.@MaxRashbrooke kills case for #UBI @GrantRobertson1 @JordNZ

Rashbrooke in the snap-shot quote describes the massive new taxes to fund a universal basic income as a policy shift for which middle New Zealand must be prepared properly over many years. But the purpose of these great big new taxes is to ensure that those with whom the modern welfare state was designed to protect our left no worse off, not better off, just as good as they were under the previous regime of social insurance. Why take that journey when you can target their poverty directly to the current welfare state?

Source: Is Labour really going to deliver a UBI? – Inequality: A New Zealand Conversation.

Europe 1000-2000AD, in 60 Seconds

https://twitter.com/historyfacts247/status/718159603561660416

Still more Darwin award trainees

HT: Des Rowe

But @OneNationAus @realdonaldtrump @UKIP are not extreme right wingers

The fatal error of the Left is to smear populists such as Hansen, Trump and UKIP as extreme right.

Hanson won the safest Labour seat in Queensland when first elected in 1996. Her 23% swing was mainly made up of Labour voters. Few in the media or commentariat like to remind of that.

Donald Trump defeated opposition on his right from Ted Cruz to win the Republican nomination. If moderate candidate Kasich had dropped out earlier, many of his voters would have gone to Trump, not to Cruz. Trump has appeal to working class Democrat party voters. The only group he seems to win is white men

UKIP is no longer a party out of the Tory shires, when it won 3% of the vote in 2010 in the UK. UKIP is slightly to the left of the LDP and came 2nd in 40 Labour seats in the last UK election. UKIP is a real threat to win seats from Labour or divide the working class work to allow the Tories to come through the centre.

All of these populists combine nationalism, an anti-immigration sentiment, a dislike of globalism and free trade because it involves dealing with foreigners, a preference for lower taxes but no particular opposition to extensive economic and social regulation. In many ways they are Alf Garnett Labour voters.

The work-horses of rational irrationality – antimarket bias, pessimism bias is, anti-foreign bias and make-work bias – are strong among these populist politicians and their voting base.

So few Labour Party MPs, present and upcoming, are working class in origin now that they have simply no experience of the anti-immigration and nationalist settlements of the working class. Until labour parties they work out how to deal with that and meet those concerns, they will keep losing votes to populists.

There is a wonderful quote about how a voter explained he did not vote Labour anymore because he was a white working class Englishman not on the benefit – Labour was no longer interested in him. Identity politics is not just the preserve of the left.

4 independent MPs in the making – in the fullness of egotistical time

Image

Since Upper-Income Taxpayers Finance the Welfare State, Leftists Should Be Nice to Rich People

Dan Mitchell's avatarInternational Liberty

As I’ve pointed out before, the big difference between the United States and Europe is not taxes on the rich. We both impose similar tax burden on high-income taxpayers, though Europeans are more likely to collect revenue from the rich with higher income tax rates and the U.S. gets a greater share of revenue from upper-income taxpayers with double taxation on interest, dividends, and capital gains (we also have a very punitive corporate tax system, though it doesn’t collect that much revenue).

The real difference between America and Europe is that America has a far lower tax burden on lower- and middle-income taxpayers.

  • Tax rates in Europe, particularly the top rate, tend to take effect at much lower levels of income.
  • European governments all levy onerous value-added taxes that raise costs for all consumers.
  • Payroll tax burdens in many European nations are significantly higher than in the…

View original post 726 more words

Wage gaps by gender, race and ethnicity persist in the USA

https://twitter.com/r_fry1/status/748952723089874944

Why Do Governments Enact Price Controls?

Manfred Mann – Doo Wah Diddy Diddy (1964)

Without one-child policy, China still might not see baby boom, gender balance

The iron law of prohibition

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