First a qualification. I am basing the following on info I found on the net. If the info is wrong, then I stand corrected as to who is or is not paying but not as to what happens when a large entity does not pay. The specific city and company are used purely for example […]
Tax cuts for jobs. NOT! Another tax cut that is not paying out
RoboCalling about the "Debt Crisis"
My mobile just got a call from a robotic “Amy” asking me to take a 30-second survey about “the nation’s debt crisis.” Since I don’t live in Greece and could care less about the magazine, I figured they had a wrong number and hung up.
FOOD, ENERGY AND CARS and DRIVER-LESS CARS
A few weeks ago I showed energy consumption as a share of nominal personal consumption expenditures (PCE ) and though it would be interesting to follow up with food and energy as a share of PCE. From 1959 to 1999 food and energy fell from about 33% of PCE to 17.5%. This almost 50% drop […]
Encouraging Deadly Financial Viruses
Randall Wray highlights two great insights that arose at the annual Minsky conference last week in NYC. First Joseph Stiglitz (Wray’s words, emphasis mine): Recall that part of the reason for the creation and explosion of derivatives was to spread risk. For example, mortgage-backed securities were supposed to make the global financial system safer by […]
PSA: Atlantic Health Care Forum Livestreaming Now
until 3:00pm EDT. Link is here.
Open thread April 19, 2012
Cool graphs
The Atlantic and Center on Budget and Policy Priorities via Taxprofblog have cool graphs people ought to cut and paste to carry with them for discussions on taxes, income, income distribution, and political commentary.
Worthwhile British Initiative
Today’s FT (front page, below the fold*) declares that Mark Carney “has been informally approached as a candidate” to head the Bank of England “in June next year.” He is currently governor of the Bank of Canada. It would be a good choice. As the speeches at the link above note, Carney is no fool, […]
Buffett Rule rejected by Senate
by Linda Beale Buffett Rule rejected by Senate The Senate rejected the effort to make tax policy commensurate with the slogans about American values that we parrot freely–opportunity, paying fair shares, etc. Given the now rigid “phantom” filibuster rule requiring a supermajority to pass anything in the Senate, the Republicans –especially if joined by a […]