Following the publication by the Institute for Fiscal Studies of its fundamentally economically flawed analysis of the NHS's finances this week debate continues on how to pay for healthcare.
The sad reality is that the centre ground of UK politics continues to reveal its economic illiteracy whilst demanding a new settlement for the NHS. Frank Field MP led the charge in the Guardian, saying:
Nobody now disputes the need for a significant and sustained increase in revenue for the NHS and social care. Rather, there are two political battles to be settled: how significant an increase the country feels it can afford, and from whom it wishes the additional revenue to be raised.
Oh dear. How to get the only two questions he can ask wrong.
The actual questions are, has the country the capacity to supply the healthcare the country wants in the future? And if it has, what is the consequence of the state delivering it?
The first question does not require a “strategic welfare review” as Field suggests. It demands that bigger macroeconomic questions be answered, including what the cost of not supplying this care might be. But I already know the answer: it will be politically impossible for any elected government not to supply the healthcare people in this country want and need. In that case the resources to ensure that they can be delivered must be found - and the slack we now have in the UK economy, the capacity we have to train people and the advantages automation brings in ensuring people will be seeking these jobs all stack together to say that this is simply not an issue of concern if we put our minds to it.
So what of the second question? Field says:
The public have made clear that their preferred means of financing an increase in revenue is through the national insurance system.
Oh yes? Where? And how can this be reconciled with this comment that comes next?
Crucially, the extra revenue should be collected on progressive lines so that those who earn most will pay most. This would lay the basis for an alternative longer-term model that gradually moves all health and social care funding to a new national insurance base, reformed along progressive lines.
As I have long argued, neither national insurance or hypothecated taxes should be used to fund the NHS. I suggest reading the linked argument. But in the case of national insurance, the reasoning is simple. This is, and will always be, a regressive tax even if the cap on tax earners is removed precisely because it does not tax those who live off wealth and they also use the NHS. I have suggested how to address this, but Field makes no hint of taxing wealth to solve this issue.
Nor does Field show the slightest comprehension that tax does not, in fact, fund the NHS. The essence of that argument is simple.
First, spending has always to come before taxation, and not the other way round. If it did not the money to pay tax would simply not be available. To, therefore, ask where the tax comes from before doing more spending is to ask the wrong question as to funding.
Second, spending creates the capacity to pay more tax. The reasons should be obvious and yet apparently they are not. New government spending is, of course, someone's income. It is not poured into a black hole to be lost forever more. That means that some comes straight back in tax. And yet more comes back because the recipient of the extra income also spends, and so tax is paid, and so on. It is quite likely that over time new spending pays for itself. Field should learn some basic economics.
Just as he should learn why to link an income stream to a spending commitment is dangerous. That's because in that case the ability to spend is artificially constrained by what happens to that income stream. However, it's rare that there is any relationship between the demand for health spending and the economic activity that results in tax paid. The danger is, then, rationing by the back door, which many on the right would love.
Hypothecation is bad in principle. It's especially dangerous for the NHS where the ability to treat people should not be artificially constrained by bad economics.
We can have the NHS we want. But not when politicians like Frank Field (and Sarah Wollaston, Norman Lamb and Liz Kendall) continue to feed the myth that the NHS can only be funded on the whim of the wealthy to pay tax, or not, which false narrative simply feeds into the neoliberal agenda that wishes to crush the NHS in favour of vastly more expensive private alternatives.
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It strikes me that the current projections of automation (i.e. “robots”) on a grand scale have a role to play here. If the constraint is productive capacity rather than money then automation can be seen as a good thing. Much of the work that needs to be done in the NHS/social care area cannot feasibly be replaced by machines (although AI can provide some assistance). The employment of people in quality jobs that are oriented towards looking after us and keeping us healthy could therefore be used to soak up under-employment both current and future.
Always assuming they wanted to. I wouldn’t be at all happy with the idea of my old-age care being supplied by grouchy conscripts, although obviously there’ll be a certain amount of log-hefting and bale-toting the disinterested could usefully perform without harming those they were supposed to be caring for.
Hi Bill,
That is indeed a frightening thought.
A whole shift of emphasis is required. At the moment too much of the social care sector is staffed on a “as cheap as possible” basis, with the consequence that it is perceived as a low-value job that is a last resort for some. If it was given more respect and resources (and higher pay) then it could be very different.
