Month: July 2010
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Washington State Income Tax (Initiative 1098): Who’s Affected?
Updated. See below. Again, Aug 12. There’s been some debate going back and forth recently on how many Washington State taxpayers will be affected by the proposed income tax. The two sides have done a good job of providing the source data (you can follow their links), but the debate’s been inconclusive because: 1. Single filers…
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Dang Those Bush Tax Cuts Really Worked!
HT to Barry Ritholtz. Source. Related posts: Stockman: How the GOP Destroyed the U.S. Economy | The Big Picture Banks’ “Bigger Concern”: “Republicans will no longer defend Wall Street companies.” “Track Changes” on Fed Statements Sarah: On Target S&P 500 Earnings: The Most Depressing Graphic I’ve Seen This Year
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The Best Argument Against Climate Legislation — And the Best Answers
I’ve long lauded Jim Manzi for his cogent and convincing arguments against carbon taxes. He’s the antithesis of the “1998 was really hot! Look: it’s cooler now!” school of head-in-in-the-sand self-delusionists. Rather, he takes the 2007 IPCC report as the best available consensus scientific knowledge we have, and uses it to think through a clear-eyed,…
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Is “Starve the Beast” Finally Working? At (Almost) the Worst Possible Time?
Even as some vaguely sane voices on the right — notably former Reagan budget officials — are acknowledging that the thirty-year experiment in “starve the beast” has failed…it seems to be working. The austerity principle is finally taking hold — just when the opposite should be true. The basics of fiscal and monetary policy aren’t…
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Trickle-Down Really, Really Works!
Lane Kenworthy has updated his Best Inequality Graph with the latest data (through 2007): Hidden in the fine print, you’ll find proof positive that trickle-down works: middle-class incomes have risen by 1% a year since 1979! And poor people’s incomes have gone up by 0.4% a year. How can you argue with that kind of…
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Intel’s Andy Grove, Refugee from Communism, Champions Centralized Economic Planning: “rebuild our industrial commons”
If you’re like me, you hear your friends say this a lot about America: “we need to start making things again.” It seem intuitively correct, but there’s a pretty standard economic response: if we’re getting all the profits based on our knowledge and innovation, even though we’re not doing all the work, what’s the problem?…