Digital Sales Tax v. Tariffs on French Wine Even before Donald Trump departed for the G7 in Biarritz France, he threatened another trade war this time with the host country over the digital sales tax: U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday reiterated criticism of a French proposal to levy a tax aimed at big U.S. technology […]
Record Income Taxes? I should read more posts from Kevin Drum: The Yahoo News reporter comes close to explaining what happened by noting that there were more returns in 2018 than 2017. As you might guess, this happens every year as the US population increases. So let’s take a look at personal income tax receipts adjusted […]
Barro’s Misstated Case for Federal Reserve Independence I guess I should applaud Robert Barro for standing up for the independence of the Federal Reserve and hoping it can resist political pressure to lower interest rates too much. But there are two aspects of his case that strike me as silly to say the least starting with his […]
Mankiw Misrepresents a Story on Senator Sanders Campaign Worker Negotiations Greg Mankiw reads this story and writes: Staffers in the Sanders campaign, who are working on salary, complain that they are paid less than the $15 per hour that Senator Sanders advocates for the minimum wage. So Sanders raises their hourly wage. Does that increase their income? No, […]
Pence’s Potemkin Village on the Mexican Border Merriam Webster defines a Potemkin Village as: an impressive facade or show designed to hide an undesirable fact or condition Mike Pence visited a Potemkin Village in Donna, Texas: Pence also visited a tent-like temporary detention facility in Donna, Texas, that holds unaccompanied children and immigrant families. The new and […]
The Rise of Global Innovation by US Multinationals Lee G. Branstetter, Britta Glennon, and J. Bradford Jensen of the Peterson Institute for International Economics provide an interesting discussion of the risks and opportunities from the following: Total US R&D spending as a share of GDP increased slightly from 2.5 percent in 1999 to 2.7 percent in 2016.2 […]
Housing: Elizabeth Warren v. John Cochrane Noah Smith has a lot of praise for the economic policy proposals from Elizabeth Warren. I’ll mention only one: With costs for shelter eating a bigger piece of Americans’ paychecks, and local government paralyzed by incumbent homeowners, the country needs a big solution. Warren’s would combine incentives for raising zoning […]
Donald Trump – Don’t Insult Our Team at the World Cup At 3PM EDT on Friday, I’ll be watching the coverage via Fox of our great women’s soccer team playing the host team in Paris. It is only the quarterfinals of the World Cup and yet this may be the game of the entire match. […]
Ali Velshi Interviews Arthur Laffer Today I endured listening to Arthur Laffer lie serially to Ali Velshi today. Skip the first 36 minutes of this Youtube as the interview begins there. Never mind the praise for Laffer’s cheerleading for Trump. Laffer actually claimed that the FED’s low interest rates after the Great Recession began was the cause […]
A Very Erroneous Chart in the Economic Report of the President Menzie Chinn has been reading the latest Economic Report of the President and finds a very erroneous and misleading chart, which is figure 1-6 from this this document (see page 45), which states: Equipment investment, in particular, exhibited a pronounced spike in the fourth quarter of 2017, […]