Now that the OECD has updated their GDP data for 2010, I thought I should revisit the question I asked a few years ago: Who’s growing faster? The U.S. or Europe? The answer’s the same as it was then: it’s a dead heat. As I pointed out in that previous post, people love to cherry-pick […]
by Linda Beale Ten tax tricks (non-rich need not apply) Back on tax day in April, Bloomberg.com ran a good story on the tax tricks the rich can use to reduce, defer or avoid altogether federal income taxation. Jesse Drucker, How to Pay No Taxes: Ten Strategies Used by the Rich, Bloomberg.com (Apr. 17, 2012). […]
by Mike Kimel Libertarians and Privacy Over at EconLog, David Henderson berates a fellow libertarian on the difference between Facebook at the Census. But let’s grant, for the sake of this discussion, that FB is quite contemptuous of privacy and that the Census Bureau is less so. Here’s the difference. Every single person who signs […]
by Noni Mausa Inequality on the Island Your island has 1000 people. 500 are working age, 500 are children or elderly and can’t do much. That’s normal, and not a problem. The 500, working together, easily produce enough food and stuff for 5000 people, while also supporting the 500 young, old and disabled. In fact, […]
…I would not be likely to find them. But at least I know how to look. Start at the macro level and see if there is a noticeable shift in revenues: Source: BEA I decided that anything that didn’t have at least a 0.3% change in its effect on GDP over three years could not […]
PGL at Econospeak points us to Charles Riley of CNNMoney has a must see graph showing how defense spending under Mitt Romney would compare to the current DOD baseline budget over the next decade. His title notes the spending over the next decade will exceed the baseline budget by more than $2 trillion. I like […]
by Linda Beale US inequality is getting worse The Congressional REsearch Service released a report in March showing that US inequality is getting worse. Linda Levine, US income distribution and mobility: trends and international comparisons, Congressional Research Service (Mar. 7, 2012). Here’s an excerpt from the summary provided in the report itself. Approaching three years […]
Salon points us to a primary reason public higher education tuition inflation has occurred that is left out of election rhetoric, more so than the suggested availability of Pell grants. And of course the selling of the need for one by us all. The problem: The word “public” doesn’t mean as much as it used […]
by Kenneth Thomas Leigh McIlvaine at Clawback reports that Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper has vetoed SB 124, a bill that would have expanded the use of sales tax for tax increment financing of tourist projects under the Regional Tourism Act. While subsidy reformers in the state have so far been able to defeat sales tax […]