The tax debates currently underway in France and the discussions which took place at the 2024 G20 summit demonstrate that the issue of tax justice and the taxation of billionaires is not about to disappear from the public debate. There’s a simple reason for this: the sums amassed by the world’s wealthiest individuals over the last few decades are quite simply gigantic. Those who consider this a secondary or symbolic issue should take a look at the numbers. In France, the combined wealth...

– by Bill McBride Calculated Risk NOTE: The tables for active listings, new listings and closed sales all include a comparison to September 2019 for each local market (some 2019 data is not available). This is the second look at several early reporting local markets in September. I’m tracking over 40 local housing markets in the US. Some of the 40 markets are states, and some are metropolitan areas. I’ll update these tables throughout the...

For Indigenous Persons Day: a review of “A Brave and Cunning Prince” by James Horn  – by New Deal democrat Recently I read the above entitled book, and found it fascinating. Below are excerpts from an online book review, to which I have added further detail in brackets. I highly recommend it: “In the mid-sixteenth century, Spanish explorers in the Chesapeake Bay kidnapped an Indian child [whose name they wrote as ‘Paquiquineo’] and took him...

Israel’s retaliation plan involves toppling the Iranian regime.

The 2024 economic sciences laureates The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2024 is awarded to Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson and James Robinson “for studies of how institutions are formed and affect prosperity.” Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson’s work, particularly in Why Nations Fail (2012), is widely recognized within new institutional economics for its argument that inclusive political and economic institutions are...

A common right-wing grievance is that undocumented (“illegal”) immigrants are taking all the jobs. In particular, that they’re stealing jobs from native-born Americans. What’s the evidence? If it were true that immigrants were stealing jobs from native born Americans, then if you plotted labor force participation by native- and foreign-born over time, they would have a reciprocal relationship. As non-native participation rose, native...

Podcasts 100 days of Labour: great success or bit of a mess? Ayeisha Thomas-Smith is joined by Aditya Chakrabortty and Ailbhe Rea By Ayeisha Thomas-Smith 14 October 2024 By the time this episode comes out, the new Labour government will have been...

You have to go to court and just sit there and listen to the stuff being said. You sit there and go huh? Jack would understand what I am saying. Making sense is not necessarily a part of deciding law. Perfect example being rifles and pistols acquired or purchased shall have a serial number. In fact, I would take it further to include other parts making the weapon function. Here we are talking about guns or weapons which are bought partially...

The report does say ABC News. However, I saw this first on Crooks and Liars as reported by David Edwards. You have to wonder how Corporal Vance ever ended up in the position he is in today. What does he do after a day of story telling to convince people he is right. ABC News host Martha Raddatz grilled Republican vice presidential nominee J.D. Vance after he struggled to defend former President Donald Trump’s claim. FEMA was not helping red...

Randomization and causal claims A couple of weeks ago yours truly had a post up here where Julia Rohrer discussed possible alternatives to RCTs for making causal claims: It is instructive to consider cases in which most people readily accept causal claims in the absence of randomized experiments. Nowadays, few people doubt the effects of tobacco smoking on lung cancer. But in the 1950s, tobacco lobbyists embraced the idea that a genetic predisposition...