by Bruce Webb CBO Director’s Blog summary of Long Term Budget Outlook (Interesting side comment: “Later this week, CBO will release a report on a number of different policy options for changing Social Security”). Elmendorf, not surprising given his history and current job, is fully on the side of the deficit hawk/hysterics. Report text (1.2MB […]
by Bruce Webb via Brad DeLong we learn that CBO is releasing its 2010 Long Term Budget Outlook on Wednesday at 9AM. Which is also the date that the 2010 Social Security Report is (over-)due to be released. Which means some head to head, apples to apples comparisons of economic projections over the 75 year […]
by Bruce Webb Mostly lost in the furor over whether BP Apologist Joe Barton should remain as Ranking Member of the House Energy Committee and so potentially the Chairman should the Republicans take over the House is the fact that under Republican caucus rules he is term-limited out. Something high-lighted in this Feb article focused […]
by Bruce Webb Those of us who follow the Obama Deficit Commission and its seeming hyper-focus on cutting Social Security were heartened last week by what turned into a veritable de-pantsing of Commission co-Chairman Alan Simpson in the course of an 8 minute video interview outside the (closed) doors of the Commission by Social Security […]
by Bruce Webb Family values/patriarchy; Property rights/inheritance; Public order/tradition; External defense/xenophobia. Taken individually and in combination I think they serve to explain the essential unity of the various divides of modern conservatism into paleo-Cons, neo-cons, social values Cons, religious Cons, and perhaps most for my purposes the alignment of top level economic strata: bankers and […]
by Bruce Webb High on the list of tasks mandated of the Obama Deficit Commission is to get the deficit down to 3% of GDP by 2015. Unfortunately for them they have set up a situation where they can’t move that number via cuts to Social Security, if anything such cuts more one of their […]
by Bruce Webb I no longer try to follow Science-Fiction, but from 1964 to 1977 which is to say from the time I was seven until I turned twenty and joined the Navy I read pretty much everything and had built up a pretty massive library. Among them was a book called The_Shockwave_Rider by John […]
by Bruce Webb Something has been bugging me. Why is it that the same people that indignantly claim that a requirement for people to show proof of insurance is unconstitutional but that it is perfectly fine, nay imperative that people show proof of citizenship or legal residency? Exactly where in the Constitution does it give […]
by Bruce Webb Eric Laursen in his post Cato Premieres its Latest Horror Show points us to a new book forthcoming called ‘Social Security; A Fresh Look at Policy Alternatives’ by senior Cato fellow Jagadeesh Gokhale. Gokhale along with his oft-time collaborator Kent Smetters seems to be the father of ‘intergenerational equity’ and lead advocate […]
by Bruce Webb It is I think a truism that in any economic enterprise all costs ultimately have to come out of price, that in the end ‘the customer pays’. But what is not true is that price is infinitely elastic, at some point price in and of itself will restrain demand, and while you […]