Clearly I have been remiss of late, since I have not read Fafblog in far too long. Today Fafblog gets it exactly right on recent political developments in the Middle East, and reminds me why this is a good blog. Maybe the best blog. Kash
Many thanks to Kash for posting the good news on the payroll employment increase as well as very good commentary on the household survey numbers, such as the modest rise in the civilian labor force, as well as the fact that the employment-population ratio fell from 62.4% to 62.3%. All that is left to add […]
The BLS’s employment report came out this morning, and it showed a strong gain in employment for the first time in several months: Nonfarm payroll employment increased by 262,000 in February and the unemployment rate edged up to 5.4 percent, the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor reported today. Job growth […]
First, it was Senator Reid annd now, it’s Paul Krugman: Four years ago, Alan Greenspan urged Congress to cut taxes, asserting that the federal government was in imminent danger of paying off too much debt. On Wednesday the Fed chairman warned Congress of the opposite fiscal danger: he asserted that there would be large budget […]
The free-lunch supply-side crowd is crowing over how certain Eastern European nations, including Slovakia, have been growing rapidly allegedly as a result of a move to a flat tax. Witness the comments from President Bush: Thank you, Mr. Prime Minister. I’m thrilled to be here. I have really been looking forward to this trip to […]
Would privatizing Social Security have any effects on national security? While Robert Barro has used his Ricardian Equivalence logic to say no, Brad DeLong objects when Greg Mankiw also claims there is no effect. Brad explains why he disagrees with Mankiw’s WSJ oped and documents why even Dr. Mankiw might disagree with Barro’s proposition. After […]
Greenspan first calls for cutting Social Security benefits, which would mean part of that 12.4% payroll contribution would become a pure and simple backdoor employment tax increase. Now Greenspan calls for lower taxes on capital income as he endorses a consumption tax. Is Dr. Greenspan trying to claim incentive effects on apply to taxes on […]
The BLS has revised its estimates of fourth quarter productivity growth: The Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor today reported revised fourth-quarter seasonally-adjusted annual rates of productivity change–as measured by output per hour of all persons–and revised annual changes for the full year 2004. In the fourth quarter, productivity increased 3.7 […]
I may have been too hard on Congressman Martin’s Sabo suggestion to increase the interest rate on Treasury bonds in the Social Security trust fund in this post. I realized this as I re-read the brilliant critique of the recommendations of the Bush Social Security commission from Peter Diamond and Peter Orszag. Page 26 of […]
In his NRO oped Daniel J. Mitchell claims it does: VAT might have some theoretically attractive features, but it is a perniciously effective way of raising revenues and inevitably leads to bigger government. The best evidence comes from Europe. Back in the mid-1960s, the burden of government in Europe wasn’t that much higher than it […]