[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In fact, I still would want to transfer and why, depending on the leakage. Why?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, exactly. I care about the utility the same, but the next dollar's not worth anything to Bill Gates, it's worth a lot to the homeless guy.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So, a utilitarian social order function, which is a natural starting point, I don't think of it as particularly liberal, okay, it's a natural starting point, you're just adding them up, ends up with a very, in some sense, redistributive conclusion, which is that you want to distribute from rich to poor.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Indeed, what the optimum with utilitarian social welfare function is that you want to redistribute until marginal utilities are equal.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So this calls, this social dysfunction calls for fairly radical redistribution.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This says you want to redistribute until utilities are equal. Marginal utilities are equal. I'm sorry. Yeah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, um, once again, let's, you're right, I mean, you just add people and subtract people, it wouldn't be a problem. Uh, but, but for now, let's just assume the copulation's just got one given society.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Okay, so if two people, it's just Ned and Homer. Just to add them up, all it says is, as Ned has more resources than Homer, we're gonna redistribute. Indeed, with this function, if we make the assumption,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The total social welfare is, total social resources are fixed. That society is a fixed budget constraint that can't change.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Okay, then what does this function imply would be the optimal distribution of income?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So ignoring the fact that people might work less or more hard, ignore that. Imagine it's just the total amount of money society has. If that's your social welfare function, what's the optimal distribution of income? Yeah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yes, everyone, yes, good point. Fixed resource and identical utility functions. Great point.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, exactly. Great, great catch. If there's a fixed bundle of income and everyone has identical utility functions, then we simply want everyone to have the same amount of money. Why? Because giving someone a dollar would make them less happy than taking away from someone else would make them sad. It's all about diminishing marginal utility, just like we talked about last time.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So, now, that mightn't be true. For example, you guys know who Scrooge McDuck is? Any Scrooge McDuck? Raise your hand if you know Scrooge McDuck.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Okay, so if Scrooge McDuck really likes money, we might want to let Scrooge McDuck have some extra money.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But if utility functions are identical, and social resources are fixed, this is one equal distribution of income. That's really radical. Okay? That's beyond what any country in the world does. A perfect equal distribution of income.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Bentham was actually conservative. This is typically viewed as sort of a conservative starting point, even though it has a very liberal conclusion. The more liberal extreme,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Is what we call a Rawlsian social welfare function.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Due to the philosopher, uh, James, I think Rawls, who was at Harvard. John Rawls, I'm sorry. He said, the goal of society,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Is to maximize the well-being of its worst-off member. So a Rawlsian social welfare function is the minimum of u1 comma u2 comma dot dot dot.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In other words, all you care about is the worst off-person society.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Okay, so roles in social welfare function would say, oh, I care about the worst off person in society. Okay, now.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Let's think this crazy. Let's think about where Rawls came, came at this from.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Rawls came at this from the concept that he called the veil of ignorance. Which he said, look, before you were born,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know nothing about what you're gonna be. You could be born to rich or poor.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Healthy, sick, you have no idea, you're just a little embryo.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Okay? From that perspective, he said what you would want is to make sure that you're gonna be okay.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And so from that perspective, society should want to minimize the well-being of the worst off member. That was his rationalization. But this has really radical implications. Not only does this say we want an equal distribution of income,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This says we would destroy any amount of money of the rich to give some money to the poor.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So imagine what this says if I could take, if everyone's distribution of income was equal in this class, let's say our society.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Okay, except Patricia has $40,000 more than everyone else.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Then what that would say is, we would happily take $40,000 away from Patricia to give $1 to me.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Okay, because I'm like everyone else, the worst off member, but let's say I'm $1 less than the rest of you. Make it easy. So you all have the same amount of money. I have $1 less. She has 40,000 more.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Rawls, you would say, would happily take away her 40,000 and give me a dollar. That doesn't make a whole lot of sense.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Okay, but it's one sort of extreme, and it's basically this notion of kind of, it's in some sense Rawls you think of an extremely risk-averse embryo.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There's two other views which are harder to write down mathematically, at least in the context of 1401, but are important.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There is, let's take the most conservative extreme. So if Rawlsian is the most liberal extreme, the most conservative extreme would be, uh, the Nozick, Nozickian argument. It's not really social welfare function. His argument is that we should never redistribute income. We should only redistribute opportunities.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In other words, once everyone has equal opportunities, then we should just roll the dice and let things lay in what they may.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So here's an example. Let's say all of us are born with the same opportunities in life, and we end up where we are today.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And let's say that you guys are willing to pay me $10 every lecture to hear me lecture. Well, if that's true with the end semester, I have a lot more money than you.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] No sick would say, well why should I be taxed and given to you? That makes no sense. You voluntarily paid me.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Why should LeBron James are voluntarily paying to see him play? Why should he then be taxed on the money we voluntarily gave him?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So no six years, as long as we all start with the equality of opportunity, let the dice roll. If someone has more talents and skills and people want to pay them, then let them keep it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So basically Rawls' idea, uh, Nozick's idea is to essentially equalize opportunity and let the dice land where they may. Yeah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So there's two problems with the Nozickian view. One is, what is opportunity? What does equal opportunity mean?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And the answer is, it's not clear. There's genetic equal opportunity, there's the fact that if I'm born in poverty, I go to lower quality schools, so I don't really have an equal opportunity. I went to a ritzy, you know, public high school in New Jersey because my parents were well off. Like, someone who went to high school in some poor town in New Jersey didn't have the same opportunities I did.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So the first problem with this argument is that in subsets, it's impossible to equalize opportunity. It sort of starts with a false premise. Okay. The second problem with this argument is it ignores luck.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Okay, which is that in fact, if you look at why some people are rich and some people are poor, even with equal opportunities, a lot of it's not skill or talent, it's luck.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They were in the right place at the right time. They had the right parents who gave them the right, you know, inheritance. Uh, they met the right person in business school and went on to, and that person brought them into their company.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's luck. Indeed, if you try to explain differences in income by any measure of skill we have, you can never explain even half of the differences in income across people.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] A lot of it appears to be luck. Well in that case, we would then not want to let lucky people be richer than unlucky people.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That doesn't really seem to make sense. I want skilled people richer than unskilled people, but it doesn't seem, it seems like we might redistribute against from the lucky to the unlucky. So that's the other problem with the, with the Nozickian notion. And then finally, the fourth approach.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This view is simply saying, look, who cares how much money I have relative to you? All that matters is that you can live a decent life. This says what matters is not relative income.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But absolute resources. What matters is making sure everyone in society has food and shelter, and I would argue healthcare, etc. A set of base things everyone should have, and then above that,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Who cares? So in some sense, Commodity of Galatians is kind of a mix of Rawls and Nozick.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It cares about the minimum, saying we gotta break sure everyone has a decent standard of living. But above that...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Let's roll the dice. As long as we have, as long as we're providing a decent state of living for everyone, that if someone can make a lot of money, let's let them. Okay? So this is, this is a very interesting view, and it basically talks about


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The view of kind of should we give people money or stuff?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And so that's the commodity and egalitarianism view says, look, let's worry less about money and more about stuff. Let's make sure everybody has enough stuff to lead a decent life. And then we'll roll the dice from there. So.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Let me start, if I was not clear enough at all, none of these are right. Okay, these are all alternative views.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It is harder to write down to make an assumption about social welfare function than it is about a utility function. We have less primitives to draw on. But the point is these are all different ways of thinking about the trade-off. We can't avoid thinking about the trade-off. That's why, once again, we're the dismal science. Okay? Because nothing's free. We can't avoid thinking about the trade-off. We have to think about redistribution. And these give us different frameworks for thinking about that. Okay? Questions about that? Yeah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Nozick, I mean, I don't know. I don't know how hard a guy Nozick is. But if you took the Nozickian view to the extreme, as long as that person had an equal opportunity, then they should just die.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I mean, you know, they had an equal opportunity. If they made a series of bad decisions, why should we care?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now that's obviously an extreme view, but I think that would be the, the, the, the view there. Whereas, Commoditalitarianism would say, look, let's at least make sure that despite their bad decisions, they don't starve. But we certainly don't want to make them rich if they're making bad decisions.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's a great segue to what I want to talk about next, which is let's actually talk about Turk-Turkistan practice and measuring inequality.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I'm gonna come back to your basic income point in a couple minutes. So let's talk about actually measuring inequality. Okay?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And the reason we're not talking about this is because it highlights how important this issue is. So let's go to some facts. These are from my textbook from 1441. Okay? So, go to figure 21-2.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What the first five rows show is the percent of income received by each quintile or each fifth of the income distribution.


