The Three Wonks
@TheThreeWonks
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A podcast by POLICY nerds. Hosted by @Micah_Erfan 🌐, @Econoboi 🧦, & @SocDoneLeft 🌹
Joined November 2023
Don't wanna be here?
Send us removal request.
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Wouldn’t it be cool if 3 policy wonks…
1 a Liberal 🌐
1 a Social Democrat 🧦
and 1 a Socialist🌹
STARTED a podcast?
WELL that’s us.
YOU should definitely subscribe to our channel and ALSO retweet this so more people can come to know the gloriousness of GOOD policy TAKES.
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Stuff all three of us agree on:
🥑 🏗️- BUILD BABY BUILD
🔰 - LVT go brrr
🚊🚐 - Mass Transit 🥰😍
💸 - Give people money
🗳️ - democracy good
🇺🇦🇹🇼 - invading your neighbors bad
🌽 - Trade 4 free
🗽 - Let immigrants in
🏛️ - institutions R IMPORTANT
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The ULTIMATE welfare policy showdown! Matt Bruenig (
@MattBruenig
) vs. Yaron Brook (
@yaronbrook
)
Is welfare morally good? Does welfare ACTUALLY help people?
TOMORROW come watch LIVE at at 2:30PM EST.
Share and retweet if welfare is important to YOU!
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Well, folks…
It appears both communists AND fascists hate our show.
Yet another reason for YOU to get yourself and everyone you know to subscribe, TO OWN them.
The link is below 🌐🧦🌹
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A Socialist (
@SocDoneLeft
), a SocDem (
@Econoboi
), and a Neoliberal (
@micah_erfan
) decided to start a wonky podcast together.
Watch our 1st episode THIS Saturday, 2PM EST, live on our YouTube channel:
This week it's Milei's Argentina and maybe more!
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We have GREAT news!
We will be having Matt Bruenig and Yaron Brook on the show to debate WELFARE policy!
Make sure to join us March 22nd at 2:30 EST for this momentous occasion.
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Three Wonks Debate Series Episode 2!
Affordable Housing: Public Investment vs Market Liberalization
Economist Cameron Murray (
@DrCameronMurray
) and
@mercatus
Scholar Kevin Erdmann (
@KAErdmann
) discuss!
TOMRROW, Sunday, April 28th, LIVE at 7PM EST via -
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Folks, we have GOOD news.
After many requests, we have now made our podcast available on spotify and apple podcasts, amongst many other platforms.
Make sure to follow us on your preferred podcasting platform!
Let us know if we missed yours so we can join it ASAP.
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“What do we do about declining birth rates?”
Quick thread about this issue, and why this graph is really important to understand the declining birthrate issue. – Econoboi 1/
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Ladies and Gentlemen, our LAND VALUE TAX video just dropped 🔰🔰🔰
Find it here:
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Is UBI a good idea?
If so, how do we fund it, and how big should it be?
Click the link in our bio and find out!
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Host Micah has been elected! May he reign supreme and bring a wonky platform to Texas Dems!
Congratulations to CNL steering committee member and Houston chapter lead
@micah_erfan
for being elected to the Executive Committee of the Texas Democratic Party!! We’re excited to see him continue to work to advance new liberal ideas in Texas!
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What kind of healthcare system do you prefer?
(a) Socialized Medicine
(b) Single Payer
(c) Two Tier
(b) Managed Competition
(A description of each is in the thread)
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OUR youtube CHANNEL just hit 1K Subscribers 🎉 🎉🎉
RUMOR has it that when we hit 10K we will END turbo tax and make prefilled tax forms a REALITY 😈
Only one way to find out: RT and Subscribe
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Subscribe at this link.
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Got any ideas for our next episode?
Let us know in the replies or in our discord!
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Learn how institutional reforms can make the government work better below ⚙️⚙️⚙️
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The fun part about this is that the overwhelming amount of research shows that welfare: (1) Alleviates poverty, and (2) Doesn’t effect (or has positive effects) on economic growth.
- Econoboi
We oppose all individual welfare.
We oppose all corporate welfare.
We oppose all UBI wealth redistribution schemes.
We oppose all race-based reparations programs.
You deserve to keep all of your own property, and every last penny you earn.
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Turned out amazing!
Who do you want to see go at it next?
The ULTIMATE welfare policy showdown! Matt Bruenig (
@MattBruenig
) vs. Yaron Brook (
@yaronbrook
)
Is welfare morally good? Does welfare ACTUALLY help people?
TOMORROW come watch LIVE at at 2:30PM EST.
