A housing teaser Here is something I have been working on for the last month. As it happens, last week Kevin Drum posted some aspects of the same data. House prices have exceeded by a substantial margin median household income: But the monthly mortgage payments have not: This is because, while the prices of houses […]
A thought for Sunday: the Rule of Gerontocracy The US looks like government of, by, and for senior citizens. President Donald Trump just had his 72nd birthday. He assumed office at age 71, the oldest person ever to do so. In Congress, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is 75 years old. His Democratic counterpart, Charles […]
by Hale Stewart (originally published at Bonddad blog) Is This Why Wages Are Low? These are two graphs from a post over at the Center for Equitable Growth. The top chart shows that the relationship between unemployment and wage growth isn’t as strong as you’d think. Recent research highlighted by Fed President Bullard made the […]
The Incidence of the Obamacare Subsidies Justin Fishel and Mary Bruce covers Trump’s dismantling of Obamacare: The White House announced Thursday night that the administration will slash Obamacare subsidy payments to insurers. The “cost-sharing reduction payments,” worth an estimated $7 billion this year, are intended to reduce out-of-pocket costs for low-income Americans on Obamacare … […]
Ken Houghton retweeted this letter…from the Financial Times; Unused Capacity: “My brothers and I run a relatively small family business with a turnover of below £20m. We could easily cope with a 20 per cent increase in business with no extra staff, and even a 50 per cent increase might require only a 10 per […]
Trump Fails To Certify JCPOA Iran Nuclear Deal I wish to be very precise here on this extremely important matter. President Trump has not “decertified” the JCPOA Iran nuclear deal. Now Congress must ultimately be responsible. He has, after a lot of discussion and intervention by his national security team, failed to certify the deal. […]
Enslaved to an Individualist View of Social Change I note with some interest the debate over whether it is ethically necessary to refer to slaveholders as “enslavers” in order to convey our disapproval over their actions. The obsessive use of the enslaving terminology in The Half Has Never Been Told (Baptist) bothered me at the […]
by Hale Stewart (originally published at Bonddad blog) There Is No Commodity Based Inflation Consider the following charts (the top three area daily; the bottom is weekly): All prices are either declining or stable.
By Steve Roth (originally published at Evonomics) How Amazon’s Accounting Makes Rich People’s Income Invisible Image you’re Jeff Bezos, circa 1998. You’re building a company (Amazon) that stands to make you and your compatriots vastly rich. But looking forward, you see a problem: if your company makes profits, it will have to pay taxes on […]
IMF Fiscal Monitor: Progressive Taxation Need Not Deter Growth The latest from the IMF is a must read for progressives even if it runs contrary to the nonsense coming out of the White House: At the global level, inequality has declined substantially over the past three decades, but within national boundaries, the picture is mixed: […]