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

Pensions and retirements…

The New York Times points us to private industry under funding for your retirement: AFTER years of poor investment returns, the pension funds of the United States’ largest companies are further behind than they have ever been. The companies in the Standard & Poor’s 500 collectively reported that at the end of their most recent […]

The Price of Offshore

Via The Guardian, Tax Justice Network has a report showing maybe 21 trillion of wealth in “offshore economies”. (hat tip Stormy) A global super-rich elite has exploited gaps in cross-border tax rules to hide an extraordinary £13 trillion ($21tn) of wealth offshore – as much as the American and Japanese GDPs put together – according […]

Euro Area Imbalances Are a Symptom of the Broader Global Imbalances

by Rebecca Wilder Euro Area Imbalances Are a Symptom of the Broader Global Imbalances Every year I travel to Germany to visit my in-laws, which is where I am now. Given the extra time on my hands, I’ve now mulled over a June 2012 NY Times opinion piece by Gunnar Beck. Beck displays an interesting […]

What’s Romney Got to Hide? (Part III)

by Linda Beale What’s Romney Got to Hide? (Part III) In the last two posts, I explored a number of fairly simple questions that might be raised about Romney’s activities that would be clarified by seeing multiple returns (hobby versus investment/business losses; business versus passive activity losses; amounts of preferentially taxed income; income reported from […]

U.S. Trails at Least 15 OECD Countries in Median Wealth

by Kenneth Thomas U.S. Trails at Least 15 OECD Countries in Median Wealth Via @exiledonline, I learned today (July 18) that Canadians are richer than Americans. This is rather surprising, since GDP per capita is higher in the U.S than in Canada.: $48,100 vs. $40,300 (at purchasing power parity or PPP), according to the CIA World […]

About Ann Romney’s—And Other MS Victims’—Darkest Hour (those who have healthcare insurance, those who have very high deductibles, and those who may lose their jobs and be unable to get new healthcare insurance. Or a dressage horse.)

  The DNC has apologized for using Ann Romney’s London Olympics-bound horse in an attack targeting her husband. The Hill explains that Democrats had used the dressage horse to illustrate its claim that the presumptive GOP nominee was “dancing around the issue” of his decision not to release his tax returns. (Dressage is a dance-like sport, but […]