“Give it your best shot” - Glenn Hubbard (from Inside Job) (by cykos)

I generally dislike ZeroHedge, but Charles Ferguson wrote an informative story about Glenn Hubbard.

Nov 5 2012 1 note

“

Republican tax aides say the vast majority of the benefits Democrats are seeking to preserve are not tax cuts but checks written by the Internal Revenue Service and sent to the working poor. Given the huge increase in government aid, like food stamps and unemployment benefits, letting some assistance lapse makes sense, they say.

N. Gregory Mankiw, a former Bush White House economic aide and an adviser to Mitt Romney, said that a typical family in the lowest 20 percent of the income scale now receives $3 in government benefits for every $1 earned. Even the middle 20 percent receives slightly more in government largess than it pays in taxes, he said.

“What happened to the failed stimulus being ‘targeted, timely and temporary?’ ” asked Antonia Ferrier, a spokeswoman for Senate Finance Committee Republicans. “With our economy as weak as it is, stopping the president’s massive tax increase on nearly a million small businesses and then overhauling our burdensome tax code is how we’ll get America moving again. The same can’t be said for keeping the expanded stimulus spending through the tax code.”

”

—

These people are complete assholes. Do you know what the bottom 20% of households earn each year?

$0 to $18,500.

The “journalist” does not mention the numbers.

And guess what the “middle 20 percent” earn each year?

$35,000 to $55,000

How much debt do these households have? How much of their income goes to consumer staples? Do they have any excess income to purchase new technology? Assuming 235 working days per year, the bottom 20% earn about $80 a day. They must spend their income over 365 days which gives $50 a day.

Jul 24 2012 1 note
I’ve plotted this with a log scale on the vertical axis, so the slope indicates the (exponential) rate of growth. The slope does not change very much over time, though it seems to become less steep as time goes on.  Cosma Shalizi has one of the best blogs on the internet. He also has a tumblr.

I’ve plotted this with a log scale on the vertical axis, so the slope indicates the (exponential) rate of growth. The slope does not change very much over time, though it seems to become less steep as time goes on. 

Cosma Shalizi has one of the best blogs on the internet. He also has a tumblr.

Jun 8 2012 2 notes
THIS IS NOT A JOKE. I AM ACTUALLY GOING TO READ THE BUDGET PLAN.

THIS IS NOT A JOKE. I AM ACTUALLY GOING TO READ THE BUDGET PLAN.

Jun 1 2012 2 notes
May 29 2012 3 notes

“The European: You recently wrote about the “irreversible decay” of the American Midwest. Is this crisis a sign that the US has begun an irreversible economic decline, even while we still regard the country as a potent political player?
Stiglitz: We are facing a very difficult transition from manufacturing to a service economy. We have failed to manage that transition smoothly. If we don’t correct that mistake, we will pay a very high price. Already, the average American is suffering from the failed transition. My concern is that we have set in motion an adverse economics and an adverse politics. A lot of American inequality is caused by rent-seeking: Monopolies, military spending, procurement, extractive industries, drugs. We have some economic sectors that are very good, but we also have a lot of parasites. The hopeful view is that the economy can grow if we rid ourselves of the parasites and focus on the productive sectors. But in any disease there is always the risk that the parasites will devour the healthy body parts. The jury is still out on that.”

— Joseph Stiglitz

May 1 2012 5 notes

The Callus: Mitt's Taxes Are Never On Time

thecallus:

The downside of partnership accounting from a taxation perspective.

Mitt’s already filed an extension for 2011, form 8082. This is because he has significant investment in investment products structured as partnerships - he specifically notes that his 2011 Schedule K1 documents are late. This is…

Very informative. 

Jan 24 2012 3 notes

Germany has the economic strengths America once boasted

I think it’s unlikely that the export-driven manufacturing model will ever come back to the United States. It seems like over a generation since anyone considered a career in manufacturing. Yes, there are artisanal builders of bicycles or other small goods, but it’s hard to see young people getting excited to become high-tech glass builders. Of course, the biggest problem is that America’s manufacturing infrastructure is crap. For bicycles, all the cutting-edge carbon and composite facilities are in China. This is a major issue because having the whole stack of manufacturing actually benefits all layers, from the people on the assembly line, to the engineers, to the industrial designers, to the business people.

The few glimmers of hope:

  • Robotics
  • 3D Printing
  • Weapons :-(
  • Aerospace
Jan 24 2012 130 notes

“Under Romney’s leadership in the 1980s and 1990s, Bain was a top-performing private-equity fund. According to an internal 2000 estimate, the fund achieved annualized returns of an astounding 88 percent from 1984 to 1999 for its institutional investors, including state and corporate pension funds that invest the savings of millions of American workers.”

—

Willam Cohan, Washington Post.

Those returns are astounding. 

Jan 15 2012 68 notes

“The whole thing reminds me of our discussion of the two modes of pop-economics reasoning. You take some fact (or stylized fact) about the world, and then you either (1) use people-are-rational-and-who-are-we-to-judge-others reasoning to explain why some weird-looking behavior is in fact rational, or (2) use technocratic reasoning to argue that some seemingly reasonable behavior is, in fact, inefficient.”

— Andrew Gelman

Jan 9 2012 2 notes