Utopia, you are standing in it!

I’ve written a few columns that explain tax principles, but this video from the Tax Foundation may be the best place to start if you have friends or colleagues who need to learn the basics.

As part of the article that accompanies the video, the Tax Foundation explains that not all taxes are created equal. In other words, some taxes impose more damage than other taxes.

And this chart from the article is a nice summary of the three types of tax, along with the potential damage caused by varying ways of collecting tax.

As a general rule, this chart is totally accurate.

Corporate income taxes, gross receipts taxes (mentioned here), and wealth taxes do a lot of economic damage on a per-dollar-collected basis.

But I want to add a caveat to the first column.

As currently designed, there’s no question that the personal income tax…

When the sun sets and calm weather sets in, wind and solar power can’t be bought at any price. Increase the capacity of the unreliables connected to your grid and get ready for not only rocketing power bills, but routine power rationing.

Once upon a time, electricity was cheap and it flowed like running water. Civil and ordered society demanded it.

Now, a group of virtue signalling elites have upended that model, replacing it with something from the pages of George Orwell’s 1984.

In 2022, smart meters, rather than telescreens, keep an eye on what the proles and Party members are up to, allowing the Ministry of Plenty to slash their access to electricity, in a heartbeat and without warning.

The only reason that governments are interfering in consumers’ power usage to that degree is that they’ve become obsessed with subsidising intermittent wind and solar while simultaneously wrecking the profitability…

One of the central arguments of Rishi Sunak’s campaign to become the next Prime Minister is that it would be irresponsible to cut taxes further until inflation is under control. Of course, there are risks here, but my view is that they are worth taking.

For a start, it is not clear that tax cuts have to be inflationary. Indeed, a recent paper from the Bank for International Settlements concluded that the inflationary effect of fiscal stimulus depends crucially on how central banks respond.

Basic economics tells you that inflation is caused by too much money chasing too few goods and services. But tax cuts in themselves do not increase the stock of money in the economy. This is largely determined by monetary policy, not fiscal policy.

Tax cuts might add to inflation by increasing the velocity of circulation of money. But it is more likely that they will simply…

From the Emperor’s Desk: In the past on this blog I’ve written detailed accounts of the assassination of Emperor Nicholas II and his family. Today I will focus on genealogy, his marriage and briefly cover his reign.

Nicholas II (May 18, 1868 – July 17, 1918), known in the Russian Orthodox Church as Saint Nicholas the Passion-Bearer, was the last Emperor of Russia, King of Congress Poland and Grand Duke of Finland, ruling from 1 November 1894 until his abdication on 15 March 1917.

Grand Duke Nicholas Alexandrovich was born in the Alexander Palace in Tsarskoye Selo south of Saint Petersburg, during the reign of his grandfather Emperor Alexander II. He was the eldest child of then-Tsesarevich Alexander Alexandrovich and his wife, Tsesarevna Maria Feodorovna (née Princess Dagmar of Denmark).

Grand Duke Nicholas’ father was heir apparent to the Russian throne as the second but eldest surviving son of Emperor…

Now and again the law catches up with the shysters that run wind farms and so-called big batteries. Failing to deliver on a promise ordinarily results in an order for damages to be paid to the unwitting victim. In addition, in a regulated electricity market, the regulator will sometimes join in and seek its pound of flesh, as well.

Back in September 2016, South Australia’s wind farms were the cause of utter chaos when the automatic and instant shutdown of their turbines during a spring gale (see above) resulted in Australia’s only ever statewide blackout.

Parts of the state were left without power for over a fortnight. The operators involved cost the State’s businesses and households close to $400 million, but, for their part, walked away with a paltry $3.5 million fine (see below).

In a separate incident in October 2019, SA’s big Tesla battery had been contracted to…

A great Brit TV Classic

This Episode

James Onedin is an ambitious, headstrong sea captain working for the Callon Line. Upon returning to Liverpool in 1860, he is denied a bonus by his employer, Thomas Callon, because a portion of the cargo has been lost. Upon seeing a notice offering the old schooner Charlotte Rhodes for sale for £500, James decides to set up his own shipping company. Unfortunately, his cautious brother Robert, who has inherited their father’s chandler’s shop while he was away, refuses to put up any capital.^[1]

James calls on Captain Webster to inquire about the Charlotte Rhodes. Webster rejects James’ low offer of £175 (his life savings), but his compelling spinster daughter, Anne, who deftly manages her cantankerous and drunken father, is concerned about her future. She makes James a counteroffer: the ship as dowry. Anne Webster, “on the wrong side of…

Brexit has hardly featured in the race to become the next Prime Minister, but the Conservative Party is still divided on the best way forward. The new leader will be under great pressure from many quarters to keep the UK economy as close to the EU as possible, rather than pursue the ambition of a truly ‘Global Britain’. This would be a historic mistake.

