Mason  🏃‍♂️ ✂️

Because countries with unfunded/weak/mob-style governance are generally unpleasant places to live. That I think raising the tax rate well above the western norm is a terrible idea does not imply that I am broadly anti-taxation. Not at all.

50-60% rate starting at much lower income (Ireland is a European tech hub and 52% starts at €34k) with 20%+ sales tax is very common in Western countries. Is that better or worse than 70% for incomes over eg. $10 million?

Ireland may be a "tech hub," but it has a very tough time keeping innovators at home (as does much of the rest of Europe). https://twitter.com/sknthla/status/1070031703421333504 …

This is a pretty narrow slice of all the possible effects of a change for the top marginal tax bracket. But let's zoom waaay out: should policy (including taxation) be based primarily on ideology or evidence? Serious non-gotcha question.

Agree. My key claims are that (a) economic policy outcome predictions broadly have a poor track record & the evidentiary value of modeling there is often illusory & (b) recent tech has created an absolute explosion of possible moves for actors, further increasing the difficulty

My view, generally, is this: start with an understanding of how incredibly advantageous the US's starting position is, a deep humility with regard to *anyone's* ability to make good predictions about increasingly complex systems, and move slowly + cautiously.

I think we have an overlapping Venn diagram. I am frankly befuddled about what to do (policywise) when evidence is less than definitive and ideologies collide. Maybe contingent legislation (ie start with approach A but if that fails switch to opposing approach B)?

IMO: don’t make dramatic populist moves based on unprovable assumptions when your current position is actually very strong. Public opinion may be that everything is on fire anyway, but this is unequivocally untrue