Utopia, you are standing in it!

If nothing else, our leftist friends deserve credit for chutzpah.

All around the world, we see concrete evidence that big government leads to stagnation and decay, yet statists repeatedly argue that further expansions in taxes and spending will be good for growth.

During Obama’s recent state-of-the-union address, he pushed for class warfare policies to finance bigger government, claiming such policies would be an “investment” in the future.

But it’s not just Obama. Hillary Clinton, on several occasions (see here, here, here, and here), has explicitly argued that higher tax rates and bigger government are good for growth.

The statists at the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (financed with our tax dollars) actually argue that higher taxes and more spending will somehow enable more prosperity, both in the developing world and in the industrialized world.

And some left-wing “charities” are getting…

Economists certainly don’t speak with one voice, but there’s a general consensus on two principles of public finance that will lead to a more competitive and prosperous economy.

• Lower tax rates are more conducive to work and entrepreneurship than higher tax rates.
• Reducing the tax bias against capital formation will improve growth by increasing saving and investment.

To be sure, some left-leaning economists will say that high tax rates and more double taxation are nonetheless okay because they believe there is an “equity vs. efficiency” tradeoff and they are willing to sacrifice some prosperity in hopes of achieving more equality.

I disagree, mostly because there’s compelling evidence that the left’s approach ultimately leads to less income for the poor, but this is a fair and honest debate. Both sides agree that lower rates and less double taxation will produce more growth (though they’ll disagree on how much growth) and…

Summary: Paul Krugman made a remarkable admission for a political columnist in America, one that points the way to a path for the reform of America. He took a step towards seeing that there is no “reality-based party” in America.

“… first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.”
— Matthew 7:5.

Today both Left and Right routinely “create their own reality”. The Right invented and perfected this methodology to mobilize their followers (via engines of disinformation such as Fox News and the Washington Times). The Left has copied them, making this the primary tactic for their crusades. The most obvious example is the fight against climate change, where the Left has liberated themselves from dependence on the consensus of climate scientists (as expressed through the IPCC and major climate agencies). Unusual weather (no matter…

I will offer some thoughts on the FSR itself tomorrow, but I had few quick reactions to the comments made at the press conference this morning about the MediaWorks OCR leak and related issues.

I had heard that the Reserve Bank had been considering backtracking on the discontinuation of lock-ups, and had in fact been consulting selected journalists on the conditions on which media lock-ups might be reinstated.  That was confirmed by the Governor this morning.

Frankly, they seem all over the place.  Less than a month ago, they announced the discontinuation of lock-ups.  I thought that was the right decision at the time (and had called for it earlier).  Presumably the Bank  had carefully considered the various options open to it then, and decided on balance that (a) consultation with affected parties was not required, and (b) that it was not appropriate to continue with lock-ups.  One wonders what has changed…

I just discovered an Economist article from last year showing that, once again, which college you go to is a lot less important than what you do at college. Using NCES data, PayScale estimated return on investment for students from selective and non-selective colleges. Then, they separated STEM majors from arts/humanities. Each dot represents a college major and its estimated rate of return:

Some obvious points:

• In the world of STEM, it really doesn’t matter where you go to school.
• High prestige arts majors do worse, probably because they go into low paying careers, like being a professional painter (e.g., a Yale drama grad will actually try Broadway, while others may not get that far).
• A fair number of arts/humanities majors have *negative* rates of return.
• None of the STEM majors have a negative rate of return.
• The big message – college matters less than major.

There is also a…

Image AWO Saarland via Flickr (CC BY 2.0)

by Irene Boeckmann, Joya Misra & Michelle Budig

Mothers earn less than fathers and childless men on average, but also less than women without children at home. Part of these earnings difference can be explained by the work experience mothers might lose due to employment interruptions or part-time work while caring for their families.

Even after taking differences in education, labor market experience, job characteristics, work hours, and marital status, mothers still earn significantly less than women without care responsibilities.

Indeed, in a study we recently published, we find that U.S. mothers pay an earnings penalty of 8% per child.

This video is getting plenty of coverage – and despite its length, it is worth watching. The humour helps, of course. You certainly won’t be bored if you commit the 20 minutes required to watch the video right through.

Oliver warns about the way journalists often misrepresent the science. Further, he is warning that often the science itself is suspect – or even no good.

It’s a warning we should all take on board. If we are interested in understanding something, and not just cherry-picking to confirm an existing ideological bias, then we have to approach what we read in the media about science critically and thoughtfully. Not accepting things at face value. Nor interpreting a journalist attempt at a false balance as somehow authenticating an article.

Hell, all good working scientists know that we should approach the peer-reviewed scientific literature itself in the same critical way. So we should hardly be…

What do left-wing firebrand Congressman Alan Grayson, Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew, Obama’s top trade negotiator Michael Froman, liberal financier Donald Sussman, and big-money Democratic donor Tom Steyer. all have in common?

The answer is that they all engage in tax avoidance and tax planning by utilizing tax havens. Like many other Democrats (and Democrat donors), they understand it would be very foolish to deliberately pay more tax than is required.

Yet they all want the rest of us to pay higher taxes!

And now we can add Secretary of State John Kerry to our list of tax haven hypocrites.

Here’s some of what we know from, the Daily Caller‘s exposé.

Secretary of State John Kerry and his wife Teresa Heinz have invested millions of U.S. dollars through family trusts in at least 11 offshore tax havens, according to The Daily Caller News…

Over-run by these things, faced with thousand of furious neighbours demanding an end to the onslaught, and spiralling power costs, Poland has mounted an enormous about face: where wind power was the flavour of the month for a year or two, it’s about to be targeted with an outright ban.

WARNING: in following this piece you’ll need to turn your volume down – the howling from the wind industry’s parasites and the eco-fascist cheer squad, Greenpeace soon becomes deafening.

Poland’s New Right-Wing Rulers Want To Effectively Ban Wind Power
Fastcoexist
Charlie Sorrel
21 April 2016