by Bruce Webb Michael Lind wrote an interesting article for Salon that was picked up by the New America Foundation under the snappy title Let’s Cut Social Security to Pay for Banker Bailouts!. In it he outlines arguments that will be familiar to followers of Angry Bear’s Social Security coverage, notably pointing out the ‘message’ […]
Who said: The United States participated actively and effectively in the negotiation of the [1984 UN Convention on Torture] . It marks a significant step in the development during this century of international measures against torture and other inhuman treatment or punishment. Ratification of the Convention by the United States will clearly express United States […]
That Bob Kerrey would be a CF* choice for running a school. *We don’t write out this word on a family blog. For those who don’t recognize the abbreviation, see James Kunstler.
Greg Mitchell’s twitter feed reminds us of Upton Sinclair’s 1934 campaign for Governor of California. Working on Sinclair’s campaign, as noted in an article we ran several years ago in NYRSF, was a former Naval Officer in his mid-20s whose career was cut short by tuberculosis: Robert A. Heinlein. As Mitchell notes: The champion of […]
rdan (re-post) Perhaps Simon Johnson is correct in his estimation of a captured financial/government combination than is discussed in detail to date. Here is his Atlantic Monthly piece a la IMF perspective…two paragraphs stand out for me on the first page, but explanation goes on for several pages. In its depth and suddenness, the U.S. […]
The idea that they aren’t inviting Yves, CR, and Roubini onto the calls either led me to wonder for a moment if there was another factor in the invitations. But skipping Felix, even if he is a short-timer, means that they weren’t judging by the blog in the first place.
by Bruce Webb Barkley Rosser and I among others have long claimed that Social Security’s economic models are too pessimistic in light of performance both over the whole post-war period and particularly over the last dozen years. And the numbers looking back are pretty clear, Social Security income/cost ratios have come in better than Intermediate […]
Effect Cause
My Loyal Reader notes that the economic survival of Zimbabwe’s current government is now largely dependent on sin taxes: As he presented his revised 2009 budget to parliament, Finance Minister Tendai Biti noted that “indirect taxes made up of customs and excise duty have contributed 88 percent of government revenue, which means that the government […]
Brad DeLong has the breakdown of things taken out of the no-longer-possible-to-defend-as-stimulating stimulus bill. Nice to see that no Republican, and precious few Democratic Senators, believe in following even Andrew Samwick’s tepid endorsement: Congress and the Obama Administration should be very discriminating in what they will spend money on. Bailout money for banks and large […]