So, Ritchie points us to a paper which tells us that MMT is great and we should abolish the corporate tax. He admires the MMT bit and rejects the tax bit:
Paul Hunt says:
August 18 2015 at 11:47 am
I’m not sure Ruml’s reasons for abolishing corporate (profits) tax are now “wholly outmoded”.Reply
Richard Murphy says:
August 18 2015 at 11:49 am
He assumed:a) largely static shareholdings
b) almost closed state
c) double tax which is removed by imputation
d) and got incidence behaviourally wrong
I think that’s a mighty lot of change
The paper is here.
It does not assume static shareholdings, a closed state, removal of double taxation (indeed, it complains of there being double taxation) and does not get incidence wrong.
And, even better, assuming an open economy and or state makes corporation tax worse, not better.
Oh Lordy indeed.
Incidence of CT is one of those classic recurring Ritchie themes, where he puts his fingers in his ears and screams “can’t hear you” to any study that suggests the world isn’t uniform in the image he has created for it.
‘Tax not being needed for revenue’ offers so many rooms to enter and explore with him. Just how are those evil MNCs destroying the development of the 3rd World? Are they responsible for Zimbabwe’s hyperinflation?
The thing is – you could probably take almost any economics writer since the 18th century and compare him favourably with Murphy – the sheer scale of his ignorance, when combined with such an over-inflated assessment of his own capacity creates something I have rarely seen, even amongst politicians. Fortunately he is facing much more detailed scrutiny from a variety of media sources and is incapable of limiting the inputs as he can on TRUK – the cracks are now becoming much more visible and if the best supporting evidence for his contentions comes from 1946 then what chance has he got?
Tomorrow: Richie solves the Schleiswig-Hosltein Question.
Rob, was it Palmerston who said re the Schleswig-Holstein problem that it was understood by 3 people, one was mad, one had died and he himself had forgotten what it was about. The Murphmeister will claim all 3 attributes at the same time.
Rob, Diogenes
Didn’t Bismark solve it?
If Bismarck didn’t then Hitler certainly did.