Such a detailed response. thanks!

I live in San Francisco CA (have liberal leanings) but am from Kentucky so have some conservatives ones too. As you say there is a strong conservative story that socialism kills (financially). So some ground truth would be useful.

It seems the only hope is to compare countries over similar (large) periods of time. Then they were influence by similar global effects. As you say, the US is too far ahead to offer a direct comparison. and I would say that the nordic countries have there shit together culturally in a way that is likely helpful (more homogenous population that are socially integrated into society.)

I wonder if we find groupings of countries that have similar GDP/capita numbers over a similar time range. Then plot tax percent of GDP vs GDP growth… this plot seems it might best highlight the effect of a range of taxes over a range of countries. I googled some, but did not find such.

How did you produce your graphs?

(and are you retired? these articles look like ALOT of work!)

— dan