Reducing the total number of abortions performed each year requires reducing the total number of unintended pregnancies. This can come about in several ways. And we can start by teaching minors in school about proper contraceptive use while encouraging it among teens who are sexually active. Further abstinence needs to be promoted, as abstinence is the only 100% guaranteed way of preventing pregnancy and the contraction of an STD.

But abstinence-only education programs, however, will not help solve the problem, and there is reason to believe it will only exacerbate it.

Along with this, we need to understand why contraceptive use among sexually active blacks appears to be so lacking. What can be done to encourage responsible sexual activity?

But this is only one side of the coin and will not solve the problem entirely.

If you really want to deal a blow to the number of abortions in the United States, the one critical way to do so is by lifting minorities out of poverty. We need to foster the kind of economic environments in which prosperity and wealth flourish. “Wealthier is healthier,” John Stossel has said on his program on the Fox Business Network. And so too a wealthier, educated population is significantly more likely to use contraceptives consistently and correctly. They are less likely to become unintentionally pregnant. And they are less likely to have abortions than their impoverished counterparts by significant margins.

* * * * *

References[+]

Politics/Taxes

Dodging taxes – the “fair share” argument

Posted on by Kenneth Ballard / 0 Comment

[Note: this isn’t really an article, but merely a cut/paste of a comment I left to someone trying to argue that the wealthy don’t pay their “fair share” with regard to taxes. When I challenged, saying the wealthy pay far more than what is fair, the person challenged and brought up the Panama Papers.]

How much in taxes do you think they pay? I mean the richest 20% of tax payers pay over 2/3rds of the taxes.

I’ve been in the 25% tax bracket since I got married 5 years ago. This year, I’ll barely avoid the 28% tax bracket for next year’s tax returns. How much more do you think I should be paying?

For 2014, those earning $100,000 or more accounted for 85% of the total income tax burden according to IRS data.1Source: http://taxfoundation.org/blog/new-irs-data-wealthy-paid-55-percent-income-taxes-2014 How much more do you think they should be paying? I’d say that’s far, far more than fair.

And yes I’ve heard of the Panama Papers. Are you saying the wealthy aren’t entitled to keep what they’ve earned? Oh wait, you must think they stole all that wealth from the “little guy”.

[The person in question then said I was being “gouged” on my taxes, that the middle class pays most of the taxes (not true — those with AGIs exceeding $250,000 accounted for 55% of income tax liability in 20142Source: http://taxfoundation.org/blog/new-irs-data-wealthy-paid-55-percent-income-taxes-2014), while accusing the megawealthy of “tax dodging”. She also brings up the old canard that high tax rates weren’t bad for the economy.]

Everyone looks for ways to lower their tax burden. The wealthy have access to advisors who can point them in particular (hopefully legal) directions.

I’m not saying I’m being gouged, though I’d certainly like to pay less than 25% just in Federal income taxes — especially since I don’t have really anything in the way of allowable deductions. At the same time, given what I said, you now know approximately how much my household income was this year. You may not consider me “megawealthy”, but you still didn’t answer my question: how much more do you think I should pay? How much more than that 25% do you think I should be paying? 28%? 30%? 35%? 50%? How much do you think is “fair”?

And, at the same time, what makes that tax rate “fair” for me, but unfair for those making less than me?

Again, those who make 6-figures and up already account for 85% of the tax liability, despite accounting for only 57% of aggregate household incomes (in other words, they are 57% of the total, not 57% of households). How much more do you think we should pay?

And unless the wealthy are using illegal methods of moving assets to avoid taxes, they’re not tax dodging. They’re doing what they legally can to pay the least possible in taxes. And I’m sure that if you had the same resources, and wealth, you’d be doing the same. I doubt you’d be one of the self-righteous wealthy who’d voluntarily pay more than they’re legally obligated…

Instead you’re accusing the wealthy of “tax dodging”, which basically means you think that you, by proxy of the government, have a claim to their wealth and/or income. And I’m saying you don’t. If the wealthy want to use every legal means necessary to hide their wealth to avoid taxes, then so be it.

It doesn’t matter the effect higher tax rates might have on the economy. I’m talking about the fairness of forcing higher tax rates on those who make more only because they make more, while accusing them of not paying their “fair share” if they try to lower their tax burden. Yet I don’t see you willing to pony up 50% of your income to the IRS. Show me evidence you’ve done that and then we’ll have something to talk about without you sounding like a hypocrite.

References[+]

Federal Reserve/Fractional-reserve banking

The National Debt does exist

Posted on by Kenneth Ballard / 19 Comments

Mike Norman over at The Street recently shat out an article called “The National Debt: Why fret over something that doesn’t exist?” And how does he say the national debt doesn’t exist?

The debt is dollars. The government spent $20 trillion more than it took away in taxes over the last 240 years, and those dollars, held by the non-government, comprise a big portion of the non-government’s wealth.

He’s only partly right. The big problem here is that there is not 20 Trillion USD in circulation. Not anywhere close. While true that the United States Dollar — more accurately called the Federal Reserve Dollar — is born out of debt, again we don’t have 20 Trillion USD in circulation.

