The oncoming generational UK and US political tsunamis No big economic news today, so let me put up a couple of striking charts about the UK election last week. First, the change in party results in 2019 (left) vs. 2017 (right) in millions: Tories: 13.9. 13.6 Labour: 10.3. 12.9 (a 20% decline!) Lib Dems: 3.7 2.4 […]
Live-blogging the Fifteenth Amendment: December 17, 1868 In the Senate, Senators Dixon and Ferry, both Republicans from Connecticut, continued the debate from several days prior concerning a federal imposition of African-American voting rights on the States: Dixon: [M]y colleague … proposes to amend the Constitution of the United States in a manner which to me […]
Amazing . . . President Trump’s Letter to the Speaker of the House Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi The first clue that much of the six pages of this letter was not written by Mr. Trump is the salutation; “Dear Madam Speaker.” Then it goes through a series of rants. You can catch a version on Politico […]
At This Point Richard Nixon Resigned Richard Nixon resigned as president after the House Judiciary Committee recommended he be impeached, the vote that just happened yesterday for President Trump. In the case of Nixon that vote was followed by a famous visit from three powerful GOP senators, including Barry Goldwater, who informed Nixon that he […]
Here is the abstract of a new paper by Edward Wolff: The paper analyzes the fiscal effects of a Swiss-type tax on household wealth, with a $120,000 exemption and marginal tax rates running from 0.05 to 0.3 percent on $2,400,000 or more of wealth. It also considers a wealth tax proposed by Senator Elizabeth Warren […]
November real retail sales show consumption still weakly positive Retail sales are one of my favorite indicators, because in real terms they can tell us so much about the present, near term forecast, and longer term forecast for the economy. This morning retail sales for November were reported up +0.2%, while October was also revised […]
Stealing The 2016 Election? (Dan here…Thursday) I have been watching the later stages of the still-ongoing House Judiciary Comm hearing on impeaching Trump. I have seen Republicans repeatedly ranting on about how this is an effort to undo the “popular election” of Trump, the will of the “63 million” who voted for Trump. Really, how […]
I first met Volcker when I was a junior international economist in Washington in the late 1960s. He was the Treasury Under Secretary for International Economics. I was going to a luncheon at the National Press Club for the Indian Finance Minister. As I got on the elevator, Paul Volcker and John Kenneth Galbraith — […]
Liz Cheney Loves Traitors Dick Cheney lied a lot so I guess his daughter feels compelled to do the same: So I would just ask people to remember that they have failed despite the fact that they had a process that basically put everything tilted in their direction. The Democrats were able to act as judge and […]
Live-blogging the Fifteenth Amendment: December 7, 1868 In the Senate: “Mr. Craving asked, and by unanimous consent obtained, leave to introduce a joint resolution proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States: . . . “No State shall deny the right of suffrage or abridge the same to any male citizens of the […]