“Two Cheers for Corruption” and Bill Black’s Response Plunder has become a way of life for many elite Corporate CEOs, Bill Black argues in response to Deirdre McCloskey supposition: “But corruption can be efficient and just, too. It can be good for efficiency if, say, bribes are paid to get around bad laws (such as […]
FEDERAL OLD-AGE AND SURVIVORS INSURANCE TRUST FUND AND FEDERAL DISABILITY INSURANCE TRUST FUND (c) With respect to the Federal Old-Age and Survivors Insurance Trust Fund and the Federal Disability Insurance Trust Fund (hereinafter in this title called the “Trust Funds”) there is hereby created a body to be known as the Board of Trustees of […]
Well quite the interesting news twist this morning as Senate Democratic Minority Leader Harry Reid announces he will not be running for re-election. Which of course launched the standard narrative of which current lieutenant would move up, giving us the rather stultifying debate of “Schumer vs Durbin”. Or Clinton’s former senior colleague vs Obama’s former […]
Via Daily Kos, we learn that Wikileaks has released the investment chapter of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). This is a critical chapter, as it was in the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), because it establishes investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) mechanisms. Despite its neutral-sounding name, ISDS is actually a radical concept. Instead of using the […]
Doktor Zoom at Wonkette reports on the delightful and important consequences of the foolish decision by Rep Cathy McMorris Rogers (R-WA) to ask the public to report Obamacare horror stories on her facebook page. Matthew Yglesias found it too. Facebook isn’t reality (warning to the kids who might be ready) but it can be cruel […]
The big news is that expanded access to Medicaid causes increased diagnosis of diabetes which presumably causes better health in the not so distant future. Google is impressed. I quote Sabrina Tavernise in The New York Times The number of new diabetes cases identified among poor Americans has surged in states that have embraced the […]
I commented on Brad DeLong commenting on Dean Baker asking Brad Delong a challenging question. Brad decided my comment belonged on his front page, so I guess it belongs here too. Baker wrote Brad DeLong tells us that he is moving away from the cult of the financial crisis (the weakness of the economy in […]
Fed’s interest earnings approach $100b WASHINGTON — The Federal Reserve said Friday it transferred a record $96.9 billion to the U.S. treasury in 2014, profits on its unprecedented $4.4 trillion in holdings designed to support the U.S. economy in the aftermath of the Great Recession. Returning to a topic I have raised a few times […]
Guest post by MARK JAMISON via Save the Post Office Epic Fail for the Postal Service: The wrong model and the wrong BOG In 2001 Postmaster General Bill Henderson submitted the first blueprints for a transformation of the Postal Service into a sleeker, more efficient business entity. To justify the transformation, the rhetoric has repeated […]