If the government taxes 0% of GDP, it will not get any money. If it attempts to tax 100% of GDP it will not get any money either, since there will be no above ground wealth. So somewhere between 0% and 100% is the tax that maximizes revenue. Genghis Kahn and Raffles believed that the tax that maximizes revenue is quite low, close to 0%. Today’s politician’s believe it is …
“Deep Cutsâ€
Harry Reid, leader of the RepublicanDemocratic party in the Senate, attacks the Republican party because some far right extremists want to make “deep cuts†in government spending Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) accused Tea Party lawmakers of destroying budget negotiations “We’ve tried to wait patiently for them … but our patience and the American people’s patience is wearing very thin,” “Tea Party Republicans are scrapping all the progress we …
The coming collapse
Under the old US constitution, around 2000 or so, in order for the bureaucrats to spend money on something the house of representatives, the senate, and the president, had to agreed to spend money. Thus in order to do stuff, politicians had to pass a budget, and bureaucrats had to spend within that budget. Passing the budget was power, and politicians were eager to work on the budget, each one …
Losing the war with Islam
FilmLadd gives a pre mortem on our defeat: On September 20th, 2001, President Bush gave a speech to a Joint Session of Congress after the attacks on 9/11 to rally the nation and steel its citizens for the days of strife to come. A few hours after the speech I received a call from a friend in military intelligence. The first words out of his mouth? “We lost.”
Radiation levels normal and falling at Fukushima nuke reactor
NPR, usually the first to panic about evil nuclear energy, is reporting some very undramatic numbers from the Fukushima reactor Radiation inside the plant is arguably dangerous, but radiation at the plants main gate is 0.647 milliserverts per hour. By comparison, when you take a flight, you get about 0.04 milliserverts per hour from cosmic rays, so standing at the main gate is fifteen times worse than flying. So someone …
How the middle eastern revolutions are working out.
Bryan Caplan wanted people to go on record predicting the future of Egypt before the future becomes apparent. My prediction has come true
Reactor disaster
The television is full of panic stricken horror about the supposedly horrible horrible horrible horrible nuclear disaster in Japan. This disaster looks like being worse than three mile island, but not nearly as bad as Chernobyl. How many died as a result of Chernobyl? Sixty people died.  Pretty similar compared to coal mining disasters, of which there are many each year, killing in total world wide thousands of people every …
More astroturf
Your taxes at work – the government stages protests demanding more government. The “One Nation Working Together Rally†got lots of ridicule because all the protesters had professionally made mass produced signs. So these protesters as they stream out of their taxpayer paid for buses are handed professionally made mass produced signs that are made to look like home made signs. thanks to Sharp Elbows, via Lonely Conservative and Moonbattery …
Losing the peace to Islam
The liberal program for gender abolition does not seem to appeal to its supposed beneficiaries.
Fossil life found in meteor fragment
You have probably seen the photos of alleged fossil microorganisms in meteorites, but these are unconvincing. Look hard enough, and you will find faces in rocks. Lots of people have found supposed fossil microorganisms that turned out to be random shapes in rocks. More impressive are asymmetric amino acids. The meteorite Ivuna Cl1 contained 372 parts per billion of l glutamic acid, but only 8 parts per billion of d …