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[Assistant] In other words, each row is 20% of people. So the first row is the poorest 20% of people. The next row is the second poorest 20% of people and so on.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The numbers in each cell are the share of income held by that quintile. In other words, if the distribution of income was totally equal, every one of these numbers would be 20. Distribution of income was totally equal, every quintile would have 20. But in fact, that's never been true in any society ever in history.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The richest always have more than the poorest. We have no perfect distribution of income. And you see that if you look at in 1967, when these data first are reliably collected, you see that the highest 20% of individuals had about 10 times as much as the lowest 20%. Okay? That there was a lot of inequality.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Okay, now if you roll forward until about 1980, that gap was shrinking.


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[Assistant] So you saw that the highest 20% share was about fixed, but the lowest 20% was rising.


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[Assistant] The point now where the 2013 is the latest year but the facts haven't really changed.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The richest 20% of Americans earn more than half the income in America.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And the poorest 20% earn only about 3% of the income in America. So inequalities widen massively in the US. Okay? How does that put us in international terms?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, oh, okay. And I'm sorry, in the last row with the share of the top 5%, this is particularly striking. In fact, go to the next page. This is a graph of the share of the top 1% of income holders in America. This is the share of income held by the 1% richest Americans. You can see that in the early 20th century, that was pretty high, almost 20%.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It then fell down about 10% by the early 1970s. It's now up, and by the latest date, up to about 25%. It's higher than it was at the beginning of the 20th century.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So the 1% of richest Americans have about 25% of the income earned in society. So it's extremely unequal income distribution.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Once again, I'm not saying bad or good. I'm making a positive statement. Unequal is irrefutable. Bad or good, we'll get to.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But there are a few very unequal income distribution. It's also irrefutable. We have a much more unequal distribution of income than the rest of the world.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So in figure 21-4, we compare the facts for the US to the rest of the OECD, which is the said developed economies. Yeah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] After, uh, that's a great point. This is all before tax.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Before tax. But if anything, if you add taxes, it makes us look even worse relative to other countries because our tax are less progressive than other countries. Okay? This is before tax and before transfers.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So if you look at other, so this list is a lot of numbers. Look at the bottom line. The bottom line is the average across all non-US countries of the share of income held by each part of the income distribution.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And, uh, the next bottom line, the bottom line is the U.S. So we say the bottom 10%


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[Assistant] Of income distribution on average across these countries has 3% of income. Indeed nowhere.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Except for Mexico, is the number lower than the 1.6% in the US.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Likewise, if you look at the top 10% of income earners, on average across these countries, uh, they earn 25% of the income. In the US, it's 30%. And indeed, nowhere is the number higher than in, uh, except in Mexico and Turkey.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So we are the most unequal country, except for Mexico, in, of, on this list. Once again, not saying good or bad, just saying the facts. Okay, we're gonna come to, we're gonna come to how we think about good or bad. Okay?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So, those are the facts about inequality. But as the question here pointed out, it's not clear we care about inequality.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Indeed, in a standard economic framework, I don't care about inequality. My utility is a function of my consumption, not your consumption.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Sustainable economic framework, I don't care about inequality. I just care about what I have.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And that speaks more to the commodity egalitarianism view. Which is, how are we doing in making sure people have enough to live? And to do that,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Distribution. We want to move to something which is a measure of absolute, absolute just income, and that's what we call the poverty line.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The poverty line in the US is a measure of absolute deprivation.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Are earning less than some minimum standard they need to live.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now, you can immediately see the problem. With inequality, it's unit free.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Right? I simply compare dollars to dollars. Once I start going here, I have to make a judgment, which is what is deprivation? What do you need to live? So in substance, this makes more sense.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Absolutely makes more sense, in some sense it makes more sense to think about do people have enough to live on. But it is more difficult because you have to draw a judgement about what it is. So the judgement we've drawn is what's called the poverty line.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The poverty line was invented by a civil servant in the 1960s, Molly Orshansky. She said, well, what does it take to live in America?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Should well, the typical person spends about a third of their budget on food.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So let's cost out the cost of a nutritionally adequate bundle of food, multiply it by three and call that the poverty line. She did that and that's still the poverty line.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] All we've done is taken that and updated it by inflation. Remember we talked about the CPI, the inflation rate? All we've done is taken Molly Oshansky's poverty line and updated it by inflation ever since.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And what do we get? Well if you look at table 21-5, this shows you the poverty line.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In the U.S. today. It varies by family size because you need more resources with a bigger family. But not one to one. Because of economies of scale in the household.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You don't need twice as much money to have a household with two people, cause you only, you still only need one living unit, you can share cookware, you only, you can only, you have to heat, heating for two people is much more expensive than heating for one person, etc. So I think there's economies of scale within the household. So poverty line does not go up.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There's a number of reasons it might not be the right number. First of all, it does not differ based on what country you live in. So, if you are, you guys don't know because you're sheltered, but if you tried to, right now, tried to take $25,000 to go live in Boston, there's no way.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I mean, there's no, it's just like impossible. Whereas in rural Mississippi, you can probably do okay in $25,000. So, but it doesn't vary by area.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, it doesn't vary. It also, uhm, uh, the poverty line calculation is all messed up now, because when she did it, food was a third of people's budgets. It's now more like 20% of people's budgets. It's fallen enormously. And the elements, the other elements that poor people have to pay, notably housing and medical care, have gone up much faster, and the poverty line hasn't accounted for that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, so, in fact, there's lots of reasons that this line is problematic. Nonetheless, it's very hard to change it. Indeed, I was in the US government for 14 months.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I only went to one super duper secret meeting. Okay, I went to a lot of meetings with the president, stuff like that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But one time, my secretary said there's a meeting and I can't tell you what it's about, I can't even tell you where it is. When the time comes, they will come get you and bring you there.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I was like, Jesus, it's nuclear war. Like, what the hell? So they brought me to this room. We're all in this room. I'm like, what's going on? They're like, we need to discuss revising the poverty line.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm like, what? Well, why is it super secret? Because the US today distributes more than a trillion dollars a year based on the poverty line. So any changes you make is going to create winners and losers. And the losers are going to be really mad.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Okay? And as a result, it's been incredibly hard to change a poverty line. Because for example, let's say we change it to recognize the fact that it should be higher in New York than Mississippi. Well that means New Yorkers would win and Mississippians would lose. Bad news politically.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] New Yorkers would be happy, Mississippians would be sad, but because of the Michigan March utility, and the laws of politics, the guys who are sad make more noise than the guys who are happy.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Nonetheless, it's still a useful benchmark. It is useful that it's fixed over time because it allows us to essentially see how things have evolved over time. And we can see that in figure 21-6. This shows the poverty rate over time.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And it shows it for everybody, that's the red. It shows it for the elderly, that's the blue.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] For kids that's the green, and for non-odally adults that's the yellow.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So what do we see here? We see a couple things. First of all, for every group, poverty fell enormously during the 1960s. That's the so-called war on poverty.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We choose the number of social programs that lowered poverty enormously during the 1960s.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Okay. For the elderly, it kept going down. And the elderly went from the most impoverished group in society to the least. For kids, it bounced back up.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And now kid poverty rates are nearly as high as they were back in the night, early 1960s. For the rest of folks, it sort of went down and flattened. Yea. It's based on their family's income.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This is not wealth, it's income. So basically, when asked does a kid live in poverty, it's like, do they live in a household that's below the poverty line?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Okay, so the bottom line is, so think of it as families with kids is another way to think about this. The bottom line is, essentially, poverty hasn't done a whole lot. We haven't done a whole lot on poverty in the last 50 years.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Okay, we sort of lowered it a lot in the 60s, and then it's been, it's been bounced up and down, but it's been pretty flat. Okay, is, is, is the result there.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now, so the bottom line is, now my take, now I'm gonna draw a judgement. My take is, along either of these dimensions, we don't look so hot. Okay, we're the most unequal nation in the world, and we have, you know, uh, still, if you look at all people, we have 15% of our people living below some standard of absolute deprivation.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Literally saying, we are accepting that 15% of people in America cannot afford to live.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Okay, we are sort of accepting that, including, uh, you know, more than 20% of kids. Okay, so I don't think we're doing that well, but in some sense, this is even the most, yeah, go ahead.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now, this is striking set of facts, but not to my mind the most striking.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Probably the most striking fact that probably, probably the fact I've seen is the most influenced on me in the last 10 years is shown in figure 21-7.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This is a figure put together in the wake of the Freddie Gray riots in Baltimore. You may have heard about those, that's when a, uh, uh, prisoner was beat to death in the back of a police van.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Sandtown Winchester, which is a super bad area, think the wire, if you've seen the wire, like, super bad area of Baltimore. Okay? About three miles away is an area called Rowland Park, which is a very rich area. The average life expectancy in Rowland Park is 84 years. That's above the US average, that's pretty good. The average life expectancy three miles away is 67 years, which is below North Korea.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And what it was around World War II in the US. Three miles.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And we get a 17 year difference in the average life expectancy.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What's going on? Well, what you'd expect. People are way poor.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In Soundtown the average income is $107,000. I'm sorry, in Roland Park it's $107,000. In Sandtown it's $24,000. The average income is below the poverty line.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In Roland Park, 2.5% of kids live in poverty. In Sandtown, it's 55% of kids.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Okay, so basically you have incredibly, incredible inequality in short distances. To me this is striking because it really brings home how much, brings home the inequality by putting it in such sort of close geographic terms. So we have a lot of inequality. There's no, there's no question.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And this certainly motivates, I think it's hard to look at facts like this, regardless of your political stripe, and not worry.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Not at least worry and consider the fact that there may be some role for government redistribution. Okay? But that, that's not the end of the discussion.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Okay, this in some sense, think of this as sort of this part of the lecture as sort of the benefits of government redistribution.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The benefits of government distribution is we have incredible inequality, incredible poverty, uh, all around the country.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now we have to come, but of course in economics nothing's free, now we have to come to the costs of redistribution. The benefits are clear.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What about the costs? And so now we have to talk about, uh, the efficiency costs or the leakage. Efficiency costs


