Category Archives: Politics

The Perfect Tax

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Have you met the perfect tax?

The duty that is both elegant, and fair. The regime that lets our economies grow, and have everyone partake in its fruits. The excise that reconciles efficiency with equity. The set of rules that raises the revenue for a potent polity, and, at the same time, curbs wasteful decadence, to form that more perfect union.

If you haven’t met the perfect tax, let me introduce you: the postpaid progressive consumption tax.

The secret of the perfect tax? It burdens that behavior which is truly wasteful and undesirable: excessive consumption. It leaves all other economic activities unaffected.

Together with a negative income-tax for poor income earners and, possibly, a wealth tax to avoid boundless capital accumulation, it can replace all other redistributive taxes, both on individuals and corporations. Read on for more.

Children's coats, starting at $340. Via flickr, originally uploaded by permanently scatterbrained
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Setting the Goalposts Right

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What do we want from policy analysis?
This question recently came up in a discussion on new EU member state policy on poverty and social exclusion.
It’s not a simple question. And it depends an awful lot on what we accept as given.
In many discussions on EU enlargement and related social and tax policy reform, as in the broader context of liberalization, I think we too readily accept as inevitable a (mis)configuration of the international political economy which really is of our own choosing.
Let’s think this over. Read on for more.

Foggy Goalposts, originally uploaded by Boocal.

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Let’s spread the wealth around a little

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Empty Bulgari Shop DisplayIt occurs to me, in the current economic crisis, and in public debt-ridden times to come, more than ever, discussions on public policy conclude in a shoulder-shrugging realization that we knew what to do about it. If only, we could afford to.

I’m getting tired of this resignation, be it in fighting climate change, in improving public education, or in helping out the weak, at home, and abroad.

I want a strong polity that can do these things. I want more, not less government. A better state.

How do we get there? We do what we used to be able to do: we reclaim our responsibility to channel the resources to the goods we collectively value the most.

We redistribute. It’s not a dirty word. It doesn’t hurt growth. It’s not socialism.

And no, it’s not impossible.

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Can the left please stand up against police violence?

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Update

Yesterday (12/06/2010), a group of leftist protesters attacked police with an IED (not “just” fireworks, it appears). Two injured officers had to undergo surgery.

Here’s my wish to the radical left, and everyone else: can we have a demonstration condemning this brutal and senseless violence, please? You can count me in. I’ve had it with the acquiescence and even jovial affirmation of anti-police violence. No one ever is a pig, and certainly not someone in uniform, doing this very hard and thankless job for all of us.

Here’s why I think we should be grateful to them.

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Uncertainty and Responsibility in Climate Change: A Case for Alarmism and New Risk Management

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I was recently tasked to prepare a presentation on the political economy questions of climate change: How expensive is saving the climate? And who should shoulder the costs?

As I prepared the presentation for Dr. Mildner’s “States & Markets” seminar, it occurred to me that to answer these questions, we first have to understand the risks and uncertainties of climate change. The real questions, I thought were then different ones:

  • How do we manage risk, and respond to uncertainty?
  • How do we treat extreme low probability and high consequence events?
  • How do we respond to asymmetric risks?

The more I learned about current risk modeling of the climatic and economic impacts of global warming, the more worried I became. I realized, that climate change (as, incidentally, lessons learned from the financial crisis), requires us to rethink how we manage systemic, interdependent, asymmetric and extreme risks as well as uncertainty.

“Act Now!”

(Friends of the Earth International / The Big Ask)

I agree, we need to act now, and we need to ask strongly.

Yes, this video simplifies. Yes, it dramatizes. And Yes, it scares us.

And it should. For when everything is at stake, alarmism is not irrational, it becomes a moral imperative and different risk management is necessary.
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