to your HTML Add class="sortable" to any table you'd like to make sortable Click on the headers to sort Thanks to many, many people for contributions and suggestions. Licenced as X11: http://www.kryogenix.org/code/browser/licence.html This basically means: do what you want with it. */ var stIsIE = /*@cc_on!@*/false; sorttable = { init: function() { // quit if this function has already been called if (arguments.callee.done) return; // flag this function so we don't do the same thing twice arguments.callee.done = true; // kill the timer if (_timer) clearInterval(_timer); if (!document.createElement || !document.getElementsByTagName) return; sorttable.DATE_RE = /^(\d\d?)[\/\.-](\d\d?)[\/\.-]((\d\d)?\d\d)$/; forEach(document.getElementsByTagName('table'), function(table) { if (table.className.search(/\bsortable\b/) != -1) { sorttable.makeSortable(table); } }); }, makeSortable: function(table) { if (table.getElementsByTagName('thead').length == 0) { // table doesn't have a tHead. Since it should have, create one and // put the first table row in it. the = document.createElement('thead'); the.appendChild(table.rows[0]); table.insertBefore(the,table.firstChild); } // Safari doesn't support table.tHead, sigh if (table.tHead == null) table.tHead = table.getElementsByTagName('thead')[0]; if (table.tHead.rows.length != 1) return; // can't cope with two header rows // Sorttable v1 put rows with a class of "sortbottom" at the bottom (as // "total" rows, for example). This is B&R, since what you're supposed // to do is put them in a tfoot. So, if there are sortbottom rows, // for backwards compatibility, move them to tfoot (creating it if needed). sortbottomrows = []; for (var i=0; i
Greg Mankiw inspired a new tool this morning - here's his commentary, with our tool for doing the math following....
In a previous post, I expressed a preference for consumption taxation over income taxation. In a comment, Daniel Demetri (an ec 10 student this past year) asks an important question about incentives:
I'm confused as to why a consumption tax does not affect incentives while an income tax does.... People don't care about saving money--they care about spending it.
With income tax: 1 hr work --> $16 pre-tax --> $8 post-tax --> $8 of chocolate cake, video games, and Red Sox tickets.
With consumption tax: 1 hr work --> $16 pre-tax --> $8 of chocolate cake, video games, and Red Sox tickets + $8 of tax.
The amount worked and the amount spent are the same, so what's the real difference?
Daniel is exactly right, as far as he goes. If we are looking at the decision to work today in order to consume today, consumption and income taxes have similar effects. Both discourage work effort.
Consider, however, another margin of adjustment: Work today in order to save and consume in the future. Let's continue with Daniel's example of a 50 percent tax rate. Suppose that the interest rate is 7 percent, so $1 saved today becomes $2 in 10 years.
With income tax: 1 hr work --> $16 pre-tax --> $8 post-tax --> $16 of savings in 10 years --->$4 more in income taxes on the interest--> $12 of chocolate cake, video games, and Red Sox tickets.
With consumption tax: 1 hr work --> $16 pre-tax --> $32 of savings in 10 years --> $16 of chocolate cake, video games, and Red Sox tickets + $16 of tax.
So under a consumption tax, there is a greater incentive to work and save today in order to consume in the future.
You'll have to go to Mankiw's post for the formulation which begins after this point, but here's our tool for doing the math described for comparing the amount of consumption an individual might realize after a consumption tax versus that after an income tax:
Mankiw comments on the math:
You can see that the consumption tax creates a constant wedge: the after-tax relative prices is 1-t times the before-tax relative price, regardless of T. However, an income tax creates a growing wedge. The larger is T, the greater is the gap between the before-tax and after-tax relative price. In other words, a consumption tax taxes current and future consumption at the same rate, whereas an income tax in effect taxes future consumption at a higher rate than current consumption.
The bottom line: Both consumption taxes and income taxes discourage work, but income taxes discourage saving as well.
Welcome to the blogosphere's toolchest! Here, unlike other blogs dedicated to analyzing current events, we create easy-to-use, simple tools to do the math related to them so you can get in on the action too! If you would like to learn more about these tools, or if you would like to contribute ideas to develop for this blog, please e-mail us at:
ironman at politicalcalculations
Thanks in advance!
Closing values for previous trading day.
This site is primarily powered by:
The tools on this site are built using JavaScript. If you would like to learn more, one of the best free resources on the web is available at W3Schools.com.