Saturday, July 6, 2024 Basic Website Questionnaire Name Aikarakudy Alias Book Title Vastly Discordant Remunerations: Case for Modestly Higher Progressive Taxation Genre socio-economic, political or social commentary Receiver email for customer inquiries: aliasag@yahoo.com Disclaimer: By clicking the submit button, you hereby declare that all the information on the form is correct. Any changes after the form is submitted may incur additional charges. Moreover, service/s can no longer be refunded. Brief Synopsis of the Book: This book discusses the disparity in remunerations received by workers with comparable skills and effort, say fast food cooks without job security and “union” auto workers, with significantly higher pay as well as job security, or between an average worker and the CEO, who admittedly has superior “skills,” of a given company, which was about fifteen times in 1965 as opposed to currently at about 350 times. Taxes the CEOs pay are substantially less now, percentagewise, than they paid in the 1960s, or until 1988, when the Reagan tax-cuts took effect. During the 1940s and 1950s, the top marginal income tax rate was 90+%, on over around $4 million, which was then reduced to 70% on over around $1 million, both in 2020 dollars. A top rate of 50% on the top 0.1% of all incomes. And four other rates of 40%, and 45% between 37% and 50%, as well as a 60% rate of on over $25 million and 70% rate on over $50 million are suggested, the latter two either as temporary or permanent, as opposed to 91% during the entire eight years of Eisenhower presidency, in the 1950s. The reduced taxation on investment incomes, etc. ought to end when incomes cross about $300,000. Furthermore, a moderate wealth tax, akin to what Sen. Elizabeth Warren suggested, which could replace the inheritance tax if programed well, which could also be a selling point. Specific Instructions: NA Preferred Domain Name: agalias.com Preferred Domain Name (option 2): aliasag.com Author Bio: The details of my autobiographical account may be irrelevant to many readers and may be disregarded, what I posted below in small letters, along with other matters, the latter may or may not be relevant to the readers: I am a retired Indian American psychiatrist, arrived in the USA in 1971. I have over fourteen, (only but) mostly single-author publications to my credit, including a short one in The Lancet – “Androgen- Dysgenesis: A Predisposing Factor in Schizophrenia?” (1972), which is more relevant now, with the discovery of neuroactive sex-steroids in the brain than in the 1970s when some complex combination of hyper as well as hypoactivity in the dopamine system in critical brain sites was seen as the determinant of 1 schizophrenic psychopathology. I sensed schizophrenia more as a quantitative variation from a “mean normal” psyche rather than as a qualitative variation. Behavioral scientists by and large, however, view schizophrenia more as a qualitative variation with hallucinations and delusions, so do the educated lay public. Genetic studies of the recent past, however, seem to cast doubts on a too narrower view of schizophrenic psychopathology, to confine the search in the dopamine system. Besides, neuroactive steroids influence the “dopamine system,” as well as other neurotransmitters in a variety of ways. I have been suffering from an enduring depression, which was mixed with an underlying hypomania, so to speak, almost all my life, which I suspected could also be a case of dormant schizophrenia. But this dormant schizophrenia helped me, I believe to develop a better insight into the psychopathology of schizophrenia. I had a fairly typical migraine with aura, in the form of scotoma, since age 15. (Since 1965, I have been taking smaller doses of amitriptyline, works as a prophylactic to migraine, and other antidepressants [higher doses induced anxiety, becoming tongue-tied while speaking], as well as a tiny dose of a long-acting benzodiazepine, like Valium, just 1 mg daily lately; both of which have been substantially beneficial, though medication has its limitations – Until 1971, I took 15 mg of phenobarbital, when I needed to speak to an audience, which eased my stage fright. A prominent Ayurvedic physician in Kerala treated me in 1952, for my migraine with a medicated oil to be applied on the scalp, along with some other Ayurvedic medicines including a purgative. He strongly advised me against engaging in both mental and physical heavy work. I took it to heart, “forcing” myself to be lazy, without sensing that I was already habitually lazy, and becoming still lazier ever since. But my migraine disappeared except once when I was ‘burning midnight oil’ while preparing for a midterm college examination/test. Some readers may be interested in this elaboration: Before I ever experienced my migraine “attacks,” if I took a nap during the daytime, I sensed unusual nausea after I woke up. I then automatically [without any training] and forcefully would exhale through my nose, which was audible to others. Eventually, the nausea would go away, and I would feel normal. Amitriptyline also had relieved my nausea, if I occasionally experienced it, even now. The medicated oil when applied to the scalp had also relieved my nausea-like sensation, in addition to relieving my migraine, though not instantly.) Since around age 16, nevertheless, I developed an extraordinary confidence in my intuitive reasoning ability – my hypomania may have enhanced this confidence. Periodically, however, the recognition of that dormant schizophrenia (schizotypy) challenged that confidence. I have also been quite low in likeability. Not infrequently, I tend to bring out the worst instincts in people I interact with (as confirmed by my wife, since 1969), though rather rarely, people do appreciate me, very much so, nonetheless – Schizotypy tends to diminish likeability, while hypomania enhances it. I had very few if any close friends. And I tend to bore people too often. And when I begin to voice an opinion, the listeners often would look for ways to refute me, as if I had no right to opine on anything, unless I am (very rarely) unusually articulate. Though many experts in behavioral science have trashed my theory on the schizophrenic psychopathology, late Prof. George Ulett, MD, PhD (who lived until 97), of the University of Missouri commented (Nov. 3, 1999), on my 12,000-word-manuscript, “I found your excellent paper to be most interesting.… Your hypothesis has importance not only for schizophrenia but also for greater understanding of mental processes and dreaming.” I published that paper in Medical Hypotheses, 2000;54(4):537-552. I published another single-author, short paper in The New Eng. J. Medicine (1985), on the unique value of sugar as the cheapest source of (protein-sparing) calories (the caloric yield per hectare for sugarcane is several fold greater than that for rice, wheat or corn) which can be stored and transported without getting spoiled, indefinitely, as a cheap source of calories particularly in famine-stricken areas (since sugar WAS considered a luxury food item for centuries, it is quite difficult to view sugar as a CHEAP article of food) – About 20% of the calories of “high protein” nutritional supplements, such as Ensure or Boost, has been from sugar, including “Africa’s miracle food” Plumpy’nut, despite a popular notion that sugar is “toxic” – 93-year-old Warren Buffett, in good physical and mental health, consumes some five cans or equivalent of regular cherry-coke (700 Cal.) daily! In 2015, Buffett told Fortune he was “one-quarter Coca-Cola.” When caloric intake is limited, tissue protein would be robbed to maintain blood sugar and to synthesize peptides for immune functions, etc. So, adequate intake of, not excess, calories are necessary. Increased protein intake under limited caloric intake won’t help much. In 1974, a paper in The Lancet, entitled, “The Great Protein Fiasco” was quite critical of the public’s obsession with protein. I wish, in famine relief camps, 10-30% of the calories the residents are fed were from sugar, say as soda, (about U.S. 18.00 cents/1,800 Calories) to reduce the cost, also to limit contamination. I have also made some thirty (mostly, poster) presentations at various medical conferences, the abstracts of them have been published in different medical journals. 2 Owing to a series of misfortunes, along with faulty judgments on my part, I couldn’t get a stable academic appointment in any American universities, though I had an Emeritus Professor (biochemistry) status in an Indian (Amrita, Kochi) University – I have a doctoral degree in biochemistry in the Faculty of Medicine from the University of Kerala, 1970, secured only with my second attempt.