Tag Archives: Taxes/regulation

Foxconn is flailing in Wisconsin (Insert your joke here.)  In what may end up as the biggest economic development failure in U.S. history, Foxconn announced Wednesday that its $10 billion Wisconsin factory will not be a factory. Instead, the company says, it will still create 13,000 jobs, but these will be research jobs rather than manufacturing ones. I’ll believe it when I see it. Accompanied by an almost $4.8 billion subsidy package as estimated...

(Dan here…lifted from Robert’s Stochastic Thoughts) Reagan’s Tax Cuts and the Volcker Recession  Max Boot is a candidate member of the Rubin Gerson can’t be a conservative anymore, because I always agree with them club of Washington Post columnists. But he is a bit confused about US macroeconmic history and macroeconomics. He wrote”The deficit spending of the Reagan years was at least justified because it boosted the economy out of a deep recession “ As...

The Two Percent Solution: Warren and the Stochastic Jubilee Wait long enough, and great ideas come back around, although not necessarily wearing the same garb.  Elizabeth Warren has just come out for a 2% wealth tax (above $50 million).*  But this is simply an annualized version of my lump sum stochastic jubilee.  What’s the advantage of redistributing the whole thing every 50 years (on average) vs a steady trickle?  A periodic reset would interrupt long...

(Dan here…lifted from Robert’s Stochastic Thoughts) “If Only Obama had Done the Things Obama Actually Did” J-chait Jon Chait remains as enthusiastic about Barack Obama as I am, so it isn’t surprising that he wrote a blog post entitled “If Only Obama had Done the Things Obama Actually Did”. But the title does raise a question. Is Chait dumping on the very serious centrists (cough David Brooks couch) who argued that Obama should reach out to Republicans...

(Dan here…lifted from Robert’s Stochastic Thoughts) Rare Yglesias Google Fail (Most boring title after “Worthwhile Canadian Initiative” but I couldn’t resist) Web savvy ultra wonk Matthew Yglesias wrote “There’s no polling on specific brackets or exactly who counts as rich that I can find,” Matty just google [income to be rich poll]. Jeez. Americans have varying ideas of how much money you need to earn each year to be considered “rich,” but most people...

Notes on the government shutdown I have a post on the housing market pending at Seeking Alpha. If and when it goes up there, I will link to it here. In the meantime, here are a few important notes on the shutdown. I can’t find the quote now, but about a week ago it was floated that Trump could “save face” by declaring an emergency, starting to build the wall, and then allow the government to open. Then Trump indicated that if he declared a state of...

Flying blind The government shutdown is affecting some important economic indicators. All of the series published by the Census Bureau, including retail sales, manufacturers’ and wholesalers’ data, personal income and spending, new home sales and housing permits and starts, are not being published.  It appears that GDP is not going to be published by the BEA either. In the past I have created work-arounds for a few economic series, in particular new...

The Key to Gentrification In the world of urban politics, there is probably no more potent populist rallying cry than the demand to halt gentrification.  Activists have fought it on multiple fronts: zoning, development subsidies, permitting, rent control—every lever housing policies afford.  But what if they’re mistaking cause for effect, hacking away at the visible manifestations of the problem while leaving the problem itself intact? Pivot to...

Value of the Chrysler Building and California Property Taxes The big news in New York City is that the Chrysler Building is for sale: New York City’s iconic Chrysler Building has appeared in dozens of movies and remained an Art Deco jewel of the Manhattan skyline for decades. Now, the 89-year-old skyscraper can be yours. Located on 42nd Street just east of Grand Central Terminal, sale price estimates for the famed Chrysler Building vary, but its...

Slavery in the US An issue so far not openly addressed in this “Partial Shutdown” situation is that those who have been deemed to be “essential,” are now working without pay, even though we all believe that they will eventually receive their overdue backpay. I really do not know the law that says that these people must work without being paid within a reasonable time period of their work, but my basic view of this is that people being forced to work...