Category: Politics

The headline speaks for itself. The author is one of the smartest financial bloggers in the game, author of Bailout Nation. I can’t resist quoting this: I suspect brain damaged partisans of the left suffer from somewhat different cognitive deficits than brain damaged partisans of the right. I would add that the brain damaged partisans of the…

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…

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

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…

I’m going to start this post with a proleptic response: No, nobody is suggesting a Maoist cultural revolution, forcing executives and professors to muck shit on collective farms. But I feel compelled to share the results from my latest, comparing income inequality to prosperity and prosperity growth in the fifty states. Contrary to the supply-sider…

Commenters on my cross-post over at Angry Bear have asserted among other things that real GDP/capita growth has been steady for more than a century. See? This proves, they assert, that the policy differences between Republicans and Democrats don’t really affect anything. My response was to point out how hard it is to eyeball important…

Just following up on my recent post showing that progressivity in state taxes seems to have no significant relationship to prosperity: These findings suggest to me that the supposed tradeoff between equity and economic efficiency is a false choice (by this measure, at least). More equitable states (far more equitable) are just as prosperous, at…

File under: Painfully Strained Mixed Metaphors. (Unless: “with” means “using.” But still.) The Norquististas want to make government small enough to drown it in a bathtub. Bruce Bartlett was there when the Republicans ginned up this ideology. He participated. And he takes it down here. In effect, STB became a substitute for spending restraint among…

In my peregrinations I just came across an old 2006 post by Greg Mankiw. He describes the situation of: …a Harvard PhD in economics who left an academic job for a better-paying one in private equity. Based on the article, he seemed a bit wistful about leaving an academic job behind. At a higher tax…

The solid line (left scale) is the ratio of financial sector wages to private sector wages. The dotted line (right scale) is an index of financial regulation. From: 13 Bankers In 4 Pictures Related posts: The Global Great Depression: Then and Now Public vs. Private Debt: The Long View If Interest Rates Rise, We Can…

Short answer: Yes. Slightly longer answer: Not very many people, and not much lazier. Rob Valletta and Katherine Kuang of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco just released a new study of unemployment insurance and unemployment. This graphic stands out: People who quit their jobs or are just entering the job market aren’t eligible…

You already know this, but: Click image for source. Related posts: Yeah Right: Supply of Credit to Businesses Is a Big Problem 520 Traffic is Declining — Despite 15 Years of WSDOT Projections to the Contrary Did I Mention Mentioning that It’s the Health Care Costs, Stupid? More American Exceptionalism: Drowning the Baby in the…

The financial services industry seems to be x times larger than it needs to be to effectively service and lubricate the real economy that produces useful goods and services. (Arnold Kling is one of many that agree with me.) This suggests that the market is misallocating resources (both capital and human). It is also failing…

I’ve blogged about this before, but I need to pass on another piece of proof, courtesy of Matthew Yglesias. Adopting one of the free-marketers’ favorite mantras: a good economic system allocates resources to create the greatest prosperity for all. (It’s a sum function.) That includes human resources: people’s talents are directed where they’re most effective…

That’s not the whole tea party, of course. But tea partiers skew strongly on each of these dimensions, according to a new NYT/CBS poll. I just think it’s worth pointing out that that group has benefited more than any other from the government policies that were put in place before their births and while they…

I finally got around to reading (large chunks of) David Stockman’s book on the rise of Reaganomics. Having done so, I realize I could have learned everything I needed from the back cover: There’s only one thing I disagree with here: “…it had not been his fault. He had been misled by a crew of…