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

Epic Fail for the Postal Service: The Wrong Model and the Wrong BOG

Guest post by MARK JAMISON via Save the Post Office Epic Fail for the Postal Service: The wrong model and the wrong BOG In 2001 Postmaster General Bill Henderson submitted the first blueprints for a transformation of the Postal Service into a sleeker, more efficient business entity.  To justify the transformation, the rhetoric has repeated […]

I’m beginning to suspect that Matt O’Brien isn’t omniscient.

The Ezra Kleinless wonkblog remains excellent. In particular Matt O’Brien is about as young, smart, witty, and hard working as Klein. However, I think he may not have read everything. He notes that the allegedly reformicon tax plan includes the Bush tax cuts for the rich on steroids. Then he reviews recent, but only recent, […]

Economists’ Views

I am trying to think of issues on which there is a marked difference between the views typical of economists and those of non-economists. It is certainly true that non-economists (especially social scientists other than economists) think there are typical economists’ views. These views are held by a solid majority of professors at the University […]

Why Liberals Keep Losing

James Carville was certainly right: “It’s the economy, stupid.” And under Democrats (compared to Republicans), the economy kicks ass: This is GDP growth, but that kick-assness is blatant in any economic measure you look at, from job growth to stock-market returns to household income to government deficits. And it’s true over any lengthy period (say, 30+ years) […]

New Milestone: Majority of Public School Students Now Considered Low-Income

Via Southern Education Foundation: Students are eligible for free meals if they live in households with no more than 135 percent of the poverty level, and they qualify for reduced-price meals if household income is no more than 185 percent of the poverty level. In 2013, the federal poverty threshold was $23,550 for a family […]

US 76, EU 6

No, it’s not a sports score. It’s the number of $100 million incentive packages offered in each place beginning in 2010. This is based on my first paper to use the February 2015 update of Good Jobs First’s Megadeals database (you can download the entire update in spreadsheet form). I’ve said before that U.S. investment […]

Jeb Bush Declares His Support For Raising the Capital Gains Tax, Ending the ‘Carried Interest’ Tax Break, and Taxing Most Inherited Wealth. Seriously.

To be sure, after distancing himself from Romney’s formulation, Bush launched into a speech that was loaded up with the usual anti-government boilerplate. Bush did say that “only a small portion” of Americans are “riding the economy’s up escalator,” in keeping with his apparent goal — which is shared by other GOP presidential candidates — […]

Ryan’s Hope and Change

Jonathan (FBD) Weisman hands the mike to Paul Ryan who denounces Obama’s trickledown envy economics Mr Ryan [skip] also opposed “envy economics,” a hit on Mr. Obama’s proposals to curb tax breaks on huge individual retirement accounts, to raise the capital gains tax and to tax inheritances based on the value of assets when they […]