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Mayan calendar didn’t have a leap year. So it would already be Mayan year 2013.

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Low-income students with high test scores are less likely to finish college than high-income students with low test scores (via Equality of Opportunity? Never Mind – NYTimes.com)

Mankiw: Capital Gains vs. Ordinary Income, a little puzzle on policy.

Mankiw: Capital Gains vs. Ordinary Income, a little puzzle on policy.

If you have a job, the money you are paid for your work is ordinary income. If you buy an asset at one time and sell it later for a higher price, the profit you made from holding it is a capital gain. But is it really that easy? Consider five examples, and see if you can identify what is ordinary income and what is a capital gain.

Really great explanation. A must read.

Cenk Uygur: A Challenge to Rush: Prove Your Ratings

Cenk Uygur: A Challenge to Rush: Prove Your Ratings

How many listeners does Rush Limbaugh have? Well, in the press there are only two numbers you’ll ever see – 20 million or 15 million. Those are large numbers, so that is why Limbaugh is taken seriously and is believed to be influential. I’ve got news for you – those numbers are a total fabrication. They’re made up out of whole cloth. You want to know where the 20 million number came from? It was first printed in Billboard magazine back in 1993.

Cenk doesn’t buy Rush’s claim and neither do I. There has never been an independent accounting of his listener count. He doesn’t subscribe to any of the radio ratings services. Back in Air America days, there was a discussion that Rush was only in the top-ten in one of the top 20 markets. He had been in the top 25 in NYC only once in the prior 36 months.

The invisible welfare state of the top one percent

The invisible welfare state of the top one percent

“Indirect social policies offer benefits that are comparable to direct social benefits both in their purposes and in their costs,” Mettler and Koch write. “Both are targeted to specific groups of people, aimed to reward some kind of activity or some class of persons whom policymakers deem worthy of public support. From an accounting perspective, as well, both types have the same effect: They impose costs on the federal budget, whether incurred through fiscal obligations or lost revenues.”

Notice the complete lack of discussion of austerity for the parts of the welfare state that support the wealthiest?

How German Solar Has Made All German Electricity Cheaper

How German Solar Has Made All German Electricity Cheaper

The Fraunhofer Institute found that – as a result of the Merit Order ranking system – solar power had reduced the price of electricity on the EPEX exchange by 10 percent on the average, with reductions peaking at up to 40 percent in the early afternoon when the most solar power is generated.

Its amazing how public policy can work when it isn’t subverted by zealots and shills chanting Drill Baby Drill.

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Pundits in good standing have been expected to make calls for bipartisanship that involve pretending that Republican politicians are actually the kind of statesmen the party used to contain, but no longer does. Looking Back With Shrillness – NYTimes.com

Why Nations Fail: Uzbekistan Extractive institutions in action

Why Nations Fail: Uzbekistan Extractive institutions in action

Like almost all nations that are poor, Uzbekistan fails because its people operate under extractive economic institutions, which provide few incentives for investment or technological ingenuity, and force people to engage in activities that they do not wish or are not well-suited to (such as farmers being forced to grow crops that they don’t want and children being forced to pick cotton rather than learn in school). And the important point is this: these extractive economic institutions are not there by mistake. They have been designed this way for the benefit of the elite. There was no coerced child labor in Uzbekistan when cotton was produced by state-owned firms.

Amazing article from a new favorite blog.