May 2013
1 post
Capitalism vs. Communism Dynamic
I heard the most interesting idea today addressing why perhaps income inequality is more exasperated in this modern age, and that the U.S. political climate has tended to disgregard and disvalue the social safety net. In the early 20th century, there was an ever creeping example of communism all over the world, and to avoid having it creep into the capitalist societies, the political leaders of...
March 2013
4 posts
If you are aware of the basics of the economic situation and/or crisis of high long term unemployment, you know that this characteristic of our economy is not only a cyclical property stemming from the financial crisis/recession, it is a structural issue. Structural unemployment is an actual type of unemployment. It basically means a mismatch of the skills of the available labor force and the...
Hi, It's been awhile.
Hello folks, hello anyone who might read this blog. My Stat counter tells me someone occasionally does. Anyways, I know I haven’t made a post or written anything very substantial in a little while. This is not because I’m not very interested in what is going on in domestic and international economics. I can’t say it isn’t because I’ve lacked motivation, because...
February 2013
0 posts
“By the IMF’s numbers, Britain’s deficit has fallen from almost 9 percent of GDP...”
– The Economist-Pundit Divide on Debt and Deficits - Neil Irwin, Washington Post Wonkblog
Actually, I strongly recommend the above article for an analysis of the argument over whether or not the National Debt and the budget deficits are major crises like many center-right and even center-left pundits...
January 2013
6 posts
Gross Domestic Product and Government Spending
(To be updated with further figures on economic activity as well as sources, but for now this is the gist of my purpose in this piece.”
Today, the 30th of January, 2013 the Commerce Department said that for their first estimate of GDP growth in the fourth and final business quarter of last year, the economy did not grow and actually shrunk at .10%. In the headlines surrounding this...
jayaprada:
capitalism is a cannibalistic system; it eats the worker away, slowly..one by one. it accumulates human capital and eats the poor.
we must eat the rich.
I disagree that is “blanketly” true of capitalism, but capitalism and its political system often tending towards plutocracy can naturally result in that being a reasonable perception of a capitalist system, and this...
I Should Mention
That as part of the deal in response to the “fiscal cliff”, somewhat considered a pathetic attempt by many on both sides of the aisle, was also somewhat pleasing to me in that not only did it allow a tax increase on the successive range of income above $450,000 for couples, it allowed an increase on the capital gains and dividends rate back to its last higher position of 20%. The stock...
“Conservatives believe that slashing entitlement programs like Medicare is the...”
– Bruce Bartlett, Former Adviser to President Reagan and George H. W. Bush, The NYT’s Economix Blog, “The True Burden of Government.”
In response to Chuck Hagel Secretary of Defense...
harry-hood:
I find it pathetic and narrow minded that in the U.S. political arena if you do not support all Israeli military effort by their aggressively hawkish Government or support Benjamin Netanyahu’s every decision you are considered by many on both sides of the aisle as anti-Israel (and in some ridiculous cases accused of being anti-Semite). When in Israel, there is an open and diverse...
December 2012
3 posts
Welfare Queens
If someone wants to gripe about how unfair the United State’s social safety net is, they just need to look at these figures to learn a good reason for that gripe.
In 2010, 20% of entitlement spending in the U.S. went to the top ten percent of households, 58%of entitlement spending went to middle-income households, and 32% went to the bottom 20% of households. (Center on Budget and Policy...
Capital Gains Rate Effect, or Lack There of
In the recent national political discussion about federal tax policy, one of the areas of taxes discussed and debated over is the capital gains tax, mainly the long term capital gains tax, which as part of the Bush era tax cuts was reduced from 20% to 15% and was re-extended with the other tax cuts through the end of 2012 in the 2011 Bush era tax cut extensions. Starting in the late 80s and...
“As many as 15 percent of freshmen at America’s top schools are white students...”
– Ten myths about affirmative action (via linzyxxxxx)
November 2012
8 posts
Here is the Wonkblog piece on the same subject, but breaks down the unknowable possible challenges of climate change of 4 degrees Celsius, and how it could be devastating for third world economic development. The piece below talks about the fact that the World Bank has funded fossil fuel use. However much the World Bank funds some fossil fuel projects as part of their economic development efforts...
The President had indeed bought my support up through his reelection, and it is my belief based in the record he has accomplished much of significance in his first term. However, I must null any further support upon his entrance to a second term, as well as currently the negotiations over the “fiscal cliff” of spending cuts and tax cut expiration taking effect in little more than a month. There is...
If there fails to be a deal on the upcoming...
(Source: Tax Policy Center, The Wall Street Journal)
Spanish Woman Commits Suicide As Foreclosure... →
I had originally came across this story on Bloomberg as it was written the day it happened, and I shared it with someone I knew was from Spain to give them an inkling of the personal economic situation that country is in, ,and what it does to people’s lives, as far as destroying them. It’s a sad story that captures the human side to this ‘Euro-Crisis’. Thankfully something...
About Supply Side, a.k.a. Trickle Down.
After the election, in which the nation re-elected Barack Obama to the Presidency, one of the biggest, if not the biggest, policy issues facing the President as well as Congress is the fiscal cliff, as some people call it, when the Bush era income Tax Rate cuts across all income brackets as well as payroll tax cuts expire and a series of draconian deficit reduction cuts to defense and non defense...
Some Basic Figures on U.S. Homelessness
Supposedly, due to my recent laziness, on this blog I am pretending that the election never happened. In the meantime, here are some unfortunate facts to hold myself over. Someone was pulling a moralistic gripe over me and my sister talking about homeless kittens, and said they didn’t know how many people were homeless, especially families with children. So, I did what I do...
