This is a 16 minute * lecture by Richard Wilkinson. It is posted at TED. I am posting it here, as I can not believe this information has not received more attention now that the US is awakening from the decades long delusion of prosperity which did not and as shown in the lecture could […]
Think Progress points us to …the Credit Union National Association (CUNA) reports that a whopping 650,000 Americans have joined credit unions since Sept. 29 — the date that Bank of America announced it would start charging a $5 monthly debit fee, a move it backed down on this week. To put that in perspective, there […]
Italy is more fubar than you imagine possible even taking into account the fact that it is more fubar than you imagine possible. That said, I insist the we are solvent (I am really really and that Italian long term treasuries (BTPs) are a great buy right now. Please. We need the money. But I […]
by Linda Beale the right’s smoke & mirrors scams about corporate tax “reform” One could get a pretty gloomy picture of the state of Social Security, and the need to “reduce entitlements” while at the same time hearing about the (faked) urgency of cutting corporate taxes in order to give our US multinationals an edge […]
The employment report showed little evidence that the trends of the past year have changed.Over the past three months private payroll employment grew some 72,000, 191,000 and 104,000while government employment fell 132,000, 33,000 and 24,000. The one encouraging signs was the third strong month of employment growth reported in the household survey. Over the last […]
By Rebecca Wilder Worries About Italy: Growth and Politics< Current bond market pricing implies a 6.17% yield on a 10-yr Italian government bond, or 430 basis points (%/100) over a like German government bond. I’d call this distressed levels for Italian debt, especially for an economy that is very likely contracting as we speak. Today […]
by Mike Kimel The Kimel Curve and the Kitchen Sink, Part 2: The Reagan Era to the Present I often post about the relationship between the top marginal tax rate and economic growth, which I’ve noted can be described this way: % change in real GDP from t to t+1 = a + b*Top Marginal […]
Michael Pettis reminds us part of the political conversation is pretty much missing from the election cycles of the last fifteen years except in the rather lightly noted passage of ‘trade treaties’. (Another post is needed for the most recent three examples…). Last week’s Senate bill on Chinese currency intervention predictably enough brought out all […]
Angry Bear archives reminds us of the longstanding strategies embedded in the current political debate, and trial balloons of possible current Super Committee proposals November 22, 2011. The Social Security surplus as a significant amount of money is recent, in the last fifteen years or so: Tuesday, March 02, 2004 Three-Card Monte Following up on […]