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James Medlock Profile picture
@jdcmedlock
Sep 16, 2020 • 4 tweets • 2 min read • Read on X
When I talk about unions people often ask “aren’t you afraid workers will get too powerful?” and in the current context of the US it feels sort of like saying “aren’t you afraid you’ll trip and fall if you run away from this bear that’s trying to eat your face?”
It is possible to have poorly designed institutions that lead to perverse incentives, but the problem isn’t worker power itself
The nordics manage to have near universal public sector unionization without major issues because the government acts as an institutionalized voice for the public, rather than just rolling over to demands (as we’ve done in the US with police unions)
One concern is unions preserving jobs in dying industries like coal. This paper compares the US and Germany, showing that it’s actually worker strength in Germany that enabled mining unions to support phasing out coal with a just transition for workers
tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.108…

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More from @jdcmedlock

James Medlock Profile picture
Oct 21, 2024
In 2022, Norway increased their wealth tax to 1.1%. In response, some high profile billionaires moved out of the country. According to a viral claim, this resulted in a net loss of revenue. Is this true?
No. Over the next two years, wealth tax revenue soared to all time highs. Image
To understand how the false claim came about, here is the original source calculation. It is reasonable enough napkin math, where it went wrong was in using the Guardian's claim that the net worth of emigrants was $54B USD
Bloomberg/Fortune cited $4.3 billion instead, and I've been able to track down the source from a Q&A with the Norwegian Minister of Finance confirming that this is the correct number:

www-stortinget-no.translate.goog/no/Saker-og-pu…

bloomberg.com/news/articles/…
Read 12 tweets
James Medlock Profile picture
Oct 10, 2024
This chart is based on bad data, Norway’s wealth tax increase raised revenue
In general, people who think most economists are communists can be safely ignored, because they’re clearly bad at processing information about the world
Actual empirical evidence suggests that while some people do move as a result of wealth taxes, it is such a small response that it has very little impact, and typical rates are well below the peak of the laffer curve (Swedish wealth tax in 2007 was higher than Norway today) Image
Image
Read 4 tweets
James Medlock Profile picture
Mar 31, 2024
This misleading talking point has been going around a lot lately, so here's a thread on all the issues with it:
1. It ignores a majority of taxes in the US
2. Doesn't take into account inequality in the distribution of income
3. Skewed by our use of tax credits instead of welfare
First, there are a lot of taxes in the US. The federal personal income tax (which this stat is based on) is only half of federal revenue, and then there are state income, sales taxes etc. Cherry picking the most progressive and ignoring the rest does not paint the full picture
As an aside, the original tweet got the talking point wrong. In 2019, the top 1% paid 38.8% of federal personal income taxes, not 50%. So what happens when you include all US taxes? It goes down to 24.1% itep.org/who-pays-taxes…
Image
Read 11 tweets
James Medlock Profile picture
Nov 29, 2023
For every 10 likes, I'll make this image of a well funded tax collection agency more epic Image
More epic Image
"Here is the awe-inspiring and intense scene of IRS agents in a futuristic command center, actively tracking down rich tax cheats." Image
Read 11 tweets
James Medlock Profile picture
Jul 28, 2023
Scott Winship seems genuinely confused here. There is no economic opportunity cost to universal programs relative to equivalent means-tested programs. He's the one who seems to think there's a free lunch to be had by moving a tax to a different agency

https://t.co/tcYbezyJhcaei.org/economics/it-r…
Image
One good point he makes, which despite an improving discourse still gets forgotten, is that universal programs have more options than to just replicate a tax identical to a means-test. There's no means-test equivilent to a VAT or a flat income tax that hits all incomes equally
@Perrid13 Here's Mankiw making the same point
Image
Image
Read 7 tweets
James Medlock Profile picture
Jul 18, 2023
I think there should be abundant access to bananas under socialism Image
It's kind of funny a lot of left discourse assumes workers in the global north would necessarily be hurt by improved labor rights in the global south. That may be true in certain cases, but in the long run I actually don't think it's the case (see: Trade Wars Are Class Wars)
And it's easy to forget that container ships are a modern miracle that are extremely low carbon. The type of food you eat matters much more than the distance it travels for carbon emissions. Image
Read 5 tweets

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