Via Mark Thoma comes this thinking on the nature of our economic system and by John Kay at the Financial Times in Business Leaders of Today are Not Capitalists. John Kay says that the term “capitalism” is misleading in modern economies: ..So the business leaders of today are not capitalists in the sense in which […]
by Linda Beale Italy now backs a financial transactions tax Germany and France are already on board in support of a financial transactions tax, and one outcome of the meeting of Italy’s new leadership with Chancelor Merkel is that Italy is on board. See AP, Italy Backs Financial Transactions Tax, New York Times, Jan 11, […]
Imagine that over the next week (in a closed American economy — the rest of the world has never existed) everyone sold all their financial assets, paid off all their debts, and deposited the remaining money (and any currency they have) in their checking accounts. No money-market funds, even. Just banks with reserve accounts at […]
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 […]