Over on Kiwiblog I saw the title “tax system has got more, not less, progressive“. I thought that sounded interesting, but after looking at the post, and Bill English’s initial release, I realised that this was actually false. Danyl from Dim Post was right when he notes: Read more
This week Mieke Welvaert discussed (Infometrics link) the broken window fallacy.
GDP measures the value produced within a geographic entity.
Even though it seems damaging property could increase GDP, this is unlikely – and when it does, it does not do so in a way that increases wellbeing. In truth, it would be better if we didn’t have to repair what we have and could just add to it.
Although this is not possible in the case of natural disasters, it is possible when we can prevent destructive events from happening.
The moral of the story is: If it ain’t broke, don’t break it.
It appears an OIA request has made government ministry advice relating to loan-to-value ratio limits on mortgages available. The Herald article is here:
Linking is not approving. Read more
Some recent post on the necessity of microfoundations that I found interesting.
I agree with these in part, especially when it comes to macroeconomics (whether this is appropriate depends on your view on the nature of how we should treat macroeconomic aggregates). But as with all things it is a matter of balance.
Every specialist, owing to a well-known professional bias, believes that he understands the entire human being, while in reality he only grasps a tiny part of him.
HT: Chris Dillow
I have just moved house, and while doing so I discovered a bunch of old books that my brother had loaned to me. One of these was the Foundations of Economic Thought (1990) – a good title, so I figured I’d give it a bit of a read.
Within the book is a series of self-contained essays which mix economic history with economic ideas and methods – I am a big fan of this sort of thing. I’ve just been reading the essay “the debt burden” by Brian Hillier and M. Teresa Lunati. In this essay they discuss the issues I was trying to get across to a general audience in the series on tax, specifically in my last post. In the final post I make the point that borrowing is really another form of broad “taxation”, but as when discussing different types of taxation we are asking where the burden lies.
However, the quote I’m going to pull isn’t directly about that. It is about the use of the word burden.