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Or in other words, how big is the leakage? So going back to Okun, I hope


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That these figures inspire you to think we ought to be putting some money in buckets and giving it to poor people. But now the question is, should we? What if it all leaks out? How leaky is the bucket? And that's what we need to talk about now.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And basically, leakages in the bucket come from three sources.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The first and least important source is administrative costs. Literally gotta pay someone to carry the bucket.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Okay, so if you put a dollar in and carry the bucket, he's gonna take some money out for the right of carrying the bucket. That's small. But non-trivial. Maybe low single digits. The second source of leakage is the efficiency costs of taxation.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If you tax people and take their money away, they may work less hard.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Think about the extreme case where I'm gonna say, I'm gonna go back to the utilitarian world and I'm gonna tell everyone we're gonna equalize income.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That means that everyone, no matter what they make, is left with the same amount of money. Why would you work?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I mean, you guys would, because you're tools. But like, why would, why would like, why would like regular people work?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Okay, they wouldn't because no matter what you do, you end up with the same income. It's a hundred percent tax. So how would you work? That's extreme. But the point is the extreme example makes the point that when you tax people, there's potential efficiency costs in terms of them earning less income. The third issue is the efficiency costs.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And you give that money, you give people money, they may also work less. So not only might I work less when you tax me, I might work less if you give me money. Why should you go to work if you're sending me a check?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So not only would an equal distribution of income leave me to work less because I'm being taxed, leave me to work less because I'm getting money. So why should I bother working? As long as leisure is a normal good, remember? I don't want to work. So if you're just sending me money, why would I go to work? Okay?


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[Assistant] So to see this, we can sort of summarize this with one example. So let's go to figure 21.8.


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[Assistant] And I want to sort of walk through, this is a fairly complicated example, this is a simple illustration of a tax and transfer scheme of the type we have in America.


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[Assistant] We start in this example with an individual earning $20 an hour.


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[Assistant] So the slope of this line is negative $20 an hour. This person can work 2,000, and remember, we don't model work, we model leisure. I almost made the mistake. Remember, we don't model the bad, we model the good. We don't model labor, we model leisure.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Let's say that the max leisure can take is 2000, 2000 hours.


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[Assistant] Okay, so you can either take $2,000 of leisure and earn and consume nothing.


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[Assistant] Or you could take no leisure and consume $40,000. And let's say consumption's income, no savings in this model. Okay, so you're in $20 an hour, you consume your whole income, and you can take up to 2,000 hours of leisure.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Okay, so your budget constraint is the dark line running from 40,000 on the y-axis, 2,000 on the x-axis. Okay?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now, let's say that we're gonna put in, into this budget constraint, we're gonna add two things. The first is a transfer program to the poor.


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[Assistant] We're worried about po-poverty. So we're gonna have a new program that says that every American gets at least $10,000. Everyone gets $10,000. But, as their income goes up, we're gonna take that away. So what we're gonna say is that since we have a transfer program,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The transfer is going to be of the form, the transfer you get is the max of zero comma 10,000 minus your income.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's our transfer program. So if your income's zero, you get 10,000.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If you're gonna send thousand, you get zero. We're just making sure everybody gets ten thousand dollars.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We don't care about people having more than that, so we're gonna take it away. We're gonna say, look, we wanna make sure you have $10,000, but above that, we don't care about you. Okay, so if you're someone earning $100,000, this program's irrelevant.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Okay, if you're someone earning $5,000, we'll give you another $5,000 to get you up to 10. Okay?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So that's based on our transfer program. This is typically the way welfare programs work around the world.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Okay, essentially they give you money, but then they take it away as you get richer. To make sure the money's targeted to the poorest people. Okay? So that's our transfer program. That's the first thing it's gonna do.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The second thing it's good, the second thing we're out of transferable, we've got to pay for this. So to pay for this we have to have a tax.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now let's say we only want to tax the rich. You don't want to tax the poor. You want to give money to the poor. So let's say our tax program is of the following form. Anyone making more than $20,000 per year pays a 20% tax rate


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] On the income above $20,000. So no one's taxed on their first $20,000.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But at every dollar above 20,000, you pay 20 cents to the government. It's what's called a marginal tax.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Okay, it's a marginal, you have a marginal tax rate of 20%. What does marginal mean? It means you only pay on the next dollar.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Okay, so once you earn 20k, up 20k you pay nothing. Once you've earned 20k and every dollar above 20k, you face a marginal tax rate of 20%. You pay 20 cents of every dollar to the government. Okay. So that is our tax program.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Not looking at the diagram. Do people understand how these programs work? Forgetting the diagram. Yeah, Manny.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, that's our concern, right? Is that, that's my point here, is that this might lower how many hours people work.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Okay, and let's talk about why. But the question about the logistics of these programs first.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Okay, well let's talk about how it affect hours worked. Let's go to the diagram. Okay, let's go to the diagram.


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[Assistant] Let's consider several different people. Start with person A.


