As I read through this, I was continually reminded of John Lewis Gaddis's The Landscape of History. It criticizes social sciences in a similar way to de Soto for going too quantitative because quant methods often look empirical while lacking actual empiricism (because they represent reality inaccurately). But he has one key difference with de Soto: He emphasizes the benefits of interaction between induction and deduction. De Soto has some good points in the article, but plenty of bad ones too.

I'm pretty sure the paragraph on history I wrote above is influenced by that book.

Something else I found interesting: The neoclassical author who garners the most positive citations is Stiglitz, but a lot of his criticisms (or modifications, depending on how you look at it) of neoclassical economics lead him to more interventionist positions, further from the Austrian stance.

Here's something else: Marginal tax rates on low and middle income workers





First graph: Line with steeper slope is before-tax income, line with shallow slope is after-tax (disposable) income.

FPL is federal poverty line.

Accompanying text at the link.

perverse incentives or secret-muslim-kenyasian economics plan?

That's the real problem with our welfare system.

Here are some things I saved previously on the topic:

The twice poverty trap: Tax rates faced by AFDC recipients: http://www.urban.org/UploadedPDF/405966 ... overty.pdf

TANF recipient implicit tax rates as they earn more money: http://www.urban.org/publications/412469.html

Taxes and the poor: A microsimulation study of implicit and explicit taxes: http://www.irp.wisc.edu/publications/dp ... 104094.pdf

one other: http://www.theatlantic.com/business/arc ... ht/250099/

I can't tell if you are joking.

I'm being serious. That's the largest problem with our system. Severely perverse incentives. They're also present in the overbearing welfare surveillance system: it aims to find out if recipients are making any money to take them off welfare rolls if they make a little extra money to get by.

Is there an alternative? There is no math (well, no math that people outside of the USSR and Paul Krugman's house understand) that can set what a 'fair' amount of benefits is for each individual. Nor does adjusting the minimum wage achieve the desired balance because of the economic contraction is causes at levels that would motivate people to get off of social support.

instead of myriad overlapping programs creating a convoluted system, you set it up the whole system to be similar to the earned income tax credit, where benefits decline as you make more money, but whenever your earned income increases, your disposable income actually increases (even though it won't be one for one)

OK, but doesn't this still imply some minimum threshold that would provide 'just enough'? I may be too poisoned by Drudge-ish websites, but the idea that greater earned income means greater disposable income will likely appeal only to those who are already working to better their situations, not to motivate people to take that first step off the couch to the business.

i don't post in this thread anymore

one down, two to go

I'm still care but am less interested in day to day..I'm back in the housing market

keep at it. you'll get your big break any day now.

I may dip my foot into the classicly designed mid-century modern Palm Springs home with a bean shaped pool

what kind of bean?

kidney

the point is, whether or not some minimum living threshold is provided, to eliminate welfare cliffs like those above--to ensure that increasing earned income increases disposable income at every level. we can provide bare living standards, or not provide those. i'd prefer to provide them, as the benefits probably outweigh the costs (including equality of opportunity as a benefit). some people might choose not to work given a bare minimum living standard (and people can already do so without any help from the state), sure, but if you get rid of perverse incentives along the slope of earned income, you correct some of the most demeaning and illogical parts of current law.

i'm at a loss for which of the other two you're referring to, prole troll