Greg Mankiw has an idea

A little bit of mercy makes the world less cold and more just.     



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

Posted on April 3 2020

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

Why is the bailout so heavily biased to the wealthiest in the UK?

Posted on April 3 2020

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

My billionaire bosses funnelled money offshore for years. Now they want a bailout

April 3, 2020 by Naomi FowlerLeave a Comment

We’re sharing this personal story from an anonymous writer who has been made redundant in the past month. The consequences of a world where we tolerated the excesses of so-called ‘wealth creators’ are becoming starkly clear as their lack of responsibility or loyalty to employees and to the society that has enriched them is hitting us hard. The wealth they extracted has flowed almost entirely one way – into their pockets via tax havens and through bending and breaking rules with impunity, leaving societies thoroughly weakened and less able to cope with the pandemic than they would otherwise have been ...

The New York Times –  Even for people who have lost jobs or income during the coronavirus epidemic, there are books and reading material available online for free. “Readers who are used to spending their weekends in bookstores or libraries may be experiencing literary withdrawal. Many of these spaces have closed to mitigate the spread of the coronavirus. But there are still ways to keep a rotation of books on hand from your home. Many bookstores are adapting with pickup and delivery options, and for those trying to cut back on spending during this crisis, there are plenty of ways to access books for free. Here are the best ways to keep reading…”

Sites like Bookshop and IndieBound make it easy by giving access to a range of booksellers across the country.