Michael Pettis reminds us part of the political conversation is pretty much missing from the election cycles of the last fifteen years except in the rather lightly noted passage of ‘trade treaties’. (Another post is needed for the most recent three examples…). Last week’s Senate bill on Chinese currency intervention predictably enough brought out all […]

Angry Bear archives reminds us of the longstanding strategies embedded in the current political debate, and trial balloons of possible current Super Committee proposals November 22, 2011. The Social Security surplus as a significant amount of money is recent, in the last fifteen years or so: Tuesday, March 02, 2004 Three-Card Monte Following up on […]

by Linda Beale Inequality–the facts speak for themselves (don’t listen to the apologists on the right) Inequality is real, and it is growing. It is debilitating for democratic institutions, as the Supreme Court’s Citizens United case and its aftermath start to impact the federal elections and as the money from the Koch brothers, Walton heirs […]

By Rebecca Wilder Baby Steps In the FT today, Martin Wolf discusses the symbiotic relationship of global creditors and debtors. According to the September 2011 IMF World Economic Outlook, China ran the largest current account surplus in 2007, while the US ran the largest current account deficit (in $). Well, if this creditor-debtor relationship is […]

Derek Thompson at The Atlantic had some thoughts on labor cost and economics taken from Henry Blodgett’s observation on declining wages for most wage earners. The second paragraph caught my eye as interesting for economists. My response was that Blodget was macro-right — income inequality is a serious and growing problem — but micro-wrong, because […]

by Linda Beale Beale debates Cato’s Edwards on the right’s “flat tax”–New Hampshire Public Radio Last Wednesday (Oct. 26, 2011), I debated the Cato Institute’s tax policy guru Chris Edwards about the right’s various “flat tax” (FairTax, 9-9-9, USA Tax, consumption tax) proposals, on New Hampshire’s public radio station’s hour long program “The Exchange”, hosted […]