by Ryan Bourne, Cato on the looseApril 18, 2024.
Extract:
The federal deficit recorded from 2023, at $1.7 trillion (or 6.3% of gross domestic product, or GDP), was 23% higher than in 2022, but even that figure was artificially pushed to the decline by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) recording the Supreme Court’s decision. canceling Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan as a one-time spending cut. The underlying figure was around $2 trillion, or 7.4% of GDP. This is by far the largest deficit recorded outside of wars or acute emergencies since the Great Depression of the 1930s.
Figure 1 shows the CBO’s budget deficit projections for the next 10 years. He estimates, based on current policy, that annual deficits will reach $2.6 trillion per year by 2034. This figure likely underestimates the scale of the red ink. It assumes that much of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act can simply expire, that no other major spending programs will be introduced after the next presidential election, and that no unexpected shocks or recessions will occur. in the meantime. The feds are simply borrowing a lot of money, especially given today’s optimistic macroeconomic conditions.
by Andy Kessler, Wall Street JournalApril 14, 2024.
Extract:
Most venture capitalists invest and help startups with new strategies and recruiting a team. Mr. Churi describes what he does as “trench warfare,” battling regulators and incumbents over deal after deal. He notes that “we have been building houses the same way for 1,000 years: with sticks and bricks.” A startup, ICON, hoped to create housing for the homeless in Texas using a giant 3D printing machine that lays down layers of concrete. It can “print” a 500 square foot house in 24 hours. For $4,000. This is a game changer.
Then came the regulators. Mr. Churi says that for houses, international fire safety codes say: “You must lay the wood joists like this. » But there are no wooden beams. The whole thing is intrinsically fireproof: it’s concrete. As for the regulators, “they say: ‘You have to put the wooden joists like that.’ You see, it’s written here on the page. “They fought with the agencies authorizing the fire code. “A new language has been adopted. It took two years.
There are so many things I LOVE about this article. I remember David Friedman, in his first book, The machinery of freedom, quoting HL Hunt’s statement: “If this country is worth saving, it’s worth saving at a profit.” » I don’t literally agree with this statement and I bet David doesn’t either. But I think he cited it because we get to a good point: if people can make a profit by increasing their freedom, they will be more likely to increase their freedom than if they cannot.
by the editorial committee, Wall Street JournalApril 2, 2024.
Extract:
The most recent data suggests that the IRS is still focused on the middle class. Since last summer, 63% of new audits targeted taxpayers with income below $200,000. Only a small overall share reached the highest incomes, while 80% of audits focused on filers earning less than $1 million. Don’t forget to keep those charitable donation receipts.
My comment:
In 2021, the last year for which the IRS provides relevant data, those with AGI of $682,577 or more was in the top 1%. (See Table 4.1.) Thus, devoting 20% of audits to less than 1% of taxpayers with income above $1 million amounts to focusing on high-income earners.
I am NOT defending the IRS. I defend calculation and the importance of not misleading readers.
by Alex Nowrasteh, Cato on the looseApril 17, 2024.
Extract:
Cuccinelli’s statement that crime rates don’t matter, that only the number of crimes matters, says nothing of substance about the potential danger immigrants pose to Americans. Let me give you an example. In Cuccinelli’s interpretation, a city with 100 murders is twenty times more dangerous than a city with five murders. But if the city with 100 murders has a million residents and the city with five murders only has 100 residents, then the city with fewer murders is much more dangerous for residents. The city of 1 million people and 100 murders has a homicide rate of 10 per 100,000. The city of 100 people and five murders has a homicide rate of 5,000 per 100,000, or 500 times higher higher than the largest city with 20 times more murders.
This is an extreme example, but necessary to explain why crime rates are more important to understand in relation to crime and danger than by the number of crimes. Which city would you like to live in?
My comment: Alex makes a good point. There is another point. In any large group of people, some will be criminals. If the group is large enough (and assuming we’re not talking about people imprisoned or on trial for crime), the vast majority are not criminals in the usual sense. (I defer to the point made by Harvey Silverglate in his book with the very exaggerated title Three crimes a day.)
I think Alex could have made this point even more forcefully. There are compromises. Whether the population in question was born in America or elsewhere, there is a risk of crime. It’s a cost. There are also advantages. We get their work and their contribution to our culture. It is not enough to say that the immigrant pool contains criminals. There are also very productive people there, and their number is a multiple of the number of criminals. You cannot do a cost/benefit analysis by looking at costs alone. As my friend and fellow economist Alan Reynolds once said, it’s single-entry accounting.