About 4.5 Trillion is intra-governmental liabilities, not debt held by the public. And the rest of the publicly-held debt was actually accumulated since 1835, the only time in the history of the United States that the national debt was paid down completely.

But the rest of how he tries to get around this idea is just mind-numbing. Let’s see if I can pick it apart. Seriously what he says is such utter bullshit I’m not even sure where to begin.

Second, there is nothing to pay back. The money was paid, ended up in someone’s bank account and now it’s being held in the form of Treasuries.

Mr Norman, you obviously have no idea how liabilities work. The public debt is a liability on the government. It is money they owe. Now when the notes and bonds come due, the government has the option to “roll over” that debt. That is instead of cashing out the bonds and notes, they can issue new bonds and new notes in exchange for the matured ones. They can take the proceeds from newly-issued bonds to pay the matured ones.

In personal finances, this would be similar to a credit card balance transfer or a debt consolidation loan in that you are using new debt to pay off old debt.

It’s pretty easy to see how that works. But it is also what allows the public debt to keep growing with virtually no end in sight, and with the government not really having to pay back the principal on the bonds.

But that doesn’t mean nothing is owed. Absolutely there are trillions of dollars in bonds that are liabilities on the United States Treasury. There is no implicit obligation under the law that the government actually cash out the bonds. But when a bond matures, the Treasury must do something with it, and the only two options are to reissue the security, or cash it out.

Which do you think happens more? I’ll answer that question in a moment.

But first, I’ll raise another: if there’s nothing to pay back, why does the Treasury operate the Bureau of the Fiscal Service, to which you can send money directly to the Treasury exclusively for the purpose of paying down the public debt? Check it out at Pay.gov.

A Treasury is a dollar, the only difference being it’s a dollar with a term (duration) and a coupon (interest payment).

No.

“Treasury” is a United States Treasury security. It includes T-bills, T-notes, T-bonds, and Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities (TIPS). All of these are liabilities on the United States government.

What you’re saying is like saying “a mortgage is a dollar”. No, a mortgage is a note. Just as a Treasury is a note. The only difference is that a Treasury Note is unsecured debt — nothing is backing it except the “full faith and credit of the United States”. Whereas most notes are backed by some kind of collateral that can be seized (repossession or foreclosure) should the note no longer be honored by the debtor.

Why would people hold dollars in the form of Treasuries? To earn some interest, that’s all. It’s like saying, why would you put your money in a savings account as opposed to a checking account? Same reason, to earn interest. If you want it back in your checking account, you tell your bank and it switches it back from your savings account to your checking account.

Sadly, this is likely the only accurate statement you make in the entirety of your article. It’s also incomplete.

The one thing that you’re forgetting, Mr Norman, is that your checking or saving account — i.e. your demand deposit accounts — are liabilities on the bank holding the account. Your checking account is part of your bank’s total debt.

That’s how it works with the government, too. It “pays back” holders of Treasuries all the time.

Not exactly. It “pays back” the note holders by giving them new notes. But again the holder is free to sell them to someone else if they want the principal of the note. Then the privilege to collect interest on that note passes to the buyer.

That’s called a redemption and when Treasuries are redeemed the government simply instructs its bank, the Fed, to take back the securities and credit the individual’s (or firm’s or foreign government’s or whomever’s) bank account and, voila, it happens. Paid back.

Not quite.

First, the Federal Reserve is not the government’s “bank”. The Federal Reserve isn’t a bank in the traditional sense. While the Treasury does have an account at the Federal Reserve, this is simply because the Federal Reserve is the central bank of the United States. And the Treasury is, simply, a bank. It is the bank for the Federal government, and so a member of the Federal Reserve to have access to the Federal Reserve System.

But the Federal Reserve doesn’t pay the principal on the notes and bonds either. Not in the sense you’re implying. When a Treasury matures, you have one of three options: buying a new note (“reinvesting”), directing the value be deposited into your Certificate of Indebtedness account (basically an escrow account held by the Treasury), or have it deposited into a designated bank account.

But the Federal Reserve isn’t paying that. Instead the Treasury directs that payment be made to you in the same way your employer directs your paycheck to you, whether by direct deposit or a physical financial instrument.

If you go to the last statement of the fiscal year, Sept. 30, and you scroll down to that table I just gave you, Table III-A, you will see the government redeemed (paid back) $94.2 trillion in one year! I put a screenshot below.

Please note: All figures on the daily Treasury statement are in millions, so don’t come back to me and say it was only $94.2 million. It’s $94.2 million million. That’s $94.2 trillion. See the image below.

The bulk of the value to which he’s referring is the “Government Account Series”, or GAS treasuries. These are used for intragovernmental debts. For the statement linked in the quote, the Treasury reported issuing approximately $87.2 Trillion in Government Account Series liabilities, while redeeming about $86.6 Trillion, leaving an overall outstanding net liability of about $600 Billion.