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[Assistant] Person A earned, like, they earned some, they, before this program was in place, they would have chosen to be a high-leisure, low-consumption person. When this program is in place, we tell them, look, Person A, you can get more of both.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] More leisure and more consumption. All you have to do is quit. Stop working. You move from point A to point D. You get more leisure and more consumption. So that naturally happens.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So everyone earning less than 10,000 immediately quits. Once again, assuming leisure is a normal good.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because look, once you're below 10,000, it's a 100% tax rate. Why work? So anyone who would have earned less than 10,000 doesn't work. Because you're just going to get back to the government anyway. Why do you care?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's person A. What about person B? Person B earns more than 10,000.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But note, their indifference curve crosses below the new budget constraint. Let me step back. The new budget constraint is the red segments plus the black segment in the middle. New budget constraint runs from 32,000


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] On the Y axis, it intersects the black line, the old budget straight at $20,000. It's the old budget straight for $20,000 down to $10,000 and it becomes the new red segment.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I shouldn't mention that. So the new budget constraint is there are two red segments and the black segment in between. That's the new budget constraint. So let's look at person B. What happens to person B and why? What does person B do? Yeah? Why?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Right, crucially, since person B's in every sort of crosses the red line, we know they must be better off at point D than at point B.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because we know that since point D is above that line, that's a higher indifference curve than they're on at point B.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Why? Well, they give up a little consumption to get a ton of leisure. So let's say someone's earning 11, 12 thousand, like, wait a second.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] All my work is only getting me a thousand, two thousand dollars over quitting, I might as well quit. So this welfare program causes a ton of people to quit.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Used to work a certain amount, you know, used to work, you know,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, more than a thousand hours. Take less than a thousand hours of leisure.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Forget the diagram. Step back. If I take someone and introduce a marginal tax rate, what happens to their labor supply? And why? What happens to their leisure? And why?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So I take you, you're working, let's say you were, you're taking.


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[Assistant] 800 hours of leisure. Doesn't matter what the exact number was.


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[Assistant] I did come and say you have a 20% tax rate and every earning is about $20,000. How does that affect your, your leisure? Yeaah. You would increase it why?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Right, I think that you increased leisure, that's what he said. Okay, increased leisure, but what else?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Exactly. We have substitution income effects. The substitution effect would say your net wage is lower


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Your net wage just went from $20 an hour to $16 an hour, right?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So, a lower net wage you work less, but the income effect says you work more. Because you're now effectively poorer.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When you're poor, you consume less of everything, including leisure. So when you tax my wage,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I might work, I might take less leisure, i.e. work more, through the substitution effect.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm sorry, we taxed my wage, I might take more, I might take more leisure, i.e. work less, the substitution effect, because the returns to work are lower.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But I might take less leisure, right, you work more because I'm now poorer. So we don't know what's gonna happen.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But we typically assume substitution effects dominate. You can't go wrong in this class without making that assumption. Okay? We want you to remember the trade-off.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But typically we assume substitution effects dominate, so we typically think people will work less. We think taxing people will cause them to work less. But be clear, it's not obvious it will.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But we typically think that's the result. And typically, once again, when you average men and women, as we discussed in our labor supply lecture, overall you get an upward sloping labor supply curve. That is overall, if you tax people, they'll work less.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Okay, so what that does, it lowers the hours of work for person C. This is our leaks in the bucket.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We've suddenly massively reduced the amount, potentially massively, reduced the amount people want to work.


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[Assistant] Why do we care? We care because of figure 21-9. What have we done? We've gone from an initial point


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Where people initially were supplying S, had initial supply curve of S1, and demand curve of D.


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[Assistant] And therefore we're supplying L1 hours of labor at a wage W1.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now they're, they're producing left. Their supply curves shift in. That's created a dead weight loss. There is less stuff being produced.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because people are staying home rather than working. And the key point is, that's not a problem. Okay, staying home rather than working is not a problem. The problem is, they're staying home only because we've reduced the price of labor.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We've increased the price, we've reduced the price of leisure. I'm sorry, we've reduced the return to labor, we've reduced the price of leisure.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] As a result, people are staying home. We've distorted their behavior.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We've caused them to stay home and not work. We caused them to stay home and not work, there's less stuff for the rest of us.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So it's a dead weight loss. Efficiency falls.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And that is the efficiency equity trade-off. This deadweight loss is Okun's leak. That's the leak in Okun's bucket. So now we have the trade-off. On the one hand, we have an incredibly unequal society.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Where a program like this could really make people better off, take money from rich people who don't need it, give it to poor people who do.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] On the other hand, in doing so, we're gonna have less stuff with society. We're gonna shrink the size of the pie in order to redistribute the slices of the pie. Is it worth it? That's where the social welfare function comes in.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The social welfare function allows you to evaluate whether something like this is worth it. Without a social welfare function, you can never answer that question.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You just can't, cause there's one hand and the other hand. What a social welfare function does give you a mathematical representation that allows you to answer that question. So in section on Friday, you work through an example.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Of using a social welfare function to evaluate a welfare program, a transfer program like this. Okay, and then we'll come back on Monday and talk more about taxation.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If those virtual bee wolves you just took out were real, you'd have saved the lives of about 2500 bees.


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[Assistant] Hey, I'm gonna let you two go ahead and be cute together. I'm gonna go see if I can win a couple more unicorns.


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[Assistant] Dr. Connor said it's some kind of self-learning exosuit, but-


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[Assistant] What are you doing? Science, buddy. I'm doing science.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So, Spider-Man, you told MJ, but not your best friend?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I, uh, didn't get fired from the bugle. In fact, I think I got a promotion.


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[Assistant] Okay, bye-bye.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Myles. Hey, ma.


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[Assistant] But, I'm committed to making this community better.


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[Assistant] I've got to let go of things that don't serve me and focus on where I want to go, not where I've been.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Angela, I'm gonna have to call you back. No, how can you be locked out? You have a key.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Oh, no, no, I understand the urgency. Uh, let me make some calls. Okay.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In this course, I will show you how to leverage the styles features in Microsoft Word.


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[Assistant] So you can more efficiently and effectively format your documents.


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[Assistant] We'll begin by creating and modifying styles, like paragraph styles and character styles.


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[Assistant] I'll show you how to manage styles and use styles for purposes other than formatting. For example, to navigate in a document or to generate an updatable dynamic table of contents in 30 seconds or less.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We'll end by learning how to share styles with your colleagues by specifying the styles that can be used within a document template. You can be the styles guru for your organization. Let's get started.


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[Assistant] Now for a moment I will ask Leave to remove my own insignificant personality and to describe events which occurred before we arrived upon the scene by the light of knowledge which came to us afterwards.


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[Assistant] Only in this way can I make the reader appreciate the people concerned and the strange setting in which their fate was cast.


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[Assistant] The village of Burlstone is a small and very ancient cluster of half-timbered cottages on the northern border of the county of Sussex. For centuries it had remained unchanged.


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[Assistant] But within the last few years its picturesque appearance and situation have attracted a number of well-to-do residents, whose villas peep out from the woods around.


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[Assistant] These woods are locally supposed to be the extreme fringe of the great Weald Forest, which thins away until it reaches the northern chalk-downs.


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[Assistant] A number of small shops have come into being to meet the wants of the increased population


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[Assistant] So there seems some prospect that Burlstone may soon grow from an ancient village into a modern town.


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[Assistant] It is the centre for a considerable area of country, since Tunbridge Wells, the nearest place of importance, is ten or twelve miles to the eastward over the borders of Kent.


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[Assistant] About half a mile from the town, standing in an old park famous for its huge beaked trees, is the ancient manor house of Burlstone.


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[Assistant] Part of this venerable building dates back to the time of the First Crusade, when Hugo de Capus built a fortulis in the centre of the estate, which had been granted to him by the Red King. This was destroyed by fire in 1543,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And some of its smoke-blackened cornerstones were used when, in Jacobean times, a brick country house rose upon the ruins of the feudal castle.


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[Assistant] The manor house, with its many gables and its small diamond-paned windows, was still much as the builder had left it in the early seventeenth century.


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[Assistant] Of the double moats which had guarded its more warlike predecessor, the outer had been allowed to dry up and serve the humble function of a kitchen garden.


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[Assistant] The inner one was still there, and lay forty feet in breadth, though now only a few feet in depth round the whole house.


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[Assistant] A small stream fed it and continued beyond it, so that the sheet of water, though turbid, was never ditch-like or unhealthy.


