“Students of economics learn that the formal usage of the concepts ‘inefficiency’, ‘deadweight loss’, and ‘distortion’ in normative public finance refer to a theoretical setting where a private economy is in competitive equilibrium and a government can use lump-sum taxes to modify the endowments of individuals.”—Yves Smith
“I know, for instance, that sales suck dick something fierce. Which is why I’m not looking for employment in sales.”—Clarissa
“Ultimately, today’s World Wide Web happened by accident, and the pessimist in me wonders if a democratising platform for human communication can only be created that way.”—Kevin Yank
“until we can shift the ‘if it’s not making money it’s not worth doing’ on/off button, we’re fucked,, all of us and I’m not talking about you, in the here and now (which is but the symptom) but all the way up and into the very value systems that ‘runs’ us”—Irma Wilson (fb)
“When the dispute over the Means Test was in progress there was a disgusting public wrangle about the minimum weekly sum on which a human being could keep alive. So far as I remember, one school of dietitians worked it out at five and ninepence, while another school, more generous, put it at five and ninepence halfpenny. After this there were letters to the papers from a number of people who claimed to be feeding themselves on four shillings a week.”—George Orwell