Columbia U. Conference Shows Incentives Pervasive but Controls Work  Day one of the Columbia International Investment Conference in New York has concluded, and the takeaways are very clear. The topic is investment incentives, prompted by Louise Story’s “United States of Subsides” series last December. Story moderated panel 1, which covered the pervasiveness of subsidies. How […]

The Eurozone experiment in austerity continues to fail as the peripheral countries endure ongoing cuts. Following up on my post of August 15, it’s time to look at the most recent Irish immigration data to update it through April 2013 (Ireland records population data from May 1 to April 30) and see how it affects […]

The new Global Wealth Report and Global Wealth Databook from Credit Suisse were released last week. According to the Report (p. 3), Global wealth has reached a new all-time high of USD 241 trillion, up 4.9% since last year and 68% since 2003, with the USA accounting for 72% of the latest increase. Average [mean] […]

Too much recent travel, but my wife referred me to this article by Lynn Parramore* (originally published here) on how the 401(k) “revolution” was a big bust for the middle class, something I have also written about. I just wanted to add one quick point to her discussion. Parramore references the common recommendation that you […]

A non-blogging friend points me to this new article at Forbes by Chris Conover purporting to show that the “typical family of 4” will see its health care spending rise by $7450. He quotes the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), saying “in its first ten years, Obamacare will boost health spending by ‘roughly […]

I have written before how state and local subsidies are more out of control than ever, and more recently how the number and size of megadeals has increased substantially since the Great Recession. Now a new study from Governing magazine (h/t to Al at LinkedIn group Economic Development 2.0) exhaustively analyzes New Jersey’s five largest […]

Last time we examined a common conservative “solution” to the country’s health care problems, allowing insurance companies to sell policies across state lines. What we found, though, is that this would lead to a race to the bottom in state regulation of insurance products, and that there is no reason to think that further marketization […]

http://www.middleclasspoliticaleconomist.com/2013/08/republicans-market-oriented-health-care.html Republicans’ “Market-Oriented” Health Care Reforms Won’t Work, Part 1 This has been a week of Republicans saying they have actual ideas for replacing Obamacare, rather than just repealing it. The centerpiece has been an article by Karl Rove in the Wall Street Journal (paywalled) detailing all the swell ideas Republicans have. In addition, a […]

July 31 saw the latest release of European Union unemployment numbers, and Monday’s gross domestic product figures brought no joy, especially for Greece. As Think Progress reports, Greek unemployment hit a new record of 27.6 % in May, while Spain’s June unemployment figure was 26.3%, according to Eurostat. As the world’s biggest experiment in austerity, […]

A lot of people, especially conservatives, complain about the so-called debasement of the U.S. dollar. For example, Craig R. Smith, who is apparently important enough to be interviewed by “FOX News, CNN, CNBC, ABC, NBC, CBS, PBS, CBN, TBN, Time, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and Newsweek,” wrote a book last year […]