In 1983 NY hotel-chain-owning billionaire Leona Helmsley said, “We don’t pay taxes. Only the little people pay taxes…” As our country migrates from democracy to plutocracy, this more and more appears to be official policy. From Dave Johnson: Plutocracy: GE Doesn’t Pay Taxes – Taxpayers Pay GE So why is everyone saying corporate tax rates… Continue reading GE Doesn’t Pay Taxes — Taxpayers Pay GE
Category: economics
The economic beatings will continue until economic morale improves
The GOP prescription for higher employment is actually quite spectacular — it’s a thing of many levels, an ignorance wrapped in a fallacy. The idea is this: we’ll lay off government workers; this will raise unemployment, putting downward pressure on wages; and lower wages will lead to higher employment. So, for this to work you… Continue reading The economic beatings will continue until economic morale improves
Donald Trump: Let’s Tax the Rich to Pay the National Debt | Crooks and Liars
Trump, a prospective candidate for the Reform Party presidential nomination, is proposing a onetime net worth tax on individuals and trusts worth 10 million or more. By Trumps calculations, his proposed 14.25 percent levy on such net worth would raise 5.7 trillion and wipe out the debt in one full swoop. … “No one has… Continue reading Donald Trump: Let’s Tax the Rich to Pay the National Debt | Crooks and Liars
The Austerity Delusion
Portugal’s government has just fallen in a dispute over austerity proposals. Irish bond yields have topped 10 percent for the first time. And the British government has just marked its economic forecast down and its deficit forecast up. What do these events have in common? They’re all evidence that slashing spending in the face of… Continue reading The Austerity Delusion
The FED has a blog
The New York Fed’s Liberty Street Economics blog provides commentary on current economic topics relating to monetary policy, macroeconomic developments, financial stability issues, and regional trends in the Second Federal Reserve District. From Liberty Street Economics The FED has a blog. I’m giving it a week before the place is overrun by angry gold-bugs and… Continue reading The FED has a blog
Economics as a Science: A Bad Example
Yes, the old Keynesian Phillips curve was abandoned in the face of evidence. But while real business cycle theory has indeed been “invalidated by reality”, as far as I can tell it’s still going strong in freshwater departments. The point is that while economics certainly did have some of the characteristics of a science three… Continue reading Economics as a Science: A Bad Example
The case for the dollar coin
Due to rising cotton prices, the dollar bill is now literally worth less than the paper it’s printed on. Dollar coins cost considerably less to produce and last much longer. Dollar notes only last two to three years; dollar coins can last up to 30 years or more. From The case for the dollar coin… Continue reading The case for the dollar coin
The Rationing Switcheroo
reformers argue that Medicare needs to make choices about what it will pay for; people like Huckabee then scream that the government is going to tell people that they can’t get medical care it disapproves of. But nobody is proposing that the government deny you the right to have whatever medical care you want at… Continue reading The Rationing Switcheroo
Collective bargaining for me, but not for thee
This brings to mind the phenomenon that’s sort of the obverse of union decline—the extraordinary level of solidarity manifested by the corporate executive class in the United States of America. There are plenty of individual firms that benefit from this or that public sector spending stream, but essentially all business organizations are solidly united in… Continue reading Collective bargaining for me, but not for thee
The Kochs and the Commons
Suppose I had a business where what I do is find people who live in flood prone areas and threaten to wreck their houses unless they pay me money. That would be called an extortion racket, not capitalism. I don’t own those people’s houses. Real capitalism requires the government to restrain me from knocking the… Continue reading The Kochs and the Commons