Relevant and even prescient commentary on news, politics and the economy.

Is trade zero-sum between workers in different countries?

Vox.com had a long, interesting interview with Senator Bernie Sanders covering a large number of political and economic issues. In this post, I want to focus on just one issue he raised: Whether rising incomes for Chinese workers have to come at the expense of U.S. workers. Here is what Sanders told Vox’s Ezra Klein: […]

Dean Baker on the 2015 SocSec Report and Real Wage

CEPR’s Dean Baker: Wage Growth Continues to be the Key to Social Security Solvency Dean Baker and colleague Mark Weisbrot have been making a steady case since their publication of the aptly named Social Security: the Phony Crisis back in 1999. In short Social Security does not face a structural demographic problem, instead it has […]

Shopping Around . . .

Quite a few blogging PPACA naysayers are out there advertising the 25 to 50% increases in premiums for healthcare plans under the PPACA. Charles Gaba@ACA Signups blog points out it is just an opportunity to “shop around” and the premium increases may not be big anyway in dollars and cents. “Looking past the scary headlines” […]

Is Jeremy Corbyn the Bernie Sanders of Britain?

Who is Jeremy Corbyn? Well it turns out that the British Labour Party is two weeks out from a leadership election after their shellacking in the last election. And the contest very much mirrors that of Sanders vs Clinton, with Corbyn representing Old Labour (Democratic Socialism) and the other candidates represent New Labour (Blairite Neo-Liberalism). […]

The F story about the Great Inflation (knowledge transmission)

Simon Wren-Lewis takes a look back to the 60s and 70s…”The reason I write about this now is that I’m in the process of finishing a paper on the knowledge transmission mechanism and the 2010 switch to austerity, and I wanted to look back at previous macroeconomic crises.”  Robert Waldmann is part of this post. The […]

Tale of Two Charts: Medicare 2009 and 2015

Update: some guy named Krugman suggests that I am not totally off base here. The Disappearing Entitlements Crisis I hear he has an audience. Update two: Social; Security Defender Archive docs and spreadsheets Update(From main Angry Bear page you may need to click ‘Read More’ to see Charts) http://www.socialsecurity.gov/history/pdf/tr09summary.pdf http://www.ssa.gov/OACT/TRSUM/ http://www.ssa.gov/OACT/TRSUM/ 2009: Medicare Unsustainable. From […]

Table IV.B5: Social Security OAS and DI Actuarial Balances by 25 Year Subperiod

Table IV.B5.—Components of Summarized Income Rates and Cost Rates,Calendar Years 2015-89[As a percentage of taxable payroll]Lots of numbers here but the only ones want to focus on are those in the last column, those which show actuarial balances for each of the OAS and DI Trust Funds for for the next 25, 50 and 75 […]