I was watching C span Washington Journal this morning.  Rep Marsha Blackburn was the guest.  I got to listen to her explanation of how the Social Security funds flow and just had to post the clip.   Copied from the transcript of the clip: THEIRS MONEY THAT GOES TO MEDICARE AND SOCIAL SECURITY AND I THINK […]

by Linda Beale Senator Warren Puts Bank Regulators on Hot Seat Elizabeth Warren started out her questioning of big bank regulators by noting that actual trials, where guilty parties are paraded before juries, information about their wrongdoing is spread over front pages, and everybody is aware that bad guys get punished for their bad deeds […]

By “this,” I mean this.  I don’t know, but it sounds to me like some of it is not.   Wish I could ask Chris Christie, a former (very high-profile) U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey (2001-2008).  He would know.   —-UPDATE:  In light of the comments to this post, saying that Florida […]

Chris Martenson at Peak Prosperity emphasizes aspects of oil and gas markets often left out of discussions, something our own Spencer England has remarked upon as well in Oil industry is undergoing a major structural change.  And I think that $80 a barrel production cost is on the low side from our new sources, being […]

Maggie Mahar Health Care Blog discusses some of the rhetoric employed in media on how to pay for health insurance. In other words, when costs are distributed over a large group, older adults save more than younger adults lose. Still, many believe that older Boomers can and should pick up the higher tab for their […]

by Linda Beale Charitable Contribution Deduction–Camp Hearings Feb 14 Rep. Camp’s Ways & Means Committee held hearings today on the charitable contribution deduction. To watch the hearings, you can go to this website. Camp is planning a tax code rewrite, which he says is intended to lower rates, simplify the code, and curb some tax […]

Yesterday, both sides drew their battle lines in the coming war over the minimum wage. After Obama called for a minimum wage hike in his State of the Union speech, House Republicans dug in against it, casting their opposition as grounded in concern for the plight of low wage workers. John Boehner asked: “Why would […]

by Linda Beale Lew’s Senate Finance hearing as Treasury Nominee Jack Lew, former budget director under Clinton and Obama and former Obama chief of staff, answered questions at Senate Finance today in his bid to succeed Tim Geithner as Treasury Secretary.  See, e.g., Rubin & Klimasinska, Lew Says He Didn’t Know Money-Losing Investment Was in […]

Mr. President, I still live in the same working-class neighborhood I grew up in. My neighbors aren’t millionaires. They’re retirees who depend on Social Security and Medicare. They’re workers who have to get up early tomorrow morning and go to work to pay the bills. They’re immigrants, who came here because they were stuck in […]