Neil
Bill Kruse says:
” I wouldn’t be at all happy with the idea of my old-age care being supplied by grouchy conscripts,”
That’s the scenario we have now. Underpaid, demotivated workers forced into ‘crap’ jobs.
Health care is not essentially a ‘crap’ job in reality it’s life affirming and valued work, but we have turned into what it is because we’ve handed the organisation to the worst subset of bean-counters. They know the price of a cotton bud, but the value of nothing.
It would appear that this is your 2,000th comment here
“New government spending is, of course, someone’s income. ”
But I thought the theory was that it is , indeed, no one s income but generated by binary entries in the BoE balance sheet in sums predicated by HMG according to its projected annusl spending needs and then credited to the Treasury account to…er….spend.
With tax only applied retrospectively to said spend as an inflation controller.
N’est pas ?
Read what I wrote
Of course government spending is someone’s income
What else is it?
I am not sure if this comment is simply humour or if you have genuinely given no thought whatever to what government spending entails.
Government spending is not just a spreadsheet activity. You may have noticed the millions of people employed in the public sector and the millions more employed in companies in the private sector contracted to provide goods and services for the government? They all get paid and government spending provides that money – their income. The taxes they then pay eventually offset the initial payment. So in general it is true to say that the government creates money and spends it into the economy which is then destroyed when taxes are paid. But there is a very large ‘middle’ to this activity which you have omitted. I can confidently say that no MMTer (including Richard) has ever suggested that ‘middle’ does not exist. Why do you?
Pastor Plate says:
“New government spending is, of course, someone’s income. ”
But I thought the theory was ….
You’re either just trolling stupid remarks, or you really ought to read what people are saying and make an attempt to understand before other people who don’t now how to (or apparently wish to) organise things sensibly, dismantle the best health services the world has ever known.
Where I was brought up the kids used to say : “You know what thought did….jumpped into a muck cart because he thought it was a wedding” (No, I never quite understood that either :-)).
What is so ironic in this whole debate by the British how best to fund the NHS is their utter unthinking capitulation to paying higher house prices which clearly have been a consequence of not putting a leash on the banking industry by way of tight mortgage loan to income ratios and Conservative and Labour politicians refusing to run an adequate affordable homes programme. Clearly allowing a basic commodity (and many people’s principal financial investment outside of pensions) to become so expensive is also going to drive up costs of the NHS as people react by seeking higher wages to pay back the bankers!
you made my day Schofield…blindingly obvious
Just imagine how amazing the NHS would be if it had a similar level of funding to other less efficient systems in other countries; we would truly have a health care system that was the envy of the world.
When the vast majority of (qualified) economists don;t share your views, you might want to look closer to home for the person that doesn’t understand things, rather than repeatedly claim that ‘everyone else’ is getting it wrong!
But I was wrong on country-by-country reporting, until I was right
And wrong on the fact that the Isle of Man was subsidised by the UK, until I was right
And wrong too on the possibility of automatic information exchange, until it happened
Whilst IU was also wrong on the harm of austerity, until it was proven
And wrong on quantitative easing, which I said would cause massive inequality and major asset price inflation, until it did and proved me right
There are plenty more in that sequence
I am right here too
When someone is proposing a theory that flies in the face of accepted wisdom, it is a good thing if they show humility and try to persuade through reason. Accusing everyone who disagrees with you of stupidity or avarice is not going to change minds.
I have been told this for 15 plus years
But actually, you’re just ignored unless you make a might big fuss
And I have a record of changing things despite being told time and again that I would be so much more successful if only I was a little more clubbable
I have always ignored the advice
And will always do so when I think it appropriate to do so
Re QE it was common thinking that asset price inflation would occcur. There was BofE papers to that effect. The BofE crowded out gilt buyers forcing them into corporate bonds and equities in the pursuit of yield. The objective was to counter the risk of deflation by getting long term interest rates lower. So your ingenuity on tax hasnt really extended into into financial markets on this occasion.
But it was not said
Nor was an alternative – like PQE proposed
And you’re getting very boring
You just saying that you were right, isn’t the same as you having actually been right, plus of course many of your claims cannot be proven either way (or are demonstrably false).
Please tell me which are false and how you know?
Jason says:
“Re QE it was common thinking that asset price inflation would occur.”
No it wasn’t, Jason. That was emphatically not what was ‘common’ thinking, though there were plenty of people saying it would be a result of QE.
