Via the Washington Post comes this idea of economic incentive: But research by noted economists Karl Case, John Quigley and Robert Shiller found the households were more powerful affected by declines in wealth than increases. An unexpected 1 percent drop in housing prices caused a permanent 0.1 percent decrease in spending, that study found. But […]

by Linda Beale Tax breaks for wealthy; corporate tax shouldn’t be reformed away; seed patents are a real scandal No time for lengthy commentary today, but worth calling attention to some noteworthy items. (1) The CBO released a new report detailing the income groups that benefit most from the various tax expenditures in the internal […]

From Barry Ritholz and The Big Picture via  Investingchannel is this piece on a Proposal for New Hedge Fund Fee Structure: One of my pet peeves is the way that insiders  — whether corporate CEOs, hedge fund managers, or elected politicos — capture compensation (or credit) for normal cyclical gains they had little or nothing […]

by Tom aka Rusty Rustbelt Health Care Thoughts: Carrot and Stick The Obama administration has issued regulations allowing employers to use both incentives and penalties in wellness programs. There is some controversy here, such as: employer plans setting and enforcing blood pressure and cholesterol standards punishing smokers (less controversial perhaps) – is this punishing addicts? there […]

Reader rjs sends us several links: Washington ‘Spends’ More on Tax Breaks Than on Medicare, Defense, or Social Security – Tax expenditures are funny, They’re not taxes, exactly, because they save us money. They’re not spending, exactly, because the dollars are never actually spent. They’re somewhere in between. So think of it as tax spending. […]

by Linda Beale Another False Media-Generated IRS “Scandal” Fox News and similar outlets (and even some of our esteemed Congresspeople, like Jim Jordan) have been fuming that Doug Shulman, the former IRS Commissioner, had more visits to the White House than any other cabinet officer. See, e.g., Evan McMurray, Bill O’Reilly Rails: IRS Commish’s 157 […]

From Matt McOsker  : This might be a good debate to advertise on AB: http://www.modernmoneyandpublicpurpose.com/mmt-vs-austrian-school.html Modern Monetary Theory vs. the Austrian school macroeconomic debates among the heterodoxy Warren Mosler, Author, Soft Currency Economic Versus Robert Murphy, Associated Scholar, The Mises Academy When: 6.15pm June 3rd, 2013 Where: Room 103, Jerome Greene Hall, Columbia Law School Livestream: A […]

by Linda Beale The real IRS scandal Various posts here have made the argument that the TIGTA report shouldn’t be taken as a definitive analysis of the ins and outs of the various issues related to the IRS’s examination of applications for 501(c)(4) status and its use of terms like “tea party” and “patriot” as […]