Unfortunately, ‘Continuity Remain’ is alive and well, and still pushing the line that Brexit has been an economic disaster. This can be refuted simply by comparing the UK’s growth since the 2016 referendum with the big four economies in the EU, namely Germany, France, Italy and Spain. ‘Brexit Britain’ is vying with France for top spot on total growth and is sitting comfortably in mid-table on per capita GDP.

Similarly, UK inflation is little different from the average in the euro area, or the latest rate…

Stardate: 3372.7 (2267)
Original Air Date: September 15, 1967
Writer: Theodore Sturgeon
Director: Joseph Pevney

“Live long and prosper.”

In this classic season two opener, Dr. McCoy kicks off the episode by expressing concerns about Mr. Spock. According to Bones, Spock has been acting strange: “restive,” “nervous,” even irritable, and he is avoiding eating food (not to mention the fact that he threatened to strangle Bones). Bones and Kirk catch Nurse Chapel attempting to bring a bowl of Vulcan plomeek soup to Spock in a show of affection, but when Spock erupts at her in a rage, he immediately requests shore leave on his home planet of Vulcan. However, the Enterprise is already en route to Altair VI for the presidential inauguration ceremony, however Spock apparently redirects the Enterprise’s course to Vulcan anyway. Nevertheless, Spock continually appears agitated and confused. Kirk orders Spock to sickbay…

About this episode from TV Guide

“Awakenings 1954-56” profiles Mose Wright, a black Mississippian who testified against two white men accused of murder; and Rosa Parks, who refused to give up her seat to a white person on Dec. 1, 1955 in Montgomery, Ala. The incident sparked a bus boycott that lasted for one year.

About this series

Wikipedia

Eyes on the Prize is an American television series and 14-part documentary about the Civil Rights Movement in the United States. The documentary originally aired on the PBS network and also aired in the United Kingdom on BBC2. Created and executive produced by Henry Hampton at the film production company Blackside and narrated by Julian Bond, the series uses archival footage, stills and interviews of participants and opponents of the movement. The title of the series is derived from the folk song “Keep Your Eyes on…

About this episode from TV Guide

The events of 1963 and ’64, when Mississippi became the battleground of the civil-rights movement. Relying on sit-ins, business boycotts and marches, blacks found their efforts thwarted by white supremacists. Included: the 1963 assassination of Medgar Evers; and the 1964 black voter-registration drive.

About this series

Wikipedia

Eyes on the Prize is an American television series and 14-part documentary about the Civil Rights Movement in the United States. The documentary originally aired on the PBS network and also aired in the United Kingdom on BBC2. Created and executive produced by Henry Hampton at the film production company Blackside and narrated by Julian Bond, the series uses archival footage, stills and interviews of participants and opponents of the movement. The title of the series is derived from the folk song “Keep Your Eyes on the Prize,” which is used…

Pro Archia is the shortest of the five speeches contained in the excellent Oxford University Press edition of Defence Speeches of Cicero, edited and translated by D.H. Berry (2000). It’s barely 12 pages long and yet even this slip of a thing requires a detailed three-page introduction from Dr Berry. In it he explains that: Aulus Licinius Archias was born plain Archias in Antioch in Syria in the mid-120s. As a young man he established himself as a poet and travelled round the eastern Mediterranean writing poems to order. In 102 he arrived in Rome and was welcomed into the home of Lucius Licinius Lucullus where he tutored the two young sons. He was sought out by other noble Roman families.

During this period Cicero himself took instruction from Archias (among his other achievements, Cicero was no mean poet) and explains in the speech that gratitude for his old…

At the recent American Economic Association meeting in San Diego, Brad DeLong chaired a panel on ” Stimulus or Stymied?: The Macroeconomics of Recessions“, and has posted a transcript. Paul Krugman was there and picked up my claim that macroeconomics has, on balance, gone backwards since 1958. I’ve extracted his section here. Lots of useful stuff, but I’d stress this:

the whole basis on which we constructed monetary policy during the Great Moderation, which is that stabilizing inflation and stabilizing output are the same thing, is all wrong: you can have a sustained period of low but not negative inflation consistent with an economy operating far below its potential productive capacity. That is what I believe is happening now. If so, we are failing dismally in responding to this economic crisis. This is in contrast to what some central bankers are saying—that we have done well because inflation…

That’s the title of my new column in Independent Australia. I plan to write fortnightly from now on.

Now that quantitative easing is no longer needed, the problem is how to manage the huge increase in money balances that is driving demand. This is not a new problem; it arises every time a lot of spending is needed to handle an emergency, and we know what works and what does not. In the aftermath of World War I, governments in the UK and Australia sought to unwind the inflation created by wartime spending and return to the gold standard. The result was a long period of economic weakness, culminating in the Great Depression. By contrast, after World War II, wages and prices were allowed to rise, as wartime rationing ended and reconstruction gradually removed constraints on production.

As long as the real value of wages is maintained, a once-off…