Friday 27 July 2018

The Case for Income Tax.


Claire Connelly is a young journalist specialising in economics and finance. An MMT sympathiser, she has written popular pieces about it.

She wrote “The Case Against Income Tax” about the need (or lack thereof) for income taxes. Although she has “no hard opinions on whether or not to abolish income tax”, as she says towards the end of her piece, it’s evident she finds that possibility attractive, particularly within the Australian context, where tax cuts have been a thing lately.

Friday 20 July 2018

The Preconditions of Socialism: a Critical Review (and xi)


“Looks like she didn't have nobody to help her. I felt right sorry for her. She seemed...” Tom Robinson

In spite of the absolute lack of evidence against him, in spite of the best efforts of his defence attorney, Tom Robinson was found guilty. Those words sealed his fate. He was innocent of the crime he had been charged with, but he had to be convicted of a crime, any crime. The one at hand was that him, a black man, had felt sorry for a white woman.

Friday 13 July 2018

The Preconditions of Socialism: a Critical Review (x)


“Das ist nicht nur nicht richtig; es ist nicht einmal falsch!” Wolfgang Pauli.

In the last two posts in this series we’ve introduced Thomas Piketty’s “capital” inequality data. As is well-known, Piketty and co-workers derive their findings largely from tax return data. Bernstein employed similar data.

Piketty’s results seem to corroborate Marxist views on distribution of wealth. Bernstein’s, however, contradict them. Someone has got to be wrong. It’s time to scrutinise Bernstein’s empirical argument.

Monday 9 July 2018

No Post Last Week.


No post last Saturday (AEST), since I've been a little unwell. I should be able to resume my critical review of Preconditions next Saturday.