The European Commission’s Directorate-General for Competition is the EU equivalent of the U.S. Department of Justice Anti-trust Division plus units for controlling domestic subsidies to industry. According to a new policy briefing from the European Policies Research Centre at the University of Strathclyde, DG-Competition has released a draft of new regulations on “regional aid” (subsidies […]
From Stormy, who has written on global trade for over a decade, sends an e-mail on the discovery that we are losing competitive advantage: I find it absolutely stunning that the Yves post and MIT study below is considered big news. Four or five years ago, I saw the writing on the wall. Off-shoring, outsourcing…name […]
From Naked Capitalism: Why Does No One Speak of America’s Oligarchs? One of the striking elements of the demonization of Cyprus was how it was depicted as a willing tool of Russian money launderers and oligarchs. Never mind the fact, as we pointed out, that Cyprus is not a tax haven but a low-tax jurisdiction, […]
Josh Marshall has a post entitled “Just Crazy”. As usual I agree with some of what Marshall writes. In this case, I think the post is just crazy. In it he quotes “TPM reader AN” with approval who wrote (among other things) …is there significant and recent precedent of an Administration refusing to enforce a duly […]
By Jeff McCord ANTHONY LEWIS, ADULTERATED MILK AND A TAINTED ECONOMYMarch 28, 2013 In the early days of his brilliant career as legal journalist and commentator, Anthony Lewis, who passed at age 85 on March 25, referred to a vision of the Supreme Court that served as his touchstone: “[W]hen the channels of opinion and […]
Via Daily Kos Bruce Webb writes: When the Ryan Roadmap to Prosperity/2013 Republican House Budget was released some otherwise sharp observers like Ezra Klein claimed it just gave Social Security a pass: Here is Paul Ryan’s path to a balanced budget in three sentences: He cuts deep into spending on health care for the poor […]
Travis Waldron at Think Progress pointed out this excellent article by David Cay Johnston. It dovetails well with my last post, which showed the fall of individual real wages and their failure to regain their peak fully 40 years after it was reached. Johnston writes: Incomes and tax revenues have grown from 2009 to 2011 […]
Students of Windsor and Hollingsworth have always recognized a basic tension between the theories of gay-rights advocates in the cases. The challenge to DOMA is undergirded by a sense that marriage is a matter for state rather than federal regulation. The challenge to Proposition 8 is a direct challenge to just such a decision by […]
Final update: #scotus 80% likely to strike down #doma. J Kennedy suggests it violates states’ rights; 4 other Justices see as gay rights. –Tom Goldstein of SCOTUSblog, on Twitter And: “The question is whether or not the federal government under a federalism system has the authority to regulate marriage,” Justice Kennedy said during oral arguments. […]