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[Assistant] The chains and windlass of which had long been rusted and broken.


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[Assistant] The latest tenants of the manor house had, however, with characteristic energy, set this right, and the drawbridge was not only capable of being raised, but actually was raised every evening and lowered every morning.


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[Assistant] By thus renewing the custom of the old feudal days, the manor house was converted into an island during the night.


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[Assistant] A fact which had very direct bearing upon the mystery which was soon to engage the attention of all England.


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[Assistant] The house had been untenanted for some years, and was threatening to mould her into a picturesque decay when the Douglases took possession of it.


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[Assistant] This family consisted of only two individuals, John Douglas and his wife.


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[Assistant] Douglas was a remarkable man, both in character and in person.


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[Assistant] In age he may have been about fifty, with a strong-jawed, rugged face, a grizzling moustache, peculiarly keen gray eyes, and a wiry, vigorous figure which had lost nothing of the strength and activity of youth. He was cheery and genial to all.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But somewhat off-hand in his manners, giving the impression that he had seen life in social strata on some far lower horizon than the county society of Sussex.


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[Assistant] Yet, though looked at with some curiosity and reserve by his more cultivated neighbours,


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[Assistant] He soon acquired a great popularity among the villagers, subscribing handsomely to all local objects and attending their smoking concerts and other functions, where, having a remarkably rich tenor voice, he was always ready to oblige with an excellent song.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He appeared to have plenty of money, which was said to have been gained in the California gold fields.


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[Assistant] And it was clear from his own talk, and that of his wife, that he had spent a part of his life in America.


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[Assistant] The good impression which had been produced by his generosity and by his democratic manners was increased by a reputation gained for utter indifference to danger.


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[Assistant] Though a wretched rider, he turned out at every meet, and took the most amazing falls in his determination to hold his own with the best.


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[Assistant] When the vicarage caught fire, he distinguished himself also by the fearlessness with which he re-entered the building to save property, after the local fire brigade had given it up as impossible.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Thus it came about that John Douglas, of the Manor House, had within five years won himself quite a reputation in Burlstone.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] His wife too was popular with those who had made her acquaintance.


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[Assistant] Though after the English fashion, the callers upon a stranger who settled in the county without introductions were few and far between.


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[Assistant] This mattered the less to her, as she was retiring by disposition, and very much absorbed to all appearance, in her husband and her domestic duties.


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[Assistant] It was known that she was an English lady who had met Mr. Douglas in London, he being at the time a widower.


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[Assistant] She was a beautiful woman, tall, dark and slender, some twenty years younger than her


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[Assistant] A disparity which seemed in no wise to mar the contentment of their family life.


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[Assistant] It was remarked sometimes, however, by those who knew them best, that the confidence between the two did not appear to be complete.


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[Assistant] It had also been noted and commented upon by a few observant people,


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[Assistant] There were signs sometimes of some nerve strain upon the part of Mrs. Douglas, and that she would display acute uneasiness if her absent husband should ever be particularly late in his return.


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[Assistant] On a quiet countryside where all gossip is welcome, this weakness of the Lady of the Manor House did not pass without remark, and it bulked large upon people's memory when the events arose which gave it a very special significance.


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[Assistant] There was yet another individual whose residence under that roof was, it is true, only an intermittent one, but whose presence at the time of the strange happenings which will now be narrated, brought his name prominently before the public.


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[Assistant] Cecil Barker's tall, loose-jointed figure was a familiar one in the main street of Burlstone Village.


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[Assistant] For he was a frequent and welcome visitor at the manor house.


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[Assistant] He was the more noticed as being the only friend of the past unknown life of Mr. Douglas, who was ever seen in his new English surroundings. Barker was himself an undoubted Englishman.


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[Assistant] But by his remarks it was clear that he had first known Douglas in America, and had there lived on intimate terms with him.


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[Assistant] A tall, straight, broad-chested fellow with a clean-shaved, prize-fighter face, thick, strong, black eyebrows, and a pair of masterful black eyes, which might, even without the aid of his very capable hands, clear a way for him through a hostile crowd.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He neither rode nor shot, but spent his days in wandering around the old village with his pipe in his mouth, or in driving with his host, or in his absence with his hostess, over the beautiful countryside.


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[Assistant] An easy-going free-handed gentleman, said Aims the butler.


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[Assistant] At my word, I had rather not be the man that crossed him.


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[Assistant] He was cordial and intimate with Douglas, and he was no less friendly with his wife.


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[Assistant] A friendship which more than once seemed to cause some irritation to the husband, so that even the servants were able to perceive his annoyance.


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[Assistant] Such was the third person who was one of the family when the catastrophe occurred.


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[Assistant] As to the other denizens of the old building, it will suffice out of a large household.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] To mention the prim, respectable, and capable Ames, and Mrs. Allen, a buxom and cheerful person who relieved the lady of some of her household cares.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The other six servants in the house bear no relation to the events of the night of January 6th.


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[Assistant] It was at 11.45 that the first alarm reached the small local police station in charge of Sergeant Wilson of the Sussex Constabulary.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Cecil Barker, much excited, had rushed up to the door and pealed furiously upon the bell.


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[Assistant] A terrible tragedy had occurred at the manor house, and John Douglas had been murdered. That was the breathless burden of his message.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He had hurried back to the house, followed within a few minutes by the police sergeant, who arrived at the scene of the crime a little after twelve o'clock, after taking prompt steps to warn the county authorities that something serious was afoot.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] On reaching the manor house, the sergeant had found the drawbridge down, the windows lighted up, and the whole household in a state of wild confusion and alarm.


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[Assistant] The white-faced servants were huddling together in the hall, with the frightened butler wringing his hands in the doorway.


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[Assistant] Only Cecil Barker seemed to be master of himself and his emotions.


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[Assistant] The three men entered the fatal room together while the horror-stricken butler followed at their heels, closing the door behind him to shut out the terrible scene from the maidservants. The dead man lay on his back.


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[Assistant] Sprawling without stretched limbs in the centre of the room.


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[Assistant] He was clad only in a pink dressing gown which covered his night clothes. There were carpet slippers on his bare feet.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The doctor knelt beside him and held down the hand lamp which had stood on the table. One glance at the victim was enough to show the healer that his presence could be dispensed with. The man had been horribly injured. Lying across his chest was a curious weapon


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] A shotgun with the barrel sawed off a foot in front of the triggers.


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[Assistant] It was clear that this had been fired at close range, and that he had received the whole charge in the face, blowing his head almost to pieces. The triggers had been wired together so as to make the simultaneous discharge more destructive.


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[Assistant] The country policemen were unnerved and troubled by the tremendous responsibility which had come so suddenly upon them.


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[Assistant] We will touch nothing until my superiors arrive," he said in a hushed voice, staring in horror at the dreadful head.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Nothing has been touched up to now," said Cecil Barker. I'll answer for that. You see it all exactly as I found it." When was that? The sergeant had drawn out his notebook.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It was just half past eleven. I had not begun to undress, and I was sitting by the fire in my bedroom when I heard the report. It was not very loud. It seemed to be muffled. I rushed down—I don't suppose it was thirty seconds before I was in the room. Was the door open? Yes, it was open. Poor Douglas was lying as you see him. His bedroom candle was burning on the table. It was I who lit the lamp some minutes afterward.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] No, I heard Mrs. Douglas coming down the stair behind me, and I rushed out to prevent her from seeing this dreadful sight.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Mrs. Allan, the housekeeper, came and took her away.


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[Assistant] Ames had arrived, and we ran back into the room once more.


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[Assistant] But surely I've heard that the drawbridge is kept up all night. Yes, it was up until I lowered it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Barker drew aside the curtain and showed that the long, diamond-paned window was open to its full extent. And look at this!


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[Assistant] He held the lamp down and illuminated a sponge of blood like the mark of a boot sole upon the windowsill. Someone has stood there and getting out. You mean that someone waded across the moat? Exactly. Then if you were in the room within half a minute of the crime, he must have been in the water at that very moment. I have not a doubt of it. I wished to heaven that I had rushed to the window.


