http://www.mpettis.com/2013/02/21/a-brief-history-of-the-chinese-growth-model/

by Linda Beale Hedge Fund Tax Avoidance Schemes–using (purported) offshore reinsurers It seems that billionaires think they are entitled to it all and think they should be able to run their speculative games without paying much of anything at all in taxes to the government they depend on. And none of this is good for […]

Peter Dorman at Econospeak takes a look at economics and models. (Re-posted with authors consent) How to Think About Aggregate Labor Markets The remarkable Tyler Cowen has me scratching my head again. Here he is at the beginning of a critique of minimum wage laws and sticky-price Keynesianism. (The latter is an oxymoron, as anyone […]

My post in 2008  Draining 401k pool of money  came to mind  when I saw this Washington Post article in 2013…The trends have accelerated over the last four years, and as a general political and policy issue the lens is currently based on a pre-occupation with the federal budget deficits and austerity, the private side […]

From the NYT …the Supreme Court on Tuesday agreed to hear a new campaign finance lawsuit that challenges long-established federal caps on the total amount an individual can contribute to federal campaigns in a two-year cycle. In a ruling last year, a special court in Washington correctly upheld those limits, which in some form have been […]

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 […]