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

Tax Receipts

Robert Waldmann The entire blogsphere seems to be fascinated by the idea that maybe the IRS could mail tax payers a receipt showing where their taxes go. Oddly the IRS just decided to stop mailing something — 1040 booklets. Which, you guessed it, explain where your tax money goes. This has been mailed to every […]

Personal Income Growth

Despite the point that the first data reported in the monthly personal income report is nominal personal income, it does not get much attention in the press and by bloggers. Weare starting to see a rebound in nominal personal income growth even though it is still quite low by historic norms. The current smoothed growth […]

McD and medical plans

by Dan Crawford There has been a little ruckus from the WSJ reporting on McDonald’s health insurance plans and applications for waivers from the 80% medical loss ratio requirement. Try to use that for a headline. The medical loss ratio at 80% was one measure for evaluating whether enough % dollars of premium was actually […]

Arctic temperatures and sea ice…

NSCID pictures: These images, derived from passive microwave satellite data, depict the most recent daily sea ice conditions. Along with current and median total extent, the daily extent graph also includes the extent during 2007, the year of the record low minimum extent (dashed green line). Note that during the transition across the calendar year, […]

Stimulus work project

I-15 CORE project as reported by ksl.com notes lots of jobs and local spending. By Becky Bruce UTAH COUNTY — The recession may not feel like it’s really over yet, but the Utah Department of Transportation’s I-15 CORE project is helping to the tune of more than a thousand jobs. The I-15 CORE project has […]