Monthly Archive for January, 2012

Public Service Announcement

Published
by
Steve Landsburg
on January 24, 2012
in Blogging
. 14 Comments

Monday’s post generated an unusually large number of comments that consisted of nothing but namecalling, directed in almost all cases at Paul Krugman (though in exactly one case at me). I’ve deleted all of these comments, in most cases before they were ever posted.

I strongly encourage spirited discussion. I understand that spirited discussion can get pretty heated, and that in heated discussion people (including me) sometimes say nasty things. I prefer to keep that to a minimum, but I still allow a fair amount of it as long as the comments advance the discussion. But if your post consists of 100% pure nastiness, with no conceivable way for anybody to learn anything from it, I will usually delete it. One exception: Being very funny can compensate for a lot of nastiness, especially if it’s the kind of funny that draws the reader’s attention to a genuine flaw in someone’s reasoning. The many posts I’ve deleted over the past 48 hours were nasty without even trying to be funny.

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Wisdom from the Ivy League

Published
by
Steve Landsburg
on January 23, 2012
in Economics, Policy and Politics
. 108 Comments

Greg Mankiw’s four principles of tax reform are extraordinarily wise, and I think it’s fair to say that almost everyone who has thought hard about these issues will agree with everything he says.

I have only one quibble, and that’s that Greg is very sure we should eliminate the mortgage interest deduction in accordance with his first principle: “Broaden the Base and Lower Rates”. I think we should maybe keep it in accordance with his second principle: “Tax Consumption Rather than Income”. (Though I certainly agree that after the second principle has been implemented, it will be time for the mortgage interest deduction to go.)

How sad that so much wisdom is sure to go unheeded.

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In Which Paul Krugman Leaves Me At a Loss for Words

Published
by
Steve Landsburg
on January 20, 2012
in Bad Reasoning, Economics and Paul Krugman
. 60 Comments

Okay, this one’s almost too bizarre for words. First, Paul Krugman makes an argument that ignores the existence of corporate dividends. Then, pretty much everybody in the world points out his error. Then, he admits his error, but, true to form, takes an irrelevant swipe at his critics. But in this case, the irrelevant swipe is: “Aha! You’ve just admitted that corporations pay dividends! So much for your past claims that corporations pay wages!”

Umm…Paul? They pay both. I’d lift Krugman’s own favorite dismissive phrase and say “That’s Economics 101”, but actually it’s probably standard knowledge among middle schoolers.

To review the details:

First, Krugman reposted (from the website of a left-wing advocacy group) a highly misleading chart purporting to illustrate the federal tax burdens borne by various income groups. The chart accounts for payroll and income taxes, but omits corporate taxes, thereby making the burden on high-income tax payers appear substantially smaller than it is, because corporate taxes reduce dividends which are disporportionately paid to high-income taxpayers.

Next, he got called on it by lots and lots of people, including, for example, Greg Mankiw.

Next, Krugman acknowledged his error. But, as always, he did so with the least possible grace, suggesting that his critics, by virtue of pointing out Krugman’s mistake, have somehow undermined their own principles.

In particular, his position is that by acknowledging that corporate profits benefit shareholders, “conservatives” have undermined their own ability to claim that corporations benefit anyone other than shareholders (e.g. workers). He relies, in other words, on the cockamamie notion that if something is good for group A, it can’t possibly also be good for group B.

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Mitt Romney’s Taxes

Published
by
Steve Landsburg
on January 18, 2012
in Bad Reasoning, Current Events and Economics
. 108 Comments

Mitt Romney says his tax rate is “probably around 15%”. It’s not clear what he means by that (marginal rate? average rate? federal rate? federal-plus-state-plus-local rate?) but the New York Times is quick to point out that he’s a beneficiary of the “fact” that investment income is taxed at a much lower rate than wages and salaries, leaving him with a lower percentage tax burden than the working-stiffs he employs.

For at least the eighth time on this blog, I want to point out that this widely believed “fact” is not true.

To understand Mitt Romney’s tax burden, you have to compare him to his doppelganger Timm Romney, who lives on a planet with no taxes. In the year (say) 2000, Mitt and Timm both earned (say) a million dollars. Timm invested his million dollars, saw it double over the past decade or so, and cashed out his investment this year, leaving him with two million dollars. Mitt, by contrast, paid 35% tax in 2000, leaving him with $650,000. He invested it, saw it double, and cashed out last year, paying 15% tax on the $650,000 capital gain. That leaves him $1,202,500, which is about 60% of what Timm’s got. In other words, the tax system costs Mitt almost 40% of his income.

By contrast, people on our planet without investment income collect their wages, pay 35% in taxes, and spend what’s left. The tax system costs them 35%, while it costs Mitt almost 40%. In other words, people with investment income bear a higher tax burden, as a percentage of their income, than anyone else — and that’s before you even start accounting for the taxes on dividends, interest, corporate income and inheritance.

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On the Road Again

Published
by
Steve Landsburg
on January 12, 2012
in Blogging
. 1 Comment

I’m traveling for the next week, and will probably not be on the net much. I’ll blog if anything catches my fancy, but most likely you won’t see me for at least a few days.

