There might be something about climate change in there, but the book is about how scientific research boosts the economy.
Internet and the human genome project were government funded.
Practical people like Newt Gingrich have proposed doubling NIH funding.
I think you’re missing my point. Scientific research is being deeply discounted now because when it comes to climate science (1) science has been coopted by evangelicals-for-bigger-govt/partisans/socialists, and (2) those who’ve coopted climate science for political gain also deny basic human biology.
I’m just pointing out that science will likely have to decouple itself from overt political partisanship before it can regain the full flower of its power to sway domestic policy.
Nah, I trust mainstream science. It’s the politicians (both parties) who are idiots.
I flatly distrust climate science, and the problem with that book is that its cover makes a direct link between science and the “revival” of American economic growth.
The word “revival” is partisan given the Annual Report of the Council of Economic Advisers released 20-Feb-2020. The cover blurb may be down to the publisher’s misfortune (how could they know the contents of the CEA’s report?), but the cover still seems to ignore or not recognize the meta truth here about the current link between science and economic growth, e.g. the Green New Deal.
No matter how good the ideas are in the book, the GND and its ilk will have to be unpacked before any advice regarding science “reviving” the US economy will be valued by those in power.
Climate change was a thing long before socialists like Bernie or AOC had any relevance.
The mechanisms behind it are as clear cut and gravity.
The periods of highdictate economic growth in the US are highly correlated with a big push in government funding for scientific research.
Hilarious. If the anthropomorphic mechanisms behind climate change were a tenth as clear as you say, there would be no disagreement whatsoever regarding climate change legislation. All of humanity would be united behind efforts to control climate change because it would be clear what we have to do to reverse it.
This is my whole point, btw.
Ceded. However, the economic growth you laud is due to the access unlimited capitalism has to said public research.
Unfortunately “science” has checkmated itself into a position where central state control of all economic activity is a condition to resolution of climate risk. No can do the price mechanism. That’s my point; that’s what has to change.
May take decades, could take less if socialism is rejected, but books like this one will not hasten the change one iota imo.
Thanks for kick starting this thread Oysterguy. More science and more science research is more better. R&D drives discovery and expands markets. It doesn’t bother me that the ACA author supports R&D or market Capitalism. That is after all how we tend to pay for things.
Got any quotable quotes?
I’m on to this:
Comes with this:
Essentially, tax the top 400 richest at confiscatory rates (been done before, worked to eliminate ginormous income disparities.) And tax Corporate profits, capital gains and declare war on tax havens. (Also been done before. The rich responded by reinvesting dividends and not taking the cash.The plan in the book suggest taxing ALL income, especially including unrealized gains. So TESLA stockholders would have to pay on huge gains this year, and then less next year when TESLA crashes. Even if they haven’t sold any shares. Yikes. )
Bernie is swimming upstream if he thinks he’s going to take down tax havens and loopholes. The US is a tax haven now, thanks to the States of Delaware and Wyoming and their shell company businesses.
Wow. Didn’t take long to get a write up about the book. I guess that guy watched Fox Business this weekend too.
I don’t know why economists are “angered.” I have a feeling it’s because they aren’t liberal economists from Berkeley. If the data stands, I like what the book is selling. Taxing people who make over a million dollars a year more heavily and confiscating unearned income from the richest 400 people in the country while slashing the payroll tax is foin by me.
Bush cut the Capital gains tax (which was nice, even though I don’t think I sold anything during his administration) but that effects everyone who has a 401k or an IRA and profits from bond and stock speculation. If you raise it unilaterally, it hurts the medium guy who wants to sell stock and get a home owner’s loan.
I like the idea of hard smacking the I don’t even NEED this money superdooper rich, and hitting up the people EARNING more than a million five per year for their fair share…as long as kinder gentler equitable attention is paid to the other end of the bell via the payroll tax.
What is unearned income? What is the difference between confiscating unearned income and run-of-the-mill robbery? Why is the number 400 and not, say 433?
It sounds awful to me. “Badges? We don’t need no stinkin badges!” ← sounds almost exactly like this to me.
Unearned income is passive income, usually via stock and bond gains, maybe real estate.
I refer you to the history of taxing the rich in the US. Confiscatory tax rates for the very extremely super rich are not new. We just grew up with it, so we think it’s the way it’s always been.
I think the top 400 is a guesstimate. It would be the 400 biggest earners in the country.
Most of the super-rich aren’t making anything btw, if that matters to you. Many are just born wealthy and keep invested in the stock market. Not all Bill Gateses and Amazon guys.
Awesome. So say you’re a salary guy who gets sick leave. You get the flu, call in sick, and get paid even though you didn’t “earn” a dime that day.
We confiscate that, too, right?
No, that is incorrect. Way off base.
Passive income is normally held in IRAs or 401ks.
I don’t understand this. Are you suggesting peripherally that sick leave PAY is not taxed?
So the only thing that matters is the source? Why restrict confiscation to the “top 400”, then? It doesn’t seem to be about amount of the income, but about the source of the income.
You’re not arguing for taxing “unearned” income, you’re arguing that it should be confiscated. I’m suggesting that we do one of two things:
I’m just using the terms used in the book. They call them “Confiscatory Tax Rates.”
No one said “All.”
It’s the whole “The rich used to be taxed at 90%” trope. It’s true, but what people don’t know is the very small number of people it actually effected.
I believe it’s the source of the income and the amount. I earn passive income via dividends in my IRAs and stocks, but it’s in the thousands. If you’re earning millions, tens of millions, billions this way, that’s a lot of money for doing very little.
Doesn’t seem fair to me when the working class, making about 18k per year, could use a reduction in payroll taxes.
Then this is an argument that can’t be had unless I read this book. Because where I come from, “confiscation” means more than “taxation,” it means “we take it all.”
That’s not the working class, that’s the working poor class. Those folks are paying around 11% in payroll taxes now, and with the 2017 hike in US Personal Income Tax standard deductions, they’re getting it all back next year (and then some).
What they need can only be fixed by hiking their income by more than a couple dollars a week.
OK.
That’s a lot when your income is low.
That’s an apt description of the problem.
Of course, and as you’ve pointed out we in the US have a long history of progressive taxation with respect to income taxes (although sales taxes are regressive and it’s likely that sales taxes are the real bane to thriving for these folks).
My point is that I hope these folks are striving to improve financially, this generation or the next. If they’re not working to lift themselves out, if they’re happy being miserable earning $17k/yr, then they haven’t glommed on yet to how things work in the US.
See the theme to Good Times, after all. That’s how we are as Americans, how we have always been, movin’ on up.
Well, let’s not us make this all about you. People measure success and happiness very differently. My father in law used to start Moon Festival BBQ night with that shitty Taiwanese charcoal and a hairdryer. He felt like Edison. Drove me nuts. Now I use it to start winter fires during snowstorms, except I use a leaf blower. So, yes to your wonderings I think. People can, do and hope to change for the better. The “folks” you reference are no exception.
Where I got the recommendation for the book.
Whoops. Thanks for the feedback.
Probably should have written something like “the point I’m trying to make is” instead.
Anyway, did not mean to be offensive.
eta: at the risk of undoing that 
I’ve never heard of Martin Wolf so looked him up. Probably not a guy I would go to for econ reading recommendations unless I’m looking for the European left’s current thinking.
Why wouldn’t you want to know that? The EU is a huge market economy with a lot of pressing issues.