The debates surrounding copyright and piracy generally bore me. Those engaged in the debates invariably analogize piracy and copyright infringement to either stealing or sharing, and then the debate goes nowhere from there. That vacuousness aside, the copyright system does seem out of touch with the modern world, and it is hard to see how… Continue reading The copyright system is broken
Author: Matt Bruenig
Conservatives are correct about cultural transformation
Ta-Nehisi Coates has an interesting post over at The Atlantic about Rick Perry’s new ad. In the ad, Perry crams as many culture war issues as he can into 31 seconds: Christians under attack, gays in the military, school prayer, and the War on Christmas. The ad comes off as the typical culture war paranoia… Continue reading Conservatives are correct about cultural transformation
Meaningless measurements remain meaningless
One of the Education Reform Movement’s most touted innovations is the implementation of value-added methods of teacher evaluations. Under these methods, teachers are not evaluated by the absolute skill level of their students on standardized tests; instead, they are evaluated by how much their students improve during their time under that teacher. This all sounds… Continue reading Meaningless measurements remain meaningless
People in the US already pay flat taxes
I have been desperately trying to find data on the effect state and local taxes have on the progressivity of taxes in the United States. I wrote a post a few days ago talking about how to think about the tax system, but I only included data on federal taxes. When only counting federal taxes,… Continue reading People in the US already pay flat taxes
Corporate executives are not just highly paid workers
Matthew Yglesias floated a claim today about the nature of the modern economy that I have seen pop up from time to time: That’s not just to make the banal point that someone like a Jeffrey Immelt does in fact do work, it’s to highlight the point that the concept of a class struggle between… Continue reading Corporate executives are not just highly paid workers