by Bruce Webb Are the Special Treasuries that make up the Social Security Trust Funds real? Absolutely, quite apart from legal and historical arguments the DI Trust Fund will be cashing in some $23 billion of them in 2010 along with taking some $9 billion [edit] in interest, their reality is affirmed every time a […]
by Linda Bealecrossposted with Ataxingmatter More on the Estate Tax Debate–Holtz-Eakin and the wealthy families fighting for no taxation on wealth transfers So far, at least four of the wealthiest few Americans have died in 2010, when there is no estate tax under the “reduce, repeal and spring back” law enacted as part of the […]
by Mike Kimel Predicting the Start and End of the Great Recession, and Trying to Sell BooksCross posted at the Presimetrics Blog. No doubt you’ve heard that the NBER put the endpoint to the last recession in June of 2009. I wonder if anyone forecasted that. Oh yeah, back in December of 2008 I said […]
The NYT reports that Dr. Lawrence H. Summers, Director of the National Economic Council and Assistant to the President for Economic Policy, announced his plans to return to his position as University Professor at Harvard University at the end of the year. Dr. Summers is the chief White House advisor to the President on the […]
Tina Brown introduces: Gary Cohen, Executive Vice President, BD Geeta Rao Gupta, Senior Fellow, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Richard C. Holbrooke , Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, U.S. Department of State “and, of course” Ashley Judd, Board Member, Population Services International Starts with Geeta Rao Gupta, who declares the primary issue to be […]
Moderator is Katie Couric, News Anchor and Managing Editor at CBS News. Panelists are Her Majesty Queen Rania Al Abdullah , Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, President of the Republic of Liberia Muhtar Kent, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, The Coca-Cola Company Mr. Kent’s favorite book is Thomas Friedman’s The World is Flat. […]
(Joined in progress) Governor Jennifer Granholm of Michigan Michigan – “No Worker Left Behind,” which provides retraining for those downsized auto workers and others. Escalation of high school curriculum so that graduating students must have taken college prep courses—has resulted in reduction in dropout rate because the community understands that this is a good thing […]
The second day of the conference, and the first full of the Initiative, is devoted primarily to E&E. Random notes: President Clinton noted in his opening statement that the Haitian disaster’s immediate effect was to eliminate (kill) 17% of the Haitian workforce. Melinda Gates notes that her efforts are mostly aligned with MDG #4, but […]
Lori Montgomery in the Washington Post Fearing a soaring deficit, many analysts favor letting Bush tax cuts expire makes a slip in thought or typing, but I wonder if a lot of people might also use this shorthand sort of thinking in the tax cuts raise revenue tradition: …many economists and budget analysts say there’s […]
Prof Barkley Rosser expresses irritation with suggestions of pay roll cuts as stimulus: In yesterday’s WaPo, accessible as one of Mark Thoma’s general links, http://www.economistsview.typepad.com , Nouriel Roubini sounded very reasonable for anyone addressing the utterly corrupt and degraded “catfish” deficit commission soldouts. He proposed a cut in payroll taxes, to be made revenue neutral […]