Tag Archives: politics

Caroline Pearson at Avalere has a piece on how the House of Representatives AHAC healthcare program penalizes older and lower income people more so than higher incomes and younger people. Just to refresh your memory, the ACA penalizes people who do not have insurance based upon income. The penalties under the AHAC are based upon premiums and the penalties under the ACA are based upon income. Older people under the AHAC have higher premiums up to 5:1 rather...

by Barkley Rosser  (originally from Econospeak) Should The Complacent Class Be Called The Fearful Class? Tyler Cowen has published his most successful book yet, The Complacent Class, now on the Washington Post nonfiction bestseller list and getting reviewed by everybody from The Economist to the New York Times and on.  It is the Book de Jour that all are commenting on one way or another.  Is America declining because so many of its people have become...

Who can tell us how he feels knowing that no one likes his health care reform ?The Who can tell us how he feels knowing that no one likes his health care reform ! This is some cause for optimism, as we can note The Who’s further forecast that, by the last verse, he will recognize the importance of access to emergency medical care and the moral imperative to share with those in need. No one knows what it’s like To be the bad man To be the sad man Behind blue...

On March 7, 1965, a march by civil rights demonstrators was broken up in Selma, Ala., by state troopers and a sheriff’s posse.

From Diane Ravitch’s blog: While we’re consumed 24/7 with the Trump/Russia psychodrama, Republicans are quietly, under the cover of darkness and diversion, introducing these new bills in the House: HR 610 Vouchers for Public Education — (The bill also repeals basic nutrition standards for the national school lunch and breakfast programs) HR 899 Terminate the Department of Education HR 785 National Right to Work (aimed at ending unions, including teacher...

by New Deal democrat Larry Summers: genius economist, failure at Psychology 101 One of my recurring themes is how macroeconomic theory, no matter how elegant mathematically, consistently errs because it fails to take into account basic psychology — i.e., how the human animal actually works. A big component of this failure is that humans, like other primates and apparently like just about every other social species, are hard-wired to inflict punishment on...

A suggestion from Michael Halasy: The Randian Congressman Paul Ryan has turned off ALL of his public telephones & fax machines in response to protests in favor of the Affordable Care Act, Planned Parenthood, Medicare, etc. He is also NOT accepting signed petitions and is TURNING-AWAY voters who deliver the petitions. So, let’s see what 67 million postcards looks like in his driveway. Please start mailing postcards to his HOME: Congressman Paul Ryan 700...

by Barkley Rosser  (originally published at Econospeak) Saint Janet Yellen: The Best Fed Chair Ever? OK, so the immediate reaction of many to this title might be to laugh, but I challenge anybody reading this to name another Fed Chair who was clearly better than she is.  I do not think you can.  However, one reason why one may not think much about her is that things have been so inconsequential since she has been Chair.  Nothing much has happened.  She...

A little Ella Fitzgerald for you today. Kind of fits with what is going on in the US today. [embedded content] Over at Vox, Matt Yglesias has an interesting article on the Trump Transition Team ordering government economists to cook up rosy economic forecasts. With his far reaching economic “it will be great” promises during the election, delusional Trump has laid out a “blue skies” future which is likely unobtainable with the past economic growth of less...

by Sandwichman Recall and the General Strike The tradition of the oppressed teaches us that the “emergency situation” in which we live is the rule. — Walter Benjamin, On the Concept of History, 1940 Back in December, I posted Full Employment and the Myth of the General Strike to start the conversational ball rolling about the idea of a general strike. It was the middle post in a three-part series on full employment. Events move fast in 2017. In the past two...