Who gets water at what prices in the US still appears to be considered a local issue in the US at its core, and at best regional during droughts that cross borders or as it pertains to agricultural use and ‘retail’ (cities and burbs). The issue of private versus public ownership is not very visible […]
by Dale Coberly AARP vs. Social Security? Last week Huffington Post reported that AARP was embarking on a “Social Security and Medicare “listening tour” called “You’ve Earned a Say and We’re Listening.” Through “town halls, community conversations, bus tours and other events,” the influential organization promises to offer members a chance to speak out on […]
by Rebecca Wilder Housing Bubbles: Less Frothy but Europe is Behind Wolfgang Muenchau’s article in the Financial Times, There is no Spanish siesta for the Eurozone, inspired me to update my post on housing bubbles around the world (really just Europe and the US). He argues that Spain’s bubble was much more extreme, and that […]
by Linda Beale Still haven’t filed your FBAR? Don’t wait till you get hit with forfeiture like this Alaska Plastic Surgeon It looks like the leads from the various voluntary disclosures are beginning to pay off, as the U.S. is beginning to develop high stakes cases related to Americans who have tried to maintain secret […]
by Linda Beale More on Greg Mankiw’s weak arguments for the Bain capital gains preference A few days ago, I commented on the weak arguments Greg Mankiw had put forth in his op-ed to support the preferential treatment of compensation for private equity and real estate partnership “profits” partners. He points out the categorization problem–that […]
George Lakoff offers a clear opinion on an important aspect of how people learn from election and media presentations. There are a lot of examples of reporting and the concept is clear enough. However, it is an entirely different proposition when applied to real life in posts or comments…for instance, how posts are written, for what audience, […]
Lifted from comments from Linda Beale’s post Graphs Show It Clearly–the richest are much richer and most of us are poorer discussing the main points and data from David Cay Johnston’s Reuters article The richest get richer is Bruce Webb’s thinking on how the American market system was designed over time:Defenders of Goldman who base […]
by Tom aka Rusty Rustbelt Health Care Thoughts: Another Major Event On the 23rd the Obama administration will publish the administrative regulations for Medicaid expansion. http://www.medicaid.gov/Federal-Policy-Guidance/Downloads/REG-03-16-12.pdf As reported by Modern Healthcare, eligibility will be simplified to an income test as a percentage of the federal poverty level. This may expand Medicaid by as many as […]
by Linda Beale Graphs Show It Clearly–the richest are much richer and most of us are poorer David Cay Johnston has employed a couple of key graphic images that tell a significant story about the way that US laws have favored the rich–including tax administrative procedures that have reduced real audits of the rich and […]