Why is EZPass the only institution in society that can't bill you as you use their service?
Instead they want you to "pre-pay" and maintain a balance with them that they draw down as you go through tolls. And when it gets low you have to "top up". Basically they want you to make an interest free loan to them.
I GUARANTEE you they are earning interest on your balances.
Scam. Imagine if all your bills worked like this.
Instead they want you to "pre-pay" and maintain a balance with them that they draw down as you go through tolls. And when it gets low you have to "top up". Basically they want you to make an interest free loan to them.
I GUARANTEE you they are earning interest on your balances.
Scam. Imagine if all your bills worked like this.
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Chris Pacia retweeted
Another thing to understand about Zucman: engaging him is like trying to kick a football through a constantly-moving goalpost that also arbitrarily changes its height and width mid-kick.
He and his team at UC-Berkeley churn out a stream of working papers on inequality measurement that bake dozens of dubious assumptions into their data files, all of which "coincidentally" reinforce the headline figures that align with their political narrative. But finding and weeding out those assumptions is an extremely tedious and time-consuming task.
Zucman and coauthors Piketty and Saez do most of their work in Excel, and it's seldom ever straightforward. Instead you'll find some extremely questionable and undisclosed multiplier that's just guesstimated out of thin air...but it's buried 10 layers deep in a formula from a convoluted Excel spreadsheet, which changes the an input for another Excel spreadsheet that's used to create a ratio, which in turn goes into a formula on another Excel spreadsheet that's used to estimate a decade of missing data, which in turn alters the trend of their entire series. @VincentGeloso and I know this well because we've been scrutinizing their work for over a decade and have found dozens of examples of this sort of stuff.
But there's another twist to the PSZ universe: once you've done the work and found a problem in their data files that alters their main results in significant ways, they've already moved on to a "new" approach that conveniently hard-bakes all the faulty assumptions of the old approach into its source data while refusing to revisit them, and then layers them over with new paint, consisting of even more of the same style of Excel spreadsheet labyrinths that you now have to navigate to even figure out what they are doing. And what they do in their data files often diverges in substantial ways from how they describe it in their papers and descriptive appendixes.
While you're toiling away to figure out what they did in their last peer reviewed paper, they call up a friendly reporter at the NY Times and get him to publish a new non-peer reviewed statistical claim that grabs headlines and aligns with whatever wealth tax initiative they happen to be activisting for at the moment.
By the end, the goalpost has hopped around the field, changed its size and height multiple times, and been replaced by a new goalpost on the other end of the field that announces itself not through the referees of the field but via some sportscaster up in the broadcast booth who also happens to be openly cheering for their team.
He and his team at UC-Berkeley churn out a stream of working papers on inequality measurement that bake dozens of dubious assumptions into their data files, all of which "coincidentally" reinforce the headline figures that align with their political narrative. But finding and weeding out those assumptions is an extremely tedious and time-consuming task.
Zucman and coauthors Piketty and Saez do most of their work in Excel, and it's seldom ever straightforward. Instead you'll find some extremely questionable and undisclosed multiplier that's just guesstimated out of thin air...but it's buried 10 layers deep in a formula from a convoluted Excel spreadsheet, which changes the an input for another Excel spreadsheet that's used to create a ratio, which in turn goes into a formula on another Excel spreadsheet that's used to estimate a decade of missing data, which in turn alters the trend of their entire series. @VincentGeloso and I know this well because we've been scrutinizing their work for over a decade and have found dozens of examples of this sort of stuff.
But there's another twist to the PSZ universe: once you've done the work and found a problem in their data files that alters their main results in significant ways, they've already moved on to a "new" approach that conveniently hard-bakes all the faulty assumptions of the old approach into its source data while refusing to revisit them, and then layers them over with new paint, consisting of even more of the same style of Excel spreadsheet labyrinths that you now have to navigate to even figure out what they are doing. And what they do in their data files often diverges in substantial ways from how they describe it in their papers and descriptive appendixes.
While you're toiling away to figure out what they did in their last peer reviewed paper, they call up a friendly reporter at the NY Times and get him to publish a new non-peer reviewed statistical claim that grabs headlines and aligns with whatever wealth tax initiative they happen to be activisting for at the moment.