The expectation of the central banks was that consumer price inflation would occur…. because they were still clinging to the idea that trickle down would refinance the productive economy by banks’ increased lending. (Or at least that is the story they consistently presented, though I reckon they were lying)
By analogy: Dr Barry Marshall was also wrong and branded a weirdo (not implying your a weirdo Richard by the way) when he proposed that ulcers are caused by a then “unknown organism”. He got the Nobel prize for medicine. Drug companies hated him and the NHS and countless sufferers benefitted greatly.
“When the vast majority of (qualified) economists don;t share your views,….”
I wonder if this is an honest question or simply intended as vitriol. I have often been posed the same question by people who are actually seeking an answer. And there is a simple one but you may not find it satisfying and it will force you to think.
All MMT is based on an understanding of how money really works in the economy. That bit is not a theory it is a description of reality. So you should ask your ‘vast majority of (qualified) economists’ how they think money is created. I think you will agree that if you do not understand how money is created whatever ideas you have about macroeconomics can have little validity whatever your qualifications.
The answer to the question is contained in the two BOE and Bundesbank circulars which explain the process which have been linked here many times.
I have asked this question of friends and friend’s children who have degrees in economics and found their answers do not accord with the BOE and the Bundesbank and so do not describe reality. Put simply they don’t know what money is. So their ideas of macroeconomics are based on fantasy not reality.
So a legion of qualified economists like them really doesn’t signify much if they all fail this simple test. My experience is that they do. So you really must think this through for yourself and start from reality not standard economics text books. It is no good appealing to a higher authority. That higher authority doesn’t exist.
Thanks
Alan McGowan says:
“When the vast majority of (qualified) economists don;t share your views,….”
I wonder if this is an honest question or simply intended as vitriol.”
You bother to wonder, Alan.? It’s ‘snide’ and exposes the ignorance, or knowing deceptive intent of the author.
Steve Jacobs says:
“When the vast majority of (qualified) economists don’t share your views, ….”…..
And when the vast majority of (qualified ?) economists consistently cripple and crash national and global economies, you might sit up and take notice and wonder why their qualifications are of very qualified value.
On Friday the population of Ireland at last formally rejected the ‘infallibility of the Pope’ and made a democratic decision on how they think their society should function.
Copernicus and Galileo (in their own fields of knowledge) were ahead of their time and we all gained from their being pilloried in their own lifetimes by a corrupt and blinkered elite.
If we accept, unquestioningly, the wisdom of fools, we are all doomed.
Andy Crow said:
“And when the vast majority of (qualified ?) economists consistently cripple and crash national and global economies, you might sit up and take notice and wonder why their qualifications are of very qualified value.”
The ‘vast majority of qualified economists’ did no such thing.
Which ‘qualified economists’ were supporting running a structural deficit during a time of record tax receipts and a booming economy?
Which ‘qualified economists’ supported a policy that forced banks to make subprime loans to people who were unlikely to be able to pay them back?
Steve Jacobs says:
“Which ‘qualified economists’ were supporting running a structural deficit during a time of record tax receipts and a booming economy?
Which ‘qualified economists’ supported a policy that forced banks to make subprime loans to people who were unlikely to be able to pay them back?”
The ones who didn’t call this out. And didn’t predict the ensuing chaos and didn’t expose the utter folly of Trickle Down economics to the extent that the rationale for QE was applied assuming that trickle down would do the work.
The ones who simply ridicule useful application of bottom up QE as ‘Helicopter’ money. The ones who did and still do concentrate on the teaching of economics as if it is a matter of quaint historical curiosity. Who wonder why the Phillips Curve isn’t working ….why GDP growth doesn’t tell us anything useful even if it was once briefly useful.
Who haven’t noticed that the Gold standard no longer underpins currencies and haven’t come to terms with the logical consequences of it.
And others many.
Perhaps we should consider the vast majority of the current crop of qualified economists in context by reminding ourselves they had no clue the 2008 crash was coming. We could usefully remind ourselves, too, the vast majority of qualified people once firmly believed the earth was flat and that the sun went round it. Times and awareness change. For most people, anyway.
‘it will be politically impossible for any elected government not to supply the healthcare people in this country want and need.’
But to an extent ‘rationing’ is in place today i.e. via NICE who decide what drugs are available & no operations are immediate as the people would like.
Are you suggesting that NICE and waiting lists will no longer exist under your proposal?
I suggest there would be less rationing
Why not?
“I suggest there would be less rationing Why not?”
Why not indeed.
