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

The result of taxpayers’ financial bailout of GMAC

Linda Beale announced her return to blogging after the death of her husband here.   (Dan here…Welcome back to blogging Linda.) by Linda Beale The result of taxpayers’ financial bailout of GMAC GMAC, as most of you likely know, was General Motors’ financial group.  GMAC had originated as a means for the auto company to […]

About that “State and local governments are closer to the people” thing …

Indeed, they are; state and local governments are closer to the people.  It’s just that the people they’re closer to probably aren’t, well … you. So, here’s a question: Why isn’t, say, Kay Hagan, who’s running against the Speaker of the State House*, or Charlie Crist, who’s running against Florida governor Rick Scott, um, mentioning this in their […]

Increasing productivity by cleaning out low-productivity firms

In the Solow Growth Model, productivity is a powerful factor for raising income per person in a country. So it is important to maintain productivity growth if a country would like to have economic growth. I have written recently that there are ways to discipline the market in order to achieve greater productivity and thus […]

Anyone got a number? For ‘Real Debt Service of Public Debt as % of GDP’

And this is an honest question, one that I have been poking around in but maybe don’t have the chops to answer. Lets take three measures of Public Debt: One nominal. Public Debt as of the 16th was $17.899 trillion. And rising. Two as percentage of GDP. And BTW the preferred measure of deficit fetishists […]

U.S. median wealth up from 27th to 25th

Yesterday Credit Suisse released its Global Wealth Databook 2014 to go along with the Global Wealth Report issued Monday. Global wealth hit another new record of $263 trillion as of mid-2014, up 8.3% from mid-2013 (Report, p. 3). Rich people are doing well, but how about the middle class? One measure of this is median […]

NOTE TO COLORADANS: You can get virtually identical insurance on your state’s Exchange—and continue to receive the same subsidies to pay the premiums that you received THIS year. Really.

More than 22,000 Coloradans were informed in the past month that their health coverage will be canceled at the end of the year, state insurance authorities disclosed this week, a spike in cancellations already roiling the state’s fierce campaigns for the Senate and governor’s seat. Republican Rep. Cory Gardner, who’s running to unseat Democratic Sen. Mark Udall, […]

I predict that the Supreme Court will grant the emergency petition in the Texas voter-ID case, and reinstate the district court’s stay of enforcement until after the November election.

I predict that the Supreme Court will grant the emergency request in the Texas voter-ID case, and reinstate the district court’s stay of enforcement until after the November election. Which, best as I can tell, makes me a minority of exactly one. I don’t have time to elaborate much, but I did address pretty thoroughly […]