This is my usual post lamenting the fact that reasonable people allow supply side dynamic scorers to set the terms of debate. They confidently assert that tax cuts for the rich cause more rapid GDP growth and want to argue whether that means they pay for themselves . Jeb!’s economists admit that they don’t without […]
While the world is focused on the Syrian refugee crisis (now that the refugees have arrived in Europe) aid to refugees in Turkey, Lebanon and, especially, Jordan has been cut. The cash-strapped World Food Programme has had to drop one-third of Syrian refugees from its food voucher program in Middle Eastern host countries this year, […]
by Sandwichman The Confederate Ideology: “At this cost the system is maintained.”
On Friday, the Government Accounting Standards Board (GASB) published the final version of its new rules requiring governments to make reporting on subsidies a standard part of their financial reports (known as Comprehensive Annual Financial Reports, or CAFRs). Since GASB determines the content of “Generally Accepted Accounting Principles,” its new rules will have to be […]
By Noni Mausa We Need To Be Kind To Be Cruel Aug 15 2015 In press conferences and TV panels, we keep hearing important people discuss budgets, entitlements, deficits, and the big knobs and levers of the economy. Those spokesmen or dignitaries who have positioned themselves as deciders, judging what everyone else deserves, never tire of telling us all about it. They imply they can control economic and political ups and downs, in order to take credit for the ups and assign blame for the downs, and sometimes they are even correct. But what they seldom do is look at how we we’re hollowing out the living world, burning here, poisoning there, concreting everywhere and trampling the rest with our billions. They like control, but they never claim they any control over core social problems like overpopulation. That would be social engineering!. That would be unnatural and cruel!. The truth is, we’re heading for a literal world of hurt, and to reverse course, however cruelly and unnaturally, we first need really solid, reliable, almost lavish social supports. It sounds nuts, eh?. Another of those lefties, laying out a buffet on somebody else’s dime? But believe me, the alternative is catastrophic. A Royal Fork for the world is a picnic by comparison to the fork we have ahead of us. We’re on the brink of disaster. There are too many of us. We use too much stuff, we make too much mess, we’ve outgrown our resources. We need social deflation– fewer people, less stuff, less waste, less war, more sharing. We need to downsize. So, who will agree to constrain themselves for the sake of a future they may not live to see?. Who goes first?
I am too upset to summarize the facts of the case or even choose a link from this google search, but I think that Judge Randall Rogers has just launched an assault not only on the US Constitution but on any limit on his power whatsoever. I think it is vitally important that we resist […]
Today is the 70th anniversary of the first deployment of a nuclear weapon against humans. Something that was followed three days later by the second and so far last such deployment. Which raises any number of moral questions. One is there something particularly immoral about nuclear warfare that does not apply to other methods, for […]
I want to stress the need to shop around when looking for healthcare insurance on the exchanges by citing one example of how it can make a difference. As mentioned earlier here and on Charles Gaba’s ACA Signups blog, Shopping Around does make a difference. If you did not do so, you could be suckered […]
Vox.com had a long, interesting interview with Senator Bernie Sanders covering a large number of political and economic issues. In this post, I want to focus on just one issue he raised: Whether rising incomes for Chinese workers have to come at the expense of U.S. workers. Here is what Sanders told Vox’s Ezra Klein: […]
Quite a few blogging PPACA naysayers are out there advertising the 25 to 50% increases in premiums for healthcare plans under the PPACA. Charles Gaba@ACA Signups blog points out it is just an opportunity to “shop around” and the premium increases may not be big anyway in dollars and cents. “Looking past the scary headlines” […]