In Part I we saw that labor’s earnings have lagged far behind GDP growth.  (More on earnings stagnation here) Meanwhile, corporate profits have grown at a rate that, until recently, increased over time, and they are now at a historically high fraction of GDP. Here is a specific look at the Finance Sector. The graph […]

What is a small amount of money ? The extremely excellent Josh Marshall typed We’ve got the first report about Romney’s 2010 taxes. His effective tax rate was 13.9%, just below the 15% he estimated last week. More shortly. 44 minutes ago (eek I just typed “just typed” then noticed the irony). The tiny difference […]

by Linda Beale Romney to release tax returns Tuesday (finally) Romney’s bitter loss to Newt Gingrich in the Republican primary in South Carolina demonstrated that playing the patrician elite above the fray has its limits as a campaign strategy. Romney’s strategists had apparently thought that they could get away with not releasing tax returns–at least […]

by Tom aka Rusty Rustbelt Health Care Thoughts: Evidence Based Medicine Evidence based medicine is one of the center pieces of PPACA (Obamacare) and is generally viewed as THE enlightened way to practice medicine and to direct dollars more effectively. Problem is, there is a “whose ox just got gored” issue. The American Psychiatric Association […]

op-ed by Noni Mausa     The Rulers Cannot Take Responsibility At least, not in the sense of crime and punishment.  Only in  immediate, short term and small decisions can political rulers be  unambiguously judged right or wrong, and adequately punished.  There is no punishment, however severe, that can adequately balance the potential harm done by one man or a […]

 I sent a link to Beverly to this article which stated Citizen United was not so much about corporate personhood. Here is her response, and in addition in a later e-mail Beverly makes this key point (intro amended for readability): …that no constitutional amendment is necessary in order to nullify Citizens United, because Citizens United actually was […]

I never expected to type that. I have great respect for Dean Baker who, among other things, convinced Paul Krugman we were in a housing bubble. He is very smart and writes about important issues. But he has recently written two posts which contain the same elementary error. I don’t want to be rude, but […]

by Mike Kimel   It Was Completely Legal Almost two decades ago, an acquaintance asked me to lunch in Los Angeles. Said acquaintance mentioned he had connections with a few nightclubs – he stressed that they were nightclubs – in Macao and Hong Kong, and that “Brazilian girls” – women from about 18 to 26 […]