An Important Economic Case of this Election
There is much I could say writing about what I think in terms of the policies of each of the candidates in tomorrow’s Presidential Election especially when it comes to Economics. But I often try to avoid in the culminating moments of a very long popular debate, comprehensively summarizing my total of thoughts on any which matter of it, although sometimes I can’t resist. In this case,...
October 2012
12 posts
Hurricane Sandy Threatens $20 Billion in Economic... →
“Hurricane Sandy’s economic toll is poised to exceed $20 billion after the biggest Atlantic storm slammed into the Eastern U.S., damaging homes and offices and flooding subways in America’s most populated city.
The total would include insured losses of about $7 billion to $8 billion, said Charles Watson, research and development director at Kinetic Analysis Corp., a hazard-research company...
"Since the Great Recession officially ended in...
Source: Bloomberg, Nation’s Breadbasket heads to Soup Kitchen as Inequality grows.
“There was a man named Canute, one of the great Viking kings of the 11th Century....”
– - President Bartlet (fictional character), The West Wing
Often cited as an integral supporting tax benefit...
(Source: The Economist, True Progressivism: A new form of radical politics is needed to tackle inequality without hurting economic growth.)
U.S., Significantly Deleveraged.
According to multiple sources, the amount of total U.S. Debt has reached a new low level, a six year low, signifying that the country especially including the private and household sector has significantly deleveraged from the record high levels of indebtedness that coincided with the 2008 financial crisis and the successive recession, perhaps making room for more consumer spending and thus...
An Overly Simple Opinion on Anti-Austerity...
I have a little mental block about the austerity protests in some Eurozone countries. I only partially get it. I mean, I get that austerity is harsh and hurts their economies through painful measures on the economic conditions of the common working person, I myself am opposed to overly harsh austerity based on my ideology and just basic empirical economic evidence but don’t these people...
September 2012
7 posts
5 tags
A Micro Portrait of Inequality
I want to share this information I just learned to help illustrate a trend of economic inequality and declining standards and wages for workers in this era of globalization. It is a little anecdotal, but I think we can recall from looking at the empirical macroeconomic data about income inequality, lower wages, and multi-national corporations, that this little portrait and picture surely is just...
Not Discouraged Workers
I just learned this from Ezra Klein’s Wonkblog, in an article Discouraged Workers Are Not Why Unemployment fell.
As anyone who pays attention to the basic news of the U.S. Economy, they know that today was the day monthly Employment statistics were released by the Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics. They also know what was released for the month, was a net creation of 96,000...
“Romney and Ryan attacked Obama for robbing Medicare. It’s not true....”
– President Bill Clinton at the DNC.
Romney-Ryan Want It Both Ways on Medicare →
Bloomberg, Conservative Columnist Josh Barro.
“Romney has committed to grow defense spending relative to the CBO baseline. His campaign has said any changes to Social Security “will not affect today’s seniors or those nearing retirement.” I assume he intends to continue paying interest on the national debt. Now he wants to take Medicare off the table all the way through the two...
Obama Wants Tax Overhaul in 2nd Term, Aide Says →
Bloomberg.
Yes! Obama has no plans. He went into the Presidency, not only determined to do something about Wall Street regulation and got it done, but also determined to have Health Care reform and got it done. Now, as he bids for a second term as President, he has in mind something long needed and wanted, just like Health Care reform, and that is reform of the Tax Code. I say, not only is he...
Regardless of my angst against U.S. support of the...
The Israeli Defense Minister, Ehud Barak, said the following to CNN in July: “I should tell you, honestly, that this administration, under President Obama, is doing, in regard to our security, more than anything that I can remember in the past.”
- From Bloomberg’s analysis of the honesty (or lack there of) in Mitt Romney’s claims about President Obama’s record. Romney Misleads...
August 2012
9 posts
The Romney Budget flat out isn't credible, its...
Here is the Wonkblog piece, Ezra Klein’s Washington Post blog. Romney’s Budget would require a 40% cut to everything but Medicare, Social Security, and defense.
“Consider what Romney has promised. By 2016, he says federal spending will be below 20 percent of GDP, and at least 4 percent of that will be defense spending. At that point, he will cap federal spending at 20 percent...
By the international financial law of Basel III,...
In 1981, Ronald Reagan enacted the Gold Commission to study the possibility of going back to the Gold Standard. That was because, at the time, there was incredibly high inflation of at least above 5% and nearing double digits. They decided going to the Gold standard was a terrible idea. Today, inflation is barely above 1%, below the Federal Reserve’s target rate, and yet, the reality...
Medicare administrative costs are about one-fifth...
- Simon Johnson, of Baseline Scenario, from Mitt Romney and Extreme Fiscal Policy
How Volcker Launched His Attack on Inflation →
An interesting story of a rather new and unexpected Economic circumstance found in the 1970s, Stagflation, and the unprecedented response in monetary policy from the Federal Reserve.
Bloomberg View, William L. Silber
“The need to consider the inflationary consequences of monetary policy even with unemployed resources wasn’t yet the conventional economic wisdom. Keynesian economic models...
Another Lesson in Monetary Policy, Now With an...
This function of low interest rates also applies to money borrowed by the U.S. Government. The interest rates on most U.S. Treasury Securities, aka Government Debt/Bonds, are also so low they are negative real rates. Investors are foregoing return on investment and handing long term value over to the U.S. Government to be able to invest their money in U.S. Debt. U.S. Debt securities are one of the...
““Its government, responding to domestic public opinion, is the main...”
– Clive Crook, Bloomberg View, Now Germany Needs to Let Draghi Do ‘Whatever It Takes’