I’ll let the Congressional Budget Office explain how they work:

Ordinarily, when a trust fund receives cash that is not needed immediately to pay benefits or cover other expenses, the Treasury issues GAS securities in that amount to the fund and then uses the extra income to reduce the amount of new federal borrowing that is necessary to finance the governmentwide deficit. In other words, in the absence of changes to other tax and spending policies, the government borrows less from the public than it would without that extra net income. The reverse happens when revenues for a trust fund program fall short of expenses.

But over $90 Trillion? Surely that can’t be correct?!? Except it is. Here’s a way to show how this can work. You have $10. You go to the store and spend that $10. The store the pays one of it’s cashiers. The cashier then turns around and buys gas. The gas station pays its clerk. Who then shops at the grocery store.

That’s only $10 in cash that has created $50 in economic activity. So the $90 Trillion figure likely falls under this same pattern.

And it gives us an idea of how large the Federal government has truly become that they are generating over $90 Trillion in economic activity just within itself.

Ninety-four point two trillion! In a single year. And nobody knew about this. Furthermore, the world didn’t fall apart, the dollar didn’t collapse, interest rates didn’t spike, we had no inflation and everything was fine.

The reason everything is fine is that $94.2 Trillion isn’t outstanding liabilities. Mostly. If it was, and the total outstanding public debt of the United States exceeded $90 Trillion, which it theoretically can reach, eventually, we’d be in trouble.

There is the proof, right in front of our noses, that the debt is meaningless. It’s just a bunch of bookkeeping entries. Keystrokes. It’s time we stop fretting over this. People need to educate themselves about what this debt is and how they are being manipulated and propagandized about it.

No the debt is far from meaningless. Indeed the magnitude of the number shows that we have a large Federal government that really, really needs to be reigned in. By not understanding how all of this works, Norman, you can’t see that you’ve basically contradicted your own point.

The debt isn’t just bookkeeping entries or keystrokes either. It is much, much more than that. Because that debt represents the borrowing activity of the United States government that pays salaries, fulfills payments on contracts, and the like.

The debt is not a bad thing, it is an asset of the non-government

Like all other forms of debt, it is a tool. Exercised properly it can really help you financially. Taken to extreme limits, you can get in over your head and find yourself in financial hot water.

There is no debt!

Yes there is. You’re just trying to contrive your way around the concept that liabilities are debts. Securities are debts. Plain and simple.

 

Accounting/Technology

Searching for an accounting system

Posted on by Kenneth Ballard / 0 Comment

Over the last couple years, I’ve massaged my financial management into a very, very effective system that uses GnuCash. I’ve managed to take wide advantage of it’s account tree functionality to create a sophisticated accounting and budgeting system. I have an article in draft explaining this, and perhaps I’ll finalize it and post it later.

But GnuCash is desktop-only. I have it connected to a MySQL server on my home network. This allows me to access that from home or work. But GnuCash must be installed on all computers that I use, plus I need to make sure that I can access the MySQL server from wherever I am. That presents one hell of a problem of convenience.

So I’ve been searching for a cloud-based accounting system. I’d prefer one that I can run in my own webspace that I already pay for — the web space that hosts this blog — but I’m willing to find something else if it means I can meet my needs. That means I have a relatively narrow requirements set:

  1. Written in PHP, Perl, or Python
  2. Support MySQL or SQLite as it’s back-end — nothing else is supported by my web host
  3. (Optional but desirable) Compatible with mobile browsers as I’d like to use it from my cell phone, or at least usable on a mobile browser without being a headache.

As my web hosting plan includes MySQL, I could migrate the MySQL server into my web space. But that would mean having to tunnel into the web server every time I needed access. Currently that’s only required when I’m on the road. Migrating the MySQL server to my web hosting means I’d have to do that also from home. And I’m looking to get rid of inconvenience, not compound it.

But along with the technical requirements, one GnuCash feature that I’d like to also see supported is a tree of accounts. At minimum, I need to be able to modify the chart of accounts. If I can’t set up my own custom chart of accounts, it’s a deal breaker. And with most of what I evaluated, the chart of accounts either could not be customized at all, or not customized to the degree I want — e.g. I could add accounts but not delete the accounts already provided.

On self-hosting options, the only system I’ve found that can give me anything close to what I want is Webzash. It doesn’t have the concept of sub-accounts or sub-ledgers, though someone has requested that feature, but you can group ledgers (accounts) into groups or subgroups. At minimum, it should show the total for all accounts in a group on the accounts page, a feature I requested.

I’ve looked at other systems as well, downloading them or taking advantage of free trials. So far, nothing else has come close to what I’m looking for. Sure, Webzash comes close. It’s actual double-entry accounting, at least. And I could transfer all of the GnuCash data into Webzash, although it’s a very hands-on effort. But it has a very clumsy user interface that is not intuitive or user-friendly.

GnuCash was designed from the beginning to be about double-entry accounting and whatever could fit on top of that. It works well, and it’s relatively simple, and the user-interface is intuitive. If you know how double-entry accounting works, then GnuCash should come easy.

