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

The money quandary

The Federal Reserve, the Bank of England, and the Bank of Japan are considering further quantitative easing. It’s an explicit statement, as with the Federal Reserve and the Bank of England, or implied by the fact that the foreign exchange intervention will eventually be sterilized if the policy rule is not changed, as with the […]

Beale/ NYT room for debate…Extending the tax cuts for the wealthy

by Linda Bealecrossposted with Ataxingmatter Extending the tax cuts for the wealthy–the discussion continues The New York Times asked me for my views of Robert Samuelson’s recent argument in the Washington Post that extending the tax cuts for the wealthy made sense because they would otherwise cut back their spending, tax cuts for them will […]

Ratings agencies nailed.

Robert Waldmann D. Keith Johnson, a former president of Clayton Holdings, a company that analyzed mortgage pools for the Wall Street firms that sold them, told the [financial crisis inquiry] commission on Thursday that almost half the mortgages Clayton sampled from the beginning of 2006 through June 2007 failed to meet crucial quality benchmarks that […]

Let’s be real folks..marginal tax cuts don’t motivate

From the LA Times op-ed page comes this piece by an entrepreneur: I’m a venture capitalist and an entrepreneur. Over the past three decades, I’ve made both good and bad investments. I’ve created successful companies and ones that didn’t do so well. Overall, I’m proud that my investments have created jobs and led to some […]

Extend the Obama Tax Cuts

Robert Waldmann Majority Whip James E Clyburn proposed extending the Obama tax cuts. Some assert that he means the Bush tax cuts on income under $250,000. I sure hope he means that Obama tax cuts. I have been arguing for some time that the Democrats should propose permenent extension of the Bush cuts on income […]

CGI, Day 4 – Clean Technology and Smart Energy: Deploying the Green Economy

Moderator is John Holdren, Science and Technology Advisor to President Barack Obama and Director, White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. Participants are: Nadia K. Al Dossary, Chief Executive Officer and Partner, Al Sale Eastern Co. Ltd Gary Hattem, President, Deutsche Bank Americas Foundation, Deutsche Bank Tri Mumpuni, Executive Director, IBEKA Conrad van Oostrom, […]