Tag Archives: Taxes/regulation

(Dan here…Social Security is an issue that seems to generate a lot of firm beliefs and passion, as witness recent threads.  It is rare that people refer to actuary material.  On the other sides of the issue are people like Andrew Biggs, who is knowledgeable and smart in his arguments.  I am posting this as a reminder to readers that contributors do usually go the extra mile…in this case even recently, and since 2008 with Dale, Bruce Webb, and Arne...

Media Continues VSP Story On Social Security Here we go again.  We have arrived at the time for the release of the annual Social Security Administration (SSA) report.  It got the usual headlines across the media, that the SSA will “run out of money” in 2034. Most of the stories played it all scary, although noting that after the system will still pay 3/4 of what it was.  But, of course, Congress can act now to fix the system the stories say, leaving it...

by Dale Coberly SOCIAL SECURITY TRUSTEES REPORT OUT TODAYor was it yesterday? Ho Hum.  The 2019 Social Security Trustees Report was released yesterday. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget published its usual half truths (also known as “lies”):. “We are all going to die!” The Reporters and Columnists Who Cover Them ™ reported the half truths as the whole story:  “We are all going to die!” The “Progressives”  demanded the “rich pay their...

YoY Industrial production and structural changes to the US economy since 1980 No big economic releases today, so let me follow up further with a few long-term comments on industrial production. This series goes back 100 years to the beginning of 1919. Since that time it has turned negative YoY 25 times: Of those 25 times, 17 have been during recessions, sometimes having started shortly beforehand. On only 8 occasions have negative YoY readings not...

Industrial production continues to decelerate Industrial production is the King of Coincident Indicators. In dating the onset and end of recessions, in practice the NBER relies upon industrial production more than any other measure. March 2019 production continued a string of recent disappointments, with overall production declining -0.1%, and manufacturing production unchanged. For the first quarter of 2019 in total, overall production declined -0.3%,...

Is Stephen Moore a Gold Bug? A lot of the criticisms of putting the twin village idiots known as Herman Cain and Stephen Moore on the FED assert that they are gold bugs. Kate Riga watched CNN when Erin Burnett interviewed Stephen Moore on this allegation: Stephen Moore tries to flip-flop on the gold standard — but Erin Burnett is prepared and armed with a montage of his past statements Watch and enjoy! Now Moore did say he would prefer targeting an...

Economics, the Realm of Money and the Significance of GDP Growth, with an Application to Child Labor What’s economics?  There are two answers.  One is it’s the sphere of human activity encompassing the production and distribution of goods and services, which has sometimes been referred to as provisioning.  This is quite a lot but not everything.  It includes meditation classes but not meditation, making and selling binoculars but not bird-watching,...

Elizabeth Warren Wants to Collect More in Corporate Profits Taxes John Harwood reports: Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren proposes raising $1 trillion in government revenue from a new tax on profits of the largest corporations. The proposed surtax would prevent Amazon and other companies with profits exceeding $100 million from wiping out their tax liabilities altogether. Instead of taxable corporate income as defined by the IRS, the 7%...

Real wages got gassed in March The consumer price index rose +0.4% in March, mainly as a result of a big monthly increase in gas prices. That really shouldn’t have been a surprise, since almost every time gas prices have increased by as much as they did in March — up 9% for the month — consumer prices as a whole have gone up at least +0.4%. I’m showing just the last 10 years in the graph below: In fact, ex-gas, consumer inflation ex-energy has been...

In a low inflation world firms tend to raise prices once a year, typically in the first quarter of the calendar year or their fiscal year.   Because of this very strong seasonal pattern, on a not seasonally adjusted  around 50% of the annual increase in the core CPI —  excluding food and energy — occurs in the first quarter This very strong pattern gives great insight in to the annual inflation rate. One, is if this year’s first quarter is greater than...