By Noni Mausa Wiggle Room In a claustrophobic economy where the lions share of the fruit of citizens’ efforts is funneled to a small number of beneficiaries, where institutions intended to intervene on their behalf have been rejigged to work backwards, what can the little guy do to gain some wiggle room? The poorest Americans […]
The NYT reports today of further developments in the Middle East. Jordan’s Royal Palace says the king has sacked his government in the wake of street protests and has asked an ex-army general to form a new Cabinet. King Abdullah’s move comes after thousands of Jordanians took to the streets — inspired by the regime […]
Tom Walker(aka Sandwichman at Ecological Headstand) Modeling Sunshine and Shadows: Inequality, long hours and crisis Alex Harrowell at A Fistful of Euros sees sunshine beaming from the IMF in a working paper by Michael Kumhof and Romain Rancière that identifies income inequality as a potential source of financial crisis. No shit, Sherlock! Outside of the […]
Hat tip Economist’s View for Lane Kenworthy’s post on growing the GDP and distribution of the benefits. It is also related to concpts determining trade policies: None of these countries significantly increased the share of GDP going to government transfers. What happened is that some nations did more than others to pass the fruits of […]
by Bruce Webb As I browsed through the news today it kind of struck me, not like a lightning bolt but more as an accumulation of blows, that capital was going for the final victory over labor. It was not just the realization that the corporatists and their enablers in both parties were willing to […]
No, not that anyone should pay her $15,000-$30,000 to talk to teenagers about why they should be abstinent. (Short version: “As with my mother, I wasn’t, and look what I’m doing now. Uh, well…”) But, via Andrew Samwick, a study from the Pew Foundation (PDF) using PSID data finds that: Among children who start in […]
by Bruce Webb I posted the below last Christmas Eve. Which was too late to actually discuss the issue. People decry the commercialization of Christmas, which is fair enough. And on econoblogs we discuss income inequality a lot, plus we wonder why working class people simply accept the logic of “no poor person ever gave […]
Robert Waldmann Steve Benen made a graph out of a table from a column by Bruce Bartlett. Bruce Bartlett is an interesting figure — a heterodox conservative who praises Reagan and criticizes Bush Jr. The figure sure fits Bartlett’s line. It shows the effective tax rate on families with median income. Sad to say, Steve […]
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By divorced one like Bush Via C & L via CR comes the NYT asking when will the recession be over. They have 11different responses. Roubini is there suggesting we could see an L curve. We now face a 1 in 3 chance that, if appropriate policies are not put in place, this ugly U-shaped […]