PhD Buff Badger Dr 🚁

Politically homeless. Low tax, small state, pro freedom, pro markets lefty.

[PhD Buff Badger Dr 🚁 @badger_buff]

QT and pinning this. Think the circus is only just getting started @SteveBakerFRSA.

[Paul Bristow @paulbristow79]

He wasn’t wrong was he? An absolute circus 🤡

[PhD Buff Badger Dr 🚁 @badger_buff]

@lafih22 I can't find anything on testable insight into identifying inefficient resource use or better ways to control inflation, so it remains crankery for me. It doesn't look good that MMT proponents attribute these kinds of problems to deficiencies in critics (e.g. Dan's uninterest).

[PhD Buff Badger Dr 🚁 @badger_buff]

- MMT needs to come up with something useful
- the problem with rich people is there aren't enough of them
- there will have to be cuts or tax rises that affect ordinary people

Gteat thread Dan.

[Dan Neidle @DanNeidle]

@michaelagates @RichardLyonn @RichardJMurphy I'll pay attention to MMT when it produces an actual description of how tax would work to control inflation.

Until then it's just pedantic crankery.

[PhD Buff Badger Dr 🚁 @badger_buff]

@simonspoke @DanNeidle If you increase taxes on labour, it mostly just kills social mobility. Apart from it being unfair, it doesn't even raise much, makes people more likely to need state help in the future if they fall on hard times, and destroys incentives.

[PhD Buff Badger Dr 🚁 @badger_buff]

@simonspoke @DanNeidle Confluence of factors. Lack of supply, high immigration, cheap credit. Reduce/abolish stamp duty, make it easier for people to build. The wealth will redistribute naturally. Let people solve their own problems. Which also puts us in a better place to help those who need it.

[PhD Buff Badger Dr 🚁 @badger_buff]

@simonspoke @DanNeidle See the original thread on how we've ran out of room taxing "others"... We need to stop making problems worse, and we need rapid progress on growth and cost of living.

[PhD Buff Badger Dr 🚁 @badger_buff]

@simonspoke @DanNeidle The only wiggle room around that comes from median being lower than mean. But it's limited. Then you've still got to think about effects on size of pie (growth), and fairness. E.g. HENRYs will give up or feck off, and you don't actually want that, and they shouldn't have to.

[PhD Buff Badger Dr 🚁 @badger_buff]

@simonspoke @DanNeidle With wealth, it's complicated by our bonkers approach to housing then keeping all that propped up with cheap credit.

But you'll still run into: average person has to pay enough tax to cover what the state spends on average per person.

[PhD Buff Badger Dr 🚁 @badger_buff]

@SimonMagus Since it's harder to build assets there's less protection on the table, regardless of married or whatever status Lammy gives people.

[PhD Buff Badger Dr 🚁 @badger_buff]

@DavidLammy They could always get married if they wanted? But regardless, the real government pisstake elephant in the room is that in managed decline UK, it's far harder to build assets, so married or whatever one-size-fits-all status they end up with, there's less protection on the table.

[PhD Buff Badger Dr 🚁 @badger_buff]

@simonspoke @DanNeidle To be more specific, top 10% by wealth went from contributing 25-30% of all taxes in the 1970s to about 33% now. If you look at income tax, it was 35% then and is 60% now!

And we've still got the basic numeracy issue that big number times small number is not a big enough number.

[PhD Buff Badger Dr 🚁 @badger_buff]

@simonspoke @DanNeidle 1) house prices
2) tax rates have fallen *but percentage of tax contributed by the richest has increased* https://t.co/gdnnM0ZV0r

[PhD Buff Badger Dr 🚁 @badger_buff]

@SimonEv12360133 @DanNeidle Please could you read the article while being in touch with reality?

[PhD Buff Badger Dr 🚁 @badger_buff]

@simonspoke @DanNeidle They already are. The problem with people with deep pockets is that there aren't enough of them. A lot of tax per person multiplied by not many people equals not much money in state spending terms. Sorry.

[PhD Buff Badger Dr 🚁 @badger_buff]

@MarcherReborn @andy_robo69 Yeah just wait for the bill.

[PhD Buff Badger Dr 🚁 @badger_buff]

@Fat_Jacques @andrew_lilico Sounds great

[PhD Buff Badger Dr 🚁 @badger_buff]

@Fat_Jacques @Danjsalt Yeah. To fix growth we have to fix inequality. Just one more tax rise bro.

[PhD Buff Badger Dr 🚁 @badger_buff]

@hoffman_noa Laser-like focus on growth latest

[PhD Buff Badger Dr 🚁 @badger_buff]

@ScribblerPen @guy_herbert @cjsnowdon @FullFact @Katie_Lam_MP Regardless. You realise the average person has to pay enough tax to cover the state spending on the average person? If you want a long generous retirement, that's a lot of tax over a shorter working life.

[PhD Buff Badger Dr 🚁 @badger_buff]

@RollingHedge @the_cynical1 Time we took the cost of Ed Miliband crisis seriously.