This week’s Econoblog from the WSJ is about income inequality. Heather Boushey is alarmed by the rise in inequality over the past couple of decades: Over the past 30 years, we have seen inequality rise along all three dimensions — wages, incomes and wealth — and it shows no signs of slowing. As a result, […]
Let me just add my two cents to what PGL just wrote about whether Reagan was really a small-government conservative, and to what degree Bush has betrayed that legacy. To start with, let me repost a picture that I like from an old post entitled “Spending Growth in Context“: Firstly, I would agree that Reagan […]
Duncan Black’s post entitled Sully is a reaction to an article by Dana Milbank on a conference where Bruce Bartlett and Andrew Sullivan were doing some Bush bushing (also see Kash’s post). Sully and Bruce long for the days when President Reagan allegedly brought us a smaller government. Duncan writes: I know the myth of […]
As you may know, Bruce Bartlett has a new book out about the Bush presidency entitled “Impostor: How George W. Bush Bankrupted America and Betrayed the Reagan Legacy” which is making quite a stir. If you don’t know who Bruce Bartlett is, let me excerpt this passage from The Economist‘s book review (which rather absurdly […]
Mallory Factor condones political pandering over leadership: Americans do not want higher taxes … Most Democrats in Congress are ignoring the two-thirds of their constituents who want tax rates to stay where they are, voting consistently to raise taxes and using the procedural mechanism of the filibuster to keep automatic rate hikes looming over American […]
All I could say when I read Kevin Drum today on single-payer health care was “YES”: [F]or tactical political reasons, [prominent Democratic politicians] think it’s more effective to talk about incremental solutions. I disagree. …The alternative, I think, is to continue supporting improvements to the current system but to make it absolutely clear that our […]
Brad Setser objects to the following from Sebastian Mallaby: There’s a powerful reason for China’s recalcitrance. The country’s technocrats were convinced years ago that revaluation made economic sense. But revaluation would cut the price of food imports, depressing earnings of Chinese farmers. Faced with simmering discontent among rural Chinese who have been left behind by […]
The “M3” measure of money is almost gone. At least, it’s probably almost gone. Its last publication is due to happen on March 23, which means that M3-related reporting requirements for financial firms end this week. However, there remains an outside chance that Congressional interference could yet scuttle the Fed’s plan to terminate the M3 […]
George Will has decided the former Senator John Edwards has an old paradigm of what causes poverty in America: Edwards has a 1930s paradigm of poverty: Poor people are like everyone else; they just lack goods and services (housing, transportation, training, etc.) that government knows how to deliver. Hence he calls for a higher minimum […]
I wanted to follow-up on a couple of aspects as to my post noting Dick Cheney hoping people would save more. First of all – one of our readers is now saying Bush and his allies never said that the Administration wanted to give people their money back so they could consume more. Yes – […]