Virtually all of the cloud-based offerings (self-hosted and not) appear to be more about ERP than accounting and financial management. They are more complicated than what I’m trying to find, and thus much more difficult to use. They talk about double-entry accounting, some even specifically listing it in their feature list, while providing a user interface that doesn’t even come close to providing it. It might be built on double-entry accounting principles, but it doesn’t provide an interface anywhere near that.

So far the only one that actually fits the bill of actually doing double-entry accounting is CashCtrl. And I could completely customize the chart of accounts. But it doesn’t support splitting transactions the same way as GnuCash. GnuCash has, easily, the simplest and easiest method for handling transaction splits. Webzash can do it too, but again it’s clumsy.

In CashCtrl, splitting payments requires using invoices. But it’s a minor inconvenience the way they’ve implemented it. But they don’t allow for importing previous financial information. In the end, though, I decided against going with it long-term.

I’m just looking for a simple, double-entry accounting system. Some contact management might be beneficial, but I don’t need anything more complicated. I manually enter the transactions into the journal/ledger in GnuCash, so I want to do the same since I know what I’m doing there. I don’t want a massive amount of retraining in order to have a functional, web/cloud-based system.

Double-entry accounting with the ability to customize the chart of accounts. That’s all I want. I don’t want any automatic synchronization with my bank account and credit cards. Or billing/invoicing. Or anything related to enterprise resource planning or customer relation management.

I’ve looked at the “cloud” offerings as well — Intuit, Sage, FrontAccount, etc. Again, most are designed with businesses in mind, meaning complication. If a system didn’t have a free trial or online demo, I didn’t touch it. Mint isn’t an accounting or financial management system either. Wikipedia classifies it as “account aggregation“.

So in the end, the search continues. Hopefully I’ll find something meeting my needs so I won’t be relegated to writing my own.

Charity/Taxes

Helping the poor

Posted on by Kenneth Ballard / 0 Comment

I’m often baffled at the amount of fake advocacy that happens online. Slactivism is what it’s largely been called. One thing that plenty of people have called for is, in short, doing more to help the poor. And how do most want to help the poor? Well by the lazy method of increasing taxes in order to fund government programs. Yep, slactivism at its finest: activism by proxy of the government.

And as far as I’m concerned, unless you’re willing to get off your ass and spend your own time and money helping someone who is down on their luck or hovering around the poverty line, you don’t have any right to call for more of my paycheck to be taken from me just so you can feel better.

Instead here’s a challenge: find one family who isn’t well off. Bonus: make it a family you don’t know in an inner-city area. Find out what they need, and bring it to them. Whether that’s stocking a pantry or picking up other consumables, replacing clothing or bedding, new appliances. Whatever the case may be, spend your own time and money doing it.

This past weekend, I did just that, in case anyone here might think I’m being lazy myself. My parents had a working refrigerator they wanted gone. They offered it to me, but living in an apartment with a fridge, I didn’t need it. But I knew that my wife’s dearest friend could use it. The friend is barely scraping by while her deadbeat ex-husband is behind on the child support that is now being provided courtesy of a forced wage garnishment. We’ve shelled out for other things and have other planned purchased for them as well, but this last time around it was a fridge.

So I rented a truck (Dodge Ram 1500 Quad-cab with 6′ bed) through Enterprise. We drove the almost 3 hours to my parents to load up the fridge, letting my father do the honors in tying it down since he’s always been good with knots. And then drive it about 2½ hours out to the friend in SE Nebraska where we unloaded it, then back to Kansas City to drop off the truck at the airport and go home.

In the end it was about $200 out of my pocket for the truck rental and the gas, and about 13 hours of my time from when we left to when we got back.

Have you done anything like this? If you haven’t, and you’re idea of helping the poor is for my paycheck to be further garnished by the government through taxation, then get off your lazy ass and spend your own time and money helping a poor family in your area.

And as I said, there are other purchases still planned for the near future to replace other things that need replaced. For example, the three girls who live there need decent beds. Probably going to be give or take 1,000 USD for that all combined in the end, not to mention the time that’ll be needed getting all of that set up.

But I can afford to be that generous. Raising my taxes means I can’t be that generous. Think about that a second, if you’re one of the ones calling for higher taxes on the upper-middle and upper classes. You’d be depriving me of my ability to directly help this one family, and potentially others in the future, all so you could feel better about yourself. Fuck you.

Now I realize that most can’t be as generous as I’m able be. But there’s no need. Something as simple as buying extra groceries or other household consumables for someone on food stamps or welfare would be enough. Helping them pay for any bills on which they’re behind would do the trick. If you have the know-how, help them get caught up on any maintenance on their vehicles or look into any problems. Donate your time and money to others in need directly rather than by proxy of another organization or under the excuse of it being Christmas or Thanksgiving. But don’t just sit around and say we need to do more for the poor while simultaneously implying you mean the government via taxation.

Really want to help a family this coming holiday? Walk into one of the stores that will be open Thanksgiving night and volunteer to work that night, but give the wages you’d earn with that time to another employee who needs it. Something I recommended a couple years ago in the middle of everyone complaining about stores being open on Thanksgiving or in the middle of the night on Black Friday.

