Utopia, you are standing in it!

Last week I wrote about the Simpsons’ mortgage payment. In short, I found that using a reasonable assumption of Homer’s income, the median housing price, and the rate of interest, the Simpsons are likely paying less of their household budget on housing today than in the 1990s.

But what about the family’s taxes? Are they getting squeezed by the taxman? Taxes are referenced throughout The Simpsons series. Here’s an article that collects a lot of the references. And that makes sense: the Simpsons are a normal American family, and normal American families love to complain about taxes.

Using the same reasonable assumption about Homer’s income from last week’s post (that Homer earns a constant percentage of a single-earner family, rather than merely adjusting for inflation), we can calculate the family’s average tax rate and how it has changed over the year. Conveniently, “average tax rate” is just economist speak…

The first rule about the ‘inevitable’ wind and solar transition is ‘you do not talk about the subsidies’.

The second rule about the world’s greatest economic and environmental scam is ‘you DO NOT talk about the subsidies’.

Because, once people understand that, without the subsidies, the so-called wind and solar ‘industries’ would disappear in a heartbeat. Simples.

The wind and sun cult always talks a big game about how wind and solar power are ‘free’ and getting cheaper all the time. Right up to the point when talk turns to cutting subsidies.

After all, if wind and solar are truly competitive with conventional generators, they’ll have no trouble at all standing on their own two feet, right?

Once pressed about the glaring internal inconsistency in their case for the inevitable transition to cheap and competitive renewables, wind and sun worshippers retreat to the first rule and, if further troubled, the…

In December 1957, while spending the Christmas holidays at Graceland, his newly purchased Tennessee mansion, rock-and-roll star Elvis Presley receives his draft notice for the United States Army.

Presley was originally scheduled to be inducted on January 20, 1958. However, due to commitments at Paramount and the filming schedule of his latest film, King Creole, Presley had to personally write to the Memphis Draft Board to request a deferment. He explained to them that Paramount had already spent up to $350,000 on pre-production of the film, and that many jobs were dependent on him being able to complete filming, which was due to begin on January 13. They granted him an extension until the middle of March. When news of the extension broke, angry letters were sent to the Memphis Draft Board complaining about the “special treatment” that Presley was receiving. According to Milton Bowers, head of the draft…

What do you need to do to become a special agent for the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous

Well actually not that much. All you do is you book a flight to DC, on board you write a letter to the President of the USA.

Once you land you take a limo to the White House and drop the letters off.

Well that’s what Elvis did and it worked out for him.

Elvis was traveling with some guns and his collection of police badges, and he decided that what he really wanted was a badge from the federal Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs back in Washington. “The narc badge represented some kind of ultimate power to him,” Priscilla Presley would write in her memoir, Elvis and Me. “With the federal narcotics badge, he believed he could legally enter any country both wearing guns and carrying any drugs he wished.

The Bourne Identity (2002) Director: Doug Liman

“I can tell you the license plate numbers of all six cars outside. I can tell you that our waitress is left-handed and the guy sitting up at the counter weighs two hundred fifteen pounds and knows how to handle himself. I know the best place to look for a gun is the cab or the gray truck outside, and at this altitude, I can run flat out for a half mile before my hands start shaking. Now why would I know that? How can I know that and not know who I am?”

★★★★★

Based on the late Robert Ludlum’s 1980 novel of the same name, The Bourne Identity represents an explosive renaissance of the gritty, realist, high-espionage film drama that James Bond had so whimsically drifted apart from at the time (cue the scenes of Pierce Brosnan riding a giant CGI…

Casablanca (1942) Director: Michael Curtiz

“Here’s Looking At You, Kid.”

★★★★★

Casablanca is one of the greatest films of all time, and it has sometimes been called one of the great American propaganda films of the 20th century. The film was shot and released on the heels of the Second World War and it captured the initial hesitance of the American public to get involved in the war, hiding behind a veil of neutrality, only to eventually choose their side in the battle. The film examines the impossibility of neutrality in war.

Casablanca is based on an un-produced stage show called “Everybody Comes to Rick’s.” The play was inspired by a trip to Vienna and witnessing anti-semitism. It has an all-star cast including Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, Paul Henreid, as well as Claude Rains, Peter Lorre and others. It was never expected to be a major success in Hollywood at…

From Russia With Love (1963) Director: Terence Young

★★★★☆

The second James Bond film was again directed by Terence Young (he was the director of several early Bond films). After the tremendous success of 1962’s Dr. No, United Artists quickly pushed for a sequel to be released by Eon, and the film was rushed to completion by October 1963. Ian Fleming’s novel of the same name was his fifth Bond novel, actually preceding the novel for Dr. No (and fleming thought it might be his last at the time). He wrote it at his “Goldeneye” estate in Jamaica. His typical writing pattern was to write for three hours in the morning, and then again for an hour in the evening. He never looked back at what he wrote or did much editing prior to finishing the book, and that way he could write about 2,000 words per day. It…

Daily power rationing is the inevitable product of the ‘inevitable’ transition to an all wind and sun powered future.

When the sun sets and/or calm weather sets in wind and solar power can’t be bought, at any price.

So, even at first glance, the perceived logic of supplying consumers with electricity from nothing but wholly weather-dependent wind power and wholly sunshine-dependent solar power lacks any connection with reality.

Sure, when wind and solar output entirely collapse electricity will be available. But it will come from expensive to run fast start-up gas and diesel plants. And you’ll be forced to pay a staggering price to get it.

The rollout of mandatory smart meters is part of the package: when wind and solar power output hits the floor the grid manager is able to drive the price you’ll pay through the roof.

None of this, of course, troubles the filthy rich, who…

Spain is more economically backwards than most nations in Western Europe. As a public finance economist, my gut instinct is to blame bad fiscal policy.

And there’s certainly plenty of evidence for that view. After all, taxes drive a huge wedge between pre-tax income and post-tax consumption. So there is not much incentive to be a productive member of society.

But it’s important to remember that fiscal policy is just one of the ways politicians can hurt an economy.

In an article for the Foundation for Economic Education, Michael Peterson explains how labor law is stifling job creation in the Spanish economy.

Spain doesn’t suffer from a labor shortage like in the United States, but something much worse—a sclerotic labor market marked by…Employment Protection Legislation (EPL) that constrains employers from hiring and firing workers. …These figures help explain the high unemployment rates observed in Spain over the past three…