By the end, the goalpost has hopped around the field, changed its size and height multiple times, and been replaced by a new goalpost on the other end of the field that announces itself not through the referees of the field but via some sportscaster up in the broadcast booth who also happens to be openly cheering for their team.
Here's the best way to understand what Gabriel Zucman is up to on the California billionaire tax, and why it's a problem:
Suppose you were tasked with assembling a complex historical time series of an important economic indicator, but also suppose the data needed to build it is of widely varying quality. There are gaps in some years when components you need simply weren't measured. In other years the stats you do have are not as reliable. Or maybe the source changed the way it recorded things, or changed the underlying definition. And on top of all that, your indicator contains components that are simply hard to measure with any precision.
So what do you do? You'll inevitably have to make some discretionary calls on how to handle the challenges you encounter.
Zucman's inequality stats all face this problem. They draw on data that are often incomplete, and go back almost a century in some cases. Reliability varies, as do underlying sampling techniques that generated them. There are also gaps from things that aren't easily measured where you have to make a defensible judgement call on how to handle it. And each and every one of those calls affects your end results.
A rigorous researcher's judgement calls would follow certain defensible principles or rules that were clearly articulated and replicable. The effects of those calls would also distribute in different directions. Some would increase the final output number, others would decrease it.
In Zucman's work, we typically find the opposite. He makes judgement calls out of necessity, but they almost always go in the same direction, which is to show (a) rising inequality and (b) declining tax burdens on the rich. They always skew in a nonrandom direction, and that direction conveniently aligns with the political story he's telling about inequality and wealth taxes.
Or think of it this way: if you're assembling a century-long measure of income concentration it's quite plausible you may have to make 50 different judgement calls on how to handle gaps and uncertainties in the source data. If 30 of those cause your results to show higher inequality in cumulative, but 20 of those reduce inequality in cumulative, that suggests a fairly even distribution is at play. In Zucman's work (as well as his coauthors Piketty and Saez) though, you'll find situations where 50 out of 50 discretionary calls all happen to cause the headline measure of inequality to increase.
That's not random - it means that whenever they must make a choice on how to handle data uncertainty, they choose the path that confirms the political story they wish to tell. And this is why the various Piketty-Saez-Zucman measures of inequality are *always* on the high side compared to alternative measures of the same thing.
Overlay that with the fact that all three of them are partisan political activists who advocate for wealth taxes, and you see the problem. Their empirical academic work ends up skewing in favor of their political objective, even though it's masquerading as a data-driven exercise.
And that's why their empirical claims should be checked against other sources and heavily discounted when they do not align - which is frequently the case.
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Chris Pacia retweeted
this California wealth tax thing is just incredible.
so in October 2025, a California healthcare union proposed a "one time" 5% tax on any billionaire's wealth. the ballot measure will be voted on next month. In early December 2025, California announced that it would be a ed, applying to anyone with CA residency as of Jan 1, 2026. The objective is to pay for Medi-Cal, California's incredibly dysfunctional healthcare system. (which also functions as a glorified welfare apparatus, but that's a discussion for another time).
polls reveal that the CA electorate is split around 50/50 on the tax, but prediction markets only give Prop 40 a ~23% chance of passing (there are competing measures on the ballet that would nullify it).
there are 200 billionaires in CA, worth collectively somewhere between $2.3 and $2.6 trillion. 5% of that is around $100b, accounting for a small amount of attrition. proponents of the tax forecasted a significant windfall, assuming only a 10% departure rate.
supporters thought they were being clever with the retroactive concept. no billionares would leave CA in the few short months between the tax being proposed and the residency cutoff date, without the tax even having passed yet, right?
well as it turns out, they did.
a new paper [1] from two academics at Stanford called "The Net Present Value of the California Billionaire Tax Act", argues that not only did more billionaires leave due to the proposed tax than its proponents expected, but that the value of the tax, if it does pass, is actually negative.
proponents of the tax only assumed 10% avoidance, that is, only 10% of the taxable base of targeted billionaires would leave CA within the very short Oct-Dec 2025 window. Jaros and Rauh, the Stanford academics, find that a lower bound of 28.6% of the taxable base managed to leave.
