Interesting Links for 24-07-2025

[andrewducker]

1. 45% of microplastics come from tyres

(tags:plastic environment )

2. UK wealth tax: high risk and anti-growth

(tags:economics taxes uk )

3. Cuba becomes 22nd country to move to self-id for gender change

(tags:GoodNews LGBT transgender Cuba )

4. Starmer's response to far-right protests exposes Britain's moral decline

(tags:UK racism politics OhForFucksSake )

5. Shocking Video Captures Calm Police Officers Handling Situation Nonviolently

(tags:usa satire video violence police )

6. How does Britain's pension predicament compare with other countries

(tags:pensions comparison )

Comments

[juan_gandhi]

As to the pensions, yes, it's a serious issue. But the article mentions the situation in the US, and it does not involve the most important aspect. Lots of locals count on inheriging property from their parents, if not money, then at least the real estate. So they slack most of their lives, and then get a windfall.

I have a friend, she was a poor teacher most of her life, a single mother of two. She had strong opinions regarding how the rich should help the poor. And then kaboom, her father died, and she got about $5M of precious real estate, office rentals, in San Jose, CA. What now? Now she's a different person. But she's 70. That's the problem, parents now live way too long. Well, your king Charley had the same problem.

[andrewducker]

Parents live longer, and their children aren't getting as much of a chance to accumulate, because housing prices are much higher, and general costs also.

[bens_dad]

I doubt that my family will do this, but the answer is that the grandchildren should get the grandparents house, not the middle (parent) generation.

[mtbc]

2: I'd wondered about simply erasing the difference between passive and earned income and taxing the former just as much as the latter. I read somewhere why that's a bad idea then, er, forgot.

[bens_dad]

If what you read was from a neutral source, I'd love to read it too.

This country is said to be suffering from too many people not working; it seems obvious that taxing workers more highly than property owners is unlikely to encourage a change.

Could this be another case of the perverse leadership incentives that Andrew mentioned yesterday ?

I take the point that most of the wealth tax might come from a handful of individuals who could easily move abroad "for tax purposes".

2.

[channelpenguin]

Thanks for that. My view historically was that yeah, people and businesses would leave but "good riddance". To see some probable specific economic consequences for the general population spelled out is a bit sobering.

My own takeaway is that no amount of fiddling with any tax system anywhere will get us a world where wealth is more equally distributed. The issues seem to me to probably be at a whole higher level.

I feel that perhaps humans, as a species overall, don't default to wealth equality in a society. Or maybe that purely co-operative and highly-stratified options work at least equally well, or that a more equal model just doesn't scale beyond the tribe level (and then you've got to deal with the other tribes with different philosophies and what they'd do to you given the chance...) I am so far from an expert, but I can't really see any way "out" that would work. :-(