Greg Mankiw

Lots of good examples here. Ariely's first 2 TED talks are great, but be careful with behavioral economics. For most start-ups, thinking about pricing in terms of hardcore microeconomic theory is probably a better route. The fact that so many digital goods truly have a marginal cost of 0 for the producer brings life back to the "Let's assume we have a constant marginal cost" phrase so many bright eyed Principles of Microeconomics students (and MBA students) have heard coming out of their economics professors' mouths. My point is that if something is a fact and not an assumption, then that's one less assumption you have to make.

In most markets, I'd say that setting the price for a product almost always boils down to 2 general concepts: market power and price elasticity.

Market power comes from producer theory and, generally speaking, refers to how much control you have over the price of your product. One way to think about market power is to start by thinking about the monopoly case. A monopolist, by definition, is the only firm in the market. A monopolist maximizes their profit at the quantity, call it Qx, where [MR = MC] OR [dTR/dQ = 0]. However, unlike a firm in a competitive market, a monopolist sells their good at the price associated with Qx in their own demand function (which for a monopolist is the market demand). Geometrically speaking, in a less-than-competitive market the "spread" that exists in the space below the demand function but above the marginal revenue…

The article explicitly states that pre-tax inequality is greater in Germany than the US. I don't know why you insist otherwise.

And, I've never said that Europe has a fairer tax policy.

However, I'm happy to say that the US should NOT emulate the EU's abysmal per-capita GDP. I'll come to the consequences of that at the end.

You're the one who thinks that progressiveness is a virtue yet prefer a less progressive tax policy.

Let's review.

The original table (in
http://www.taxfoundation.org/blog/show/27134.html) had international comparisons for the mid 2000s. It showed that the top 10% in the US got 33.5% of the income and paid 45.1% of the income taxes. The ratio, 1.35, was the highest of the (selected) OCED countries. (Yes, including the majority of the EU countries.)

You found articles showing that the top 10% had a greater fraction of income in other years and assumed that that somehow contradicted the above table or at least the conclusion. (You implied that the original table's income numbers were wrong, but since they're for different years....)

However, progressivity is a relationship between two numbers and you didn't bother to look for the second number, the tax revenue share.

http://www.taxfoundation.org/news/show/250.html table 1 has the US numbers for 2009, when the top 10% had a higher fraction of income than in the mid-2000s. That fraction, 43.2%, is roughly the same as your articles. However Table 1 also has the fraction of income taxes. It's…

Again, I see no data that supports rapsey's claims, namely that

1. Protectionism resulted in greater economic growth for the US, Germany, Japan, and China.

The example of China is particularly egregious since it was China's economic liberalization reforms in the 1980s and 1990s, including opening up to foreign investment and lifting protectionist policies, that resulted in massive economic growth and massive poverty reduction.

2. There is a positive correlation between protectionism and development in African countries. This is ironic because protectionism is a major source of harm for African countries. From the introduction of [5]:

In recent years, as African governments and development advocates have stepped up their campaign to reform the trade policies of rich countries, the issue of agricultural protectionism has come to the forefront. This is a highly divisive issue, with rich countries resisting poor countries' demands for major changes... Critics highlight the hypocrisy of rich countries giving lip service to free trade while maintaining tariff barriers and paying subsidies to their farmers. Their argument that agricultural protectionism places an unfair burden on Africa is becoming a mainstream view.

There is a consensus among economists that protectionism has a negative effect on economic growth and economic welfare [1][2][3][4], so rapsey's extraordinary claim to the contrary requires extraordinary evidence. As Gregory Mankiw says [6], "Few propositions…

The amazing thing to me are the comments. There is little disagreement on the existence of rampant cheating, and more about how and why.

Quotes from the comments:

"Harry Lewis can also be part of the problem. He is, along with Bob Scalise and Tom Stemberg, one of the three biggest cheerleaders on campus in favor of lowering academic standards to produce a championship basketball team."

"Not only are "less than As" at Harvard occasionally seen as a sign that the student isn't smart or isn't working hard, but actual As aren't recognized or appreciated that much because they've been set as the status quo. This means that no matter what the grade, students here can feel the need to keep pushing themselves and striving for that elusive recognition and appreciation."

"Here's my thought on why cheating is so widespread here: I think that the motivation is simple, and is rooted in the fact that before coming here, we were among the very best at our high school. Then, when we got here, most of us still wanted to be among the best, to still get all A's while being a leader in extracurriculars, and so on. However, courses here are probably much harder than what we dealt with in high school."

It was also strange seeing Mankiw under the bus. Like or dislike his politics, he is a prolific blogger which generally suggests being in touch. http://gregmankiw.blogspot.com/

Again from the comments: "Harry Lewis is correct in stating that students cheat more in classes where they…

The trouble is, cheap central bank credit also led to the Great Depression and the 1970's stagflation, yet no one seems to learn the lesson. Perhaps that's why Austrians tend to sound like a broken record. I think the reason no one learns the lesson is that cheap credit is just too tempting for politicians ( and the people that vote for them). It seems like a free lunch - until the malinvestment piles up and the credit pyramid starts to topple.

Also, I'd note that Austrians tend to be much more knowledgeable of "mainstream" economics than mainstream economists are of Austrian economics ( see http://gregmankiw.blogspot.com/2006/04/austrian-economics.html and http://www.slate.com/id/9593, the latter article by Paul Krugman shows a stunning ignorance of what the Austrians are saying ).

The three biggest economic issues today are:
1) the stagnation of the American standard living since 1970
2) the massive trade deficit and the hollowing of the American economy
3) the financial crisis

All three of these problems are related to fiat currency, maturity mismatching, and inflationary policies by various banks. That's why I think the Austrians, while not perfect, are much closer to the truth than the other economic schools.

The _effecitve_ marginal tax rate for the poor can be much higher than it is for the rich.

> the effective marginal tax rate when a person moves from the bottom to the middle quintile is 1 - (15.4-12.9)/(12.6-2.2), or 76 percent.

http://gregmankiw.blogspot.com/2018/06/an-effective-marginal-tax-rate.html

If you believe in basic economic concepts like: 1) people react to incentives, 2) diminishing marginal utility of income, or that 3) perceived fairness is important for the functioning of the society, you should look at the effective marginal tax levels in different income categories and at least even it out and maybe add more to the richest.

Another way to increase taxes and level the playing field would be to remove loopholes in taxation with sweeping taxing reform. Combined with higher marginal tax rate for very high income individuals, Warren's proposal would probably generate even more income than $2.75 trillion over decade.

Almost all economists agree, that the best way to tax the rich is taxing the land and property. All taxation has some negative effects but property tax has least harm and would be net positive. From this perspective Sanders has the best proposal, but Warren's is also good.