Lifted from an e-mail from Dale Coberly regarding Social Security and the dangers of increasing ‘costs’ of helping our old folk live a bit above a level of destitution: …that while SS will eventually cost 6% of GDP, this is not a lot of money for the basic needs of 25% of the population. Moreover, […]

by Linda Bealecrossposted with Ataxingmatter Dealing with the Sunset of the Bush Tax Cuts (Part III in a series)–considering the ill-advisedness of favoring capital income During the Bush administration a number of significant reductions in revenue were enacted, especially in the 2001 and 2003 tax bills, but with a sunsetting provision that (extended in some […]

by Tom aka Rusty Rustbelt HEALTH CARE: Resident Rights versus Caregiver Rights In 1987 the federal government passed a comprehensive “bill of rights” for nursing home patients. Most states followed. The law gives nursing home residents wide protection, including (when mentally able) the ability to refuse care, meals and just about anything else they please. […]

Earlier this week I compared household saving rates across the US, UK, Canada, and Germany. My conclusion was pretty simple: So generally, this simple analysis would suggest that Menzie Chinn’s skepticism of a “status quo” of US consumer imports is worthy. But with the status quo firmly in place in Germany, the household saving data […]

Yves Smith, excerpted from her post Boston Fed’s New Excuse for Missing the Housing Bubble: NoneOfUscouddanode. This part caught my eye in addition to the critique: The problem is that mainstream economics sees prices as a virtuous. Everything can be solved by price. If there is some unbalance in the economy, it merely means prices […]

by Linda Bealecrossposted with Ataxingmatter Dealing with the Sunset of the Bush Tax Cuts (Part II in a series) The Congressional Budget Office has published a report with its views on the economic impact of enacting legislation to extent some of the Bush tax cuts. The full report and summary are available here. The report […]

Prof. Barkley Rosser at Econospeak, lifted from comments here: We really should pause for a minute or so to appreciate the 75 years of this program, which has been an unqualified success, providing social security for millions of people extremely efficiently and without a single scandal that I am aware of in its entire history. […]

by Mike Kimel Cross-posted at the Presimetrics blog.Progress Report Getting a book out when you’re a complete unknown is tough. Presimetrics shipped a couple of weeks ago, and we’re doing what we can to get the word out but its slow going. We had a lucky break a few weeks ago when Parade Magazine featured […]

by Tom aka Rusty Rustbelt Health Care: Big Business Reacts to Reform The National Business Group on Health ** has issued the results of a poll on the reaction of larger employers to PPACA (Obamacare or the Act). A few highlights: The group expects employer health care costs to increase by 9% in 2011. Employers […]

Hat tip to MV=PQ (Tim Schilling) for this cartoon: Options, Choice and Exchange This strip would seem to indicate that too many options can create problems when making choices.