Andrew Samwick posts “one of the most depressing graphs [he has] ever seen.” Recall the simplest formula Tom used: Savings = Personal Income – Personal Taxes – Personal Consumption Expenditures [PCE]

“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 […]

“Servers, labourers, and workmen of different kinds make up the far greater part of every great political society. But what improves the circumstances of the greater part can never be regarded as an inconveniency to the whole. No society can be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of the members are poor […]

My hunt for Obama’s econ advisor lead me to a paper that incorporates a review of a book: Does Atlas Shrug? The Economic Consequences of Taxing the Rich. It caught my attention because the paper is written by a tax lawyer.: Reuven S. Avi-Yonah, the Irwin I. Cohn Professor of Law and director of the […]

As noted in my last post, I have been playing with income data. I believe that for us to be able to properly understand just where we have been and where we are going, we need to look further back than say the 50’s through Reagan’s time. That is, if the data is around. I […]

I’ve been doing some numbers concerning personal income. Breaking out share of income, savings, GDP, etc based on BEA data and Saez’s data. I’m playing with it, have converted it to year 2000 dollars and will be looking at per capita relations too. Even thinking of converting it all to 1929 dollars. I plan a […]

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 […]

Get this. The problem is that globalization is being threatened, all that good could be lost. The solution; Social Security. In the July/August issue of Foreign Affairs (published by the Council of Foreign Relations) is an article: A New Deal for Globalization by Kenneth F. Scheve is Professor of Political Science at Yale University. Matthew […]