just based on known departures, those departures total $577b in net worth, or $28.8b in potential tax lost. this of course does not capture everyone (many left without announcing their departure), so the authors normalize to departure rates estimated from other wealth tax events, and apply other discounts for litigation, arriving arrive at a figure of only $28-$36b in forecasted tax revenues.
but this isn't all! all of the income taxes paid by the departed billionaires are also forsaken. the authors estimate that CA billionaires pay $3.3- 5.8b in annual income taxes. they assume a midpoint of $2b lost in annual collections from departed billionaires. the net present value of that lost income stream is -$68.9 billion.
so when you add it all up you get:
+ $30b one-time tax windfall (estimated)
- $69b in present value of lost future income taxes
= - 38.9b overall net present value of the tax
of course, this analysis is highly estimate driven. the authors simulate the parameters 100k times and find a negative NPV of the implemented tax 85 percent of the time.
and if the tax doesn't pass, which it's not looking like it will, California still ended up losing at least $577b in departed net worth, and they have permanently poisoned the well with entrepreneurs who will now worry about future wealth taxes.
[1]: nber.org/system/files/w…
so in October 2025, a California healthcare union proposed a "one time" 5% tax on any billionaire's wealth. the ballot measure will be voted on next month. In early December 2025, California announced that it would be a ed, applying to anyone with CA residency as of Jan 1, 2026. The objective is to pay for Medi-Cal, California's incredibly dysfunctional healthcare system. (which also functions as a glorified welfare apparatus, but that's a discussion for another time).
polls reveal that the CA electorate is split around 50/50 on the tax, but prediction markets only give Prop 40 a ~23% chance of passing (there are competing measures on the ballet that would nullify it).
there are 200 billionaires in CA, worth collectively somewhere between $2.3 and $2.6 trillion. 5% of that is around $100b, accounting for a small amount of attrition. proponents of the tax forecasted a significant windfall, assuming only a 10% departure rate.
supporters thought they were being clever with the retroactive concept. no billionares would leave CA in the few short months between the tax being proposed and the residency cutoff date, without the tax even having passed yet, right?
well as it turns out, they did.
a new paper [1] from two academics at Stanford called "The Net Present Value of the California Billionaire Tax Act", argues that not only did more billionaires leave due to the proposed tax than its proponents expected, but that the value of the tax, if it does pass, is actually negative.
proponents of the tax only assumed 10% avoidance, that is, only 10% of the taxable base of targeted billionaires would leave CA within the very short Oct-Dec 2025 window. Jaros and Rauh, the Stanford academics, find that a lower bound of 28.6% of the taxable base managed to leave.
just based on known departures, those departures total $577b in net worth, or $28.8b in potential tax lost. this of course does not capture everyone (many left without announcing their departure), so the authors normalize to departure rates estimated from other wealth tax events, and apply other discounts for litigation, arriving arrive at a figure of only $28-$36b in forecasted tax revenues.
but this isn't all! all of the income taxes paid by the departed billionaires are also forsaken. the authors estimate that CA billionaires pay $3.3- 5.8b in annual income taxes. they assume a midpoint of $2b lost in annual collections from departed billionaires. the net present value of that lost income stream is -$68.9 billion.
so when you add it all up you get:
+ $30b one-time tax windfall (estimated)
- $69b in present value of lost future income taxes
= - 38.9b overall net present value of the tax
of course, this analysis is highly estimate driven. the authors simulate the parameters 100k times and find a negative NPV of the implemented tax 85 percent of the time.
and if the tax doesn't pass, which it's not looking like it will, California still ended up losing at least $577b in departed net worth, and they have permanently poisoned the well with entrepreneurs who will now worry about future wealth taxes.
[1]: nber.org/system/files/w…
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It's a bit fascinating that we haven't seen any populist movement build up around post-keynesian economics but you have around MMT.
Post-keynesian economics would likely fit right in with left wing populism.
I think the problem your typical leftist isn't capable of understanding it so they can't rally behind something they don't understand.
Which is why MMT appeals to the so much. It makes them feel smart because of how dummed down it is.
Post-keynesian economics would likely fit right in with left wing populism.
I think the problem your typical leftist isn't capable of understanding it so they can't rally behind something they don't understand.