Not willing to directly help any poor family? Not going to donate to any charity that helps the poor? Only going to call for more taxation on “the wealthy” because you think they’re not paying their “fair share” (despite the evidence showing they pay well more than what’s fair)?

Just shut the fuck up, then.

Debt/Mortgage

Still more debt advocacy

Posted on by Kenneth Ballard / 0 Comment

Once again I encounter another article describing why a person should not seek to pay off their mortgage quickly. This time it’s Deborah Kearns of NerdWallet writing on USA Today in an article called “4 reasons why paying off your mortgage isn’t always the best move“. And sadly, she doesn’t give any original reasons. It’s all stuff I’ve heard before.

And much of it boils down to the assumption that those who put extra money toward their mortgage are not otherwise financially prepared. Paying your mortgage down early is a major financial investment, not something to take lightly. You shouldn’t do it unless you’re prepared for it.

And preparing for it means doing the math on it. You need to determine how much extra you can afford to put toward it without sacrificing an emergency fund and other things. Indeed, as much as I deride him, Dave Ramsey has it right when he says that building up an emergency fund — he advocates 1000 USD instead of the typical “three to six months expenses” simply because it’s an easier goal to meet — must come before paying off your debts, including your mortgage if you’re so inclined.

So with many of the articles riling against the idea of paying down your mortgage early, they all basically say, in short, to not pay down your mortgage early because you need an emergency fund and you need to plan for the future. Not “don’t put extra money at your mortgage until you have an emergency fund and a financial outlook plan”. In other words: don’t put extra money at your mortgage at all.

The only thing in the article that is actually new, from what I’ve typically seen, is mentioning the mortgage interest tax deduction. And that has to be the stupidest reason to not put extra money at your mortgage. In an article I wrote back in 2010, I said this about the tax deduction:

First, you can only deduct the interest paid on your mortgage if you itemize. If you don’t itemize, you can’t declare the deduction. This is in contrast with student loan interest deductions which don’t require you to itemize. This means that the benefit of the deduction must be taken in contrast with the standard deduction for your filing status. If your mortgage interest deduction along with other itemized deductions is less than the standard deduction, you’d be stupid to itemize.

This means for married couples filing joint, if the mortgage interest deduction is less than about $11,000, and you don’t have other itemized deductions you can take to bring the itemized to more than the standard deduction, why itemize? This means that for a married couple filing joint, you’d need a mortgage of at least about $200 thousand. For married filing separately or single, you’ll need a mortgage of at least about $100 thousand to make the tax benefits worthwhile.

That’s a lot of interest to be writing off. But again it’s a deduction you can take only if you itemize. I believe about the time I wrote that article, my parents had determined that they didn’t pay enough interest on their mortgage to justify taking that deduction. The standard deduction was the better choice.

Which means you could stick with your minimum mortgage payment until the deduction is no longer worthwhile, and then accelerate payments after that point.

Paying down your mortgage faster ahead of that point means you lose that benefit — to the extent it can be called that — faster. But the tax savings that are lost (remember it’s a deduction, meaning it reduces your tax liability only by reducing your taxable income) are likely offset by the interest savings over time:

That said, the amount you’ll save with the mortgage interest deduction probably won’t outweigh what you’d save on interest. The real benefit comes in the initial years of borrowing; but over time, you’ll pay less to interest and more to principal.

Loans are front-loaded on interest, meaning you pay the most interest up front merely because of how the interest is calculated. This means it takes years to build equity in the home. Again referencing the above-linked article from 2010:

But going on the mortgage, here are some surprising numbers for you, going on a 30-year mortgage with a 5% interest rate:

  • After 1 year, you will have not even paid off 1.5% of the balance
  • It will take 10 years to pay off only 20% of the balance.
  • It will take 20 years to pay off 50% of the balance.

My, what big equity you’re building there — 20 years until you have 50% equity in the home. And this isn’t counting any other liabilities you might have against the home or any improvements you’ve made to it, only the initial mortgage. You might be building equity, albeit very slowly, but what you’re left with at the end, adjusted for inflation, is likely not much more valuable compared to where you started.

So paying down your mortgage faster builds equity sooner. And if you didn’t put down the 20% down payment on your mortgage, and therefore also have to pay for mortgage insurance as part of your payment, then accelerating payments to at least get down under that 20% threshold should be an initial goal since that will lower your mortgage payment from then onward.

But the beauty of how the math works also means you’ll see a benefit by putting extra money toward your mortgage. You don’t have to go out of your way either. I’ve said in a previous article to merely round your mortgage payment up to the next $50 or $100 increment. For example if you have a payment of $635/month, take it up to $650 or even $700. You’ll build equity faster since you’ll be paying less interest over time, meaning more of each future payment goes to principal. While adding merely $15/month to your payment won’t see a significant benefit over time, adding 10% to your mortgage payment will.

And it works with other loans just as easily. If you have a student loan, you should be accelerating payments toward that as well.

