by Linda Beale Right-Wing Mythology 101: the myth of the rich fleeing taxes One of the right-wing’s most cherished myths is that highly progressive taxes will kill state revenues, since the rich who have the money to pay them will simply move to a more accommodating jurisdiction.This is repeated in most conversations I’ve had with […]
by Tom aka Rusty Rustbelt Health Care Thoughts: Obamacare Updates The slow march toward full implementation continues. Exchanges – As of today 17 states will create their own exchange, seven states will partner with the government, and 26 states have defaulted to the federal program (if anyone asked me I would suggest defaulting in order […]
President Obama’s proposal to raise the minimum wage to $9.00 per hour puts the Republicans between a rock and a hard place politically. Paul Krugman echoes the point that a big majority of the population supports a minimum wage increase, including a majority of Republicans (his linking to the original poll source appears to have […]
Here is a link filled update on the rise of atmospheric methane and a decrease in volume of Arctic sea ice from reader rjs. Today we’d like to make note of an interesting development in the arctic during January. Below we have 3 images of methane concentrations above the Arctic Ocean from 3 ten day […]
by Mike Kimel Reproduction, Income, and the Future A comment on a post at EconLog, a very libertarian website… I can say that in my lifetime, I have not earned enough money for me to have kids. I’m 36. I know some have had kids on my income or less but it certainly is not […]
James Wagner, President, Emory University has offered the idea that compromises for a ‘more perfect union’ comes in many forms. The link presents Mr. Wagner’s reply to the storm of comment to the original, which follows. Here is an excerpt: One instance of constitutional compromise was the agreement to count three-fifths of the slave population […]
From Huffington Post comes this example of prosecutions of fraud and malfeasance (well, tongue in cheek if the pain was less, but 22 trillion IS a lot of money): The bank fired Richard Eggers from his job of seven years as a customer service representative after the company found out about a decades-old run-in with […]
Adair Turner, chairman of Britain’s Financial Services Authority offers his take on government policy and “spending” side of policies. From Reuters comes this comment on the speech. I haven’t seen much coverage. Wednesday night may have marked the “emperor’s new clothes” moment of the Great Recession, in which the world suddenly realizes its rulers are […]
by Linda Beale Mark Thoma puts Holtz-Eakin on (figurative) hot seat As most of the Angry Bear and ataxingmatter readers know, I do not frequently applaud the economic punditry of those freshwater economists who think the way to deal with the problem of failed market fundamentalism policies is to double-down on those failed policies. I’ve […]