by Kenneth Thomas who writes The Middle Class Economist(corrected author name) The Best Data on Middle Class Decline (Updated) The flurry of posts earlier this month on middle class decline (me, Lane Kenworthy, Matthew Yglesias, Kevin Drum) made me think some more about what the best way is to show what’s happened since the peak of […]
by Michael Halasy Congressman Ryan’s Health Care Booby Trap Much has been said about “repeal and replace” it has become almost as much a part of GOP lexicon as “drill baby, drill”. The GOP despite having been supportive of the framework for the ACA previously, wants badly to discredit the administration and claim a victory […]
On spending for the November Presidential elections comes this Associated Press article regarding President Obama campaign: WASHINGTON (AP) — The costly Republican primary has been draining Mitt Romney’s wallet and giving President Barack Obama time to build an expansive campaign architecture with offices in 45 states and hundreds of employees.The bad news for Obama is […]
by Mike Kimel Medical Billing and Insurance Companies Steve Lopez at the LA Times reports on the bizarre calculus of emergency room charges: Debbie Cassettari had outpatient foot surgery to remove a bone spur. She arrived at the surgery center at 8 a.m., left at 12:30 p.m., and the bill came to $37,000, not counting […]
One of the nice things about the Kauffman Foundation’s Blogger Conference is the time to let the mind wander and look at data after having your brain scoured. One of the worst things is realizing too late that you’ve got a Really Ugly Graphic, and most of the people who could help with it are […]
The answer to the title’s question—Can your state mandate that you buy broccoli or join a gym?—depends upon which of the two possible grounds the 5-4 Supreme Court majority overturns the ACA’s individual-mandate provision. And which grounds the majority selects also will determine whether under the Court’s new “liberty” jurisprudence, Social Security and Medicare also […]
JKH likes this line in Keen’s response to Krugman: The endogenous increase in the stock of money caused by the banking sector creating new money is a far larger determinant of changes in aggregate demand than changes in the velocity of an unchanging stock of money. It struck me as an empirical question: how do […]
Part 1 – Spending as a fraction of Net Worth Tim Duy weighed in on the output gap debate – not my topic, but he presented this chart of net worth as a percentage of GDP. Graph 1 Net worth as a Percentage of GDP That got me thinking again about the issue of whether […]
Today’s release of personal income and expenditure data was about as expected and the January-February data suggest that first quarter real personal expenditures component of the real GDP account will show about 2% real growth. But the energy expenditures within the data has been little noticed. Normally rising energy prices dampen the economy. But this […]