The BBC’s Justin Rowlatt wrote that India published income tax data this year showing that only 1% of Indians paid tax in 2013, while 2% filed a tax return. He quoted Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi saying: publishing the data…
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Millionaire Superheroes: the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI)
Justin Rowlatt at The BBC celebrates the 50th birthday of IR8, a strain of rice developed by the IRRI in the Philippines that more than doubled rice productivity. It is thought that IR8 saved many millions of lives and transformed…
Posted in Development, Millionaire Superheroes
One way power corrupts is by reducing social constraints
Brian Resnick warns that Trump would be a terrible president not because the enormous power of the presidency would corrupt him, but because it would merely give him more freedom to reveal his true personality. As if we haven’t seen enough…
Posted in Development, Public Finance
The socialism-prosperity curve.
Jordan Ellengerg’s book, How Not To Be Wrong: The Power of Mathematical Thinking has an entire chapter about how surprisingly difficult it is for people to think in terms of non-linear relationships like the equity-efficiency curve. On page 23, he draws…
When you get a 10% raise, will you suddenly need to spend 10% more on food and clothing?
Most Americans spend about the same percent of their income on clothing regardless of how much they earn. For example, people who earn $5,000 per year might spend about $200 on clothing whereas Americans who earn $150,000 per year spend…
Posted in Development, Globalization & International
Did we reach peak market circa year 2000?
For centuries, markets have been expanding into ever greater spheres of human life and displacing non-market human interaction. This has been an exciting time for economists because economists mostly just study markets. This has led economists to neglect major spheres of…
Millionaire Superheros: Henry Heimlich
Henry Heimlich’s biggest innovation is famous: the Heimlich maneuver for saving people from choking. The Deaconess Institute estimates it has saved 50,000 lives in the US and since the US is less than 5% of world population, it is likely that…
Posted in Millionaire Superheroes
Medianism 