by Linda Beale Remember When the IRS Targeted Liberals? Salon’s Alex Seitz-Wald has a story that provides additional context on the difficulty the IRS has in determining appropriate filters for political activity. See “When the IRS targeted liberals: Under George W. Bush, it went after the NAACP, Greenpeace, and even a liberal church,” Salon.com (May […]
by Linda Beale How Apple avoids US taxes with shell games Tomorrow’s Congressional hearing on the ability of major multinationals to shift profits offshore to avoid US tax (and everywhere-else tax) may finally get the attention of the American public onto a tax issue worth thinking about. As today’s New York Times makes clear, Apple […]
Much ado is made of the Fed’s “credibility,” which is dog-whistle-speak for its ability, willingness, and decided inclination to jump all over any (expected or imagined) whiff of that horrifying threat — inflation! — especially the most terrifying bogeyman, “wage inflation.” You won’t, on the other hand, find “credibility” discussed when people speak of the […]
Allan Marks, in a comment on a Krugman post, reminds me of one of my favorite scenes in filmdom. Krugman’s complaining that he doesn’t understand the rules that his detractors are arguing by, and Marks suggests he watch this (55 seconds): Is anyone else wishing our esteemed President knew the rules for knife fights? Cross-posted […]
Or: “Dudley Makes Mock of the Monetarists.” In my post The Fed is not “Printing Money.” It’s Retiring Bonds and Issuing Reserves, I said: …when the Fed gives the banks reserves and retires bonds, it’s taking on market risk/reward, replacing it with absolutely nonvolatile, risk/reward-free assets (at least in nominal terms). It’s removing leverage and volatility from […]
“Since the I.R.S. also is the chief enforcer of Obamacare requirements, [Michele Bachmann] asked whether the I.R.S.’s admission means it ‘will deny or delay access to health care’ for conservatives. At this point, she said, that ‘is a reasonable question to ask.’ ” — Bob Unruh, Why Obama Released Embarrassing IRS Bombshell, WND Exclusive, May […]
After hinting at it for months, I can finally post the abstract of and a link to “Top Marginal Taxation and Economic Growth” by my student Santo Milasi The paper explores the relationship between statutory top marginal tax rates on personal income and long-run economic growth. While theoretical models of endogenous growth explicitly allow for […]
I’d like to reply to one confusion and one set of pushbacks on yesterday’s post: Currency and Reserve Balances I buried one fact: banks can reduce total Fed reserve balances by withdrawing currency — physical cash — from their Fed reserve accounts. I only gestured toward this in a parenthetical and a link. It’s a trivial […]