Highest income #tax rate among #OECD countries? Belgium with 42.8% statista.com/chart/3337/whe… http://t.co/RgaWxsGPzB—
Statista (@StatistaCharts) March 25, 2015
Who pays the highest income tax rate?
01 May 2015 Leave a comment
in politics - Australia, politics - New Zealand, politics - USA, public economics Tags: average tax rates, Marginal tax rates, vaccination and the labour supply
The Left over Left is withering away
30 Apr 2015 Leave a comment
in politics - Australia, politics - New Zealand, politics - USA Tags: voter demographics
Taxpayers in every country should get one of these charts
29 Apr 2015 Leave a comment
in income redistribution, politics - Australia, politics - New Zealand, politics - USA, Public Choice, public economics, rentseeking Tags: public sector transparency
Tax summary: here's another honest/informative version of @hmtreasury chart by @StrongerInNos that explains "welfare" http://t.co/SeH9FJIRWq—
Jonathan Portes (@jdportes) November 02, 2014
New Zealand does an excellent job in attracting skilled migrants
29 Apr 2015 Leave a comment
in human capital, labour economics, labour supply, politics - Australia, politics - New Zealand, politics - USA Tags: economics of immigration
Migrants (esp. new ones) to UK more likely to have tertiary education than migrants to Australia [OECD[ http://t.co/xfOSQmiCxd—
Jonathan Portes (@jdportes) March 05, 2015
Would a living wage reduce poverty in America?
28 Apr 2015 Leave a comment
in labour economics, minimum wage, politics - Australia, politics - New Zealand, politics - USA, poverty and inequality Tags: labour demographics, living wage, poverty and inequality
% spent on housing as a share of disposable income, OECD members, 2014
28 Apr 2015 Leave a comment
in politics - Australia, politics - New Zealand, politics - USA, urban economics Tags: housing affordability, RMA, supply of land, zoning
New Zealand is pretty much on top of the world as to the amount of income that households must spend keep a roof. That success is a product of local council restrictions on the supply of land and national and local regulations such as under the Resource Management Act (RMA) that increase the costs of bringing lands in the market.
Source: OECD Better Life Index.
Note: Household net adjusted disposable income is the maximum amount that a household can afford to consume without having to reduce its assets or to increase its liabilities. It’s obtained, as defined by the System of National Accounts – SNA, adding to people’s gross income (earnings, self-employment and capital income, as well as current monetary transfers received from other sectors) the social transfers in-kind that households receive from governments (such as education and health care services), and then subtracting the taxes on income and wealth, the social security contributions paid by households as well as the depreciation of capital goods consumed by households.
What victory at Gallipoli could have stopped
25 Apr 2015 Leave a comment
in laws of war, politics - Australia, politics - New Zealand, war and peace Tags: Anzac Day, Armenian genocide, Gallipoli campaign, Ottoman Empire, war crimes, World War I
On May 24, 1915, the Allied Powers jointly issued a statement explicitly charging for the first time ever another government of committing `a crime against humanity’.
Today is marked by Armenians worldwide as the 100th anniversary of the Armenian genocide. vox.com/2015/4/22/8465… http://t.co/7pqqSowW3O—
Vox Maps (@VoxMaps) April 24, 2015
The Allied Governments announce publicly that they will hold personally responsible all members of the Ottoman Government, as well as those of their agents who are implicated in the Armenian massacres.
Article 230 of the 1920 Treaty of Sèvres required the defeated Ottoman Empire to
…hand over to the Allied Powers the persons whose surrender may be required by the latter as being responsible for the massacres committed during the continuance of the state of war on territory which formed part of the Ottoman Empire on August 1, 1914.
Ottoman military and high-ranking politicians were transferred to the Crown Colony of Malta on board of the SS Princess Ena and the SS HMS Benbow by the British forces, starting in 1919. These war criminals were eventually returned to Constantinople in 1921 in exchange for 22 British hostages held by the government in Ankara.
But for victory at Gallipoli, the Anzacs would have been the first Sergeant at Arms of a war crimes trial. By marching into Constantinople, the Anzacs may have been able to prevent the purging of the Ottoman archives of evidence of complicity of specific individuals.
#GallipoliFlashback: Real time sequence of events during the first day of the Anzac landing nzh.nu/M2jbf http://t.co/8Em54XZxtH—
(@nzherald) April 24, 2015
via 40 maps that explain World War I | vox.com and 1915 – Allies Condemn Turkish Genocide of Armenians – Joint declaration Condemning Turkish Genocide of Armenians as Crimes Against Humanity.
