Relevant and even prescient commentary on news, politics and the economy.

HEALTH CARE thoughts: Obama Administration Gets Tough With Insurers

by Tom aka Rusty Rustbelt HEALTH CARE: Obama Administration Gets Tough With Insurers DHHS Secretary Sebelius has lambasted the private health insurance industry in a letter to the industry’s trade association (I’m not a big friend of health insurance companies, FWIW). From the letter: “There will be zero tolerance for this type of misinformation and […]

Fiduciary duty demands for the investing public

From a news alert: The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) will hear directly this week from U.S. investors about what they want in terms of regulation of financial professionals providing investment advice and the extent to which they are confused as to who is held to a fiduciary duty. …The organizations holding the news […]

CRUSHING TAX BURDEN (tm

by Dale Coberly CRUSHING TAX BURDEN ™ I have been putting some information together for an article about the cost of paying the money borrowed from the Social Security Trust Fund, and I found a chart among my papers breaking down the effective tax rate among the different income levels. Unfortunately I don’t know where […]

Nominal Comparisons

Attention Nominal Comparisons of Obama National Debt Figures: Get Real The conservative blogosphere (with the help of Drudge) is busy citing a story put out by CNSNews’ Terence Jeffrey, whose headline reads: “Obama Added More to National Debt in First 19 Months Than All Presidents from Washington Through Reagan Combined, Says Gov’t Data.” Unfortunately, this […]

Estate tax and extension of Bush cuts generally

by Linda Bealecrossposted with Ataxingmatter Estate tax and extension of Bush cuts generally According to an interview with Treasury’s Michael Mundaca reported in the Wall St. J. today (Sept. 13, 2010), Congress and the Obama administration are discussing a possible bill to allow estates that pass in 2010 to have the 2009 or the 2010 […]

Genetic Information, Health Insurance, and "Socialized Medicine

by Maxine Udallre-posted Maxine Udall Girl Economist with authors permission Genetic Information, Health Insurance, and “Socialized Medicine” Brad Delong provides an excellent blog about U Cal’s genetic testing of students and the likely ways in which genetic information would be used by private health insurers, not to manage risk better, but to sort on it […]

Corporate Tax Rates and Unemployment

by Mike Kimel Corporate Tax Rates and UnemploymentCross posted at the Presimetrics blog. Update: Reader JzB has noted that a large drop in the top marginal rate that appears in graph two may not have occurred. At this point I think I made a transcription error in pulling the data. I will check the numbers […]

The mask slips some more

by Dan Crawford National Review quotes Newt Gingrich: Citing a recent Forbes article by Dinesh D’Souza, former House speaker Newt Gingrich tells National Review Online that President Obama may follow a “Kenyan, anti-colonial” worldview. Gingrich says that D’Souza has made a “stunning insight” into Obama’s behavior — the “most profound insight I have read in […]