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[Assistant] But the curtain screened it as you can see, and so it never occurred to me.


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[Assistant] Then I heard the step of Mrs. Douglas, and I could not let her enter the room. It would have been too horrible.


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[Assistant] Horrible enough," said the doctor, looking at the shattered head and the terrible marks which surrounded it.


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[Assistant] I've never seen such injuries since the Bullstone railway smash.


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[Assistant] But I say," remarked the police sergeant, whose slow, bucolic common sense was still pondering the open window.


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[Assistant] It's all very well you saying that a man escaped by wading this boat, but why ask you is,


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[Assistant] How did he ever get into the house at all if the bridge was up? Ah, that's the question, said Barker. At what o'clock was it raised?


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[Assistant] It was nearly six o'clock, said Ames the butler. I've heard, said the sergeant, that it was usually raised at sunset.


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[Assistant] That would be near half past four, than six at this time of year.


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[Assistant] Mrs. Douglas had visitors to tea," said Ames. I couldn't raise it until they went. Then I wound it up myself. Then it comes to this," said the sergeant.


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[Assistant] If anyone came from outside. If they did.


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[Assistant] They must have got in across the bridge before six and been in the hiding ever since, until Mr Douglas came into the room after eleven.


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[Assistant] That is so. Mr. Douglas went round the house every night, the last thing before he turned in to see that the lights were right. That brought him in here.


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[Assistant] The man was waiting and shot him, then he got away through the window and left his gun behind him.


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[Assistant] That's how I read it, for nothing else will fit the facts.


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[Assistant] The sergeant picked up a card which lay beside the dead man on the floor. The initials V,


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[Assistant] What's VV? Sunday's initials maybe. What have you got there Dr Wood?


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[Assistant] It was a good-sized hammer which had been lying on the rug in front of the fireplace. A substantial workman-like hammer.


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[Assistant] Cecil Barker pointed to a box of brass-headed nails upon the mantelpiece.


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[Assistant] We best put it back in the rug where we found it," said the sergeant, scratching his puzzled head in his perplexity.


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[Assistant] It will want the best brains in the force to get to the bottom of this thing. It'll be London job before it's finished." He raised the hand lamp and walked slowly round the room.


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[Assistant] Hello, he cried excitedly, drawing the window curtain to one side. What o'clock were these curtains drawn?


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[Assistant] When the lamps were lit, said the butler, he will be shortly after four. Someone had been hiding here, sure enough.


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[Assistant] He held down the light and the marks of muddy boots were very visible in the corner.


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[Assistant] I'm bound to say this bears out your theory, Mr. Barker.


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[Assistant] It looks as if the man got into the house after four when the curtains were drawn, and before six when the bridge was raised.


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[Assistant] He slipped into his room because it was the first that he saw.


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[Assistant] There was no other place where he could hide, so he popped in behind this curtain. That all seems clear enough.


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[Assistant] It is likely that his main idea was to burgle the house.


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[Assistant] Couldn't we start out and scout the country before the fellow gets away?" The sergeant considered for a moment.


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[Assistant] There are no trains before six in the morning, so you can't get away by rail.


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[Assistant] If he goes by road with his legs all dripping, it's odds that someone will notice him. Anyhow, I can't leave here myself until I'm relieved.


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[Assistant] But I think none of you should go until we see more clearly how we all stand.


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[Assistant] The doctor had taken the lamp and was narrowly scrutinizing the body.


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[Assistant] What's this mark? he asked. Could this have any connection with the crime?


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[Assistant] The dead man's right arm was thrust out from his dressing gown and exposed as high as the elbow. About half way up the forearm was a curious brown design.


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[Assistant] A triangle inside a circle, standing out in vivid relief upon the large colored skin,


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[Assistant] It's not tattooed," said the doctor, peering through his glasses.


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[Assistant] The man has been branded at some time, as they brand cattle. What is the meaning of this?


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[Assistant] I don't profess to know the meaning of it," said Cecil Barker.


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[Assistant] But I have seen the mark on Douglas many times this last ten years.


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[Assistant] And so have I," said the butler. Many a time, when the master has rolled up his sleeves, I have noticed that very mark—I have often wondered what it could be.


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[Assistant] Then it has nothing to do with the crime anyhow," said the sergeant.


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[Assistant] But it's a rum thing all the same. Everything about this case is rum. Well, what is it now?


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[Assistant] Master always wore his plain gold wedding ring on the little finger of his left hand.


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[Assistant] That ring with the saw nugger on it was above it, and a twisted snake ring on the third finger


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[Assistant] There's the nugget and there's the snake, but the wedding ring is gone. He's right," said Barker. Do you tell me, said the sergeant, that the wedding ring was below the other? Always. Then the murderer


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[Assistant] Or whoever it was first took off this ring you call the nugget ring, then the wedding ring, and afterwards put the nugget ring back again. That is so. The worthy country policeman shook his head. Seems to me


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[Assistant] As soon as we get London on to this case, the better," said he. White Mason is a smart man. No local job has ever been too much for White Mason. It won't be long now before he's here to help us. But I expect we'll have to look to London before we're through. Anyhow, I'm not ashamed to say that it is a deal too thick for the likes of me.


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[Assistant] It's over here. Whoa whoa whoa, back off! I'm going in for a closer look. It's okay, it's okay.


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[Assistant] It's a fragment of a meteorite that landed outside the city years ago.


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[Assistant] It bonds at the subcellular level with its host. In our case, Harry Osborn.


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[Assistant] Hmm, international mercenaries?


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[Assistant] Watooom? Hmm. I'll do a search. Give me a sec.


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[Assistant] Well, they seem nice. Not too bad they're gonna miss out on the best night of our lives, huh?


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[Assistant] I don't have much time! Then we'll fire you some!


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[Assistant] This, this, this, I can use this to make an antidote.


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[Assistant] I cannot help you. I've seen this symbol before.


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[Assistant] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, ha ha.


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[Assistant] At three in the morning the Chief Sussex Detective, obeying the urgent call from Sergeant Wilson of Burlston, arrived from headquarters in a light dog-cart behind a breathless trotter.


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[Assistant] By the five-forty train in the morning he had sent his message to Scotland Yard, and he was at the Burlstone station at twelve o'clock to welcome us.


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[Assistant] White Mason was a quiet, comfortable-looking person in a loose tweed suit, with a clean-shaved, ruddy face, a stoutish body, and powerful bandy legs, adorned with gaiters, looking like a small farmer.


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[Assistant] A retired gamekeeper or anything upon earth except a very favorable specimen of the provincial criminal officer.


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[Assistant] A real downright snorter, Mr. MacDonald," he kept repeating, will have the pressmen down like flies when they understand it.


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[Assistant] I'm hoping we will get our work done before they get poking their noses into it and messing up all the trails. There's been nothing like this that I can remember.


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[Assistant] There are some bits that will come home to you, Mr. Holmes, or I'm mistaken. And you also, Dr. Watson, for the medicos, will have a word to say before we finish. Your room is at the Westville Arms.


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[Assistant] There's no other place, but I hear that it is clean and good.


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[Assistant] The man will carry your bags. This way, gentlemen, if you please.


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[Assistant] He was a very bustling and genial person, this Sussex detective. In ten minutes we had all found our quarters.


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[Assistant] In ten more we were seated in the parlour of the inn, and being treated to a rapid sketch of those events which have been outlined in the previous chapter.


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[Assistant] McDonald made an occasional note, while Holmes sat absorbed with the expression of surprised and reverent admiration with which the botanist surveys the rare and precious bloom.


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[Assistant] Remarkable, he said, when the story was unfolded. Most remarkable.


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[Assistant] I can hardly recall any case where the features have been more peculiar.


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[Assistant] I thought you would say so, Mr. Holmes," said White Mason in great delight.


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[Assistant] We're well up with the times in Sussex. I've told you now how matters were up to the time when I took over from Sergeant Wilson between three and four this morning. My word! I made the old mare go.


