Continuing my not-yet-waning obsession with tracking hits to my site, I see that I am now the top Google hit for “the meaning of share buyback”, beating out, inter alia, the Motley Fool! (UK edition). AB

And on Ted Barlow, I caught this gem regarding the Presden’t recent speech in Georgia, which I mentioned here. Barlow refers to a Newsday story that leads with There was only one problem with President George W. Bush’s claim Thursday that the nation’s top economists forecast substantial economic growth if Congress passed the president’s tax […]

This AP story is somewhat amusing. Bush uses the press quite masterfully, but he really (1) doesn’t seem willing to answer unscripted questions (based on the paucity of press conferences) and (2) doesn’t want to be seen answering unscripted questions, as this quote illustrates: White House officials promised a wide-ranging exchange, and as Monday’s meeting […]

He’s well to the left of me, but that doesn’t keep his cartoons from being hilarious and generally on the money. While I assume there are cheaper ways to view the strips, Tom Tomorrow alone justifies a good chunk of Salon’s subscription price or watching an ad. AB

I spent a few hours reading Eric Alterman’s What Liberal Media. As others have said, it’s good. Buy it and read it. So far, it’s clear and convincing. (Of course, I started out with the belief that its fundamental premise is true). I hope to add some further commentary over the next week. But first, […]

I’ve developed what I fear may be an unhealthy addiction to tracking views of my blog, though I think it will pass with time. In any event, I see that I turn up on Google as the 9th most relevant hit for the search “bush’s tax consumption regressive”. That puts me one ahead of a […]

Dividend Taxes Part II: Options, Dilution, and Share Buyback Primer For those familiar with dilution and share buybacks, much of this post will be old news (but do read the last paragraph), but I want to make sure that the readers understand the lingo before I start tossing it out. Earlier, I mentioned that there […]

I’m getting (relatively speaking) a lot of traffic from Alas A Blog today, who writes Angry Bear is a brand-new economist-blog, and it looks like it’ll be worth reading. (One thing, Bear: please choose a different color for your outgoing links!). Following the author’s (Ampersand) tip, I ended up on a two hour quest to […]

Dividend Taxes, Part I: A Primer; Double-Taxation A primer (skip ahead if you know this): Dividends are profits that are distributed to shareholders. If Angry-Bear-Tech (AB Tech) makes an after tax profit of $10m this year, the CEO and the board must decide what to do with that $10m. Some of it, say $1m, we […]

Just turned on the TV and, flipping through the channels, I come across Bush giving a speech on the economy (I believe he’s in Georgia). The first thing I heard of note was “There’s a blue chip forecasts by economists that predicts growth this year of 3.3%–and that’s positive.” I’ll give him the benefit of […]