Tag Archives: Taxes/regulation

(Dan here…I found Yves intro more appealing than the research…) Yves here. While this article gives a very good high-level summary about how inequality is becoming institutionalized in American and the costs to those who see themselves as having lost the most, I wonder about the emphasis on hope as a remedy. Perhaps this is such a strong cultural bias in the US that there’s no escaping it as a motivator for most people. But I take to heart the interpretation...

LOOK AT THE BIG DIVERGENCE BETWEEN “SOFT” AND “HARD” DATA … Ummm ..never mind…. Since this year the Doomers haven’t even been able to rouse themselves up enough to call for OMG recession imminent!!!, they have had to settle for how slow the growth in the economy has been.  Their favorite theme has been the alleged divergence between the “soft” consumer confidence and ISM survey data, and the “hard” data, like industrial production: Oh, wait!  Never mind …...

James Kwak writes Introductory economics can be more misleading than it is helpful  (originally in Atlantic magazine).   Tim Worstall responds with  James Kwak sure doesn’t understand the economics of the minimum wage. Peter Dorman explains   Why you should never use a supply and demand diagram for labor markets. Richard Wolff  notes he thinks the debate is a distraction    Beyond the minimum wage debate ...

Via Reuters Wells Fargo drags feet: Wells Fargo last September settled with three regulators after revelations that branch staff set up as many as 2.1 million accounts without customer authorization in order to hit sales targets. Since then, the bank has replaced its CEO and other top executives have either resigned or been fired. The bank has been hit with several regulatory inquiries and lawsuits. “The extent of fraud at Wells Fargo was stunning,” Stringer...

Via Science magazine, Trump’s White House science office still small and waiting for leadership: …Trump has yet to nominate an OSTP director, who traditionally also serves as the president’s science adviser. Nor has he announced his choices for as many as four other senior OSTP officials who would need to be confirmed by the Senate.… Still pending is the status of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, a body of eminent scientists and...

Via the New York Times Wisconsin and Foxconn: Foxconn’s plan for a $10 billion factory in Wisconsin is certainly good news for President Trump and Republican politicians Gov. Scott Walker and Speaker Paul D. Ryan, whose district the plant would call home. But the deal with Foxconn, the Taiwanese electronics supplier, comes with a heavy price tag for Wisconsin taxpayers: $3 billion in state tax credits that dwarf the typical incentive package companies receive...

by Dale Coberly FIX THE DEBT WANTS TO SAVE SOCIAL SECURITY BUT WHY? I received an email a few days ago from Chris Dreibelbis,Fix the Debt, purporting to explain “why the Social Security Trustees urge action.” “Fix the Debt” is a project of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB) which is funded in part by Peter Peterson, a very rich person who has made something of a second career writing and saying misleading things about Social Security.  So...

Even though Angry Bear has as an audience of people who are more than beginners in economic thought,  I think it worthwhile to pursue basic stories about what we demand and value from our way of life, which includes the “economy”. I had a recent experience where an acquaintance came up to me and asked about Angry Bear and then proceeded to explain what formed the basics of his economic narrative. In rough form and I think my summation accurate enough for...

Of the two meanings of “Neoliberalism” The use of the term “neoliberal” has recently been criticized as a meaningless epithet, a tabula rasa used to disparage anyone deemed unsatisfactorily conservative. To the contrary, I think the term “neoliberal” is fairly precise, but much like the term “liberal” itself, it has two quite different meanings depending on whether the definition descends from its original European or American incarnation.  The first variety...

Could The US Default Due To A Complexity Catastrophe? Definitely. Front  page story in today’s Washington Post by Damien Paletta reports that “Treasury chief hurtles toward fiasco,” the fiasco being a failure to raise the US debt ceiling in time to avoid a default.  Trump has declared that Sec Mnuchin is responsible for this matter, which he should be, but somehow has not made a sufficiently definitive statement to keep his former Freedom Caucus big cheese...