I really should spend more time sifting through their work, but sometimes Jon Chait gets ahold of it first, and it's just not necessary. Here he pretty thoroughly demolishes their new in house magazine, The American. If you read that rag, you'll learn that, as it turns out, that the cool thing about dictatorships is that they don't have to worry about popular demands for welfare and can therefore immiserate plebians while making the country wealthier on the whole. This is supposedly a good thing, and the whole reason growth rates in third world outpace those in the west. (Note, conservatives are similarly dishonest about the growth of post-Soviet democracies, suggesting that a flat-tax--and not, perhaps, the transition from communism to capitalism--is the main engine behind Estonia's rapid climb.)
We also learn that white collar prison just ain't what it used to be, and that taxing high earners will discourage people from going to college. Money quote: "So, if we raise the top tax rate, then 18-year-olds will choose to become convenience store clerks rather than go to college and run the small risk that they'll one day get so rich that they could face a slightly higher marginal tax rate?"
Read the whole thing.
The American is soooo bland a name for a 'born-again' magazine.
I wonder if the name The American Fool was already taken and they had to leave behind the much better choice.
Posted by: JimPortlandOR | May 31, 2007 at 10:21 PM