In recent years, claims that “the rich” don’t pay their “fair share” of taxes have been repeated countless times. But that excuse to tax them more to line others’ pockets is blown away whenever the highly disproportionate income tax burdens borne by higher earners are reported.
The article is adapted from Adam Vass Gal’s new book Generational Poverty: An Economic Look at the Culture of the Poor (2015) from Vernon Press.
When examining cyclical poverty, it is important to study the typical tendencies of people that have generational success. Some like to equate financial success to a level of work ethic, and assume the harder you work, the more you will make. This book’s study takes a different approach.
Even as the Saudi Arabian state steps up bombing raids in Yemen and spends billions on new military infrastructure, plans are moving forward for the Kingdom Tower in Jeddah. The new tower is to be a kilometer tall and will contain at least 200 floors. It will include both a luxury hotel, class A office space, residences, and many other luxury features. It represents phase 1 of a multiphase development just north of the city of Jeddah on the Red Sea.
A little late to the party, the BBC wonders at the surreal and ongoing failure of the Venezuelan regime to provide its citizens with life’s basic amenities. Goods such as flour, sugar, cooking oil, shampoo and detergent, and the oft-mentioned toilet paper are now in such short supply that people are given time off work to queue in front of the stores. But in good socialist fashion, matters seem otherwise pretty “well organized”.
In an almost daily debate over economic and monetary policy politicians complain if prices — such as home prices — do not rise, and some complain if they think other prices — such as health care prices — are going up too much. This situation begs the question: do we want rising prices or falling prices?
The war against cash has, up to now, been waged almost exclusively by national governments and official international organizations, although there are exceptions. Now the war has acquired a powerful new ally in Chase, the largest bank in the U.S. and a subsidiary of JP Morgan Chase and Co., according to Forbes, the world’s third largest public company.
Recently, the Polish economy experienced its first price deflation since the 1980s, which sparked in the country deflationphobia (or, as Mark Thornton calls it, apoplithorismosphobia).
The Foundation for Economic Education The Freeman 1979
Writes Xiong Yue:
The translation of the Chinese version of In Defense of Deflation by Prof.Philipp Bagus has been finished, I am so proud to be one of the translators. It will be published this summer.
With the excitement surrounding yesterday’s release of J.J. Abram’s new Star Wars trailer, it is worth taking a look back to one of the best pieces of economic satire since Frédéric Bastiat’s famed Candlemakers’ Petition.
