On January 10 Moody’s, in concert with the other main bond rating firm, Standard and Poor’s, gave the United States its top AAA credit rating. The terrorist blackmail threat came in the form of a demand by Moody’s that the U.S. government “reform” Social Security and Medicare: “In the very long term, the rating could […]
“Taxation is in fact the most difficult function of government – and that against which their citizens are most apt to be refractory” Thomas Jefferson First, I apologize for taking so long to get back to this. But….I needed to work on some leads/songs (it’s not really work), get a new singer up to speed […]
Shadowstats has announced this tidbit. The Department of Commerce (DOC) has decided to discontinue its economic indicators service Economic indicators due to ‘budgetary constraints’. Shadow Government Statistics is pleased to announce that it will provide — at no charge tothe public — a continuation of the basic link service heretofore provided by the DOC’s Economics […]
38% of American families living below a more accurately drawn poverty line? 50 percentile (technically, mean third-quintile) family income for 2005 was $56,277. A plausible poverty line for a family of three (on the “minimum needs” table on p.44 of the 2001 book Raise the Floor) is $33,345 in 2008 dollars — if health care […]
Trade and inventories are treated differently in the GDP accounts. All other GDP data is the average of the three months data. But trade and inventories are the change from the end of the quarter to the end of the quarter. This is because we not not directly measure output. Rather, we measure consumption and […]
The New England Journal of Medicine has published an article on their analysis of prevention programs versus treatments. Indeed, some evidence does suggest that there are opportunities to save money and improve health through prevention. Preventable causes of death, such as tobacco smoking, poor diet and physical inactivity, and misuse of alcohol have been estimated […]
The Iraq project This article has some notions about the Iraq project that is thought provoking. The author must have been talking to buffpilot. In summary, the author stresses several main ideas. 1. The success of the surge, such as it is, relies totally on Mehdi’s cease fire in relation to toning down the Badre […]
OMB Watch comments on a part of the new 2009 budget. In my opinion, any cuts in research in this area is cause for alarm. If anything, someone has to take the lead. We are just beginning to be able to measure impacts as sophistication in genetic reseach increases. And current toxic levels and measurements […]
This is a chart of your data on personal taxes as a share of personal income. See what I mean by how stable it has been until recent years.
Pfffft (hat tip to dxc for the expression) for the template for now until issues are resolved. The fixed px settings made the site appear and behave differently depending on the browser and the resolution of the screen. I was also unable to get haloscan to function in that template. We have signed up as […]