My 2012 "McLaughlin Awards" [Part 2]
[ Posted Friday, December 28th, 2012 – 18:02 UTC ]
Welcome back to our annual year-end awards column!
Archive of Articles in the "Economics" Category
Missing The Two Percent Story
[ Posted Thursday, December 27th, 2012 – 16:22 UTC ]
The mainstream media is letting American taxpayers down, once again. Because there's a change coming in everyone's first paycheck of the new year that most of the news stories about the fiscal cliff negotiations only occasionally mention, and usually just in passing. But the impact will be widely (almost "universally," in fact) felt, and it's going to mean a pay reduction for all workers of two percent. Taxes are going up by this two percent, meaning paychecks will be smaller. And -- here's the important part that gets lost in all the breathlessness over the fiscal cliff by blow-dried newsfolks -- this change is going to happen no matter what gets agreed upon to deal with the rest of the fiscal cliff.
My 2012 "McLaughlin Awards" [Part 1]
[ Posted Friday, December 21st, 2012 – 18:13 UTC ]
Welcome to the seventh annual homage (which sounds so much nicer than "blatant ripoff," don't you think?) to the television show The McLaughlin Group, since they have the most extensive year-end award category list of anyone around. Since "extensive" is my middle name (well, not really, although I do tend to wander off into the parenthetical wilderness at times, do I not?), such a long list fits right in here.
KPFK Uprising! Interview
[ Posted Thursday, December 20th, 2012 – 12:30 UTC ]
Instead of a column today, I'll be working hard reviewing 2012 for tomorrow's big year-end awards column (see previous "Program Note" if you'd like to offer up nominees).
Rather than reading a column from my keyboard today, though, you can hear the interview I did this morning on the Uprising! show on KPFK radio (part of [...]
Enjoying The Kabuki?
[ Posted Wednesday, December 19th, 2012 – 16:37 UTC ]
I realize that watching the fiscal cliff negotiations in Washington has been likened to stylized Kabuki theater more than once by pundits far and wide, but I'm going to push this metaphor for all it is worth today. You might even say I'm going to push it right over a cliff, but that would be a horrendous metaphor mixture indeed.
Friday Talking Points [238] -- Merry Cliffmas!
[ Posted Friday, December 14th, 2012 – 18:07 UTC ]
What's that? Mayans? Not Maya Rudolph? Man, I've got to start paying closer attention to these things. I'm still trying to figure out what sort of omen it is that Paul McCartney performed with Nirvana on 12/12/12, personally. Maybe not the end times, but certainly the strange times.
Two Followup Stories On Taxes
[ Posted Thursday, December 13th, 2012 – 17:42 UTC ]
Well, ask and ye shall receive, at least on one of them. Adding a small transactions tax to speculative financial transactions (0.25 percent is the figure most often suggested) could raise quite a bit of money, it turns out.
Boehner's Options
[ Posted Wednesday, December 12th, 2012 – 17:33 UTC ]
Is John Boehner just worried about his leadership position? Is he really putting his own re-election as Speaker of the House before all else?
Getting The Gay Marriage Cases Backwards?
[ Posted Tuesday, December 11th, 2012 – 16:57 UTC ]
The news that the Supreme Court will be taking up two important gay marriage cases was expected, but nonetheless created a burst of commentary. But I can't help but wonder if people are getting the cases slightly backwards. In short, I think the Defense Of Marriage Act (DOMA) case is going to prove to be more important than the Proposition 8 case from California.
If We're Going To Tax The Rich, Then Let's Tax The Rich
[ Posted Monday, December 10th, 2012 – 17:45 UTC ]
But the "tax the rich" policies so far being discussed (at least the ones that leak out to the public) are laughably timid and tame, when you really examine the big picture. So far, what is making Republicans howl is President Obama's plan to end the Bush tax cuts on the top two marginal income tax rates, which would raise them from 33 percent to 36 percent, and from 35 to 39.6 percent. Seen one way, that's impressive, since tax rates haven't gone up in such a fashion since President Clinton's first year in office. But seen another, it's not all that radical at all.