Tag Archives: politics

Each year in retirement, we take a certain amount of funds from our IRAs and it becomes income. This is a bit different than when we were paying regular income taxes on our yearly income minus investments. I was curious about this as the big story today is rich people slugging away thousands and maybe millions into investments. The investments grow and are not taxable until withdrawal (unless there is another way to avoid taxes). These are smarter...

by Megan Messerly One more ACA rule was finalized by Biden today. Not something huge in numbers; but something which will impact a few thousand people. People who were allowed to stay in the US or under a program called.  Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals or DACA. A coalition of states, Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Nebraska, South Carolina, West Virginia, Kansas and Mississippi argue the rule oversteps the “scope of executive power.” 5th...

Some thoughts on recent developments . . . Elite persuasion and its limits News reports suggest that President Biden got Speaker Mike Johnson to put a Ukraine aid bill on the floor of the House through good, old-fashioned persuasion:  Biden and his team convinced Johnson it was the right thing to do by sharing intelligence with him.  Biden didn’t berate Johnson in public.  I suspect he flattered Johnson in private. Knowing how to deal with...

Ever since Reagan and Thatcher first tried them, trickle-down policies have exploded budget deficits and widened inequality. At best, they’ve temporarily increased consumer demand (the opposite of what’s needed during high inflation that Britain and much of the world are experiencing). Reagan’s tax cuts and deregulation at the start of the 1980s were not responsible for America’s rapid growth through the late 1980s. His exorbitant spending...

by Dean Baker Commerce Department reported that GDP grew at a 1.6 percent annual rate in the first quarter, some-what lower than had generally been predicted. However, the headline number was held down by slow inventory accumulation, which subtracted 0.35 percentage points from growth, and a big rise in the trade deficit, which lowered growth by 0.86 percentage points. Pulling out these factors, final sales to domestic producers grew at a...

Doug Smith Los Angeles Times Monthly payments for housing could get thousands of homeless people off the streets. It sounds like a voucher idea where the funds could only be used only for housing, apartments and heat and electricity. Or paid directly. A stipulated basic income to house thousands of homeless people in various situations (apartments, boarding, with family or friends, etc.) as advocated by researchers. The idea or potential...

I first caught up with this article on MedPage Today, “Doc Blows Whistle on Cigna.” I also read the ProPublic report. Both are reporting on denial of claims before and after treatment and the productivity of claims reviewers. Additionally, the report discusses the use of labor (nurses, etc.) outside of the US to evaluate claims and their errors. All of these attempts are examples of what is going on to cuts costs by reducing the time to decide on...

by Steve Roth Wealth Economics This picture from the Center for American Progress, and variations, have been making the rounds on the interwebs lately, eg here, here, and here. The headline is that younger households got 49% richer during/since Covid, in inflation-adjusted “real” terms. But some drill-down is in order here. What actually happened? Start with background. There are about 38 million households with under-40 heads of...

Law professor Eric Segall is a leading critic of the Supreme Court.  In a blog post today, he doesn’t pull any punches: The disaster that was the Trump v. United States oral argument reminded me of how little the Roberts Court has actually cared about rule of law values and legal transparency during its 18-year run. Leaving aside the overturning or narrowing of numerous landmark cases from abortion to affirmative action to the free exercise of...

Dahlia Lithwick and Joseph Stern as taken from Slate Good read as one can see how the SCOTUS 5 or 6 are twisting the logic of Constitution first and portraying the president into something more reasonable. Military swears first to the Constitution. This is a very strange read for myself. Others may not find it so strange and such is open to discussion. ~~~~~~~~ Mollified themselves with vague promises of when the rubber hit the road,...