Millions of patients do not have their ‘meds’ reviewed sufficiently often, at enormous cost (profit to Big Pharma) because GP appointments have been compressed to a few minutes so that GPs are being increasingly forced into a role of ‘Triage nurse’.
It is testament to the dedication and determination of GPs that we still have any that are worth consulting and that they have not simply given up on any attempt to do their job properly. I’ve had the benefit of some really good General Practitioners.
They are a fabulous resource and we’re losing them to the dictates of an overweening and incompetent bureaucracy which aims to reduce healthcare to a tick box exercise on a computer with an attached (coin or card fed) pill vending machine.
Why not indeed.
Let’s say all waiting lists could be eliminated if resources in the NHS were doubled. However, obviously, this would mean resources were laying idle at times of lower demand, as demand is not a flat line. Therefore there needs to be some form of demand & supply management to provide an efficient and effective service.
Who decides what this should be?
I do find fatuousness boring
Listen up anyone who comments on this blog whatever your mindset, common sense, predictions are, set them to one side. Our governments spends and taxes ( I am not going to put that in inverted commas anymore ) . That’s reality . I’ve thought about this a great deal and I want you to think about this : The false narrative of tax and spend lets government off the hook because it says ‘ we the government have no money of our own, we are entirely dependant on you the taxpayer to cough up before we can do anything , but our government is the money . That’s what is means to have a sovereign currency . Our government issues the currency . That being so our government can be held to account for not creating sufficient money to do what needs to be done when the labour can be hired and the materials and equipment can be purchased to do it.
Sorry I meant predilections.
Frank says, though the looking glass: “Nobody now disputes the need for a significant and sustained increase in revenue for white elephant projects like nuclear reactors, HS2, unusable nuclear weapons and armaments for future illegal wars. Rather, there are two political battles to be settled: how significant an increase the country feels it can afford, and from whom it wishes the additional revenue to be raised.
The public have made clear that their preferred means of financing an increase in revenue for white elephants is through the national white elephant system.
Crucially, the extra revenue should be collected on progressive lines so that those who earn most will pay most. This would lay the basis for an alternative longer-term model that gradually moves all white elephant funding to a new national white elephant base, reformed along progressive lines.” i.e. the bigger the white elephant the more those with the biggest tusks will pay.
Now, neoliberals, trumpet that to the public.
🙂
You claimed “Whilst IU was also wrong on the harm of austerity, until it was proven”
1. We didn’t have ‘austerity’, public spending has increased in each and every year since the crisis.
2. How can you prove that continued ‘excessive’ spending would have led to a better output.
Likewise, you’ve claimed “And wrong on quantitative easing, which I said would cause massive inequality and major asset price inflation, until it did and proved me right”
QE was designed to produce asset price inflation – that was precisely it’s purpose. Please confirm who was ‘wrong on quantitative easing’…
There is plenty of evidence that inequality has fallen under the current government – however you just ignore any evidence that contradicts your claims:
‘UK inequality reduced since 2008’:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-40644850
‘Inequality has fallen, says IFS’:
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/comment/inequality-has-fallen-says-ifs-but-levels-of-grinding-poverty-are-unchanged-a7848561.html
etc
Anybody who claims we have not had austerity is not worth debating with
Nice attempt to move the goalposts Richard – Are you disputing that public spending has increased in each and every year since 2008?
Back to the points raised:
1. How can you prove that continued ‘excessive’ spending would have led to a better output.
2. Please confirm who was ‘wrong on quantitative easing’…
3. Why do you make claims about increases in inequality when the evidence suggests the opposite?
You are using a false criteria, and you know it
There has been austerity and I really cannot be bothered to debate the point with trolls, just as I cannot be bothered to debate the merits and demerits of Gini, which any undergraduate can see through all too easily
I have a life
“Austerity” in this case means simply a slowing down of the increase in government spending.
I also take exception to your claim that inequality has increased, and has increased because of QE.
https://www.equalitytrust.org.uk/how-has-inequality-changed
As Andy Crow has said, no doubt you do not think there has been austerity as you have not suffered it
Maybe you should try living on what are called benefits
And if I was too enigmatic on inequality date let me be clearer: Zucman has argued, and I believe him, that proportionately the rich may evade the most. This distorts the data
Steve Jacobs says:
“1. We didn’t have ‘austerity’, public spending has increased in each and every year since the crisis.”
