The Obama Administration is proposing to raise the income threshold under which employers are required to pay overtime from $23600 to $50400 and predictably the economic right has started to squeal. And in so doing have tried to advance two cases: one this change will cost jobs, and two nobody will actually get a raise. […]
Compilation of the Social Security Laws: Title 2 FEDERAL OLD-AGE AND SURVIVORS INSURANCE TRUST FUND AND FEDERAL DISABILITY INSURANCE TRUST FUND[3] Sec. 201. [42 U.S.C. 401] (c) With respect to the Federal Old-Age and Survivors Insurance Trust Fund and the Federal Disability Insurance Trust Fund (hereinafter in this title called the “Trust Funds”) there is […]
No this really doesn’t have anything to do with Economics or Center-Left Politics or SCOTUS. Your point? Me I am geeking out. BBC Philae comet lander wakes up, says European Space Agency UK Telegraph Philae, Europe’s comet lander, wakes up after seven months Slate Philae Is Alive! Let’s call this an Open Thread
In reading around on reactions to the defeat of the TAA (Trade Adjustment Authority) component of the TAA/TPA (Trade Promotion Authority) Package needed to successfully pass TPP (Trans Pacific Partnership) I get the usual incomprehension as to why Democrats can possible oppose Free Trade given the proven mathematical reality of Ricardian Comparative Advantage. And the […]
The basic reason is simple: it undercuts the broader progressive agenda. Also it buys into a particular Right economic meme. Both are huge mistakes. To understand this we need to step back and examine overall tax policy and tax progressivity. What should progressives want? Well I suggest that as a first step we restore top […]
Consider the wording of the 18th Amendment passed out of Congress during WWI and ratified in 1919. Section 1. After one year from the ratification of this article the manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors within, the importation thereof into, or the exportation thereof from the United States and all the territory subject to […]
Cryptic enough? Well let me do some unpacking and straight out asserting and then turn this over to AB readers and commenters. EITC is the Earned Income Tax Credit. Its open premise is that work should be rewarded. Its more hidden premise is that this reward should come as a premium over actual marginal labor […]
Over the last week the various talking heads have come to a consensus on two points about Iraq. One, given what we know now OF COURSE it was a mistake to go to war on Iraq. And two, why on Earth weren’t Jeb and Marco prepared to answer this obvious question in that obvious way? […]
Was the invasion of Iraq in 2003 a mistake based on false intelligence gathered post 9/11? Well for some that might be a reasonable excuse, say for the Senators who voted for the 2002 AUMF – the Authorization for the Use of Military Force against Iraq. Even they would have some things to explain and […]
There has been some furor over the “Would you have launched the Iraq War?” question posed to Jeb Bush mostly revolving around the question of whether he understood the qualifying “knowing what we know now” as opposed to “knowing what we knew then”. But this is to miss the point. Because Jeb was on record […]