Health Care Thoughts: Here We Go Again – SGR Edition Congress has passed a ten month patch of the sustainable growth rate (SGR) formula by which Medicare reimburses physicians. I have lost count, but I believe that is the 11th or 12th year since creation of the formula which has never been put into full […]
by Rebecca Wilder Does Latvia Give Us Any Clues? Short answer: yes, as long as global trade growth is negligible. Over the weekend I came across a December CEPR paper about the Latvian economy. Authors Mark Weisbrot and Rebecca Ray highlight the Latvian experience with internal devaluation, which may prove to be a case study […]
by Linda Beale Links worth noting Lynn Parrymore (Alternet, Naked Capitalism) on the difficulties in putting a stop to congressional insider trading: Can Rep. Bacchus and his money-crazed congressional colleagues be stopped from insider trading? OMB Watch BudgetBlog, Small Biz Owners: Big Businesses, Millionaires Not Paying Fair Share (showing that small businesses are more aware […]
Seems the austerity thingy is starting to hurt where it really counts. Just read via the AP: … and amid growing concern in Europe that austerity aimed at cutting ballooning deficits may also be choking growth. A dozen European Union leaders, including British Prime Minister David Cameron and Italian Premier Mario Monti, called Monday for […]
by Linda Beale Former Sen. Gramm retires from UBS Let’s see. Gramm pushed through the Commodities modernization act in Dec 2000–the thousand pages that nobody read but that made sure that credit default swaps (CDS) stayed unregulated. CDC then went on to form one of the pillars of the financialization of the economy–as they mushroom […]
by Tom aka Rusty Rustbelt Health Care Thoughts: Recommending Brad Delong When he is not snarking up a storm on his blog or educating Berkeley’s young skulls full of mush Brad does some solid academic work. In concert with Prof. Ann Marciarille (Mrs. Delong if I remember correctly) Delong has posted an interesting piece to […]
According to an article in today’s New York Times, Bain Capital was asked to do so, but declined. Well, actually it was asked to help GM out, and declined. The article recounts much of the controversy concerning Romney’s actual position on a government bailout for the companies back in 2008-09 and his current statements about […]
Late Tuesday night, a Washington-based blogger for The Economist who covers U.S. politics posted a several-paragraph takedown of Romney’s op-ed published that morning in the Detroit News. I learned of the op-ed yesterday when I read a then-two—day-old entry about it by Matthew Yglesias (not a favorite of mine, but I’ll leave that subject for […]
This might be a mistake, but I am bringing a discussion from my personal blog over here (links after the jump). I have a challenge. Can anyone think of a useful insight in macroeconomic theory which isn’t clearly stated in “The General Theory of Employment Interest and Money” ? By “useful” I mean that it […]
I just want to clarify again that the title of my original post, “Breaking news: Bain Capital wanted to lend money to GM and Chrysler for managed bankruptcies,” was intended as facetious, and that I had no idea that there was a recent report, rescinded as it turns out, that Bain Capital had been involved […]