For St. Eugenius, AP Econ teacher

In Fear the Boom and Bust, John Maynard Keynes and F. A. Hayek, two of the great economists of the 20th century, come back to life to attend an economics conference on the economic crisis. Before the conference begins, and at the insistence of Lord Keynes, they go out for a night on the town and sing about why there's a "boom and bust" cycle in modern economies and good reason to fear it.

We’ve been going back and forth for a century
[Keynes] I want to steer markets,
[Hayek] I want them set free
There’s a boom and bust cycle and good reason to fear it
[Hayek] Blame low interest rates.
[Keynes] No… it’s the animal spirits

Now where will we emigrate?

Now we are really fucked
from The Devil's Kitchen

It seems that the last vestiges of our freedom are to be handed over to the EU.

European leaders, including Gordon Brown, agreed yesterday that a new regime to tame the excesses of capitalism and regulate the markets should be based on the proposals of a former French central banker, ceding the European Central Bank some authority over the City of London for the first time.

"Defaming Milton Friedman"

Naomi Klein's disastrous yet popular polemic against the great free market economist

Ms. Klein's lies about one of the most passionate and reasoned proponents of human freedom reveal more about her values than her spurious assertions about Mr. Friedman's.

As always, I'm left wondering why so many purportedly intelligent people become unhinged at the idea that economic freedom is a necessary component of a free people - unhinged to the point that they will distort and lie about the facts AND the people that inconveniently disprove whatever thesis ( i. e. disaster capitalism) in which they have invested. Is it so hard to put aside one's beliefs and dispassionately test a thesis? Or is it something a bit sinister: most people fear the freedom of others?

Why Not A Flat Tax?

This Presidential campaign has been rife with "I'll give tax cuts here" and "I'll give tax cuts here too and then some." As a single male, I'm disgusted: I never fit any of the qualifications. Why do I get nothing when others get tax cuts for irresponsible, annoying dumb shit like having children? I have no problem paying taxes; I do have a problem with deficits and debt.

So why not a flat tax? Increases for everyone when spending increases; decreases for everyone when spending decreases.

Not to be conspiratorial, but here's one reason why:

A new study based on unpublished Internal Revenue Service data shows the rich are different when it comes to paying taxes: They hide more of their income.

The previously unreported study estimates that taxpayers whose true income was between $500,000 and $1 million a year understated their adjusted gross incomes by 21% overall in 2001, compared to an 8% underreporting rate for those earning $50,000 to $100,000 and even lower rates for those earning less. (The "net misreporting rate" as the IRS calls it, includes both underreported income and inflated deductions.)

In all, because of their higher noncompliance rates, those with true incomes of $200,000 or more received 25% of all income, but accounted for 40% of net underreported income and 42% of underreported tax in 2001, the new analysis finds.

And what does that mean for us?

The Slemrod/Johns analysis uses unpublished data from special research audits the IRS conducted on a sample of 45,000 individual returns filed for 2001. It was the IRS' first such research effort since 1988, and it led the agency to estimate the 2001 gross "tax gap" at $345 billion.

That's half a Wall Street bail-out! In one year! Here's an idea: we all pay up fairly. Anyone with me? I remember him: I gave his campaign money over a decade ago...And where in the hell is Kemp?

Hitchens on what we've become

link at gatetree blog.

We are not alone

Bankruptcy, not bailout, is the right answer

A "Nudge" towards a new Nannydom

Just a shiny new term for a hoary old concept: making the great unwashed do what "the intelligentsia" wants.

In The Guardian:
From Obama to Cameron, why do so many politicians want a piece of Richard Thaler?

GateTree Is Like Nostradamus And Shit

He predicted this just 3 weeks ago.

No, I did not make this up

A Zimbabwean U.N.

"World Leadership: One hundred ninety-two members to choose from, and what nation does the United Nations come up with to head its commission on "sustainable development." Zimbabwe. We kid you not.

If the U.N. wanted to demonstrate how to destroy a once-prosperous country, it could have no better example than Zimbabwe. No nation has fallen farther and faster than Zimbabwe. It went from being Africa's richest country to a starving, failed tyranny under dictator Robert Mugabe.

With its 2,200% hyperinflation and 80% unemployment, only Mugabe and his murderous supporters have any security."

Read it all at INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY.

The trouble with trying to "punish" free-spending Republicans....

From Captain's Quarters

Democrats To Propose Largest Tax Hike In History

House Democrats today will propose the largest tax hike in American history, one which will add more poor people to the tax rolls and which will further burden millions of small businesses. They will position this as fiscal discipline while refusing to trim federal spending, according to Robert Novak:

The new Democratic majority begins dancing the next phase of the tax-and-spend minuet in the House of Representatives today. Following the example set by their Senate brethren last Friday, House Democrats will adopt a budget resolution containing the largest tax increase in U.S. history amid massive national inattention.

Nobody's tax payment will increase immediately, but the budget resolutions set a pattern for years ahead. The House version would increase non-defense, non-emergency spending by $22.5 billion for next fiscal year, with such spending to rise 2.4 percent in each of the next three years. To pay for these increases, the resolution would raise taxes by close to $400 billion over five years -- about $100 billion more than what was passed in the Senate.

....

Read it all.

I love the Czech Republic

Václav Klaus on Catastrophic Global Warming

"Luboš Motl, a Harvard professor and physicist recently translated a refreshingly frank interview with Václav Klaus, second president of the Czech Republic, on his view of the alleged threat of global warming [HT: Drudge Report]. The original interview appeared in Hospodáøské noviny, a Czech economics daily

Q: On Wednesday, the European Commission has approved carbon dioxide caps for new cars. One week earlier, the U.N. IPCC climate panel released a report that has described, once again, the global warming as one of the major threats for the whole civilization. The Stern report about similar threats was published before that. And you suddenly say that the global warming is a myth. Try to explain, how did you get this idea, Mr President?

A: It's not my idea. Global warming is a myth and I think that every serious person and scientist says so. It is not fair to refer to the U.N. panel. IPCC is not a scientific institution: it's a political body, a sort of non-government organization of green flavor. It's neither a forum of neutral scientists nor a balanced group of scientists. These people are politicized scientists who arrive there with a one-sided opinion and a one-sided assignment. Also, it's an undignified slapstick that people don't wait for the full report in May 2007 but instead respond, in such a serious way, to the summary for policymakers where all the "but's" and "if's" are scratched, removed, and replaced by oversimplified theses. This is clearly such an incredible failure of so many people, from journalists to politicians... If the European Commission is instantly going to buy such a trick, we have another very good reason to think that the countries themselves, not the Commission, should be deciding about similar issues.
...
Q: Don't you believe that we're ruining our planet?

A: I will pretend that I haven't heard you. Perhaps only Mr. Al Gore may be saying something along these lines: a sane person hardly."

Read it all all @ Capitalism Magazine