Raise Taxes on Rich - by Nick Hanauer

So I had read that piece by Nick Hanauer some time ago but it's becoming news again because TED is refusing to publish his talk on income inequality. Quite incredibly so given their statement mission and the type of talks they're usually willing to have.


So here his original article - http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-12-07/raise-taxes-on-rich-to-reward-true-job-creators-nick-hanauer.html


Needless to say, I agree with nearly every words.

NGDP TARGETING: I LIKE IT... BUT!

Introduction

Via Scott Sumner's increasingly famous blog ( http://www.themoneyillusion.com/ ), I came across that post about Evan Soltas and his defense of NGDP targeting: http://esoltas.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/ngdp-targeting-laymans-guide.html

Now, I am quite favourable to using a NGDP target as an aggregate of the "dual mandate" most Central Banks tend to have - i.e. instead of stating that you got a target of 2% inflation and a real growth target of circa 3%, you can just state that you got an objective of 5% NGDP growth. That's fine. That's also mostly cosmetic.

And although I am quite indebted to Scott Sumner for providing me with the impetus to write a blog, I will use Evan Soltas' post to state why I think NGDP targeting is limited. That's because he does write beautifully and made a succinct easy-to-debate summary of NGDP targeting in 6 points.

Another useful pointer was provided by Saturos, a regular commenter on Scott's blog and who referenced a nice article on NGDP targeting: "Should we replace Mervin King with a robot?" http://www.moneyweek.com/news-and-charts/economics/uk/eocnomic-growth-market-monetarism-ngdp-20200.

JAMIE DIMON IS A BLOODY IDIOT, PART 2

Okay, I am on record on this blog for saying nasty things about Dimon.


Still I wish he didn't go out of his way to prove me right... :)


I liked that article: http://www.nextnewdeal.net/rediscovering-government/dimon-fiasco-stark-lesson-why-finance-needs-government-regulation


... and that one: http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2012/05/what-scares-me-isnt-2-billion-loss-jp-morgan-made-what-scares-me-is-the-record-19-billion-in-profits.html


Now, now, now, can we get some serious banking regulation, pretty f#%king please?


The plebs and proles are losing patience - ever so slowly but ever so surely nonetheless and, as the saying goes, you wouldn't like them angry...

TAXES, HERE COMES THE GREAT REAPER, PART 2

PART 2: TAXES, THEY ARE SO UNFAIR!

Apologies to anyone actually reading this blog for the long delay - it's been a difficult month and I haven't found the courage to put my thoughts in order. But here is my attempt.

Introduction

In the previous post, I examined the shape I would like taxation to take. Basically, it ought, in my opinion, to follow income distribution i.e. be flat/near flat for the first 99.9% of the population and then increase exponentially for the remaining 0.1%.

This tends to lead my more conservative friends to 4 types of objections which I would like to address today.