Wrong, Steve. YOU didn’t have austerity. Which indicates where you’re making your dough in the economy. At the bottom end, Tory policy of austerity is crippling ‘hard working families’, and those who would like to be aswell.
Austerity has shut down the UK economy and is real enough down here. Enjoy your temporary comfort zone. It can’t last, because the economy that supports your cosy illusions is cracking up. And it will wipe away a great deal of the phoney prosperity which currently abounds in the ranks of the blithe and insulated ‘comfortably-off’.
The minority you are part of is getting smaller as more and more people are excluded from the benefits of the financial cushion. When the excrement hits the extractor a lot of people are going to suddenly realise that the wealthy they have supported is not the social group they are part of.
In short they’ve been ‘had’.
“And wrong on quantitative easing, which I said would cause massive inequality and major asset price inflation, until it did and proved me right”
How can you write a downright lie like that?
You’ve said for years we need more QE as it didn’t create inflation.
The phrase “asset price inflation” wasn’t used by you until 2014 until someone used it at you to explain the effects of QE.
I said we needed People’s QE – and that is something fundamentally different to QE
And I wrote my claims on QE in 2010
So who are you claiming was ‘wrong on QE’?
Those who said it would work
Which if any politicians have really grasped the ‘spend then tax’ model? Or have at least shown serious interest in trying to understand it.
Perhaps they are nervous of putting their heads over the parapet.
I suspect they are
Politicians are followers
I think the rate of spending is important also. In the NHS where you have suppliers ramping up their prices (lots of recent examples given such as that mouthwash for cancer patients) and also use of employment agencies (who are paid more to provide flexibility in contracts) to plug gaps in nursing, initial outlay to overcome these things will be higher and then eventually reduce. So you would need to find alternative suppliers willing to fix prices for certain amount of time, and also on nursing be able to employ enough in one go so that existing staff dont all just decide they want the higher wages and flexible working an employment agency might offer (though those conditions are ideally something we want to work towards).
In an organisation the size of the NHS there will always be issues to address
Stop making micro excuses for macro action
On QE you have criticised “Those who said it would work”.
QE did exactly what it was designed to do, reduce the governments cost of borrowing and increase demand for asset classes, thereby increasing inflation.
Without QE there was as significant risk of deflation, which never happened.
Only those who don’t understand what QE was designed to do would suggest that it has;t worked. Try this:
http://edu.bankofengland.co.uk/knowledgebank/what-is-quantitative-easing/
In its own terms QE worked
But its own terms were wrong
The result was – as the BoE admits – a massive increase in inequality
I strongly suspect further comments from you will be deleted: it is clear you are simply here to troll nonsense that has been well debated already here and elsewhere and I really do not have time for timewasters
Of course QE didn’t work. One of it’s stated aims was to buy up Gov Bonds from Pension and Insurance funds, so they would invest this new money in other assets. But if this had been the case they wouldn’t be holding even greater piles of Government bonds (inflation considered) than they did before QE started.
In the UK before QE the market valuation of the UK debt was £640 bn, now it’s £1,920 bn according to the quarterly DMO report. The two biggest holders of this debt, have increased the value of their holdings from a market value of £ 233bn to £522bn (Overseas) and £229 bn to £561 bn (Pensions and Insurance). Only about 25% of that increase is due to inflation, so money hasn’t been fleeing Gilt in search of riskier areas, it’s flooded into gilts, but there is so much of it in the hands of institutions and wealthy individuals that they are able to flood both the gilt markets and pump up the stock market.
You are using a false criteria, and you know it…
So basically, as I suggested previously, anything that doesn’t support your claims you just ignore, even metrics that are universally accepted and consistent.
Which universally credible ‘inequality metrics’ support your claims?
Try the Palma index
Try too Gini that samples wealth appropriately
And try Gini when the tax evasion of the rich is taken into account: see Zucman
I didn’t think the Palma ratio had increased in the UK in recent years?
Read what I wrote
How about converting employee (and self employed) NICs to income tax? I.e. abolish all personal NICs and add 12% / 2% to Basic and Higher income tax bands.
This would equalise the overall tax rate on pensions and investment income with the rate on earnings.
It would raise a huge amount of money* with a very attractive distributional effect. Most of the money raised would come from lightly taxed, wealthier pensioners – who also happen to be major users of the NHS.
Add in a reform of CGT and you’ve taken a major step towards properly taxing the wealthy – with negligible technical / administration costs compared with a real wealth tax.
