The Census Bureau reported a sharp rise in U.S. construction spending in February led by private residential construction spending. Private residential spending increased to a record $665.7 Billion in February (SA, annual rate), 1.3% above the revised January estimate. The first graph shows private U.S. construction spending for single family homes since 1993. All numbers […]
It seems that Josh Bolton and I agree on one thing – but for very different reasons. We both want John Snow to resign from the position of Treasury Secretary: Joshua Bolten, the incoming White House chief of staff, wants Treasury Secretary John Snow replaced with someone who can present the administration’s message more forcefully […]
Interest rates continue their climb… and long rates have risen by enough in recent weeks (today they’re roughly at their highest levels since mid-2002) to shut down discussion of the “inverted yield curve”, at least temporarily. This raises a good question: is it more contractionary for the economy (or less expanionary, depending on how you […]
David Altig says yes. He also reviews a recent paper by Stephanie Aaronson, Bruce Fallick, Andrew Figura, Jonathan Pingle and William Wascher entitled The Recent Decline in Labor Force Participation and its Implications for Potential Labor Supply that gives evidence that David may have a point. David cites a couple of paragraphs that might support […]
Max Sawicky takes on this comment from Michael Lind: Why do right-wing Republicans, and conservative Southern Democrats like Lloyd Bentsen, love the EITC? Because it is a taxpayer subsidy to employers which enables them to pay below-poverty wages to their workers. In other words, the EITC is corporate welfare, a massive redistribution of wealth to […]
Imagine waking up in Chicago on some cold wintry morning, putting on your heavy overcoat – only to have someone tell you that the coat will not keep your any warmer. After all, who in Hawaii ever wears a heavy overcoat? Now, I know this tale sounds absolutely stupid but check out the latest from […]
In the new issue of The Economists’ Voice, Robert Shiller has a piece on house prices: “Long-Term Perspectives on the Current Boom in Home Prices.” Here’s the picture that tells a thousand words: Despite massive population growth over the periods shown in all three countries, there’s very little upward trend in home prices. Fluctuations in […]
The BEA released its final estimate of GDP growth and the national income account for 2005. The figures on GDP show no surprises. But the news release also highlights corporate profits in 2005. The figures show that 2005 was a good year to be an owner of a corporation: Profits from current production increased 16.4 […]
In my previous post, I suggest one possible rationale for levying a VAT: if you think that the US needs to raise more tax revenue, and if you think that political opposition to significant increases in income taxes is strong, then adding a new VAT on top of existing income taxes is one important option […]
Bruce Bartlett’s post on his NYTimes blog last week highlighted the long-term fiscal problems faced by the US. He mentioned that his preferred solution would be to impose a national value added tax (VAT) to help close the gap between expected federal revenues and spending. His most recent NYTimes post (see Mark Thoma for excerpts, […]