Interesting Links for 28-02-2012
Feb. 28th, 2012 11:00 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
andrewducker- If you want reproducible science, the software needs to be open source
- We're getting closer to artificual limbs that have sensations
- How much debt would an independent Scotland have?
- The most common cooking mistakes
- People who take Ritalin are far more aware of their mistakes
- 30% of income tax paid by top one per cent of earners. Anyone got comparisons with other countries?
- Beware The Bacon Balrog!
- Man builds hobbit house for just £3,000
- Gender-swapped Dr Who Cosplay. I may need to go lie down for a bit.
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no subject
Date: 2012-02-28 11:01 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-02-28 02:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-02-28 02:51 pm (UTC)http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/08/how-much-americans-actually-pay-in-taxes/
Loads of OECD statistics on Tax – I am most struck by Chart A on page 39 showing tax as a proportion of GDP. Greece is third from the bottom.
http://www.keepeek.com/Digital-Asset-Management/oecd/taxation/revenue-statistics-2007_rev_stats-2007-en-fr
There might be some more pertinant stats in the OECD archive but they are lurking behind a subscription wall.
no subject
Date: 2012-02-28 03:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-02-28 04:20 pm (UTC)One needs to be a little cautious in my experience when looking these things. Key gotcha is a significant difference in what your tax payment buys you.
E.g. tax in the UK gets you access to the NHS but tax in the US doesn't get you access to an equivalent service.
So, when I first looked at these figures I was surprised that Germany was below us until I recalled that quite a lot of their health care is organised on a non-state collective basis - often through unions (IIRC).
no subject
Date: 2012-02-28 06:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-02-29 08:48 am (UTC)Then I remembered that he’d be paying (or having paid on his behalf) medical insurance.
Not sure what the VAT or equivalent rate is in New York.
no subject
Date: 2012-02-28 06:40 pm (UTC)"Over the last decade, the share of income tax paid by the top one per cent has rise sharply from 22 per to 28 per cent of the total. " The share of taxable income received by the top 1% has had a similar rise.
While it doesn't answer your question properly, this table of "GINI coefficient" for world's countries is revealing:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_distribution_of_wealth
Could not find one with a higher GINI than us on a quick scan which is somewhat shocking to me.
no subject
Date: 2012-02-28 06:44 pm (UTC)I am surprised - and somewhat sceptical. There are people in the US who are living in tent cities, and the richest people in the world.
I wonder how it's calculated.
no subject
Date: 2012-02-28 06:47 pm (UTC)However, the figure given there does not match the one in the reference quoted -- I've queried it on the article talk page.
no subject
Date: 2012-02-28 06:52 pm (UTC)http://www.photius.com/rankings/economy/distribution_of_family_income_gini_index_2011_0.html
Which puts us as slightly worse than the EU average, but nowhere near as bad as we are for wealth.
Massive wealth inequality is, of course, a good reason for mansion taxes and inheritance tax.
no subject
Date: 2012-02-28 06:55 pm (UTC)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gini_coefficient
We're no Brazil but we're far from perfect and getting worse not better.
no subject
Date: 2012-02-28 06:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-02-28 07:07 pm (UTC)Many places report different years in the same table to make things even worse.
no subject
Date: 2012-02-28 07:11 pm (UTC)Similarly, having non-doms in the UK pulls in cash from their spending that we otherwise wouldn't have. But it raises inequality dramatically.
no subject
Date: 2012-02-28 07:15 pm (UTC)Similarly, if you allow "non doms" but do not tax them in a redistributive way such that their contribution actually makes poor people wealthier then why do it?
no subject
Date: 2012-02-28 07:21 pm (UTC)Similarly, it may take at least a generation for poor people with no skills and education to raise up to the media levels of income, and until that point their mere existence is increasing inequality, while still improving their life, and quite possibly the lives of those around them.
no subject
Date: 2012-02-28 09:20 pm (UTC)So, "inequality is not necessarily a bad thing" in the same way that "increasing mean wealth is not necessarily a good thing".
