Tag Archives: Taxes/regulation

(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...

Given the debate about returning to 60s level top marginal tax rate of 70% amazingly re-opened by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, I decided to actually read the Romer and Romer paper (pdf warning) which includes evidence suggesting an even higher rate is optimal. It is a masterpiece, which I won’t try to summarize. Read it. I do however, want to grind a very old ax related to “Schlock Economics”. I am thinking of the time that Robert Lucas totally humiliated...

I wrote a post about optimal taxation of capital income which (the web is sometimes wonderful) was made legible by the blessed [person who choses to remain anonymous]. But that was back in Obama center left 2008. I want to update given what I learned since then and given the appearance of socialist US citizens. First, what I should have known already is that the standard Judd 85/86 result that the optimal rate of taxation of capital income goes to zero...

Economic Growth and Climate Change: Mistaking an Output Variable for an Instrument When I first started arguing against the degrowthers, I thought they were a small, uninfluential fringe, important only because they had a sway over a portion of the left—what we might call the Naomi Klein left.  That was then.  Today degrowth is entering the mainstream, as can be seen by the latest David Roberts piece in Vox.  Roberts reviews a discussion between several...

by Joseph Joyce Global Networks and Financial Instability The ten-year anniversary of the global financial crisis has brought a range of analyses of the current stability of the financial system (see, for example, here). Most agree that the banking sector is more robust now due to increased capital, less leverage, more prudent balance sheets and better regulation. But systemic risk is an inherent feature of finance, and a disturbance in one area can...