Which is why MMT appeals to the so much. It makes them feel smart because of how dummed down it is.
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Paris has done nearly everything the left wanted. Ruined their healthcare system. Destroyed all profit motive. People barely work they get a million days off a year.
And yet the left is still burning things down because it will never be enough for them.
And yet the left is still burning things down because it will never be enough for them.
🚨BREAKING: The historic Limoges town hall has just completely collapsed after far-left rioters set it on fire
It was built in 1876. It survived World Wars. It did not survive modern France.
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This is what an intellectual lightweight looks like.
It is simply not true that for banks to have positive equity other sectors in the economy must be in a negative.
He's making a fundamental definitional error in his "accounting". Not all assets are claims on someone else's rongly define assets that way do you come to the conclusion that someone must run a deficit for banks to have positive equity.
It is simply not true that for banks to have positive equity other sectors in the economy must be in a negative.
He's making a fundamental definitional error in his "accounting". Not all assets are claims on someone else's rongly define assets that way do you come to the conclusion that someone must run a deficit for banks to have positive equity.
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If you're going to mock someone who using Chat GPT to write a tweet you probably shouldn't have used it to write your book.
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Btw I'm not opposed to using AI to help write a book (prose only not ideas). I'm doing so in the book I'm working on. But at least I disclose it!
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Chris Pacia retweeted
@mojopin74e@RichardJMurphyogic:
- A parent only allows their kid to have one piece of candy and only gives their kid one piece.
- But it's physically possible for the kid to eat two pieces.
- Therefore the kid must have eaten two pieces.
Exactly the same as:
- The government has a rule that the treasurnd newly created money.
- But it's physically possible for the treasury to spend newly created money.
- Therefore the treasury must spend newly created money.
- A parent only allows their kid to have one piece of candy and only gives their kid one piece.
- But it's physically possible for the kid to eat two pieces.
- Therefore the kid must have eaten two pieces.
Exactly the same as:
- The government has a rule that the treasurnd newly created money.
- But it's physically possible for the treasury to spend newly created money.
- Therefore the treasury must spend newly created money.
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Listening to this it's pretty amazing the gulf between Randall Wray's expansive view of public finance and his counter-cylical spending proposal.
On the one hand it's "Budget deficits don't matter, government revenue doesn't matter, interest rates are arbitrary, we can spend whatever we want."
And other the other it's "But we're only going to use these powers once every 10-15 years to do some counter-cylical spending for a quarter or two".
You can see why 99% of Internet MMTers hear the first part and start salivating and never bother with the second part.
And it also begs the question if 95% of the time the government is just going to do business as usual and have to pay attention to deficits and taxes and interest rates, and your grand proposal amounts to nothing more than infrequent counter-cylical spending that Paul Krugman would agree with, then why is the first part of any importance at all?
#MMT
On the one hand it's "Budget deficits don't matter, government revenue doesn't matter, interest rates are arbitrary, we can spend whatever we want."
And other the other it's "But we're only going to use these powers once every 10-15 years to do some counter-cylical spending for a quarter or two".
You can see why 99% of Internet MMTers hear the first part and start salivating and never bother with the second part.
And it also begs the question if 95% of the time the government is just going to do business as usual and have to pay attention to deficits and taxes and interest rates, and your grand proposal amounts to nothing more than infrequent counter-cylical spending that Paul Krugman would agree with, then why is the first part of any importance at all?
#MMT
In the latest Human Action episode I carefully explain Randall Wray's "buckaroo" project with his students and point out why--despite the hype--the natural interest rate isn't zero. youtube.com/watch?v=1StswY…
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As much as I liked the giants win yesterday I'd have to throw some cold water on it.
That style of play isn't sustainable. The giants only had six offensive possessions (not including the kneel down drive). They scored touchdowns on 4 of them (66%). And it took basically four touchdowns to beat the Cowboys.
The highest touchdown/drive percentage in the modern era was the 07 Patriots at 43.7%.
You can't bank on scoring touchdowns at that high of a rate with such a limited number of possessions. It would require basically perfect play.
Add to that the lack of explosive plays and that most drives were 10-12 plays, that's also not sustainable. More plays means more chances for mistakes.
That style of play can keep you competitive with teams that are better than you, but at some point you need to open up the offense to win consistently.
