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

Scotusblog’s Wednesday roundup links Angry Bear

Another recognition for Angry Bear contributors comes in the form of Scotusblog Wednesday roundup: You may have heard of Scotusblog because of the coverage of Supreme Court’s decision on court challenges to parts of Obamacare. Beverly Mann, having begun to write for Angry Bear as an added subject which I believed to be an increasingly […]

Health Care Thoughts: The Deloitte Survey

by Tom aka Rusty Rustbelt Update 7/26:  The Deloitte link is working: http://www.deloitte.com/view/en_US/us/Insights/centers/center-for-health-solutions/21c1f310fb8b8310VgnVCM3000001c56f00aRCRD.htm. Health Care Thoughts: The Deloitte Survey The annual employers survey by Deloitte (Big Four CPAs) has caused some buzz among us talking heads, although sadly drowned out by the tragedy in Colorado. (As of this moment the download link is broken, apparently […]

Wages driven down, now relative to market you’re over paid!

Update: spelling corrected in title. I heard and then went to look see that Caterpillar is working hard to control it’s costs. “Despite earning a record $4.9 billion profit last year and projecting even better results for 2012, the company is insisting on a six-year wage freeze and a pension freeze for most of the […]

Did Scalia Pointedly Hint At A Major Limitation To Citizens United? (No need for the Disclose Act, because Citizens United itself requires disclosure?)**

I think Thomas Jefferson would have said the more speech, the better.  That’s what the First Amendment is all about. So long as the people know where the speech is coming from. … You are entitled to know where the speech is coming from — you know, information as to who contributed what. — Justice […]

Miya Water’s quest to plug leaks

Via David Zetland’s Aguanomics. I continue to follow David’s thinking on how to plan, price, and ultimately use water in a 21st century manner. He offers interesting notions on the roles of government/pricing (and markets). There is currently big bucks involved and only to grow in importance and critical decisions to be made. Water is […]

Economics an Almost Social Science

Peter Dorman at Econospeak discusses problems with microfoundations, and in a more thorough paper at Association Economique politique explores the Political Econonomic Outlook for Capitalism. Mark Thoma had pointed to this Business/behavioral science can help guide economic-policy view notion of looking at incentives in an empirical way.

Trans Pacific Partnership

The US Trade Representative website posts: The next negotiating round of the Trans-Pacific Partnership will take place in Leesburg, Virginia from September 6-15, 2012. As in the past, USTR will be hosting a Direct Stakeholder Engagement event to provide stakeholders the opportunity to speak directly and one-on-one with negotiators, raise questions, and share their views […]

Social Security: Trust Funds, Actuarial Balance, Sustainable Solvency

Social Security arithmetic isn’t hard. Tedious perhaps and with counter-intuitive results but once certain terminological obstacles are swept away not requiring advanced math skills. But oy that terminology! This post proposes to start demolishing those conceptual barriers. Social Security is considered ‘solvent’ when its ‘Trust Fund’ is in ‘actuarial balance’. The Social Security Trust Fund […]