From Huffington Post comes this example of prosecutions of fraud and malfeasance (well, tongue in cheek if the pain was less, but 22 trillion IS a lot of money): The bank fired Richard Eggers from his job of seven years as a customer service representative after the company found out about a decades-old run-in with […]
Adair Turner, chairman of Britain’s Financial Services Authority offers his take on government policy and “spending” side of policies. From Reuters comes this comment on the speech. I haven’t seen much coverage. Wednesday night may have marked the “emperor’s new clothes” moment of the Great Recession, in which the world suddenly realizes its rulers are […]
by Linda Beale Mark Thoma puts Holtz-Eakin on (figurative) hot seat As most of the Angry Bear and ataxingmatter readers know, I do not frequently applaud the economic punditry of those freshwater economists who think the way to deal with the problem of failed market fundamentalism policies is to double-down on those failed policies. I’ve […]
by Linda Beale Senator Warren Puts Bank Regulators on Hot Seat Elizabeth Warren started out her questioning of big bank regulators by noting that actual trials, where guilty parties are paraded before juries, information about their wrongdoing is spread over front pages, and everybody is aware that bad guys get punished for their bad deeds […]
Chris Martenson at Peak Prosperity emphasizes aspects of oil and gas markets often left out of discussions, something our own Spencer England has remarked upon as well in Oil industry is undergoing a major structural change. And I think that $80 a barrel production cost is on the low side from our new sources, being […]
Maggie Mahar Health Care Blog discusses some of the rhetoric employed in media on how to pay for health insurance. In other words, when costs are distributed over a large group, older adults save more than younger adults lose. Still, many believe that older Boomers can and should pick up the higher tab for their […]
by Linda Beale Charitable Contribution Deduction–Camp Hearings Feb 14 Rep. Camp’s Ways & Means Committee held hearings today on the charitable contribution deduction. To watch the hearings, you can go to this website. Camp is planning a tax code rewrite, which he says is intended to lower rates, simplify the code, and curb some tax […]
by Linda Beale Lew’s Senate Finance hearing as Treasury Nominee Jack Lew, former budget director under Clinton and Obama and former Obama chief of staff, answered questions at Senate Finance today in his bid to succeed Tim Geithner as Treasury Secretary. See, e.g., Rubin & Klimasinska, Lew Says He Didn’t Know Money-Losing Investment Was in […]
There are many ways to view the State of the Union address, and perhaps each listener needs to assess how much importance to give to the issues offered for comment. Most of us are not ‘one issue’ deal breaker sorts of people, but the impulse is strong for those issues we care about personally. How […]