And even if you put more money toward your mortgage, you can always back off if need be in times of emergency. Depending on how your bank calculates your mortgage payment, you might even be able to completely skip a month but still come out ahead. And if you need a deferment, being ahead on your loan means your bank will be more likely to approve it, thereby alleviating a liability in a case of emergency.

Colony West

Revisiting the colony

Posted on by Kenneth Ballard / 0 Comment

Build Log:

Stability for some reason had been an ongoing concern with this setup. What was confusing is that stability wasn’t a concern before I built the rack and got everything racked up. To that end, I had a hypothesis.

First, this was how I originally had things set up, first outside the 4U chassis, then when I originally mounted them in that chassis.

setup

installed1

In the to picture, from left to right, is a Zotac GT 620, EVGA GTX 660 SC, and EVGA GTX 680 SSC. In the bottom picture, the middle card is a Zotac GTX 680 AMP Edition.

The graphics cards were just sitting in the extenders. Possible connectivity issues came to mind. The graphics cards were also just hanging off the back of the chassis. And the extenders were against each other next to the cards. When they were originally mounted into the chassis, the cards had some space between each other as well, which likely gave them some breathing room.

testfit

So, again, I wondered if this gave connectivity and stability issues. One of the good things about how popular Bitcoin mining used to be is the prevalence of other PCI-Express extenders, including one that uses a thinner PCB and a 4-pin floppy drive power connector. One is distributed by a company called Vantacor (with the option of a 30cm, 60cm, or 100cm USB cable), and the other by a company called Electop.

So in the end I ordered 4 of the Electop extenders, since they were less expensive and I didn’t care about the cable lengths. The shorter cables, in fact, would be better over the meter-long cables that came with the other ones. So what was the result?

* * * * *

This revisit coincided with a couple other things happening at the same time. First was a build for a radiator box that could be put on the rack to replace the radiator panels that were currently taking up 8U of rack space. The other was maintenance coming due.

As of the time I tore it down, the system had been running continuously for about 7 months. Temperatures were never a problem. Stability was.

With everything apart, I was able to troubleshoot the issue. In tearing everything apart for maintenance, I replaced the x16 side of the extensions to the graphics cards and remounted everything. I had also acquired additional fittings in the time and had left-overs from other projects, so I was able to give the box a much cleaner tubing layout.

smaller_boards

With the thinner adapter boards, I was sure this would eliminate them as a variable to stability. And confirm that it wasn’t the only one.

The right-angle adapters on the x1 sides were the other variable. The blue right-angle extension cables I had employed weren’t a problem, but the smaller plugs were. So I ordered another pair and waited for them to arrive. Then to ensure I had a clean setup to work with, I reinstalled Linux to the system.

Except the stability issue didn’t go away.

* * * * *

Let me first fill in some details. Over the time the rack was up and running, there were a few changes made to the setup, in part because stability was being such a problem.

First, I attempted to upgrade the graphics host to use the spare 990FX mainboard. I purchased an FX-8320E and some memory to go along with all of that, with the intent of having a better processor powering the graphics cards.

At the time, the spare mainboard was an ASRock 990FX Extreme6. And it would not POST when it had all four graphics cards plugged in. With two of either the GTX 660s or GTX 680s plugged in, it worked fine. One 680 with one 660? No POST. So I swapped it over to the Gigabyte 990FXA-UD3 mainboard I had in Beta Orionis. It would POST with all of the GPUs plugged in, but it wouldn’t stay stable with all four cards — the driver would report that one of the GPUs was lost or it would freeze the system.

So with the maintenance that came up, I attempted again to get all four cards working with the Gigabyte mainboard, but it wouldn’t have it. Regardless of what I tried, it wouldn’t take.

So I moved the connectors and plugged everything up to one of the X2 mainboards, just to get something stable operating off just one mainboard. And the X2 mainboard I selected was the Abit board that had only one x16 slot with three x1 slots, meaning it wasn’t going to try to do anything SLI-related with regard to the NVIDIA driver — the game servers have been moved into a virtualized environment. And the other X2 mainboard is the MSI K9N4-SLI, and I don’t recall ever really being able to keep all four graphics cards stable on that board, hence why I swapped in the FX board.

Unfortunately the stability concerns didn’t go away. At this point I started to wonder if the stability was the Berkeley software (BOINC) as I didn’t recall seeing any stability concerns with Folding@Home.

* * * * *

At the same time, I planned an upgrade for this. The X2 is a 10+ year-old dual-core processor, meaning it barely scrapes by for what I’m doing. For some BOINC projects it could power everything just fine — e.g. MilkyWay@Home. For others, not so much — e.g. GPUGrid when attempting to use more GPUs than there are CPU cores. For Folding@Home, though, it was holding things back because of how CPU intensive that can be even if you’re running only CPU slots.

So I considered looking at a board that was built for this kind of thing. After discovering the ASRock PCI-Express extenders, I knew that ASRock made mainboards for Bitcoin mining. I was more familiar with their Intel offering and gave serious consideration for it, despite the fact it meant spending almost 400 USD for an adequate setup, specifically the ASRock H81 Pro BTC board. But then I learned they also had FM2+ options. The price difference between the FM2+ and H81 mainboards was only 5 USD on NewEgg favoring the FM2+, but the difference in the price of the processors was more significant.

