The point of raising tax rates is to raise tax revenue. However, raise the rate too high and tax payers will change their behavior to lower their tax bill. So is there a sweet spot for taxing the top earners in this country, where we can get the most revenue for our rate? Here's what the IMF has to say...
In developed countries, inequality of income is driven largely by a wage disparity between the highly skilled and the less skilled. Social mobility is stymied by lack of skills. Why don't some people acquire the skills they need to move up the economic ladder? Why are some people stuck?
What fosters social mobility? That is, what helps individuals move up the economic ladder? Mostly job skills and connections. In developed countries, job skills matter more than ever. Economic opportunity beckons those with the right skill set.
When we're talking to ourselves (silently or aloud), we're engaging in a goal-directed behavior, such as trying to strengthen our resolve (yes, I can!) or remember something (broccoli). We’re still riding on a wave of feeling, because goals can't gain traction without emotion.
...many generations of Americans wanted to do better than their parents - especially when their parents struggled. For much of American history, our parents struggled. It's only been the last 50 or so years that most of us could take a breather. Is doing better than one's parents still the be all/end all of the American Dream? Should it be?
Housing is the biggest component of the Consumer Price Index and the hardest to spend less on in the near term, because costs like rent and mortgage are fixed (unlike food, where buying fewer prepackaged or fast-food meals can generate considerable savings). What people spend on housing pretty well reflects what they think they can afford over time. So how much has the cost of housing changed since 1999?
Lots of patterns to detect from these tables. In both 1999 and 2015, lower-income folk spent quite a bit more than their reported pretax income - evidence that pretax income is not a very good indicator of actual financial resources. In both years, households in the top two income quintiles had more earners, fewer seniors and were bigger than households in lower quintiles. It also appears that all income groups spent quite a bit more in 2015 than in 1999. So is life getting better overall for Americans? At this point, not enough data. Stay tuned.
But will the gains erode without additional mandates? I don't know. Sometimes you need to push to get the ball rolling, but do you need to continue pushing with the same force for the ball to accelerate? We're about to find out (or at least get some relevant data) from the US example, where the mandates are being emasculated.
Unfortunately, a rise of 3.5°C could very well be catastrophic for our planet long before we even hit the 3.5 degree mark or get to 2100. Better to keep warming within 1.5°C...
So what did this 'carbon budget' paper actually say? That various climate models have projected slightly more warming for slightly less cumulative CO2 than what the authors have seen in the real world, so there’s a teeny bit more wiggle room for achieving the goal of no more than 1.5° C warming this century, assuming very aggressive Green House Gas (GHG) mitigation efforts.
High crime clearance rates are associated with lower crime rates. Translation: more crimes solved, fewer crimes. While the causal pathways are complicated, deterrence appears to play a starring role. Basically, humans are less likely to transgress against the rules if they think they’ll be caught...
Looking at Philadelphia, it appears that homicides vary with clearance rates after a lag time. For instance, the Philadelphia Homicide Unit reported a 70% clearance rate in 2012 and the following year homicides went down 26%...
One would think that per capita income would have a strong positive link to crime, other variables held constant. But when population was also included in in the data analysis, income lost its statistical significance, while population retained significance.
When the current darkness lifts and partisan animosity is softened by the spirit of collective problem-solving, we could do worse than return to the ancient texts for understanding and advice. One such text is What is Driving U.S. Health Care Spending: America's Unsustainable Health Care Cost Growth by the Bipartisan Policy Center
...by the time you hit the median income in the US, chances are (like 91%) you are very happy or fairly happy.
Keep in mind the above chart is about tax revenue, not tax rates. The average OECD tax revenue is 34.2% of a country's GDP. The US revenue take is 25.9%. Denmark's is the highest, at 49.6% of GDP. Take home: the USA doesn't tax its citizens all that much, compared to its OECD brethren.
This mission is not all that different from that of a parent: provide a secure base while encouraging the child to leave its safety to explore the world. And thereby suffer and thrive.
Individuals who favor "avoidance goals" tend to feel less in control, less satisfied with their progress, and less competent than individuals with lots of "approach goals". In other words, their happiness feeder streams have become mere trickles.
Personal initiative is a proactive and goal-oriented mindset, characterized by long-term focus and persistence in the face of obstacles and setbacks. Such a mindset is action-oriented, planful, and anticipatory: quickly turning goals into actions - with back-up plans ready just in case.
...the wisdom of deficit spending depends on the economic cycle. If stuck in a recession, deficit spending can be helpful to give the economy a boost. But...