I can’t understand why the IFS didn’t look at this in their report. I raised it with their lead tax person but they wouldn’t respond. What am I missing?
* From the IFS report: just removing the NIC exemption for pensions on EARNED income would raise £1.1bn. So applying NICs to their pensions and other investment income must raise a lot more.
What not tax earnings from capital properly first instead?
That didn’t help me understand the problem with my idea. Where does it fall short?
I have no recall what your idea was and have no link to it when moderating comments
PJ says:
“…. my idea. Where does it fall short?”
At the very least by being unmemorable it would seem. 🙂
I was asking for a bit of feedback on the idea of turning personal NICs into income tax.
I support the merger of the two taxes
But I expect resistance
And how will you collect employer’s NIC?
I wasn’t proposing any change to the current employer NIC system. Just switch out the employee/self-employed NICs for income tax. You don’t need any new mechanism for collecting the cash. It’s a very simple, almost cost-free step which would raise a ton of money from the right people.
It is my simple
Nor is it cost free
It would be very complex and give us a basic tax rate massively out of line with other countries and the corporation tax rate
It has appeal
But so has Brexit so long as you do not think about it
Richard,
The Palma index shows a fall in inequality since 2008. Was this what you intended?
If not, why has the Palma Index showed this evolution in direct contradiction of what you expected?
Thanks, Bill
Have you noted what I said about sampling and top end tax evasion?
Why is what you said about the Palms index no longer relevant? At no point previously fud you say this wasn’t appropriate, indeed you put it forward as a measure of inequality (seemingly unware of what it would demonstrate).
I said a) it is a better measure and b) I made clear the sampling issue
I am well aware of what it said: I teach about this
Thankfully students take note of points made
Britain’s Tory Austerity programme viewed from the United States:-
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/28/world/europe/uk-austerity-poverty.html
Is it my imagination or has there recently been an increase in ‘ad hominem’ comments? While unpleasant and non-productive, they are possibly a positive sign that your policy ideas are having a growing impact among the TINA brigade. Speaking of which I’m a bit surprised nobody has mentioned Bill Mitchell’s take on the topic today: The British NHS debate — TINA but only if you believe in nonsense – http://bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/?p=39436.
The ad hominems are on the increase…
Bill was good on this one
Which work of Zucman are you referring to? In his 2015 paper (LSE EA030) he concluded with the following:
‘‘Inequality of net income FELL in the crisis as the welfare system ‘did its job’”.
If you are teaching about this, shouldn’t you represent what the analysis actually says, not what you think it says or what you want it to say?
Can you link to a (credible) paper that shows ‘massive increases in inequality arising from
QE’, as you previously claimed?
This is at least the fifth name you have posted under on this issue
Do you really think I am going to engage?
…and then Zucman said: “But there are signs that it is rising once again and the tax and benefit changes since 2010 have been largely regressive. Perhaps the main cleavage is between pensioners who have done relatively well compared with those of working age, especially the young and households with children.”
Then there is the BoE report which headlined that QE reduced wealth inequality (lol) because house prices had gone up and proportionately those lower down the income scale had done better on house prices. But, “The 10 per cent of least wealthy households are only estimated to have seen a marginal increase in their measured real wealth of around £3,000 between 2006-08 and 2012-14, compared to £350,000 for the wealthiest 10 per cent”.
There’s plenty of critical comment & analysis (e.g. http://positivemoney.org/2018/02/latest-wealth-data-shows-disproportionate-gains-rich-era-qe/) for those who can be bothered to look for it themselves.
Indeed
Thanks
The sampling and evasion issues suggest inequality has been historically under-estimated. They don’t suggest that inequality increased post-financial crisis. Is there any evidence that does?
Yes: you are looking at models that are out of date
The difference now is a tiny, unsampled, part compared to the rest
Existing models look at broader ranges
They do not detect the new inequality which also impacts many middle range earners
Muhammed Al-Arian says:
” They don’t suggest that inequality increased post-financial crisis. Is there any evidence that does?”
Sod the figures, Muhammed. Just go to Specsavers, get fitted-up; then look around you.
There are some who are terribly interested in stats here
I offer this http://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2018/03/31/there-is-a-problem-with-inequality-even-if-gini-does-not-show-it/
And this
https://www.theguardian.com/inequality/2017/dec/03/income-inequality-is-getting-wider-if-the-stats-count-what-counts
And I could go on, and on