Here's Felix Salmon Justin Fox standing in for Felix Salmon, on the economic impact of the socialist Truman government's evil confiscatory tax policies: During the Korean War, Congress enacted an excess profits tax meant to keep military contractors from, well, profiteering. In its infinite wisdom, Congress defined excess profits as anything above what a company … Continue reading More fun with marginal tax rates
Category: Bit of politics
Money and property rights are both creations of the state. If the state were abolished, neither would exist. The 'money' point is obvious, but the same applies to property: the fact that you happened to own a nice house would be irrelevant, because someone bigger than you would come along and tell you to get … Continue reading No, it’s not your bleedin’ money
Since I've already tweeted that it annoys me, as a left-wing kind of person, that some people in the 1980s hated Mrs Thatcher so much that they opposed the most reasonable and fair war that the UK has ever fought, I thought I'd make clear on my blog that anyone who opposes it is pretty … Continue reading Just, worth putting out here
There are lots of countries in the world that are tax havens. They are short of skilled labour. Anyone earning enough to pay higher-rate tax in a Western country has a skillset that would easily land them a job doing something similar in a tax haven. Instead, they've chosen to live where they do. Definitionally, … Continue reading Taxes on the rich clearly aren’t too high
On a fairly standard CiF article about the death penalty (the Americans are planning to execute a woman who was involved in a plot to kill her husband, but who was demonstrably too stupid to have led it; everyone sane disapproves; everyone evil and vindictive approves strongly), the standard liberal joke question came up: i've … Continue reading Good answer to a rhetorical question
From the comments on Charlie Brooker's excellent Guardian piece on the insane fuss over the not-a-mosque not-at-ground-zero: How many Saudi's would object to a Church being built in one of their cities if they were asked and polled? How many Americans object to a mosque? How many in Switzerland recently voted against minarets? Are they … Continue reading Easy answers to simple questions, #423
Lord Rodger, yesterday: Just as male heterosexuals are free to enjoy themselves playing rugby, drinking beer and talking about girls with their mates, so male homosexuals are to be free to enjoy themselves going to Kylie concerts, drinking exotically coloured cocktails and talking about boys with their straight female mates. Great ruling, though. And nice … Continue reading Supreme Court (UK edition) for the win
From the Rodent: It would've been wiser and more useful in military and diplomatic terms; more humane, productive and billions of pounds less expensive if the US and Britain had responded to 9/11 by crashing two planeloads of US marines into the centre of a randomly-chosen Afghan city at 700 mph and executing 300 randomly-chosen … Continue reading Depressing but probably true
Any self-professed 'human rights group' that criticises a decision to, erm, respect someone's human rights is not actually a human rights group, so much as an opportunity for a bunch of vindictive tossers to further hone their already highly developed sense of victimhood and entitlement.
The latest insane euromyth, as faithfully invented by the Daily Mail, is that the EU is planning to ban the sale of eggs by the dozen or half-dozen. As usual, the Littlejohn Rule applies here: if the story sounds like something you "really couldn't make up" (thanks, Mr Dale), then somebody doubtless has made it … Continue reading Eggscerable reporting, or ‘no, the EU won’t ban eggs by the dozen’