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I suppose they don't grasp that if the rules had been different, people would have spent and saved differently. Whatever I have that might be called "wealth" is just the accumulation of assets because I didn't buy a classic Charger, a sailboat, a motorcycle, a dozen more vacations abroad, etc, etc.

WB and Gaza were never intended to be part of Israel, so they can't really be "returned". An underlying problem was the unrealistic partition plan which tried to create two indefensible states.

The continuing saga of House speakership isn't simply a matter of a small Republican sub-faction throwing its weight. This at Reason.com argues that it's a fight over whether the House is run by its Republican majority or a Republican/Democrat mix of centrists. "What is becoming more clear is...

Species that were around during prior eras of high CO2 will probably survive this one. Very young species, maybe not (we can't know), but there is more than one cause of extinction.

Rules exist to jog the mind of the thinking dictator.

Yes. I meant "lower than uppermost". That cut fell on both sides of the median and was squarely on the middle class. Almost a third of the federal personal income tax take comes from that bracket. Either someone cuts spending, or someone is going to have to hit that bracket and the one above...

If we could wrap our heads around the probable - particularly unintended - consequences at street level, we'd be on the short list of fiscal policy quants of some finance department headhunter. Single family homes might only be a rounding error compared to other assets. People making decisions...

Every change in tax policy alters behaviour, and amounts to an economic disruption/distortion. In this case, it's a substantial alteration of a parameter which has been predictable for a long time. Increases dependency on small number of high-dollar taxpayers, which makes the country's...

"Rooms to let for fifty cents"

It's the economically prudent thing to do. I can see how this works politically. The government gets to pose as knights of "tax the rich", knowing that the real players are going to find ways to dilute the impact, and knowing that if they lose the election their unwise policy will be reversed...

It's not going to be felt by anyone who can wait until the next parliament rolls the inclusion rate back to 50%.

Right, but it still means the impact isn't limited to the top 1% of income earners. If that's the target, a condition restricting the tax to those people is required.

"Why did American and European jets scramble to help Israel, but not Ukraine?" Because intervening to help Israel against non-nuclear-armed and not particularly powerful Iran is a lot less risky than directly intervening against nuclear-armed and rather more powerful Russia. Any other...

No need to get worked up; just apply common sense. Trump's opponents throw everything at him they can find, as soon as they find it. If something turns up that supposedly happened years ago, it's overwhelmingly likely to be bullsh!t. Ignore it and let the people who want to be rolled, roll...

It can't be, unless there's an "AND" condition tying the rate to other reported income or absolutely no-one with an income below the top 1% ever tries to unload an asset with a gain in the target range. If you're just a poor schmuck with an ordinary income who wants to unload a sizeable asset...

It's not exactly a secret that the intelligence community was artfully deceptive when it published the "looks like Russian disinfo" letter, either. Credibility without facts is approximately zero now. I know getting the facts is in a lot of cases impractical, but they have only themselves to...

For the benefit of others who might be curious, a few numbers to inform discussion. Source is here. (These stats take enough time that they always seem to lag by a couple of years, so figures are 2021 tax year.) From Table 1: Total number of individual tax returns filed: 29,330,240. Total...

Sounds like speculative bullsh!t. Who is "Thom Hartmann"?

Baumol Effect (aka Baumol's Cost Disease). High fives all around. So far, so good.

If anyone is interested in more details of what's at issue in Trump's "hush money" case, see here. (Reason.com)