What to read in quarantine? Colette, Hilary Mantel, and classic, 700 page academic tomes. It’s a good time for slow reading
As the bubonic plague ravaged Florence, Boccaccio observed the putrid crisis at ground level. What did social distancing look like in 1347? 1347 when VRBoV and Kežmarok were 62 years Young
As the day unfolded: Criminal probe launched into Ruby Princess fiasco as NSW death toll reaches 16
If you suspect you or a family member has coronavirus you should call (not visit) your GP or ring the national Coronavirus Health Information Hotline on 1800 020 080.
Why this crisis is a turning point in history
How much of their freedom people will want back when the pandemic has peaked is an open question. They show little taste for the enforced solidarity of socialism, but they may happily accept a regime of bio-surveillance for the sake of better protection of their health. Digging ourselves out of the pit will demand more state intervention not less, and of a highly inventive kind. Governments will have to do a lot more in underwriting scientific research and technological innovation. Though the state may not always be larger its influence will be pervasive, and by old-world standards more intrusive. Post-liberal government will be the norm for the foreseeable future.
Less than a year ago, Scott Morrison was elected on a small-to-negligible policy platform, rightly intuiting that the Australian people, fed up with politicians, wanted little government intervention in their lives.
Turns out politicians can drop the ideology and fix things. Never let 'em forget it
The legacy of the new JobKeeper programme will last longer than just the COVID-19 rebuild. When John Howard and Peter Costello brought in the GST we were promised the black economy would disappear. It didn’t. But the JobKeeper assistance scheme and COVID-19 may succeed where the GST did not, with a permanent change to the economy.
The ATO just got a gift
Greg Mankiw has an idea:
Let’s send every person a check for X dollars every month for the next N months. In addition, levy a surtax in 2020 (due in April 2021) equal to N*X*(Y2020/Y2019), where Y2020 is a person’s earnings in 2020 and Y2019 is a person’s earnings in 2019.Under this plan, a person whose earnings fall to zero this year returns none of the social insurance payments. A person whose earnings fall by half keeps half of the payments. A person whose earnings remain the same returns everything: They will have just gotten a short-term loan. And those lucky few whose earnings rise this year will return more than they got.Of course, there is an implicit marginal tax rate in this scheme. Every dollar of earnings in 2020 faces an additional marginal tax rate of N*X/Y2019.
Sunak’s rearranging deckchairs as small business in the UK sinks after hitting the coronavirus iceberg
The government has this morning announced reform to the business loan schemes that have, to date, been so hopelessly inadequate. They have noted that: £90
I have already mentioned the work Ben Wray is doing as editor of the Source Direct email newsletter from the Commonweal thinktank in Scotland, which
Sites like Bookshop and IndieBound make it easy by giving access to a range of booksellers across the country.