Share and retweet if welfare is important to YOU!
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The Democratically Elected Socialist Wonk-in-Chief is facing off with the Privately Appointed CEO of Libertarianism ON OUR CHANNEL!!!
Yet another reason to subscribe and turn on notifications 😎✨
We have GREAT news!
We will be having Matt Bruenig and Yaron Brook on the show to debate WELFARE policy!
Make sure to join us March 22nd at 2:30 EST for this momentous occasion.
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It’s be NICE to each other Tuesday!
Tag your FAVORITE 🌐, 🧦, and 🌹, and let them know WHY you appreciate their takes so much (even if you disagree sometimes).
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Quick thread about income inequality, housing affordability, and why there are conflicting narratives about whether or not housing is truly more or less affordable. – Econoboi 1/
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We are calling on all PATRIOTS to implore
@YIMBYLAND
to do the right thing, throw out the CLEARY fraudulently cast votes, and install
@micah_erfan
in the round of 32.
(5) YouTuber serving urbanist fodder from his armchair
@alanthefisher
vs
(12) Abundance Liberal and Houston YIMBY
@micah_erfan
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Tomorrow 3PM EST, we'll be having special guest Lars Doucet (
@larsiusprime
) to talk videogame economies!
Join us live over at
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What are the BEST & WORST taxes?
Find out in our newest video:
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1) How to save social security:
2) The capacity of Basic Income:
People should not have to work right up until they die of old age.
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Sports teams should be publicly owned, and I will die on this hill - Econoboi
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Tax expenditures (i.e., subsidies), including deductions, exemptions, and tax credits, consume over 1/4th of the federal budget.
Far more than any singular expenditure, including Social Security and the Military.
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Rules of sound tax policy:
- Broad tax bases are best
- Tax unproductive activity and externalities before productive activity
- Consumption taxes > Wage taxes > Investment taxes
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Give us your WONKYist take. I’m talking something that would be completely incomprehensible to the average voter.
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Is collective ownership BASED or cringe? A socialist, social democrat, and new liberal discuss:
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This is a graph of American birthrates, and, as you can see, the ‘declining birthrate’ is almost entirely a product of declining teenage pregnancy, and this holds true for virtually every country with a declining birthrate. This forces us to ask the question 2/
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We are streaming now!
Join us to learn more about UBI and how big of a deal the national debt is.
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Do you like knowing what you are talking about?
Do you relish the idea of being able to absolutely DESTROY your intellectual foes with FACTS and LOGIC?
Well then - it’s time for you to watch our two new INCREDIBLE episodes on UNIONs and CLIMATE change. ⚙️🌳
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First, we have to recognize that a society with a relative lack of children likely has significant shifts in costs. For one, we’re likely to have significantly less crime, which means significantly less spending on police, prisons, courts, etc. 9/
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American Social Security benefits aren’t particularly generous by global standards. In fact, they are below average.
👇🏽👇🏽👇🏽 - Micah
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A recent study finds that state owned firms perform worse than comparable private firms, despite the fact they often receive special privileges/subsidies.
In the places where they perform best, it’s under right wing governments where privatization risk is high.
⬇️ Link ⬇️
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Non-competes are bad for workers and the market! - Econoboi
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The
@TaxFoundation
has released its 2024 State Business Tax Climate Index.
Here are there findings. - Micah
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(a) Socialized Medicine
Government owns both the providers and the insurance, and the system is funded through taxes.
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State capacity matters!!!
BROKE - Big Government vs Small Government
WOKE - Effective Government vs Ineffective Government
The level of effectiveness of government, I.e., its efficiency in taxing, spending, regulating, and operating services, is more important than its size.
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We are STARTING this week's show on Institutional Reform and Family Policy.
Join us at this link 👇
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To the extent that there are still significant funding gaps, a large sovereign wealth fund and efficient government services could fill remaining gaps.
This is a huge problem, but I think the solvency for this problem exists – Econoboi 12/
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Given immigration can assist in this problem for quite a long time, my assumption is that over the next 50 years technological advancement and capital efficiency will result in productivity gains such that a large portion of this funding gap is filled. 11/
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Get on in! We're going to find out if unions are good today!
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(d) Managed Competition
Regulated private insurers compete on an individual insurance marketplace. Premiums are paid for either by individuals with government subsidies for many, or by employer/employee contributions. Providers are a mix of public and private.
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The “Medicare for all Act” by Rep. Jayapal is pretty extreme, even by global single payer standards.