At minimum I’d need a quad-core processor for this — one core per graphics card — to keep the CPU from being a major bottleneck if I turned this exclusively toward Folding@Home. Intel Haswell i5 processors are still well over 200 USD, but the AMD A8-7600 Kaveri quad-core was only 80 USD on NewEgg. So the choice was clear.

Now one could say that I could go with a Haswell i3-4130, but HyperThreading isn’t the same as a physical core. And it’s the physical cores that will matter for this application more. This makes the AMD APU a lot more cost effective all-around: quad-core at a decent clock speed with integrated GPU. Even if I don’t put the integrated GPU to any tasks, it’ll at least be a GPU separate from the workhorses.

There’s something else as well.

* * * * *

I moved elsewhere in the KC metro. And as part of the move, I completely tore down the rack and tore it apart completely. The cabinet is no more. I do still have the rails, so I can build another cabinet. But I went with a different plan.

On the Linus Tech Tips forum, a member asked about Mountain Mods. I mentioned that I’d used one of their pedestals to make a radiator box, but that I’d also considered “moving another setup I have into one of their Gold Digger chassis”. Not long after the move, I took advantage of some freed up PayPal credit to order the Ascension Gold Digger. I would’ve preferred the U2UFO Gold Digger so I’d be able to have the radiators sideways (the Ascension keeps them vertical) but I needed the dual power supply support.

And that’s because I figured out the stability problem: power.

It sounds odd, especially given that the stability problems only appeared with BOINC and never with Folding@Home. But I think Folding@Home was never taxing the cards to the point where they required more power, while the BOINC jobs were. And they were likely sending the 4-card setup beyond the power threshold that the AX860 could provide.

OuterVision’s power supply calculator puts 2xGTX-680 and 2xGTX-660 graphics cards at having about 800W power draw and recommends a 1,000W power supply to cover it. And the GTX 660s and GTX 680s are all factory overclocked, meaning combined they are likely exceeding the AX860’s capability.

I considered getting a 1200W power supply or larger, or swapping out for the 1000W power supply in my personal computer. But then I realized that I still had the Corsair GS800 laying around. I decided to stick with the AX860 and add another power supply along with it. The extra 60 USD for the larger chassis that supports two power supplies is worth it in that instance over saving 60 USD on the chassis but spending another 200+ USD on a better power supply. I have an Add2PSU from the original setup that I can use to synchronize the power supplies.

So after settling into the new apartment more, I bought a lot of distilled water for flushing blocks and radiators, and went to town on migrating everything into the new setup.

* * * * *

While I bought an ASRock FM2+ BTC board and an A8-7600, I didn’t go with that setup initially. Instead I stuck with the FX-8320E and the Gigabyte 990FXA-UD3 board. And I kept with the Noctua CPU cooler for the moment while keeping my sights set on swapping in a water block later.

And I discovered that I need to rethink the Koolance PMP-420:

pmp-420_p1-700x700

Yes that pump. The one I declared to be too noisy to be useful. Well turns out that if you suspend it on some spongy material and let all the air get out of the loop, it is actually not too bad in the noise department. Still not sure if I’d want that pump in a system that is right next to me, but in a good chassis that is padded with noise-absorbing material, it likely wouldn’t be a major problem. It definitely fits this use case, though as the vertical radiators only add to the resistance in the loop, making a more powerful pump necessary.

So with everything assembled into the Ascension Gold Digger, the graphics cards hanging from above — though technically only two really needed to be hung up there — and all the tubing connected up, the system was brought online for the first time in months. The cards were divided: the two GTX 680s were on the AX860 along with the pump and fans, and the two GTX 660s were on the GS800 with the mainboard.

Initially I had Folding@Home running on it just to get some kind of stress going on the loop and the system. Then I turned to BOINC to see if the stability issues would continue to manifest. But unfortunately I wasn’t able to get MilkyWay@Home working on Linux. The GPU jobs just kept failing with “Computation error”. So I installed Windows 10 Pro to the system and BOINC and let it run.

And not long after that, the mainboard seemed to have died. The system completely locked up and refused to POST after resetting it. I’m not sure whether the power delivery overheated and shut everything down or something else. I was basically forced to swap in the Kaveri board at that point, and I swapped it back to Linux.

Except the stability problem didn’t go away. BOINC still refused to remain stable. It would hard lock after a few hours, but thankfully resetting it got it to POST and boot. And Folding@Home again never saw the same problems. So, I guess this will be relegated entirely to Folding@Home.

But the AMD A8 can’t power all four graphics cards for Folding@Home. So I need to split this off into two systems. Thankfully for the Ascension Gold Digger, that’s just a matter of ordering a few more parts to convert it into the Ascension Duality. And there was another issue I needed to address.

