“Poor people today have air conditioners and smart phones!” You hear that a lot. “You should be looking at poor people’s consumption, not their income. By that measure, they’re doing great.” The basic point is very true. If poor people today have more and better stuff, can buy more and better stuff each year, maybe we […]
Guest Post by Mark Jamison, retired Postmaster Webster, N.C. This post originally appeared at Daily Yonder Blog, entitled Speak Your Piece: Pray in Closet, Not Public Town of Greece v. Galloway SCOTUS in a 5-4 decision held the town of Greece’s practice of opening its town board meetings with a prayer offered by members of […]
Update re Rick Hasen’s position appended below. 10/11 at 11:18 a.m. (and edited for clarity and a typo correction on 10/11 at 6:27 p.m.). ____ Addendum on Purcell v. Gonzalez added below. 10/10 at 3:20 p.m. ___ At about the same time last night that the Supreme Court issued its one-page stay-of-the-stay in Frank v. […]
UPDATE: Wow. That tree limb I walked far out onto in my post below turned out to be sturdy after all. A postscript is added below. Update posted 10/9 at 10:45 p.m. ____ There is no right more basic in our democracy than the right to participate in electing our political leaders. Citizens can exercise that […]
Comments are requested for this post. Please give your opinions below… Looking out 5 years from now, what average inflation rate is the market perceiving? (link to graph) The market’s perception of inflation over the next 5 years has declined to near 1.5%. Why are 5-year inflation expectations steadily dropping so much? Is it oil […]
In a move with potentially enormous implications, Good Jobs First reports that the Government Accounting Standards Board (GASB) will soon issue new draft rules for Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) for governments. Don’t fall asleep; this could be awesome! As regular readers know, one of the things bedeviling subsidy debates is the lack of transparency […]
Brad DeLong has a post on whether a persistently ultra-low interest rates leads to financial instability. Pointing to financial instability is pointing in the wrong direction. It is better to point toward net social benefits. A persistently low Fed rate will lead to decreased net social benefits. Here is what Keynes said in chapter 22 […]
Today at 2 pm Eastern time, the minutes of the September FOMC meeting were made public. And the stock markets shot up like a rocket. The minutes basically show that the Fed is concerned about Europe and other overseas economies and the strong dollar. Why would the stock market shoot up on bad news? The […]
Update below. From a Salon interview with Catherine Ruckelshaus, general counsel and program director for the National Employment Law Project comes this case being argued today in the Supreme’s Court: Integrity Staffing Solutions, Inc. v. Busk We tend not to hear much about Supreme Court cases until there’s an imminent ruling, much less before oral arguments have […]