What is a small amount of money ? The extremely excellent Josh Marshall typed We’ve got the first report about Romney’s 2010 taxes. His effective tax rate was 13.9%, just below the 15% he estimated last week. More shortly. 44 minutes ago (eek I just typed “just typed” then noticed the irony). The tiny difference […]
I never expected to type that. I have great respect for Dean Baker who, among other things, convinced Paul Krugman we were in a housing bubble. He is very smart and writes about important issues. But he has recently written two posts which contain the same elementary error. I don’t want to be rude, but […]
This post will not describe any actual non fictional events. My aim is to understand whether there are gaps in the law which can make bankruptcy profitable. I know virtually nothing about the law, so I am typing in almost complete ignorance. I do this, because I know nothing about CDS either and my effort […]
Andrew Sullivan writes something interesting.* No not that Andrew Sullivan, this Andrew Sullivan at Reuters. Fairly excerpted, I think. in October 1993, Bain Capital, co-founded by Mitt Romney, became majority shareholder in a steel mill that had been operating since 1888. It was a gamble. The old mill, renamed GS Technologies, [skip] a federal government […]
(Update: Dan here…Brad DeLong takes note) I think this is a totally fair excerpt from this post by Kantoos I realized this three years ago, in early 2009, when I read John Cochrane’s piece on fiscal stimulus . It is a little convoluted, unfortunately, but an interesting read nonetheless. I would have loved to read […]
In this must read post Ezra Klein asked Ron Wyden and Paul Ryan for evidence that forcing the CMS (Medicare/Medicade) to compete more with private insurers can be used to reduce health care spending. The logic must be that the private sector is better able to control costs so private insurers can insure for less, […]
Mike Kimel to the blue courtesy phone 6:05 PM PT: Newt Gingrich begins by taking credit for creating 36 million jobs, 25 under Reagan, he says, 11 under Clinton. My problem isn’t Newt claiming credit for everything good which happened before he resigned in disgrace, it’s the numbers. Employment increased by less than 17 million […]
Newt Gingrich tells the truth. “the individual mandate was originally developed by the Heritage Foundation and others, as a way to block Hillarycare.” Firebaggers argue that the PPACA is conservative, because it is similar to a Heritage Foundation proposal. They neglect to note that the proposal was made in bad faith. The point was to […]
I agree with Diamond and Saez that the top marginal income tax rate should be slightly over 70%, but I don’t agree with what I take their reasoning to be. My argument after the jump. They argue that the tax rate should be chosen to maximize taxes collected from the super rich. the argument that […]