Absinthe

Another glass of absinthe

Posted on by Kenneth Ballard / 0 Comment

Build Log:

Absinthe-glass.jpgTime to revisit Absinthe. Current specs for immediate reference:

  • CPU: Intel i7-5820k
  • GPU: XFX R9 290X “Double-D” 4GB
  • Storage: Samsung 950 PRO 512 GB
  • Power: Corsair RM1000
  • Chassis: Corsair 750D with “Airflow” front panel

And the system is water cooled with a full custom loop, 7x120mm of radiator capacity, and PETG tubing.

With the latest release of the GTX 10-series of graphics cards, I decided to take the plunge and get my wife a GTX 1080, specifically the EVGA GTX 1080 SC ACX 3.0. Like with the previous graphics card upgrade that took the system to the R9 290X, I installed the new card and set up a bypass.

remove_290x

after_remove

One thing I’ve always liked about Swiftech‘s fittings is the wrench fit. In the case of these fittings, a 17mm wrench allowed me to get them loose. I considered using soft tubing for the bypass, which would’ve required tearing more of the loop down, until I realized an alternative.

bypass

bled

That is an AlphaCool bulkhead fitting, meaning it has female G¼ threads on both sides. After making sure both fittings were reasonably secured, I filled and bled the loop, using the variable rotor on the D5 to help push air out.

So like last time there will eventually there will be a revisit on this. It’s just not going to happen as soon as I’d like. Why?

COIL WHINE!!!

The EVGA card is going back to NewEgg on RMA. The coil whine was unbearable under load. The video below doesn’t do it justice. It’s louder than the video represents. Upon doing some research I was able to learn that others were also having coil whine issues with this same card.

One thing I found very odd is the recommended solutions, which included changing out the power supply and/or motherboard. Yeah, not happening. Despite how many apparently say it works to cure coil whine, I have to disagree.

For one, I have two GTX 770s in Mira. They suffer from coil whine. And this is the third mainboard and third power supply those cards have been connected to, and they’ve had coil whine issues across ALL setups. So changing out the motherboard or power supply is unlikely to solve the problem.

So instead it’s going back on RMA. But I did put up with the coil whine long enough to take some benchmarks.

Benchmarks

First with the R9 290X installed:

  • Heaven: 1383 1Ultra quality, x8 anti-aliasing, extreme tessellation
  • Valley: 2578 2Extreme HD preset
  • 3DMark Firestrike: 10479 overall, 12011 graphics
  • 3DMark Cloud Gate: 27591 overall, 75956 graphics
  • 3DMark Sky Diver: 27412 overall, 36895 graphics
  • 3DMark Time Spy: 4021 overall, 3850 graphics

And now with the GTX 1080:

  • Heaven: 2704 3Ultra quality, x8 anti-aliasing, extreme tessellation
  • Valley: 4188 4Extreme HD preset
  • 3DMark Firestrike: 16432 overall, 21374 graphics
  • 3DMark Cloud Gate: 31770 overall, 135692 graphics
  • 3DMark Sky Diver: 37794 overall, 72326 graphics
  • 3DMark Time Spy: 6548 overall, 6911 graphics

Now it is unlikely these points will change once the card is on water. What will change is, of course, the temperature performance. The card shot up to 80°C relatively quickly under the various benchmarks. The CPU got up into the low 40s. But like platform upgrade in February, Absinthe will be getting a pretty thorough cleaning when I’m ready to install the block.

So the card will be going back on RMA and the R9 290X will likely be reinstalled into the system. Once I have the new card, it’ll be installed with its stock air cooler similar to what I have above just to make sure it works before I do the water block installation.

Oh and I might have another little surprise to go along with this when the upgrade occurs as well. So stay tuned.

References[+]

Crime/Second Amendment

Misleading gun statistic

Posted on by Kenneth Ballard / 0 Comment

I’ve seen one particular statement replayed several times over, and it’s rather misleading in its representation: gun deaths have been cut in half over the last 20+ years. Let’s look at the numbers.

First, firearms-related homicides peaked in 1993 at 18,253 according to the CDC. Then the numbers started dropping like a rock and bottomed out at 10,801 in 2000. That is actually the lowest year on record since 1981 for total homicides. But then the number actually started going back up, and haven’t been below 11,000 since 2000.

So it’s misleading to imply that “gun deaths” have been going down steadily since 1993. Instead it’s safer to say that firearms-related homicides have been going steadily up and down for about the last 15 years, kind of circling around 12,000 homicides per year.

But then it’s also misleading to go on raw numbers.

In 1993, again the peak year for pure firearms-related homicide numbers, the crude rate of homicides per 100,000 population was 7.02. That steadily declined and bottomed out in 2000 as well at 3.83 per 100,000, a 45% reduction in the firearms-related homicide rate.

But just like the pure homicide numbers, the homicide rate then started going up until it topped out at 4.28 in 2006, an 11.7% increase across those years. But then it started going back down, reaching 3.55 in 2011, lower than 2000’s firearms homicide rate. And though it would bump back up to 3.70 in 2012, it dropped again in 2013 and again in 2014 to 3.45, a rate that is about 1/2 the firearms-related homicide rate of 1993.

All of these numbers can be found through the CDC WISQARS Fatal Injury Reports.