The bill would…
- make the vast majority of healthcare free at point of use
- completely ban competing private plans
- put severe restrictions on private contracts
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Is this really a ‘bad’ phenomena worth doing anything about? Now, of course it’s bad for many of our economic institutions that rely on transfers from workers to non-workers. After all, if the ratio of workers to non-workers shrinks significantly because of a generalized... 3/
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And far too small to bring society back to a replacement birthrate. The second solution is immigration, which is an excellent mechanism to fill a void of young workers, but given birthrate decline is a global phenomena. 7/
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Immigration can likely only work for so long before some sort of immigration equilibria is reached (though it will take a couple generations for this to happen at least). So, immigration can solve this problem for at least a while. After that what do we do? 8/
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lack of births, can we really sustainably fund such systems? But also, teenage pregnancy is pretty bad, and it's good that it's going down. The first solution people tend to think about is how we might get people in the older age groups to have more children. 4/
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I’ve yet to see basically any evidence this is possible without truly draconian government policy. Hungary, for example, spent over 6% of its GDP on family policy in 2022. For reference, the U.S. spent 3.6% of its GDP on its military in 2022. 5/
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Sources: (1) (2) .
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Land Value Tax would solve this. 💪💪💪
A forgotten area once brimming with life. People moved and the housing destroyed. Stairways and roads now leading to empty lots.📷
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Calling all Tax Wonks! Find our what the best taxes are right now! -
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Of course we’d also spend significantly less on all the things that support children: welfare programs, schools, daycares, etc. This frees up a lot of money, but doesn’t address two giant pots of spending: (1) Healthcare, and (2) Retirement. 10/
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Choose your emoji: 🌐🧦🌹
🌐
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🧦
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🌹
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Something else (CRINGE)
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A recent comprehensive literature review found that existing minimum wage research indicates that minimum wage hikes do result in job losses.
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And even this level of family support didn’t result in a significant uptick in births in Hungary. That isn’t to say these policies don’t have some effect. They do. They’re just much smaller than individuals in the ‘increase births’ camp would prefer. 6/
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🌹s tend to like Socialized Medicine
🧦s tend to like Single Payer
🌐s tend to like Managed Competition
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The Congressional Budget Office modeled the economic impacts Medicare for All would have on the economy.
They found that, if it kept some out of pockets costs and didn't cover long term services and supports, it would actually increase GDP.
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Join us! We're talking ideologies and then the WORST regulation
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We’re live! Come join us now for the FIRST episode of ThreeWonks!
We’re talking the 2024 race, Javier Milei, and Voting Systems.
The show starts at 2PM EST!
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How high could a monthly UBI payment for all adults be without hurting the economy (assuming a ideal tax structure)?
<$500
12
$500 - $1000
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$1000 - $1500
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>$1500
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Taking the Fred data, here’s a bar graph with cumulative figures. The relative performance of the bottom decile can be credited to recent labor market tightness (and tightness post-2015 imo), and composition effects due to Covid 8/
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VOTE FOR
@micah_erfan
!!!
(8) Liberal urbanist
@Naozymandias
vs.
(9) Houston YIMBY & CNL Steering Committee Member
@micah_erfan
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(b) Single Payer
Government provides insurance financed by taxes, with some deductible and copays remaining. Providers are a mix of public and private.
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So how can we reconcile this? How are a nearly equivalent number of people still buying homes despite the explosion of house price to income ratio? I think the answer is that both are right. This is because inequality has increased significantly. 5/
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Three Wonks episode
#2
, we’re talking Iowa & The 2024 Race, an overview and DEBATE on healthcare systems, and then we’re talking about Public Investment in housing!
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Which team are you on?
🌐🌐🌐
50
🧦🧦🧦
36
🌹🌹🌹
25
RESULTS
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My conclusion is that aggregate and intra-generation inequality is likely the explanation for this contradictory set of narratives and data: Buying a home or affording rent is harder than in the past, but that burden is disproportionately felt by lower percentile earners 9/
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(c) Two Tier System
There is a publicly funded, mostly free public system, and a separate private system for those that have private insurance or are willing to pay extra to go to a private provider.
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Wondering if Javier Milei’s economic plan will work?
Check out our video on that topic from last week! (Link in thread)
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What percent of income do you think the government could tax without significant distortions?
0% - 20%
13
20% - 40%
28
40% - 60%
22
>60%
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Have you ever wanted to break past surface-level politics and learn more about actual public policy?
This podcast is for you.
Subscribe to see our upcoming episodes on Healthcare reform and whether Public Housing can help us solve the housing crisis.
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