The post below is silly. It is based on bending over backwards to take silly arguments for the GOP tax plan seriously. This older post is the one with some relevance to the real world. The silly argument is that lower taxes on profits imply a lower cost of capital for firms. Investors will demand […]
Paul Krugman has been explaining (very slowly and clearly) that if the US attracts foreign investment by cutting taxes on profits, then it will have to pay the foreign investors. The Tax Foundation appears not to have noticed that loans are not gifts. First he quoted Stephen Rosenthal’s observation that the direct effect of cutting […]
The PayGo law forbids bills which increase the national debt. Unless it is repealed or waived, the Republican tax cuts would cause automatic sequestration of, among other funds $ 25 billion from Medicare. This is an excellent as usual Vox Explainer by Tara Golshan It all comes down to the “pay-as-you-go,” or PAYGO, rule — […]
We have virtually reached the singularity when virtual reality supplants reality. A photo tweeted by the Russian Ministry of Defense Tuesday as “irrefutable” proof that the United States has allied with the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria turned out to be from a video game. Do android phones dream of electoral sheeple ? What […]
2018 Midterm election economic forecast: a struggling expansion that may amplify a wave We are now one year out from the 2018 midterm elections. Generally speaking, only the more involved voters show up for midterms, which seem to turn mainly on how much voters who “strongly” disapprove of actions in Washington outnumber those who “strongly” […]
Stranded Assets Rewind There’s a Dangerous Bubble in the Fossil-Fuel Economy, and the Trump Administration Is Making It Worse… “In reversing many of Obama’s keystone climate and environmental policies, Pruitt and Trump are conveniently ignoring these market signals in order to help out the fossil-fuel millionaires and billionaires who put them in office. Their actions […]
News Editor Joyce Frieden at Medpage Today offers up an excellent review of President Trump’s head of HHS selection Alex Azar. If you do not read MedPage Today, it is a good site to get information on healthcare and healthcare policy. Orrin Hatch of Utah: “The leader of HHS will be at the tip of […]
Saudi Crown Prince Attempts To Destabilize Lebanon Of course that is not what Muhammed bin Salman (MbS) or his mouthpieces claim, but it is pretty much what every commentator I have seen outside of Saudi Arabia thinks is the likely outcome of his most recent actions, taken on the heels of his purge/arrests of over […]
This post is largely a comment on a New York Times editorial “The Right Way To Cut Corporate Taxes”. I disagree with the Times’s editorial board. Key parts of the editorial are “If Republicans worked with Democrats, they could reach a compromise to lower the top corporate tax rate to between 25 percent and 28 […]