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[Assistant] But I need not have been in such a hurry as it turned out, for there was nothing immediate that I could do. Sergeant Wilson had all the facts. I checked them and considered them, and maybe added a few of my own."


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[Assistant] Well, I first had the hammer examined. There was Doctor Wood there to help me. We found no signs of violence upon it.


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[Assistant] I was hoping that if Mr. Douglas defended himself with the hammer, he might have left his mark upon the murderer before he dropped it on the mat, but there was no stain


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[Assistant] That of course proves nothing at all," remarked Inspector MacDonald. There has been in many a hammer-murder, and no trace on the hammer. Quite so. It doesn't prove it wasn't used.


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[Assistant] They were buckshot cartridges, and as Sergeant Wilson pointed out, the triggers were wired together so that if you pulled on the hinder one, both barrels were discharged.


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[Assistant] Whoever fixed that up had made up his mind that he was going to take no chances of missing his man.


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[Assistant] The sword gun was not more than two feet long. One could carry it easily under one's coat.


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[Assistant] There was no complete maker's name, but the printed letters P E N were on the fluting between the barrels, and the rest of the name had been cut off by the saw.


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[Assistant] Pennsylvania Small Arms Company, well-known American firm, said Holmes.


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[Assistant] White Mason gazed at my friend as the little village practitioner looks at the Harley Street specialist, who by a word can solve the difficulties that perplex him.


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[Assistant] That is very helpful, Mr. Holmes. No doubt you are right. Wonderful, wonderful. Do you carry the names of all the gun-makers in the world in your memory?" Holmes dismissed the subject with a wave.


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[Assistant] No doubt it is an American shotgun, White Mason continued.


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[Assistant] I seem to have read that a sawed-off shotgun is a weapon used in some parts of America.


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[Assistant] Apart from the name upon the barrel, the idea had occurred to me.


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[Assistant] There is some evidence, then, that this man who entered the house and killed its master was an American." Macdonald shook his head.


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[Assistant] The blood on the sill, the queer card, the marks of boots in the corner, the gun,


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[Assistant] Nothing there that could not have been arranged Mr. Douglas was an American who had lived long in America. So had Mr. Barker.


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[Assistant] You don't need to import an American from outside in order to account for American doings. Ames the butler. What about him? Is he reliable?


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[Assistant] Ten years with Sir Charles Chandos, as solid as a rock.


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[Assistant] He's been with Douglas ever since he took the manor house five years ago. He's never seen a gun of this sort in the house.


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[Assistant] I'm not convinced yet that there was ever anyone in the house," said he.


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[Assistant] His accent became more Aberdonian as he lost himself in his argument.


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[Assistant] I'm asking you to consider what it involves if you suppose that his gun is ever brought into the house, and that all these strange things were done by a person from outside.


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[Assistant] Oh man, it's just inconceivable. It's clean against common sense. I put it to you, Mr. Holmes, judging it by what we've heard.


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[Assistant] Well, state your case, Mr Mac, said Holmes in his most judicial style.


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[Assistant] The man is not a burglar, supposing that he ever existed.


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[Assistant] The ring business and the card point to premeditated murder for some private reason. Very good. Here's a man who slips into a house with the deliberate intention of committing murder.


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[Assistant] He knows if he knows anything that you'll have a difficulty in making his escape as the house is surrounded with water.


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[Assistant] What weapon would he choose? He'd say the most silent in the world. Then he would hope, when the deed was done, to slip quickly from the window, to wade the moat, and to get away at his leisure. That's understandable.


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[Assistant] But is it understandable that he should go out of his way to bring with him the most noisy weapon he could select, knowing well that it will fetch every human being in the house to the spot as quick as he could run, and that it is all odds that he will be seen before he can go across the moat? Is that credible, Mr. Holmes?


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[Assistant] Well, you put the case strongly, my friend replied thoughtfully. It certainly needs a good deal of justification.


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[Assistant] May I ask Mr. White Mason whether you examined the farther side of the moat at once, to see if there were any signs of the man having climbed out from the water?


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[Assistant] There were no signs, Mr. Holmes, but it is a stone ledge, and one could hardly expect them. No tracks or marks? None?


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[Assistant] Ah, won't there be any objection, Mr. White Mason, to our going down to the house at once?


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[Assistant] But I thought it well to put you in touch with all the facts before we go. I suppose if anything should strike you." White Mason looked doubtfully at the amateur.


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[Assistant] I have worked with Mr. Holmes before," said Inspector MacDonald.


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[Assistant] My own idea of the game at any rate, said Holmes with a smile.


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[Assistant] I go into a case to help the ends of justice and the work of the police. If I have ever separated myself from the official force, it is because they have first separated themselves from me. I have no wish ever to score at their expense at the same time, Mr. White-Mason.


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[Assistant] I claim the right to work in my own way and give my results at my own time, complete rather than in stages.


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[Assistant] I'm sure we're honoured by your presence. And to show you all we know," said White Mason cordially.


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[Assistant] Come along, Dr. Watson. And when the time comes, we'll all hope for a place in your book.


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[Assistant] We walked down the quaint village street, with a row of pollarded elms on each side of it.


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[Assistant] Just beyond were two ancient stone pillars, weather-stained and lichen-blotched, bearing upon their summits a shapeless something which had once been the rampant lion of Capus of Burlstone.


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[Assistant] A short walk along the winding drive with such sward and oaks around it as one only sees in rural England.


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[Assistant] Then a sudden turn, and the long, low, Jacobean house of dingy, liver-colored brick lay before us, with an old-fashioned garden of cut hues on each side of it.


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[Assistant] As we approached it there was the wooden drawbridge and the beautiful broad moat, as still and luminous as quicksilver in the cold winter sunshine.


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[Assistant] Three centuries had flowed past the old manor house, centuries of births and of homecomings, of country dances and of the meetings of fox hunters.


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[Assistant] Strange that now in its old age this dark business should have cast its shadow upon the venerable walls.


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[Assistant] And yet those strange peaked roofs and quaint overhung gables were a fitting covering to grim and terrible intrigue.


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[Assistant] As I looked at the deep-set windows and the long sweep of the dull-coloured waterlapped front,


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[Assistant] Well, it wasn't a fat man anyhow. We don't need your deductions, Mr. Holmes, to tell us that. But you or I could squeeze through, all right?" Holmes walked to the edge of the moat and looked across.


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[Assistant] Then he examined the stone ledge and the grass border beyond it.


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[Assistant] I've had a good look, Mr. Holmes," said White Mason. There's nothing there. No sign that anyone has landed. But why should he leave any sign? Exactly. Why should he? Is the water always turbid?


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[Assistant] Generally about this colour. The stream brings down the clay. How deep is it? About two feet at each side and three in the middle.


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[Assistant] So we can put aside all idea of the man having been drowned in crossing. No, a child could not be drowned in it.


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[Assistant] We walked across the drawbridge and were admitted by a quaint, gnarled, dried-up person who was the butler Ames.


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[Assistant] The poor old fellow was white and quivering from the shock.


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[Assistant] The village sergeant, a tall, formal, melancholy man, still held his vigil in the room of fate. The doctor had departed.


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[Assistant] Anything fresh, Sergeant Wilson? asked White Mason. No, sir.


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[Assistant] Then you can go home. You've had enough. We can send for you if we want you.


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[Assistant] The butler had better wait outside. Tell him to warn Mr. Cecil Barker, Mrs. Douglas, and the housekeeper, that we may want a word with them presently.


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[Assistant] Now gentlemen, perhaps you'll allow me to give you the views I've formed first, and then you'll be able to arrive at your own. You impressed me, this country specialist.


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[Assistant] He had a solid grip of fact and a cool, clear, common-sense brain, which should take him some way in his profession.


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[Assistant] Then we have to believe that this man began by taking off his wedding ring and concealing it, that he then came down here in his dressing gown


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[Assistant] Trampled mud into a corner behind the curtain in order to give the idea someone had waited for him, opened the window, put blood on the


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[Assistant] What we have to determine is whether it was done by someone outside or inside the house. Well, let's hear the argument. There are considerable difficulties both ways and yet one or the other it must be.


