Relevant and even prescient commentary on news, politics and the economy.

The PPACA Sky is Falling . . .

Quelle Surprise, The White House Administration has decided to give “some” companies with >50 employees a one year extension in order to prepare and comply with the PPACA mandate. Given the amount of resistance the PPACA has received from the states in preparing for it and the House of Representatives, this delay should come as […]

Productivity & Effective Demand: An Intriguing and Disturbing Story . . .

Edward Lambert at Effective Demand; Effective Demand = Effective Labor Income/(cu*(1-u)) points to the result of an economy left to maximize Profits at the expense of Labor. I have my own version or underlying causes of this issue and Edward gives the economic side of it. I am going to show a graph of Productivity […]

Corporations Never Had It So Good

by Linda Beale Corporations Never Had It So Good The  press is covering the GAO‘s latest report on corporate taxes:  Corporate Income Tax: Effective Tax Rates Can Differ Significantly from Statutory Rate(May 30, 2013). The study, looking at income and taxes reported in financial filing statements for 2008-2010, was conducted because Proponents of lowering the […]

Senate Finance Leaders push "blank slate" to tax reform

by Linda Beale Senate Finance Leaders push “blank slate” to tax reform Senators Baucus and Hatch, the Chair and ranking minority member of the Senate Finance Committee, respectively, launched a bid for completing a Code reform before Baucus leaves office with a letter to Senators telling them that they should get their bids in within […]

Recess Appoint Mel Watt

Congress is in recess, actual recess with no pro forma sessions.  Barack Obama can recess appoint people.  Tomorrow Ed DeMarco could cease to be acting director of the FHFA (Federal Housing Finance Agency).  I think that Obama should, indeed must, recess appoint Mel Watt to be FHFA director. As acting director DeMarco has blocked all […]

Poetic Justice for Justice Alito. Maybe.

U.C.-Berkeley law professor Goodwin Liu’s nomination to the Ninth Circuit Court of appeals was killed a couple years ago by Senate Republicans upon the pretext that Lui had trashed Alito to the Senate Judiciary Committee in testimony during Alito’s confirmation hearing.  Lui predicted that Alito as a justice would be exactly what Alito as a […]

The Solution to the Economy: Raise Social Standards and Social Efficiency

Guest post by Edward Lambert as taken from his Blog Effective Demand Yes, the economy is a concern. There are problems to sort out. The problems run deep. What is the solution? The solution to the problems of the economy will be found through “Social Efficiency” and raising the social standards that have been declining […]

Redistribution and public production of public goods–not "let the markets handle it"

by Linda Beale Redistribution and public production of public goods–not “let the markets handle it” In recent posts, the Importance of Distribution and Markets, Minimum Wages, and the Sins of Friedmania,  I have noted the centrality to sustainable democratic institutions of corraling the market so that the power and wealth of the elite few does […]