Economics & The Economny
- Andrew Fieldhouse: Supply-side’s Abject Failure.
…This supply-side snake oil is peddled on the premise that when the wealthy do well, income gains trickle down to the middle class and everyone benefits from a growing economy. But that hasn’t happened — real median income has sharply decoupled from productivity gains in recent decades (particularly since 2000) and income gains have been incredibly concentrated at the top of the earnings distribution. The president made the following salient point on the supply-side experiment:
“Now, it’s a simple theory… And that theory fits well on a bumper sticker. But here’s the problem: It doesn’t work. It has never worked. It didn’t work when it was tried in the decade before the Great Depression. It’s not what led to the incredible post-war booms of the ’50s and ’60s. And it didn’t work when we tried it during the last decade. I mean, understand, it’s not as if we haven’t tried this theory.”
[…]
- Inequality: You Can’t “Fix-it-in-the-Fisc” | Jared Bernstein | On the Economy
- NPR Can’t Find a Millionaire Against a Tax Increase :: The Future of Capitalism
- Tax Brackets (Federal Income Tax Rates) 2000 through 2011
- Taking Note: Graph of the Day: Taxing the Poor
- Austerity Programs Will Not Solve U.S. Economic Woes @PolicyMic | Benjamin Byron
…The conservative narrative does nothing to alleviate the primary causes of our current economic trouble. Cutting government spending means cutting jobs, increasing unemployment, and further adversely affecting demand. Reducing tax rates means reducing government revenues, which further amplifies the supposed logic of cuts to government spending, which further increases cuts in government jobs.
The government cannot address its long-term debt crisis without first addressing the problem of near-term economic growth. Further depressing economic growth through austerity measures will cause the current malaise to grow worse and will extend the amount of time necessary for our economy to rebound. Prolonged economic slowdowns will cause the government to suffer lower revenues and can only work to increase deficits and debts, not correct them.
The conservative narrative argues, by its focus on austerity, that our primary concern should not be the current economic plight we find ourselves in, but rather the prospects for our economy 10 and 20 years into the future. In normal times, this concern would be a rational one. However, unless we address the root causes of the current economic malaise – those of weak demand and high household debt, conditions that curb business growth and lead to persistent high unemployment – our economy cannot grow, a condition necessary for any plan to address national debt to succeed.
Government cannot “cut” its way to economic growth and businesses cannot increase domestic consumer demand with higher cash flows on their balance sheets. Money flows will change from taxes and public revenues to tax breaks and corporate profits, the proceeds of which businesses will be more than happy to invest abroad, where the prospects for growth are higher.
I am not arguing for haphazard government borrowing and spending. In the near term, government spending can have a positive effect on economic growth….(read more…)
- Econbrowser: “Solving America’s Debt Crisis”
- Exploring the question “How much revenue can we gain by raising taxes on the ultra wealthy” I find myself reading these articles:
- Stop Coddling the Super-Rich – NYTimes.com (re=reading this famous one from Warren Buffett)
- Things to Tax – NYTimes.com (this one from Krugman is a re-read too)
- Would Taxing the Super-Rich Raise Much Revenue? – The Wealth Report – WSJ
…would the Buffett Tax really help the country’s finances?
Yes, but not as much you might think…
- Why Taxing the Rich Is Good for America – DailyFinance
- Why we need to increase taxes on the rich | Gregg Easterbrook
- Americans Support Higher Taxes. Really. | Capital Gains and Games
- Can Taxing the Rich Erase the Deficit? – The Wealth Report – WSJ
- Millionaire’s Tax: How Much Will it Raise? – CBS News
- Raise taxes on the rich | Marketplace from American Public Media
- On the subject of “Corporations are People” I found this interesting ( and a hat-tip to my building and remodeling colleague Dan for this one): Fleshing out the corporate person « LBO News from Doug Henwood. Great reading (the emphasis is mine)
There was a witticism circulating—it embarrasses me a bit to say—on Facebook recently that went something like: “I’ll believe that coporations are people when Texas executes one.” Though I’m no fan of capital punishment, but that was the best argument in favor of corporate personhood I’ve ever heard. Because while corporations have the rights of actual living people—more, maybe—they have none of the responsibilities. Corporations routinely get away with murder. Is the problem that they’re legally persons, or that they’re not consistently treated as such?
[…]
- And a review of Jeffrey Sachs latest by Doug Henwood, the author of the article above: Jeffrey Sachs’s lifepath
Science
- (via 3quarksdaily: In Defence of Difference) In Defense of Difference § SEEDMAGAZINE.COM Startling and even disturbing.
Atheism
- (via The 25 Most Influential Living Atheists | Debunking Christianity) The 25 Most Influential Living Atheists and another good list on that site is: 20 Most Influential Scientists Alive Today Richard Dawkins can be found at #1 on The 25 Most Influential Living Atheists list and at #3 on 20 Most Influential Scientists Alive Today. Also via the The 25 Most Influential Living Atheists list I found a link to this list on another website: Celebrity Atheist List
Politics — Newt Gingrich
- Gingrich Describes Palestinian People As ‘Invented’ | Fox News (I find this level of political naiveté staggering but not surprising coming from a slovenly pandering Newt)
“….Remember there was no Palestine as a state. It was part of the Ottoman Empire. And I think that we’ve had an invented Palestinian people, who are in fact Arabs, and were historically part of the Arab community,” Gingrich said. “And they had a chance to go many places. And for a variety of political reasons we have sustained this war against Israel now since the 1940’s, and I think it’s tragic.”
Gingrich spokesman R.C. Hammond said afterward that the candidate was merely referring to the “decades-long history that has surrounded this issue,” and has long supported the concept of Palestinian statehood…
Just who is he trying to fool? The logic in this is insanely stupid. If the Palestinian people were just a part of the Ottoman Empire then so were the Jews. And in fact many of the Jews had over the centuries taken their ‘chances’ and went to ‘many [other] places’ (Europe) only to have returned to claim Palestinian land under the pretense that it rightfully theirs because some book of mythology says it is. This kind of thinking doesn’t help work out the problems the Israelis and Palestinians face in finding a workable solution in the Middle East.
- Newt Gingrich: Palestinians Don’t Exist | The X Blog
- Republican Debate: Gingrich Confronted By GOP Rivals In Iowa