Tag Archives: Taxes/regulation

Dan here…another post by Steve Why Tyler Cowen Doesn’t Understand the Economy: It’s the Debt, Stupid Steve Roth | November 16, 2015 In a recent post Tyler Cowen makes an admirable effort to lay out his overarching approach to thinking about macroeconomics, revealing the assumptions underlying his understanding of how economies work. (Even more salutary, this has prompted others to do likewise: Nick Rowe, Ryan Avent.) Cowen’s first assertion: In world history,...

Nation “Too Broke” for Universal Healthcare to Spend $406 Billion More on F-35 (Photo: Forsvarsdepartementet/flickr/cc) The nation’s most expensive weapons program isn’t done showing U.S. taxpayers how much it will ultimately cost them, with Bloomberg reporting Monday that the F-35 fighter jet budget is now predicted to jump by a cool $27 billion. “Think about [F-35's] $405 billion price tag when a family member dies of a preventable disease. Get angry.”...

Dan here….Steve Roth in 2014 How Do Households Build Wealth? Probably Not the Way You Think. Three Graphs Steve Roth | October 28, 2014 12:52 pm US/GLOBAL ECONOMICS Work hard. Save your money. Spend less than you earn. That’s how you become wealthy, right? That’s not totally wrong, but if you think that’s the whole story — or even a large part of the story – you may be surprised by this graph: (Note: these are not realized capital gains, which really only...

A thought for Sunday: Trump voters and the “peasant mentality” I am currently reading a comprehensive tome on 19th century European history, “The Pursuit of Power,” by Richard J. Evans. One episode that made a big impression on me was the decision by Otto von Bismarck (no conservative he) upon the establishment of the German Confederation, to eschew property qualifications for the franchise for the Reichstag and embrace universal male suffrage (p. 257).  Why?...

Former Ohio official who accidentally released Social Security numbers is on Trump’s voter fraud panel LA TImes reports: The Republican gubernatorial primary was just weeks away, and then-Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell had his sights set on securing the nomination. Blackwell had served as mayor of Cincinnati and state treasurer before becoming Ohio’s top elections official, so a bid for governor in 2006 seemed a logical next step in his political...

by Steve Roth (Lifted from Asymptosis) How Perfect Markets Concentrate Wealth and Strangle Growth and Prosperity June 5th, 2016 Capitalism concentrates wealth. Ridicule Marx and his latter-day disciples all you like (I’ll help); he definitely got that right. But capitalism is a big word with lots of meanings, and enough ideological baggage to fill a Lear Jet. Let’s talk about something more precise: perfect markets, with ownership, in which individuals...

Via Brad DeLong comes two posts with observations that add to the discussion on our observations of the economic conditions driven by human nature: Figure 1 Paul Krugman points us to this notion: Should-Read: Paul Krugman (2015): WHEN VALUES DISAPPEAR: “Back in the 60s and 70s… there was much talk about the disintegration of… African-American values… https://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/03/11/when-values-disappear/ …and how that was the root cause of...

Republicans help pass Illinois budget over Rauner’s veto For the second time in as many months, legislative Republicans have turned on their Republican governor for his refusal to back tax increases to help balance the budget. Last month, supermajority Kansas Republicans revolted against Sam Brownback’s six-year tax-cutting experiment, which brought the state persistent budget problems and two credit downgrades. Tonight (July 6) enough Republicans joined with...

Matthew Yglesias commands, I obey. Now I just have to come up with three bad ideas. 1) $25 minimum wage. I am not sure about the $15 dollar proposal. I’m pretty sure that $25 would be too high. I guess it would be popular too. 2) Protection that’s what you’re here for . I am sure that total protectionism is a bad idea, and hinting at it worked pretty well for Trump. 3) Eliminate all taxes on the lower 99%. I tend to wonder if maybe this isn’t such a...

Dan here…I noticed further writing on the macro side of labor and asked Peter’s opinion, and he reminded me of this post. by Peter Dorman  (originally published at Econospeak) Why You Should Never Use a Supply and Demand Diagram for Labor Markets You would know this if you read your Cahuc, Carcillo and Zylberberg, but you probably won’t, so read this instead. A standard S&D diagram for the labor market might look like this: It’s common to use W (wage) on...