The Gallipoli campaign: the Allies invade Turkey
25 Apr 2015 Leave a comment
in politics - Australia, politics - New Zealand, war and peace Tags: Anzac Day, Gallipoli campaign, World War I
Company tax rates around the world
24 Apr 2015 Leave a comment
in international economics, politics - Australia, politics - New Zealand, politics - USA, Public Choice, public economics Tags: company tax rate, tax competition
Australian and New Zealand inflation rates adjusted for new goods and quality bias of 1.5%
23 Apr 2015 Leave a comment
in inflation targeting, macroeconomics, politics - Australia, politics - New Zealand Tags: Australia, CPI bias, inflation, New Zealand
In praise of measurement error: good thing no one noticed the severe deflation in Australia and in New Zealand in the late 1990s for otherwise the do-gooders might have felt the need to do something about it. Good thing no one is panicking over the recent mild deflation in New Zealand as well.
Source: OECD StatExtract
Earth Day activists are now victims of the mass kidnappings
22 Apr 2015 Leave a comment
in environmental economics, politics - Australia, politics - New Zealand, politics - USA Tags: Earth Day
Mass kidnappings is the only charitable explanation for their failure to be dancing in the streets by Eart Day activists over the greening of the planet courtesy of capitalism since Earth Day 1970?
The first Earth Day was celebrated 45 years ago today. nyti.ms/1IDVPyC http://t.co/Zpg7zJc8V6—
NYT Archives (@NYTArchives) April 22, 2015
I roamed all over Devonport on my bike when I was a lad. No more, no longer!?
20 Apr 2015 Leave a comment
in economic history, politics - Australia, politics - New Zealand, politics - USA Tags: child development, good old days, Helicopter parents, moral panic, political correctness
As a soon-to-be parent, I find this fascinating and terrifying. The diminishing range of children visualized: http://t.co/7NiFN9Eaw0—
Austen Allred (@AustenAllred) April 18, 2015
What are the revenue effects of capital gains tax cuts?
19 Apr 2015 Leave a comment
in politics - Australia, politics - New Zealand, politics - USA, public economics Tags: dynamic scoring, laffer curve, optimal taxation, taxation of capital income
Down and out in Australia ain’t what it used to be
18 Apr 2015 Leave a comment
in labour economics, politics - Australia, poverty and inequality Tags: Australia, living standards, The Great Enrichment
Sharia law, arbitration law and family law
16 Apr 2015 Leave a comment
in economics of religion, law and economics, politics - Australia, property rights Tags: economics of contracts, family law, rule of law, Sharia law
Sharia law is part of a general issue of private arbitration in religious courts. There are rabbinical courts doing private arbitration among Orthodox Jews in the UK. There is a famous paper about extra-legal enforcement of contracts among Orthodox Jews in the diamond trade.
Success in the industry requires enforcing executory agreements that are beyond the reach of public courts, and Jewish diamond merchants enforce such contracts with a reputation mechanism supported by a distinctive set of industry, family, and community institutions. An industry arbitration system publicizes promises that are not kept. Intergenerational legacies induce merchants to deal honestly through their very last transaction, so that their children may inherit valuable livelihoods. And ultraorthodox Jews, for whom participation in their communities is paramount, provide important value-added services to the industry without posing the threat of theft and flight.
The British law society copped a lot of flak for issuing practice notes explaining how to write wills that were compliant with Islamic family law.
In any case, any will is always subject to laws about providing for the family and for dependent children and can be overridden on those grounds, no matter how they are written.
Peter Sellers left each of his adult children £750 because he wanted to disinherit them. Under the case law at that time, if you left your children nothing, the courts somehow persuaded themselves that you had forgotten to provide for them so they amended the will. By Sellers leaving them this small sum of money, he made it clear that he wanted the limit how much he gave his children.
In the UK, rulings handed down by the Muslim Arbitration Tribunal can be legally binding. This is because the Arbitration Act 1996 allows almost any body to act as a dispute resolution service if both parties agreed to be bound by its decision.
There is a bill before the House of Lords amending the Arbitration Act to ensure that the evidence of men and women are weighed equally and penalties to apply to any body purporting to have the powers of a court of law.
The UK parliament also passed a Forced Marriages Act a few years ago. This law included penalties for people who threaten self-harm if someone didn’t go through with an arranged marriage.
Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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