The budget and some links from the interwebs

This week the Minister of Finance read the 2014/15 Budget Speech in Parliament. These days everyone has opinions out and nice infographics and you can find these everywhere. I also made some points at the School blog. Mainly about the three gaps that we face. I also had the opportunity to speak about it on the campus radio station PUKfm - thanks Carla!

For interesting views about the budget have a look at these links:

• On the one hand Mike Schussler worries about the debt. Dawie Roodt also made similar points on Robinson Regstreeks.
• On the other hand Christopher Malikane made some excellent points about the three gaps as well. I don't agree that the solution is a developmental macro policy, but his point that the budget does not lay the basis for economic transformation is true.

There were some other interesting links worth sharing as well:

• On the use of logarithms in Economics.
• The Economist starting its "book club" reading of Pickety's Capital.
• The idea of "home college" (like home schooling) from the Marginal Revolution blog.
• MR also made a post about new research that shows that Catholics were much less likely to vote for the Nazi's. I thought the last part of the abstract was interesting: "We are currently testing multiple hypotheses to explain this effect and are in the process of collecting additional data". To me this is the power of working papers and blogs: get the work out there and get people to discuss it, even if it is not quite finished or perfect
• We are currently testing multiple hypotheses to explain this effect and are in the process of collecting additional data - See more at: http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2014/02/catholics-were-much-less-likely-to-vote-for-the-nazis.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+marginalrevolution%2Ffeed+%28Marginal+Revolution%29#sthash.8DJqF8eJ.dpu.
  We are currently testing multiple hypotheses to explain this effect and are in the process of collecting additional data - See more at: http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2014/02/catholics-were-much-less-likely-to-vote-for-the-nazis.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+marginalrevolution%2Ffeed+%28Marginal+Revolution%29#sthash.8DJqF8eJ.dpuf