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Category Archives: Economics

Yet another mystery

Saturday, December 1, 2012

Robert Waldman, of the excellent Angry Bear blog, which concentrates on economic issues, notes something that is well known, yet little noted nor long remembered, inasmuch as the folks who dominate the chatter in this country have very short memory spans for some things: Many have noted that under success hating kenyan islamosocialist Barack Obama […]

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Joshua Green succumbs to beltway dogma

Sunday, September 30, 2012

I have usually enjoyed reading articles by New London’s own Joshua Green, but his column in this morning’s Globe made me wonder if he’s drunk that old inside the beltway Kool-Aid. I’m not taking issue with his main thesis that neither presidential campaign is being terribly specific about their prescriptions to cure the nation’s ills. Rather, […]

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Am I missing something here?

Friday, September 28, 2012

The rich have justified their lower rates on capital gains for years using some variant of the argument Willard trotted out on 60 minutes: Answering a direct question on “60 Minutes” last Sunday, Mitt Romney said it was fair for him to pay a lower tax on $20 million in capital gains than a worker […]

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Something sane happens

Saturday, September 15, 2012

Amazon is going to have to start paying sales taxes to the State of California. Apparently, at least for the moment, other states need not apply, though Amazon’s aspirations to achieve same day delivery (which implies distribution centers almost everywhere. ) seem to bode ill for any continued legal basis to justify Amazon’s exemption from […]

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It’s good to be a bank

Thursday, August 23, 2012

For mysterious reasons, the media insists on spreading the government meme (apparently, since both parties were complicit, neither bothers to dispute it) that the government made money on TARP. Today’s Times for example: Sure, the bank portion of TARP has been profitable so far. The Treasury Department estimates that it will make almost $22 billion […]

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A close legal question-only in 21st century America

Sunday, July 29, 2012

I read Dean Baker’s blog religiously. One can argue that he is repetitive, but I think he rightly feels that he must keep repeating himself, since what he has to say, usually so obviously true when you read it, never seems to sink in. It’s not just him, of course. It’s the same for Krugman […]

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Hey Paul, over here!

Wednesday, July 25, 2012

Paul Krugman, perceptive as always: Just a quick note: one thing I don’t think has been sufficiently emphasized as we stare a euro disaster in the face is the amount of damage this will do to the overall European political landscape. Across most of the periphery, both sides of the usual political divide have been […]

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And furthermore…

Sunday, July 8, 2012

Paul Krugman points out, with the aid of this handy spreadsheet: that: Tax rates for the super-elite, the top .01%, have fallen in half since Mitt Romney’s father ran for president; or to put it differently, after tax income for this group has doubled due to policy alone. And bear in mind that the US […]

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How to solve the “debt crisis”

Sunday, June 17, 2012

  This morning, Dean Baker responds to yet another know-nothing right wing rant about the deficit, by suggesting we can solve the deficit problem by hiring unemployed college grads to write equally ignorant pieces about the deficit. But this piece suggests an easy route for dealing with the deficit. Clearly there is a big market […]

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Bad Moon Rising

Thursday, June 14, 2012

  I’ve argued a couple of times (e.g, here) that European austerity may pave the way for a return of authoritarian regimes. Krugman makes the same point here.  

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