Hat tip Rebecca for this link to the Curious Capitalist Invariably, when we start debating jobs programs and stimulus spending, people start talking about the long-term problem of government spending. It raises our national debt, and could cause inflation down the road. But what is often overlooked when inflation is brought up, is that not […]

Michael Hudson at New Economic Perspectives points us to the difference between the overall economy and the financial sector: When politicians let the financial sector run the show, their natural preference is to turn the economy into a grab bag. And they usually come out ahead. That’s what the words “foreclosure,” “forfeiture” and “liquidate” mean […]

by Linda Bealecrossposted with Ataxingmatter What caused the Budget Deficit (Before the Financial Crisis)? Kash on Angry Bear put together a really good graph in 2006 comparing where we might have been if Clinton policies (bad as they were in many cases) had stayed in place compared to where we were and expected to be […]

by Linda Bealecross posted with Ataxingmatter Bank Tax: France, Germany and UK, but where’s the USA? On June 23, the big three Euro countries–France, Germany, and Britain–agreed to tax banks directly, “to ensure that banks make a fair contribution to reflect the risks they pose to the financial system and wider economy, and to encourage […]

… While it will be many years yet before we can put a hard number on the amount of taxpayer dollars actually lost in the bailout, the Center for Media and Democracy’s latest assessment of dollars disbursed in the bailout graphically illustrates the extraordinary lengths to which the federal government went to bailout the financial […]

by Linda Beale David Cay Johnston has noticed a tax giveaway through FERC [hat tip to Tax Prof; edited to correct typo and provide links] David Cay Johnston, writing in Tax Notes, has focused on a tax giveaway that most of us have missed–a provision that permits partnerships that own pipelines to charge consumers for […]

The House-Senate conference committee on financial reform takes up the derivatives issue tomorrow. Will they adopt the Senate version (which covers 90% of derivatives according to the CFTC) or the House version which is riddled with loopholes and covers only 60% of derivatives trading?

by Rebecca Wilder GIIPS labour costs not moving in the “competitive” directionThe GIIPS (Greece, Italy, Ireland, Portugal, and Spain) hope: exports. Fiscal austerity crimps the saving of the private sector. And provided the governments make good their plans to put on the fiscal straight-jacket, there’s no other impetus for growth except foreign demand. Financial crises […]

Hilary Doe, the National Director of the Roosevelt Campus Network, spoke this week at the National Academy for Social Insurance conference in Washington, DC. She thinks ahead to the year 2040 — and fighting to keep Social Security around. Think 2040 is the Roosevelt Institute sponsored platform for Millenial generation input into the whole debate. […]