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Off the Deep End

Published
by
Steve Landsburg
on January 11, 2012
in Bad Reasoning, Paul Krugman and Progress
. 54 Comments

Paul Krugman argues that success in business is not, by itself, a qualification for making wise economic policy, and I agree. But then he goes all looney-tunes on us:

A businessman can slash his workforce in half, produce about the same as before, and be considered a big success; an economy that does the same plunges into depression, and ends up not being able to sell its goods.

So according to Krugman, it’s better for you and your spouse to earn $40,000 each than for one of you to earn $80,000 while the other stays home with the kids. I wonder how many two-earner families would agree with him.

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How to Fix Everything

Published
by
Steve Landsburg
on January 10, 2012
in Economics, Empirical Puzzles and Policy
. 10 Comments

Here is how I answered that question in Jamaica:

(Slightly higher quality video here.)

Edited to add: There were apparently some problems with the video stalling somewhere around the one-hour mark (during the post-talk question period.) I believe this is fixed now.

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Debt: The Never-Ending Topic

Published
by
Steve Landsburg
on January 6, 2012
in Economics
. 83 Comments

Don Boudreaux, who as always merits careful attention, attempts to mediate among me, Paul Krugman, Bob Murphy and Nick Rowe on the subject of the public debt. His title is “Let’s not Talk Past Each Other on the Burden-of-Public-Debt Issue”. Indeed, I think that to a very large extent we are all saying exactly the same thing (as you’d expect, because we’re all good at thinking about this kind of stuff, and really, it’s not that hard), but disagreeing about where the emphasis should lie. So let me sum up the major points here. (For background see here, here, here, and the links therefrom.) I think it would be great if Bob, Nick, Don and Paul would let us know, by number, which of these points (if any) they disagree with:

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Debt Again

Published
by
Steve Landsburg
on January 5, 2012
in Economics
. 51 Comments

I hadn’t intended this to be national debt week here at The Big Questions, but when you get into a back-and-forth with a guy as compulsively readable as Bob Murphy, you milk it for all it’s worth.

Murphy objects to formulations along the lines of “government debt is not a burden because we owe it to ourselves” and offers a parable that he thinks illustrates all the key issues. I agree that his parable illustrates all the key issues, so let’s review it — and see what it really illustrates.

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You, Your Grandchildren, and the Public Debt

Published
by
Steve Landsburg
on January 4, 2012
in Economics and Paul Krugman
. 64 Comments

Nick Rowe, applauded by such luminaries as Don Boudreaux and Bob Murphy, argues that, contrary to folks like Paul Krugman and yours truly, government debt is too a burden on our grandchildren, unless you believe in Ricardian Equivalence.

I want to explain what that means, and why it’s wrong.

To make sure we’re all talking about the same thing, I’m going to adopt all of Nick’s assumptions, most critically that all taxes are lump sum. I’ll come back at the end and say a little more about why this obviously false assumption is the right assumption to make.

Now: Suppose the government borrows money to finance a tax cut. That makes us feel richer. We therefore buy and consume more stuff, which leaves less stuff for our grandchildren to consume. (Nick tells a very nice detailed story about how this might play out across generations; I applaud that kind of detail, but it’s not important for this response.) Government debt is therefore a burden to our grandchildren.

Unless! If we — the current generation — foresee all this, and care about our grandchildren, we’ll choose to (in effect) undo what the government has done by saving our tax cuts and giving them as gifts to our grandchildren (presumably as part of their inheritance). This restores every generation’s consumption to the original status quo.

Ricardian Equivalence is the economist’s jargon for the assertion that we will foresee all of this, and will care about our grandchildren, and therefore will give them our tax cuts as gifts. Nick Rowe’s claim is that unless you make the very strong assumption that Ricardian equivalence holds, government debt enriches us at the expense of our grandchildren.

Here’s why that’s wrong: Continue reading ‘You, Your Grandchildren, and the Public Debt’

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Actually, We Owe It All to Ourselves

Published
by
Steve Landsburg
on January 3, 2012
in Economics and Paul Krugman
. 57 Comments

Paul Krugman has a very good column on government debt and why it doesn’t matter nearly as much as many people believe. There’s just one spot in the column where I think Krugman misses the point, and therefore makes a weaker case than he could have made. He writes:

U.S. debt is, to a large extent, money we owe to ourselves.

…

It’s true that foreigners now hold large claims on the United States, including a fair amount of government debt. But every dollar’s worth of foreign claims on America is matched by 89 cents’ worth of U.S. claims on foreigners. And because foreigners tend to put their U.S. investments into safe, low-yield assets, America actually earns more from its assets abroad than it pays to foreign investors. If your image is of a nation that’s already deep in hock to the Chinese, you’ve been misinformed. Nor are we heading rapidly in that direction.

All true, but all beside the point. Even if 100% of U.S. debt were held by foreigners, and even if Americans had no offsetting claims on foreigners whatsoever, the U.S. debt would still be money we owe to ourselves.

Continue reading ‘Actually, We Owe It All to Ourselves’

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