Hopefully Interesting

I don't know if I've mentioned it on this blog but a while ago I took the Giving What We Can pledge to donate 10% of my pre-tax income every year to efficient charities. In general I'd recommend following Givewell's recommendations fairly closely.  In past years I've strayed beyond them a bit, in particular giving a bit extra to charities that provide micronutrients in poor countries on the theory that allowing kids to grow up healthier is investing in the future and maybe I ought to prioritize that over saving as many lives as I can right now. On the other hand, Givewell's top charity is the Against Malaria Foundation and we, that is humanity in general, have been making huge strides against Malaria recently.   It isn't an impossible project to eliminate it in the wild.  I'm too young to have helped with the elimination of Smallpox but this would be another ancient enemy laid to rest.  The Against Malaria Foundation is a finite entity and might no...

People trying to justify the recent Republican tax plan often talk about the importance of long run economic growth.  And you can see how, if that were true, it could be a really important argument.  The difference between 2% and 3% annual growth over a hundred years would be a factor of two and a half.  If that sort of change were really possible it would justify quite a bit.  Even if all that extra growth went to rich people then even at the new, lower, tax rates that would be much more tax money available for social programs. Sadly there's no way cutting taxes could have such a large effect in the US. The theory behind the cuts is that people become more productive when they've got more or better machines.  Machines cost money, so leaving businesses more money to buy machines will make them more productive.  More machines leads to more money leads to more machines in a virtuous cycle.  Except that in a developed economy it's often very hard to f...