no subject
Date: 2012-02-28 09:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-02-28 09:49 pm (UTC)So, while you can say "let poor people in or do not" is a valid and realistic political decision, in reality, what happens is that this is an ongoing process over many decades which can either be coupled with redistributive policies to even out the wealth imbalance or can be done in the absence of such. Unfortunately, successive governments have taken the latter route.
no subject
Date: 2012-02-28 09:55 pm (UTC)And, as I said earlier, the immigrants do reach median (or higher) levels - but it takes a generation or so. And so people from a couple of generations back are now "normal", so the latest lot take their place (and get complained about by the previous immigrants, so far as I can tell).
no subject
Date: 2012-02-28 10:44 pm (UTC)Only if you take a very crude measure (actually I have no idea which measure you have in mind that has this property) -- if you take the GINI coefficient this need not be the case, indeed it need not be nearly be the case and sometimes only a small degree of redistribution will be necessary.
Here's an examples -- pretty much first example I tried:
Initial population, income = 1.0,1.0,1.0,1.0,10.0 -- GINI = 0.514
New arrival (our hypothetical non-dom) has income 12 -- population would be
1.0,1.0,1.0,1.0,10.0,12.0 -- GINI = 0.525 (marginally worse)
Redistributive tax of only 2.0 given to poorest
Redistributed wealth
1.5,1.5,1.5,1.5,10.0,10.0 -- GINI = 0.43 (considerably improved)
Unless I made a cock up with my quick and dirty GINI calculator that is. That's not much of a redistribution really either. Of course not massively realistic but the point is you don't have to tax/redistribute much to create an improvement. Certainly not to get someone down to the median or the mean.
the immigrants do reach median (or higher) levels - but it takes a generation or so
Not in the UK where, as I mentioned earlier, social mobility is poor and getting worse. Report here is eye opening.
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/~uctpb21/Cpapers/Ethn_2gen_revision_C1.pdf
no subject
Date: 2012-02-28 07:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-02-28 06:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-02-28 11:35 am (UTC)(It's cool for the use-as-intended too, obviously)
no subject
Date: 2012-02-28 11:36 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-02-28 12:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-02-28 11:57 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-02-28 04:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-02-28 04:45 pm (UTC)If I were doing something like that -- and I do really like the idea -- I'd want to spend a fair bit of money on an architect or engineer to tell me how to make sure it's all going to stay put.
no subject
Date: 2012-02-28 04:59 pm (UTC)I wonder how thermally insulated it is. IIRC damp soil is not a great thermal insulator.
I think it's lovely and even if it doing it so it doesn't fall down or leak heat like a sieve costs £8k that's still cheap - if you can get access to the land.
Gender-swapped Dr Who Cosplay
Date: 2012-02-28 12:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-02-28 12:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-02-28 12:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-02-28 01:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-02-28 01:47 pm (UTC)http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/feb/24/why-super-rich-love-uk
no subject
Date: 2012-02-28 01:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-02-28 06:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-02-28 02:36 pm (UTC)http://www.heritage.org/budgetchartbook/top10-percent-income-earners
no subject
Date: 2012-02-28 04:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-02-28 04:36 pm (UTC)My only failure is using Maple, but I don't know that a (good) free software alternative exists.
no subject
Date: 2012-02-28 10:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-02-28 11:52 pm (UTC)However, the first step to enabling others to redo the things I did, is to use tools that they can freely use. To be honest though, there's nothing I've done (apart from the sheer elegance of my code) that's so original that it would require special tools to be able to do; so, not releasing my code (as part of my thesis, I think it probably has to end up public) wouldn't really prevent anyone else from duplicating my results.
no subject
Date: 2012-02-28 05:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-02-28 08:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-02-28 10:12 pm (UTC)I think making code available could be useful, but in a world where your worth as a scientist and your job security depends on getting published and getting cited, there's a conflict of interest that is incredibly hard to resolve. What really needs to happen is some sort of method of measuring the impact of released code as well as the impact of released papers.
no subject
Date: 2012-02-28 10:22 pm (UTC)