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[Assistant] We will suppose first that some person or persons inside the house did the crime.


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[Assistant] They got this man down here at a time when everything was still, and yet no one was asleep.


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[Assistant] They then did the deed, with the queerest and noisiest weapon in the world, so as to tell everyone what had happened. A weapon that was never seen in the house before.


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[Assistant] That does not seem a very likely start, does it? No, it does not. Well then, everyone has agreed that after the alarm was given


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[Assistant] Only a minute at the most had passed before the whole household.


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[Assistant] Not Mr. Cecil Barker alone, though he claims to have been the first, but Ames and all of them were on the spot.


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[Assistant] You tell me that in that time the guilty person managed to make foot marks in the corner, open the window, mark the sill with blood, taking the wedding ring off the dead man's finger, and all the rest of it. It's impossible." You put it very clearly, said Holmes. I am inclined to agree with you.


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[Assistant] But anyhow, they have ceased to be impossibilities.


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[Assistant] That is to say between dusk and the time when the bridge was raised. There had been some visitors and the door was open, so there was nothing to prevent him. He may have been a common burglar.


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[Assistant] Or he may have had some private grudge against Mr Douglas.


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[Assistant] Since Mr. Douglas had spent most of his life in America, and this shotgun seems to be an American weapon,


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[Assistant] There he remained until half past eleven at night, at that time Mr. Douglas entered the room. It was a short interview, if there were any interview at all.


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[Assistant] For Mrs. Douglas declares that her husband had not left her more than a few minutes when she heard the shot. The candle shows that, said Holmes.


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[Assistant] Exactly. The candle, which was a new one, is not burned more than half an inch. He must have placed it on the table before he was attacked. Otherwise, of course, it would have fallen when he fell.


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[Assistant] This shows that he was not attacked the instant that he entered the room.


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[Assistant] When Mr Barker arrived the candle was lit and the lamp was out. That's all clear enough.


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[Assistant] Well now, we can reconstruct things on those lines. Mr Douglas enters the room. He puts down the candle. A man appears from behind the curtain. He's armed with this gun. He demands the wedding ring.


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[Assistant] I haven't only knows why, but so I must have been.


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[Assistant] Mr. Douglas gave it up, then either in cold blood or in the course of a struggle, Douglas may have gripped the hammer that was found upon the mat. He shot Douglas in this horrible way.


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[Assistant] He dropped his gun, and also had seen this queer card, VV341, whatever that may mean, and he made his escape through the window and across the moat at the very moment when Cecil Barker was discovering the crime. How's that, Mr. Holmes?" Very interesting, but just a little unconvincing.


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[Assistant] Man, it would be absolute nonsense if it wasn't that anything else is even worse," cried MacDonald. Somebody killed the man, and whoever it was, I could clearly prove to you that he should have done it some other way.


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[Assistant] What does he mean by allowing his retreat to be cut off like that?


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[Assistant] What does he mean by using a shotgun when silence was his one chance of escape? Come, Mr. Holmes. It's up to you to give us a lead.


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[Assistant] Since you say Mr. White Mason's theory is unconvincing,


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[Assistant] Holmes had sat intently observant during this long discussion, missing no word that was said with his keen eyes darting to right and to left, and his forehead wrinkled with speculation.


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[Assistant] I should like a few more facts before I get so far as a theory, Mr. Mack," said he, kneeling down beside the body. Dear me, these injuries are really appalling. Can we have the butler in for a moment?


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[Assistant] Ames, I understand that you have often seen this very unusual mark, a branded triangle inside a circle upon Mr. Douglas's forearm. Frequently, sir. You never heard any speculation as to what it meant. No, sir. It must have caused great pain when it was inflicted. It is undoubtedly a burn.


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[Assistant] Now I observe, Ames, that there is a small piece of plaster at the angle of Mr. Douglas's jaw. Did you observe that in life?


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[Assistant] Yes sir, he cut himself in shaving yesterday morning.


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[Assistant] Did you ever know him to cut himself in shaving before? Not for a very long time, sir." Suggestive, said Holmes.


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[Assistant] It may of course be a mere coincidence, or it may point to some nervousness which would indicate that he had reason to apprehend danger.


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[Assistant] Had you noticed anything unusual in his conduct yesterday, Ames?


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[Assistant] It struck me, sir, that he was a little restless and excited, sir.


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[Assistant] Aha, the attack may not have been entirely unexpected. We do seem to make a little progress, do we not? Perhaps you would rather do the questioning, Mr. Mack. Oh, Mr. Holmes, it's in better hands than mine. Well, then, we will pass to this card, VV341. It is rough cardboard. Have you any of the sort in this house? We don't think so.


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[Assistant] Holmes walked across to the desk and dabbed a little ink from each bottle onto the blotting paper. It was not printed in this room, he said. This is black ink, and the other purplish. It was done by a thick pen, and these are fine. No, it was done elsewhere, I should say. Can you make anything of the inscription names? No, sir, nothing. What do you think, Mr. Mac?


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[Assistant] It gives me the impression of a secret society of some sort, the same width as badge upon the forearm. That's my idea too," said White Mason.


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[Assistant] Well, we can adopt it as a working hypothesis and then see how far our difficulties disappear.


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[Assistant] An agent from such a society makes his way into the house, waits for Mr. Douglas, blows his head nearly off with his weapon, and escapes by wading the moat after leaving a card beside the dead man.


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[Assistant] It's past two now. I take it for granted that since dawn every constable within forty miles has been looking out for a wet stranger. That is so, Mr. Holmes.


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[Assistant] Well, unless he has a burrow close by, or a change of clothes ready, they can hardly miss him. And yet they have missed him up to now.


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[Assistant] Holmes had gone to the window and was examining with his lens the blood mark on the sill. It is clearly the tread of a shoe.


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[Assistant] It is remarkably broad. A splay foot, one would say.


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[Assistant] Curious, because so far as one can trace any footmark in this mud-stained corner, one would say it was a more shapely soul. However, they are certainly very indistinct. What's this under the side table?" Mr. Douglas Dumbbells," said Ames. Dumbbell? There's only one. Where's the other? Oh, you don't know, Mr. Holmes.


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[Assistant] There may have been only one, I've not noticed them for months.


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[Assistant] One dumbbell, Holmes said seriously, but his remarks were interrupted by a sharp knock at the door.


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[Assistant] A tall, sunburned, capable-looking, clean-shaved man looked in at us.


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[Assistant] I had no difficulty in guessing that it was the Cecil Barker of whom I had heard.


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[Assistant] His masterful eyes travelled quickly with a questioning glance from face to face. "'Sorry to interrupt your consultation,' said he. "'But you should hear the latest news.' "'An arrest?' "'No such luck. But they have found his bicycle. The fellow left his bicycle behind him. Come and have a look. It is within a hundred yards of the hall door.'


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[Assistant] We found three or four grooms and idlers standing in the drive, inspecting a bicycle which had been drawn out from a clump of evergreens in which it had been concealed.


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[Assistant] It was a well-used, Rudge Whitworth, splashed as from a considerable journey.


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[Assistant] There was a saddle bag with a spanner and oil can, but no clue as to the owner.


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[Assistant] It would be a grand help to the police, said the inspector, if these things were numbered and registered, but we must be thankful for what we've got.


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[Assistant] If we can't find where he went to, at least we're likely to get where he came from.


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[Assistant] But what in the name of all that is wonderful made the fellow leave it behind, and how in the world has he got away without it? We don't seem to get a gleam of light in the case, Mr. Holmes." Don't we?" my friend answered thoughtfully. I wonder.


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[Assistant] It's time for a Miles Morales original, you know? One of one.


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[Assistant] I saw me when I was... in your head.


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[Assistant] It's not your fault, Pete. She wanted to save you. To save all of us.


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[Assistant] If they were here, they would want us to stop thinking about them.


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[Assistant] They want us to help people. To fight.


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[Assistant] You got it, Spiderman.


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[Assistant] You're incredible. I like you so much, and I think you like me. Do you wanna go out? On a date?