Here are some stories from tonight's diary:

Your tax dollars at work:

Pentagon thinktank claims Putin has Asperger's

If Kremlinology made for a viable career track at the Pentagon during the cold war, Putinology is its pale 21st-century successor, complete with geopolitical guessing games, spycraft and the unknowable machinations of the man inside Red Square. The latest contribution to the field comes courtesy of a Pentagon thinktank: a suggestion that Vladimir Putin has an autistic disorder.

Studies from 2008 and 2011, commissioned by the Pentagon and revealed by USA Today through a freedom of information request, suggest Putin has “an autistic disorder which affects all of his decisions” and may be Asperger syndrome. But the studies, which focused on videos of the Russian president, do not claim to make a diagnosis and are primarily the brainchild of one person, Brenda Connors of the US Naval War College (USNWC) in Newport, Rhode Island.

Connors, a “movement patterns analysis” expert, is a former State Department official and professional dancer who has been described, by a psychologist from the University of Chicago, as a “dancer and diplomat”.

Another economic crash is coming. How did this happen?

This is a really interesting interview with economist Lance Taylor conducted by Lynn Parramore. I'll include the preamble and an excerpt from the interview as a teaser:

What Thomas Piketty and Larry Summers Don’t Tell You About Income Inequality

In a new paper for the Institute For New Economic Thinking’s Working Group on the Political Economy of Distribution, economist Lance Taylor and his colleagues examine income inequality using new tools and models that give us a more nuanced — and frightening —picture than we’ve had before. Their simulation models show how so-called “reasonable” modifications like modest tax increases on the wealthy and boosting low wages are not going to be enough to stem the disproportionate tide of income rushing toward the rich. Taylor’s research challenges the approaches of American policy makers, the assumptions of traditional economists, and some of the conclusions drawn by Thomas Piketty and Larry Summers. Bottom line: We’re not yet talking about the kinds of major changes needed to keep us from becoming a Downton Abbey society.us from becoming a Downton Abbey society.

LP: Let’s take a look at a couple of ideas that are popular right now, like raising the minimum wage and increasing taxes on the highest income brackets. How might these measures impact income inequality in America?

How much could the top one percent “reasonably” be taxed? If we wanted to tax them as much as rich European countries do, we’d have to double their tax burden. The Obama administration is now floating an increase of about one percent of the top group’s income. That’s not going to do a lot for income inequality given how much richer the rich have gotten since 1980. A marginal tax rate around 60 percent, the Scandinavian norm, could do the trick, but putting it into place here seems highly unlikely. The same observation applies to higher capital gains taxation and Piketty’s recommendation of a tax on wealth. It won’t be enough.

Of course taxes could also be raised on less affluent households, but the prospects are not much better. Our models show that unless the U.S. tax/transfer system is made dramatically more progressive, adjustments around the edges will not have much impact on income inequality.

On the wage front, we looked at what would happen if you raised the wages 10 percent for the poorest 20 percent, and 5 percent for the next 20 percent. That would sound like a pretty big proposal if an American politician floated it. But our models show that it hardly moves the Palma ratio. It does very little to change income inequality.

Also, you have to keep in mind that the U.S. transfer system effectively “taxes” you at a steep rate if you’re low income and get a higher wage because your benefits, like Medicaid, will be reduced. When you factor in these kinds of mechanisms, you see that policy initiatives within the range now be being discussed will not strongly affect income inequality in the U.S. economy.

Here's Why Deforestation in the Amazon May Bring More Frequent, More Intense Droughts to Brazil

As reservoirs shrink and taps run dry in Brazil's worst ever water crisis, some scientists are making a connection between Amazonian deforestation and the monster drought.

Scientists have long known that rainforests sequester atmospheric carbon dioxide, making them important players in global climate dynamics. More recently, they've learned that forests influence regional climate conditions by pumping so much water into the air that they create their own rainy weather patterns, a dynamic scientists call the "biotic pump."

That means logging the Amazon in order to raise cattle or cultivate crops might be causing southern Brazil — most significantly, the 20-million-person megacity of São Paulo — to dry out .

The biotic pump works like this: Humid air rising from forests causes air pressure to drop, sucking moisture from surrounding areas, like the ocean, into the middle of continents, which adds to the forests' humidity. In turn, greater levels of precipitation fall on areas downwind. This dynamic is something that researchers think happens not only in the Amazon, but also in the Congo River Basin and in Russia. ...

While Brazil has slowed deforestation in recent years, it's still occurring on a massive scale. That could damage Brazil's biotic pump because forest loss is happening on the country's Atlantic Ocean side, where moisture is higher. If the biotic pump is already broken, that's extra bad news for São Paulo.