HEALTH CARE thoughts: The Taxpayer Advocate and others are unhappy National Taxpayer Advocate Nina Olson is reported to be unhappy about the major IRS role in the new health care regime. Olsen believes the IRS is already overworked (she used “overtaxed” in her annual report issued this month, a great pun) and needs more money […]
The Economist asks: Is America facing an increase in structural unemployment? and invited economists answer here.
UPDATE: Jason Linkins at one of the non-Breast-Enhanced sites of the Huffington Post did a burlesque of which I can only dream on the same piece. Via Chris Hayes’s Twitter feed (and he got it from David Sirota), the following is from “No more ‘me first’ mentality on entitlements“: While it does not happen often, […]
Data 101 US new home sales rebound in June in the Financial Times today and New Home Sales: Worst June on Record at Calculated Risk. Both headlines are “true”. Much of the same data sources and figures are used. The differences in information are not as stark as the headlines suggest after reading the articles. […]
by Mike Kimel Cross posted at the Presimetrics Blog. A Look at the Current Recession, A Signpost for the Start of Recessions & Some Thoughts on the Likelihood of a Double Dip These days there’s a lot of talk about whether the recession is going to double dip. And frankly, there’s a lotta yadda yadda, […]
Robert Waldmann Oh good, Kevin Drum and Matthew Yglesias disagree. This is bound to be interesting. Drum remembers the good old days when liberals had less respect for the standard results of simple neoclassical economic models. The specific issue is that firms are using credit scores to decide who to hire. This can trap some […]
The New York Times and The Guardian report on the posting of archival documents by Wikileaks. Reporting appears to be similar so far until they are read and sorted.
by Bruce Webb Over at Open Left they are revisiting the concept of Conservatism and whether it is a coherent philosophy. And after concluding that Conservatives by and large have failed to come up with their own definition proceeded to advance some of their own, that it is about enabling aristocracy, or institutionalizing suffering, or […]
Robert Waldmann For decades, I have been advising Democrats to focus attention on the progressivity of the tax system. This is an issue where the vast majority of US adults totally disagree with the Republicans and which people care about. My policy proposal and political strategy is to increase progressivity increasing taxes on the rich […]