Andrew Sullivan writes something interesting.* No not that Andrew Sullivan, this Andrew Sullivan at Reuters. Fairly excerpted, I think. in October 1993, Bain Capital, co-founded by Mitt Romney, became majority shareholder in a steel mill that had been operating since 1888. It was a gamble. The old mill, renamed GS Technologies, [skip] a federal government […]

We are taking a little side trip inthis series of defining rich based on the prior tax rate schedulesbut, this post is keeping with the process of looking at history formarkers as to the definition of rich. For any new readers, I believeas a society we knew and had definite boundaries as to what definedrich. […]

For some reason I am trying to discover Photobucket has declared us out of band width and tells us by blasting us with upgrade bars and ads and messing with blogger widgets. This is nonsense…I am working on it and will apprise people about the interference. (The upgrade is $2.99 a month…a drastic method they […]

The Wall Street Journal reports: Under new rules adopted by the American Economic Association at its annual meeting here last week, economists will have to disclose financial ties and other potential conflicts of interest in papers published in academic journals. Backers argue such disclosures will help restore faith in the profession by giving both policy makers and […]

by Linda Beale Pandering to the Right Fringe This campaign season has revealed more clearly than ever the ultimate goal of today’s hard right, as manifested in campaign debates and the right-wing think tanks’ output. It is nothing less than dismantling the protections established under FDR–Social Security, Medicare, minimum wage and other safety net protections […]

In the New Yorker comes this note lost in the shuffle of the NH primary. I sense a pervasive theme of bigger government interference: Since Ronald Reagan, Republican Presidents (and Presidential nominees) have been committed to overturning Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court’s abortion-rights landmark from 1973. But as the debates last weekend in New […]

by Linda Beale IRS proposes new innocent spouse procedures In a press release IR 2012-3 (Jan. 5, 2012), the IRS has issued Notice 2012-8 announcing a new revenue procedure updating Rev. Proc. 2003-61. The IRS describes the effect of the procedure as follows. This proposed update to Rev. Proc. 2003-61 addresses the criteria used in […]

By general consensus, Japan’s “Lost Decade” (now in its Third Decade) begins in 1989. The biggest growth difference appears to come from the U.S. period from the Second (1996) Clinton Tax Reform to the 2001 recession—a big if, I grant you, but one that the Gingrich/DeLay-led Republican Party predicted would produce mayhem, and the alternative-history […]

Neil Wilson has done yeoman’s duty to (perhaps) achieve a convergence that has been too-long delayed. A Double Entry View on the Keen Circuit Model. Steve Keen is, to my knowledge, the only person who is actually encoding a Godley-esque, MMT-style, accounting-based, stock-flow-consistent dynamic simulation model of how economies work. But many MMTers have been […]

Continuing with one of my current hobbyhorses: Ryan Avent reports on the American Economic Association meeting, with special attention to a presentation by Robert Hall: Monetary policy: The zero lower bound in our minds | The Economist. Mr Hall argued that: A little more inflation would have a hugely beneficial impact on labour markets, And […]