Robert Reich asks and answers the question “Which do you trust less – Big Business (including Wall Street) or Big Government?”: But fundamentally, the debate is absurd. It’s not the purpose of the private sector to protect the public. Companies like Goldman Sachs, Massey Energy, WellPoint, and BP will do everything they can to make […]
Jon Walker at FDL begins a chat on politics and agendas. The big picture is built on thousands of pixels…so is national politics apparently if your advertizing budget is small. The elected officials in the cooperatives formed a large pool of potential recruits to run for political office and to be elected to positions within […]
Firedoglake takes on Simpson: Alan Simpson: Cutting Social Security Benefits to “Take Care of the Lesser People in Society” …cuts he would recommend to the President and Congress on CNBC, Simpson said “We are going to stick to the big three,” meaning Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. His sentiments haven’t changed. (Rdan here…the transcript reads […]
Debt, Deficits, and Defense…The Sustainable Defense Task Force set in motion by Rep. Barney Frank has comprehensive suggestions. It is more specific than other suggestions I have read. David Ignatius of the Washington Post sees deficits concern as a possible unifying process among right/left thinking. I don’t see it. Bruce Bartlett comments on deficits and […]
Health care reform blog reminds us both complexity of costs: Thus, areas with high medical spending do not have offsetting lower pharmaceutical spending; in fact, if the coding practices in different regions are not too dissimilar, the substantial variation in pharmaceutical spending does not seem to be strongly associated with variations in medical spending at […]
By Linda Bealecrossposted with Ataxingmatter FATCA (foreign account tax compliance act FATCA (foreign account tax compliance act–or is it the anti-fatcat act?)The attention of US tax enforcement has been focused on offshore issues for some time. Of course, the most conspicuous part of that has been the ongoing dispute with UBS, a Swiss bank that […]
by Mike Kimel Presidents, the Tax Burden, and Economic Growth This post also appears at the Presimetrics Blog. It contains some information that has appeared in a few different Angry Bear posts, but I think I’m starting to manage to put it into a more coherent narrative. And as I’m able to do that, I’m […]
by Linda Bealefor the complete post go to Ataxingmatter Estate Tax–Kyl continues working for the ultra wealthy Jon Kyl doesn’t think much about the government helping the unemployed who have been laid off because of the financial crisis, triggered by greedy excesses at the nation’s biggest banks and mortgage lenders. He’s afraid that providing additional […]