Relevant and even prescient commentary on news, politics and the economy.

Fiduciary duty demands for the investing public

From a news alert: The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) will hear directly this week from U.S. investors about what they want in terms of regulation of financial professionals providing investment advice and the extent to which they are confused as to who is held to a fiduciary duty. …The organizations holding the news […]

CRUSHING TAX BURDEN (tm

by Dale Coberly CRUSHING TAX BURDEN ™ I have been putting some information together for an article about the cost of paying the money borrowed from the Social Security Trust Fund, and I found a chart among my papers breaking down the effective tax rate among the different income levels. Unfortunately I don’t know where […]

Republicans Attempt Political Suicide Part N

Robert Waldmann It appears that far right candidate Christine O’Donnell just beat sure thing in the general election hopefulless Mike Castle in the Delaware Republican senatorial primary ! It is widely believed that this is worth almost a full expected seat for the Democrats. It means a possible narrative post election day might be that […]

Nominal Comparisons

Attention Nominal Comparisons of Obama National Debt Figures: Get Real The conservative blogosphere (with the help of Drudge) is busy citing a story put out by CNSNews’ Terence Jeffrey, whose headline reads: “Obama Added More to National Debt in First 19 Months Than All Presidents from Washington Through Reagan Combined, Says Gov’t Data.” Unfortunately, this […]

Estate tax and extension of Bush cuts generally

by Linda Bealecrossposted with Ataxingmatter Estate tax and extension of Bush cuts generally According to an interview with Treasury’s Michael Mundaca reported in the Wall St. J. today (Sept. 13, 2010), Congress and the Obama administration are discussing a possible bill to allow estates that pass in 2010 to have the 2009 or the 2010 […]

Genetic Information, Health Insurance, and "Socialized Medicine

by Maxine Udallre-posted Maxine Udall Girl Economist with authors permission Genetic Information, Health Insurance, and “Socialized Medicine” Brad Delong provides an excellent blog about U Cal’s genetic testing of students and the likely ways in which genetic information would be used by private health insurers, not to manage risk better, but to sort on it […]

Corporate Tax Rates and Unemployment

by Mike Kimel Corporate Tax Rates and UnemploymentCross posted at the Presimetrics blog. Update: Reader JzB has noted that a large drop in the top marginal rate that appears in graph two may not have occurred. At this point I think I made a transcription error in pulling the data. I will check the numbers […]

Private-sector leverage says that it’s not Bill Clinton

What’s your answer? “Thinking about the past few decades… to the best of your knowledge, which ONE of the following U.S. Presidents do you think did the best job of managing the economy?” Bill Clinton Ronald Reagan Barack Obama Lyndon B. Johnson George W. Bush Richard Nixon That’s question #11 of the the Allstate-National Journal […]