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

The 2017 Tax Cuts and Irish Jobs Act

The 2017 Tax Cuts and Irish Jobs Act Brad Setser has more to say about how the lack of enforcement with respect to transfer pricing in the Big Pharma sector has not only cost us Federal tax revenues but perhaps in American jobs in his “The Irish Shock to U.S. Manufacturing?” (May 25, 2020): America’s production […]

Brad Setser on Offshoring Life Science Production and Transfer Pricing

Brad Setser on Offshoring Life Science Production and Transfer Pricing I just posted a discussion of an interesting proposal from Biden written by Alex Parker who mentioned some February 5, 2020 testimony from Brad Setser. The gist of this testimony was noted back in a March 26, 2019 blog post entitled When Tax Drives the Trade Data: […]

Selection

Selection by Ken Melvin The times they are a changing. And they are changing at pandemic speed. Five months ago is ancient history. Now is a but a fleeting interval. From now, the future. What will our world look like six months from now? What will it look like in three years? So much for […]

The 2020 Presidential election nowcast based on State polling: Trump support deteriorating even in red States

The 2020 Presidential election nowcast based on State polling: Trump support deteriorating even in red States For the past four weeks I have posted a projection of the Electoral College vote based solely on State rather than national polls (since after all that is how the College operates) that have been reported in the last […]

Biden Proposes Ending the GILTI Loophole

Biden Proposes Ending the GILTI Loophole Alex Parker covers an interesting and important tax policy issue: Former Vice President Joe Biden’s recent proposal to secure medical supply chains in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic includes tweaks to the 2017 federal tax overhaul, reigniting the debate about whether its international provisions are pushing manufacturing facilities offshore  […]

RIP Tonu Puu

RIP Tonu Puu Seems like more people I know are dying.  In this case it is a good friend of mine and occasional co-author, the Swedish economist, Tonu Puu, who was born in Estonia of an Estonian father and a mother of German ancestry.  As it was, he ended up speaking a very large number […]

Improvement slows in initial claims; expect recent job growth to slow as well

Improvement slows in initial claims; expect recent job growth to slow as well   A preliminary note: this morning’s report on housing permits and starts showed improvement across the board in June, although the absolute levels are no better than the low points of 2017 and late 2018-early 2019: I’ll have more at Seeking Alpha […]

Weekly Indicators for July 14 – 18 at Seeking Alpha

by New Deal democrat Weekly Indicators for July 14 – 18 at Seeking Alpha My Weekly Indicators post is up at Seeking Alpha. With the coronavirus beginning to rage out of control again in a majority of US States, improvement in the coincident and short leading indicators has generally halted. As usual, clicking over and reading […]