Tag Archives: Taxes/regulation

(Dan here….better a little late than not…) by Kenneth Thomas   Amazon Wins!!! Well, what did you expect? With 238 entrants and 20 finalists, the Amazon HQ2 location tournament resulted in a resounding victory for Amazon: Billions of dollars in subsidies and binders full of detailed information on the contestants. Plus, we got a surprise twist at the end, when Amazon announced it would choose two “headquarters” instead of one. Of course, I never...

Janet Yellen “Not Tall Enough” So said Donald Trump on several occasions in connection with possibly appointing her as Fed Chair, according to an article in today’s Washington Post by Philip Rucker, John Dawsey, and Damian Paletta.  This article, along with several others, mostly covered the 20 minute interview these three had with Trump in the Oval Office.  Most of the news was wxs expected: on MbS still “maybe he did and maybe he didn’t” on his role in...

Via Naked Capitalism and Lambert Strether: And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity. –Corinthians 13:13 I posted this letter in Links, but I found I could expand on it. Spectrum Health Care’s letter to Hedda Martin speaks for itself, and for what our health care system has become under neoliberalism: View image on Twitter Dan Radzikowski@DanRadzikowski (The provenance: I started with AOC, who...

Why Free Public Higher Education Is Not a Sop to the Upper Middle Class Lots of bad op-ed stuff gets published in the New York Times and other mass circulation outlets, so I usually give it a pass, but today’s attack on free higher education by David Leonhardt is about my day job, so I have to make an exception.  He repeats the utterly bs line that, since most college students are from the upper half of the income spectrum, using public funds to pay...

A Washington State Carbon Tax Goes Down in Flames Initiative 1631, which would have created a carbon tax in Washington State, lost by almost 12% of the vote this week.  Commentators on all sides have interpreted this as a decisive defeat for carbon pricing, making more indirect policies like subsidies to renewables the only politically feasible option.* I don’t have time for a lengthy analysis, but in a few words I want to suggest that this conclusion...

(Dan here…better a bit late than ….) by Barkley Rosser Monday Before The Midterms And WaPo Is At It Again It is Robert J. Samuelson doing his usual schtick, albeit with some recognition of other issues, such as global warming and immigration.  But these are not what has his prime attention on the day before midterm elections in the US.  Moaning that “Everyone” will lose this election, his main focus is on the budget deficit, without a single mention of...

by Steve Roth (originally published at Evonomics) Economists Agree: Democratic Presidents are Better at Making Us Rich. Eight Reasons Why. In 2013, economists Alan Blinder and Mark Watson — no wild-eyed liberals, they — asked a very important question: Why has the U.S. economy performed better under Democratic than Republican presidents, “almost regardless of how one measures performance”? Start with their “performed better” assertion: it’s uncontestable....

October jobs report: probably the best report of the entire expansion HEADLINES: +250,000 jobs added U3 unemployment rate unchanged at 3.7% U6 underemployment rate declined -0.1% from 7.5% to 7.4% Here are the headlines on wages and the broader measures of underemployment: Wages and participation rates Not in Labor Force, but Want a Job Now:  rose +72,000 from 5.237 million to 5.309 million Part time for economic reasons: fell -21,000 from 4.642 million...

Some good news on workers’ wages There was some good news the other morning about workers wages. The quarterly employment cost index showed a q/q increase of +0.9% for wages (red in the graph below), and +0.8% for overall compensations (blue) (which includes things like medical benefits). Nominal YoY increases were +3.0% and 2.8%, respectively: Unlike “average hourly earnings” (green in the graph above), which are reported monthly as part of the jobs...

by New Deal democrat Housing has peaked* *(unless the Fed lowers interest rates)My comprehensive look at September housing data is up at Seeking Alpha. The downtrend in housing statistics has been sustained and severe enough for me to make the call that housing has peaked, by most measures, between last November and this past March. This does not mean that I am calling for a recession at this time. But it does mean that this long leading indicator is...