by Linda Beale IRS will issue summonses for offshore bank account info The IRS got court orders permitting it to see information about taxpayers with undisclosed offshore bank accounts from US banks. In re the Tax Liabilities of John Does (SDNY No. 1:13-mc-00377 Nov. 12, 2013). According to BNA Daily Tax RealTime (Nov. 12, 2013 […]
Columbia U. Conference Shows Incentives Pervasive but Controls Work Day one of the Columbia International Investment Conference in New York has concluded, and the takeaways are very clear. The topic is investment incentives, prompted by Louise Story’s “United States of Subsides” series last December. Story moderated panel 1, which covered the pervasiveness of subsidies. How […]
There are a couple of easy ways to check out current Federal Public Debt to the dollar or even the penny. One you could check out the National Debt Clock which also is conveniently mirrored (in simplified form) in Times Square. In the top left you will find the number for ‘US National Debt’ at […]
Bill McBride at Calculated Risk points us to some apparent better news State and local government austerity is over I think most of the recession related state and local government layoffs are over, and it appears state and local government employment has bottomed. Of course Federal government layoffs are ongoing, but it appears state and local […]
What the —! Well it occured to me, and not for the first time, that a lot of people really don’t understand my Social Security project and particularly what even some of my friends and allies think is a narrow focus on the nuts, bolts and numbers of Social Security financial reporting. It seems to […]
Total Security on Planet Elsinore: a Social Security Thought Game (Part 1) – Set the gameboard and initial rules for Total Security or TS for short. To recap the USE a democratic republic polity on Planet Elsinore has a long established government retirement security program called Total Security paid for by an across the income […]
Lets play a game. The ultimate point of the game is to understand certain aspects of Social Security but to keep complications from creeping in too early (wait for later parts) we are going to start with simple game play on a board far, far away. In fact on distant yet oddly Earth-like Planet Elsinore. […]
Via the ?Real News: Privitization of the Royal Mail Service Interview of John Weeks,( a professor emeritus of the University of London and author of the forthcoming book The Economics of the 1%: How Mainstream Economics Serves the Rich, Obscures Reality and Distorts Policy). Brings to mind this process: Grim outlook of US post office buildings: Currently, […]
Dean Baker was polite in responding to another story from the Washington Post in the campaign to discredit the program: That’s what the headline of the front page Washington Post story might have read if the purpose was to inform readers. Instead the lengthy piece (which covers the whole back page) told readers that Social […]
CORP. TAX CUT = GROWTH? Um, Not So Much — Contrary to popular conservative dogma, the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) has found no substantial correlation between corporate tax reductions and economic growth since 1947.