Lifted from one of David Zetland’s Aguanomics musings on how our conversations mix things up: Gasoline taxes are often justified as the response to a “negative externality” of pollution from cars, but the money from those taxes rarely (never?) goes to people who suffer from pollution. So is it really a tax on an externality […]
by Tom aka Rusty Rustbelt Health Care Thoughts: Law of Unintended Consequences Unions have been enthusiastic supporters of Obamacare. But not all unions and not all unions benefits are the same. Unions with lower income members are suddenly discovering the PPACA deal is not so great for everyone. Lower income workers with union plans will not […]
In further follow-up to my post of yesterday (I already appended the original post yesterday) called, “Stories That Will Continue to Get Far Too Little Attention As Long As Obama Allows Them To.”: Reader coberly and I exchanged the following further comments in the Comments thread: coberly: Beverly just to ease your heart, i agree […]
Via Uncommon wisdom daily comes this chart from Bloomberg: Current estimates suggest that solar might be as cheap as coal by the end of the decade, and half the cost of coal by the end of the next decade. When applied to electricity prices this predicts that solar generated electricity in the US will descend […]
Pro Growth Liberal points us to this interpretation of new economic data: GDP Gap Stuck at 6% Dean Baker gets it right with respect to the latest news on GDP: A sharp drop in government spending, heavily concentrated in defense, coupled with a decline in inventories caused GDP to shrink at a 0.1 percent rate […]
by Linda Beale S&P faces civil charges for mortgage bond ratings The Justice Department’s efforts to reach a settlement with Standard & Poor’s Rating Services about the ratings provided to mortgage bonds leading up to the financial crisis have failed, and it appears that civil charges will be filed by the Justice Department and state […]
* Don’t forget about the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau: Paul Krugman has the goods on a story that’s getting far too little attention: In filibustering Richard Cordray, Obama’s choice to head the consumer protection bureau, and demanding major changes to the agency, Republicans are trying to transform it into something that’s essentially unable to carry […]
Pro Growth Liberal at Econospeak also takes Joe Scarborough to task on Krugman and Keynes: Joe Scarborough on the Deficit After his interview with Paul Krugman this morning Joe Scarborough wrote: Mr. Krugman’s view is that Americans would be better off if its government ran deeper deficits and ignored its longterm debt.To suggest that Keynesians like […]
Brad DeLong reminds us of the Kauffman Foundation presentations coming up. Rebecca Wilder is probably not going this year…she just had a baby early January, both doing fine, but ‘Matty’ only reads baby books to date, not nerd journals. Ken Houghton may have more to say on the conference later. PROPOSED PANEL 3: 2013 KAUFFMAN […]
Update: Noahpinion takes on the same in How to win arguments by pretending to be stupid. The comments section offers other points of view. Ron T. aka Jazzbumpa received an unusual thank you from Paul Krugman for this post on a Mish Shedlock post about debating PK. Krugman recommended Beverly Mann on January 15th this year […]