That style of play isn't sustainable. The giants only had six offensive possessions (not including the kneel down drive). They scored touchdowns on 4 of them (66%). And it took basically four touchdowns to beat the Cowboys.
The highest touchdown/drive percentage in the modern era was the 07 Patriots at 43.7%.
You can't bank on scoring touchdowns at that high of a rate with such a limited number of possessions. It would require basically perfect play.
Add to that the lack of explosive plays and that most drives were 10-12 plays, that's also not sustainable. More plays means more chances for mistakes.
That style of play can keep you competitive with teams that are better than you, but at some point you need to open up the offense to win consistently.
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Chris Pacia retweeted
The idea that _any_ economist can predict cycles scientifically is one of the cruder misconceptions about the discipline. Only hacks pretend to do it; and they prove themselves capable by harping on a few correct guesses while banking on people forgeting their many misses. 1/
I recently asked an Austrian economist when they thought the next U.S. recession would happen.
They said: "within the next 10 years".
Incredible.
A forecasting window so precise it contains roughly an entire business cycle.
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So a little bit of controvery in my quaterfinal match in our match play tournament today.
I scored the match using 100% handicap allowance. I was getting 5 strokes. And I won 5&4.
The match was actually a little closer than it sounds because if I didn't win on hole 14, it would have gone to extra holes because I played the last 4 holes like crap and would have lost them all.
But the person who runs our league said we should have played at 75% allowance. This is the first I'm hearing that matches should be played at 75% allowance. I've only played the previous ones at 100%.
His reasoning is because if a high handicapper has a blow up hole the worst he can do is simply lose the hole. So he's saying 100% allowance is biased in favor of high handicappers.
But, the USGA recommends playing individual match play at 100% allowance. And they do so based on extensive modeling. They've already factored in that the high handicappers can do no worse than lose the hole when they have a blow up hole.
Your handicap is not your true average. It's already biased in favor of the low handicap by virtue of lower handicaps having lower variance.
A 5 handicap might have a true average of 8. And a 18 handicap might have a true average of 24.
If they played off true averages, the high handicap would get 16 strokes.
If they play off handicaps, the high handicap only gets 13 strokes.
That's a three stroke bias for the lower handicap relative to their average ability.
And, at least according to the USGA's modeling, that low handicap advantage is enough to account for the fact that the worst a high handicap can do on a blow up hole is lose the hole.
So what does #GolfTwitter think?
I scored the match using 100% handicap allowance. I was getting 5 strokes. And I won 5&4.
The match was actually a little closer than it sounds because if I didn't win on hole 14, it would have gone to extra holes because I played the last 4 holes like crap and would have lost them all.
But the person who runs our league said we should have played at 75% allowance. This is the first I'm hearing that matches should be played at 75% allowance. I've only played the previous ones at 100%.
His reasoning is because if a high handicapper has a blow up hole the worst he can do is simply lose the hole. So he's saying 100% allowance is biased in favor of high handicappers.
But, the USGA recommends playing individual match play at 100% allowance. And they do so based on extensive modeling. They've already factored in that the high handicappers can do no worse than lose the hole when they have a blow up hole.
Your handicap is not your true average. It's already biased in favor of the low handicap by virtue of lower handicaps having lower variance.
A 5 handicap might have a true average of 8. And a 18 handicap might have a true average of 24.
If they played off true averages, the high handicap would get 16 strokes.
If they play off handicaps, the high handicap only gets 13 strokes.
That's a three stroke bias for the lower handicap relative to their average ability.
And, at least according to the USGA's modeling, that low handicap advantage is enough to account for the fact that the worst a high handicap can do on a blow up hole is lose the hole.
So what does #GolfTwitter think?
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Imagine the government had a policy where every year Americans had to pay taxes to people who's last names start with Z.
And imagine that every year the amount you have to pay grows and grows.
Gablraith would say "of course" this is sustainable.
And imagine that every year the amount you have to pay grows and grows.
Gablraith would say "of course" this is sustainable.
Levy Scholar, James Galbraith, explains why the $40 trillion federal debt may not be as unsustainable as it sounds.
#NationalDebt #FederalDebt #economics
levyinstitute.org/news_items/of-…
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