Peter Dorman at Econospeak discusses problems with microfoundations, and in a more thorough paper at Association Economique politique explores the Political Econonomic Outlook for Capitalism. Mark Thoma had pointed to this Business/behavioral science can help guide economic-policy view notion of looking at incentives in an empirical way.
The US Trade Representative website posts: The next negotiating round of the Trans-Pacific Partnership will take place in Leesburg, Virginia from September 6-15, 2012. As in the past, USTR will be hosting a Direct Stakeholder Engagement event to provide stakeholders the opportunity to speak directly and one-on-one with negotiators, raise questions, and share their views […]
Social Security arithmetic isn’t hard. Tedious perhaps and with counter-intuitive results but once certain terminological obstacles are swept away not requiring advanced math skills. But oy that terminology! This post proposes to start demolishing those conceptual barriers. Social Security is considered ‘solvent’ when its ‘Trust Fund’ is in ‘actuarial balance’. The Social Security Trust Fund […]
Via New Economic Perspectives is this video from Bill Black: Watch the latest video at video.foxbusiness.com
The New York Times points us to private industry under funding for your retirement: AFTER years of poor investment returns, the pension funds of the United States’ largest companies are further behind than they have ever been. The companies in the Standard & Poor’s 500 collectively reported that at the end of their most recent […]
Via The Guardian, Tax Justice Network has a report showing maybe 21 trillion of wealth in “offshore economies”. (hat tip Stormy) A global super-rich elite has exploited gaps in cross-border tax rules to hide an extraordinary £13 trillion ($21tn) of wealth offshore – as much as the American and Japanese GDPs put together – according […]
From the Economist comes this interactive chart comparing US states to countries by GDP and population:
Laurence Kotlikoff has a post in Bloomberg opinion section on the current status of the Social Security. This is lifted from Dale Coberly’s note back to him: Your analysis that SS is desperately broke ignores the fact that the projected shortfall can be made up by raising the payroll tax one half of one tenth […]
by Rebecca Wilder Euro Area Imbalances Are a Symptom of the Broader Global Imbalances Every year I travel to Germany to visit my in-laws, which is where I am now. Given the extra time on my hands, I’ve now mulled over a June 2012 NY Times opinion piece by Gunnar Beck. Beck displays an interesting […]