by Linda Beale Let the Wars Start–only when we are willing to pay for them The op-ed page of the New York Times often has some thoughtful items worth reading. Russell Rumbaugh’s A Tax to Pay for War, New York Times (Feb. 11, 2013), at A17 is one of them. As Rumbaugh notes, the slight […]
(Chart via Orcam Investment Research) http://pragcap.com/an-alternative-view-on-the-corporate-cash-hoard let me say, however, that I think there’s a very good case that the redistribution of income away from labor to corporate profits is very likely a big factor. http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/02/08/corporate-hoarding-and-the-slow-recovery/
by Linda Beale The Inequality Gap Robert Reich, former labor secretary, has some worthwhile advice for the President’s State of the Union address: he notes that the focus should be the “central issue you want the nation to help you take action on”. That’s “not immigration, guns or the environment” (though “[a]ll are important”) but […]
http://vitals.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/02/07/16842490-therapists-change-in-medical-coding-threatens-mental-health-care?lite
Like many quick and dirty “bumper sticker” arguments, Laszewski’s assertion sounds logical — as long as you don’t think about it for more than the minute it takes to read it. After all, someone is going to have to pay for all of those pills and devices, won’t they? Actually, not really. The truth is […]
http://thehealthcareblog.com/blog/2012/08/20/the-age-rating-game-will-older-americans-pay-more-under-health-reforma/ The Affordable Care Act leaves it to the states to decide whether they want to let insurers charge older Americans more for coverage. If a state takes no action, a 64-year-old buying his own insurance in the individual market will pay up to three times more than an 18-year-old. In the small-group market […]
Open letter to Oakland Mayor Jean Quan: The only legislation that can realistically end gun violence in Oakland – and Chicago – is a labor law: doubling the minimum wage to $30,000/yr. The Crips and the Bloods could not whip a decent paying Ronald McDonald. Crackpot? More than doubling the federal minimum wage from $7.25/hr […]
David Zetland at Aguanomics points us to the way the US ‘too deep to use’ water aquifers for waste water from fracking, and the example of Mexico City drilling deep as a way to handle water shortages: This article raises an interesting point: the US EPA allows companies to pollute aquifers that it assumes are […]
Peter Dorman at Econospeak speaks to the current selling of big idea models of the world (re-posted with permission from the author): There’s a review on the Dissent website by Steve Randy Waldman of Freaks of Fortune: The Emerging World of Capitalism and Risk in America by Jonathan Levy. The book sounds interesting, but it […]