Relevant and even prescient commentary on news, politics and the economy.

Tax Exempt Hospitals

cross posted from ataxingmatter Linda Beale Tax Exempt Hospitals–the American Hospital Association response to the IRS study Last week, I reported on the government study of tax exempt hospitals, which looked at community benefit and executive compensation, and asked whether hospitals merit tax exempt status, at this link. The conclusions on community benefit were not […]

Social Security and the Debt Clock (why I get headaches sometimes)

by Bruce Webb The Treasury Department maintains a handy web application called Debt to the Penny. As the name suggests it will give you total Public Debt to the penny for specific dates in the past or for a range of dates. It is this total Public Debt figure that is generally cited in news […]

Can We Stop Pretending Nationalisation is a Bad Idea? The WSJ has.

I’ve spent most of the past two weeks alternating between dizziness and sleep. Maybe the dizziness explains why I find myself in agreement with a WSJ editorial: In a better world, Citi would have long ago been put into bankruptcy. The FDIC could have taken over and disposed of the bank’s assets, while protecting insured […]

500,000=1,000,000 ? The debate continues.

Robert Waldmann wrote earlier In defense of George Will’s claim “According to the University of Illinois’ Arctic Climate Research Center, global sea ice levels now equal those of 1979.” Post ombudsman Andy Alexander provided this link http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/global.sea.ice.area.pdf** to a *one page* document which includes the text “However, observed N. Hemisphere sea ice area is almost […]

What Remains of the Keynesian Revolution ?

Robert Waldmann I like to criticize financies, financial regulators and fresh water economists. I should defend something for once. It is easy to criticize. So I ask to what extent has the IS-LM-Phillips curve model been proven false. Also what useful insights can one gain from the IS-LM-Phillips curve model. A long long trip down […]

Treasury and Citi

The WSJ reports on an Obama administration plan to convert US Treasury owned preferred shares to common stock. The plan seems to be an answer to the question “How does one save an insolvent bank without giving a windfall to current shareholders or nationalizing ? “ The government will convert its stake only to the […]

What do You do With a Bunch of Unsold Cars?

by cactus What do You do With a Bunch of Unsold Cars? Lloyd’s List had this story the other day: CAR manufacturer Toyota has so many unsold cars it has had to charter a ship to store them all. Toyota said today it had chartered a 2,500-capacity vessel which will simply stand idle in port […]