by Linda Beale Tax breaks for wealthy; corporate tax shouldn’t be reformed away; seed patents are a real scandal No time for lengthy commentary today, but worth calling attention to some noteworthy items. (1) The CBO released a new report detailing the income groups that benefit most from the various tax expenditures in the internal […]
From Barry Ritholz and The Big Picture via Investingchannel is this piece on a Proposal for New Hedge Fund Fee Structure: One of my pet peeves is the way that insiders — whether corporate CEOs, hedge fund managers, or elected politicos — capture compensation (or credit) for normal cyclical gains they had little or nothing […]
Jon Perr at Crooks and Liars does a nice review on defining who benefits the most from tax breaks: CBO Study Shows Tax Breaks Favor the Rich “Every year, tax expenditures–Uncle Sam’s myriad credits, exclusion, loopholes and breaks–cost the U.S. Treasury over $1 trillion a year. To put that in perspective, that figure is greater than […]
by Tom aka Rusty Rustbelt Health Care Thoughts: Carrot and Stick The Obama administration has issued regulations allowing employers to use both incentives and penalties in wellness programs. There is some controversy here, such as: employer plans setting and enforcing blood pressure and cholesterol standards punishing smokers (less controversial perhaps) – is this punishing addicts? there […]
Reader rjs sends us several links: Washington ‘Spends’ More on Tax Breaks Than on Medicare, Defense, or Social Security – Tax expenditures are funny, They’re not taxes, exactly, because they save us money. They’re not spending, exactly, because the dollars are never actually spent. They’re somewhere in between. So think of it as tax spending. […]
by Linda Beale Another False Media-Generated IRS “Scandal” Fox News and similar outlets (and even some of our esteemed Congresspeople, like Jim Jordan) have been fuming that Doug Shulman, the former IRS Commissioner, had more visits to the White House than any other cabinet officer. See, e.g., Evan McMurray, Bill O’Reilly Rails: IRS Commish’s 157 […]
Avik Roy wrote an extremely misleading article on Obamacare in California. It seems that Roy is the latest R-team player to be sacked. Basically Roy compared Obamacare exchange rates (without subsidies) to the teaser rate from a web site which has received many extremely unamusing negative reviews for baiting and switching. R. Unger totally […]
Having helped quite a few younger people rearrange student loans from the private sector to Direct Loans or consolidate loans to achieve lower interest rates or payments; I just find this market-place-staging by some politicians offensive. July 1st the rates are expected to double (3+% to 6+%) for subsidized and unsubsidized Stafford loans and probably […]
Well I am back at Angry Bear and just getting my feet wet with WordPress, so this first post won’t be ambitious. The 2013 Annual Report of the Trustees of Social Security was released today Friday the 31st of May. The short take-aways are ‘not much change’ and ‘no news is good news’: date […]
Scalia regularly bars video or voice recordings of his off-the-bench speeches, and in at least one fairly recent instance, the details of which I can’t recall, he employed a member of the U.S. Marshals Service to enforce his policy. If I recall correctly, a member of his security detail confiscated a reporter’s or law student’s […]