One of my issues with our economy and the shift in share of income has been the tax code. I have consistently stated that something other than the tax rate changed in the code back in 1981 or so when the first change took place. Labor went from being an asset to a liability and […]

The Treasury recently came out with a study of income mobility in the US that is receiving a lot of play in the Wall Street Journal and in several blogs. Income mobility studies are very difficult to do properly and often are very misleading because they incompletely adjust for different factors. The biggest factor driving […]

Brain chemistry analysis is being born as I write. Scientists have understood something of the chemical imbalances underlying mental health problems, but making meaningful chemical measurements in the brain has not always been easy because of the small size of synapses and the inaccessibility of the brain.Recent breakthroughs are now advancing knowledge. In 2006, University […]

Following THIS POST using census data, Tim Worstall suggested the data include more than income. He cited the Tax Foundation study as an example of a study that attempted to address what the authors saw as a more accurate picture when describing “living in poverty” (by including transfer payments and benefits of spending in ‘standard […]

The Albuquerque Tribune editorializes: In oil drilling, the question is always who suffers and who benefits – not in the abstract but in the details of daily lives. Sure, the American economy needs more American oil. But mining and property laws are often ruinous to ranchers, farmers and homeowners who are beset by drillers, their […]

Kidney dialysis is a terribly expensive way to survive that is offered to those whose kidneys have failed, in these cases, most patients end up in need of hemodialysis services. Here is what’s happening: two companies-DaVita and Fresenius-provide most of the kidney dialysis services in the U.S. They want Congress to force kidney patients to […]

I am member of AAII (American Association of Individual Investors). They send out their Investor survey results every week. This weeks:Bullish 25.58% Long term avg. 39.3%Neutral 21.71% Long term avg. 31.9%Bearish 52.71% Long term avg. 28.8% We have all read exuberant stories about how wonderful Black Friday was. The WSJ is doing it’s part to […]

John Robb offers a viewpoint on progress in Iraq and lessons to be learned. When the Askariya shrine was bombed in February 2006, it fractured Iraqi social systems along religious lines. In the fighting that followed, Sunni guerrilla groups underwent a transformation from small and loosely connected to large and bureaucratic. This change was driven […]

Elizabeth De la Vega weighs in as a former prosecutor on the torture issue arguments for real life law as practiced by the DOJ. It is worth thinking about. Current opinions on the justification for waterboarding are secret, and legal arguments in its favor less than convincing. The DOJ trial attorneys handling the real-life prosecution […]

Several economists have prepared a report through American Progress about costs of poverty (not cost of programs to address the issue). Most arguments for reducing poverty in the U.S., especially among children, rest on a moral casefor doing so—one that emphasizes the unfairness of child poverty, and how it runs counter to ournational creed of […]