By Gerald Friedman, CPE Staff Economist
Last night, after a listless, dismal year during which the economy stalled and the Far Right set the fiscal agenda with their austerity cries, President Obama finally stepped up to the plate and demanded action to reduce depression-era levels of unemployment.
Specifically, he called on Congress to pump up the economy with nearly $450 billion of stimulus—including almost $240 billion in tax cuts and $200 billion in additional spending on infrastructure. (At over 3% of GDP, the [...] read more >
Fiscal Policy
Obama Comes Out Swinging
Posted by Sue Holmberg on September 9th, 2011Abstract Labor: House Prices Won’t Be Rising for Long
Posted by tmasterson on August 26th, 2009
James Hamilton, at Econbrowser, notes that he’s surprised by the 0.75% increase in average house prices (as measured by the S&P/Case-Shiller Index of twenty cities). He also says he’s skeptical because of the backlog of unsold homes, likely increases in foreclosures, and high, rising unemployment, especially since Calculated Risk is, too.
CBO Director’s Testimony Ignores Most Obvious Use of Cap-and-Trade Revenues
Posted by tmasterson on May 8th, 2009
Congressional Budget Office Director Douglas W. Elmendorf summarizes his testimony to Congress (there’s also a link to the pdf file of the full testimony). Unfortunately, the simplest way to ‘distribute the value of carbon allowances,’ to paraphrase Elmendorf, is not mentioned: dividing it up equally. The technical details (division!) have been dealt with before on this blog by Jonathan. Why would this obvious alternative be left out? My inner conspiracy theorist whispers that it’s left out to make [...] read more >
NPR = Not-news Public Radio?
Posted by jtellerelsberg on March 16th, 2009
[cross posted]
What gives with this morning’s NPR “Morning Edition” story about banks that are choosing to steer clear of TARP bailout money? Reporter Jim Zarroli mostly profiles the Johnson Financial Group, a bank that at first applied for $100 million, then decided not to take it after all once it learned the details of the the strings that come attached, saying that this bank is just one example of many that represent a “mini rebellion” against the TARP [...] read more >
Who will raising FDIC limits help?
Posted by tmasterson on October 1st, 2008UPDATE, below
The part of the new bailout bill that’s supposed to bring along the most formerly reluctant House members is to raise the coverage limit for Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) insured personal deposits (which includes savings and checking accounts, cds and money market accounts) from the current level of $100,000 to $250,000. Obama, McCain and the FDIC all approve. See this story, for instance. But who does this really affect? Using data from the 2004 Survey of Consumer [...] read more >
McCain v. Obama on taxes
Posted by tmasterson on August 20th, 2008
As discouraging as votes on things like FISA and telecom immunity have been, there are still some enormous differences between the two (?) major party candidates. For example, there’s the distributional impacts of their tax policy proposals, as well-illustrated in the figure below from the Tax Policy Center’s newly updated analysis (click on image to embiggen).
read more >
Is the Energy Bill Not-Insane?
Posted by tmasterson on May 8th, 2008J.S. at Environmental Economics seems to think so. Maybe. According to a NY Times piece the bill
would revoke $17 billion in tax breaks extended to big oil companies like Exxon Mobil Corp and slap a 25 percent windfall profits tax on firms that don’t invest in new energy sources.
My question is: will the Democrats grow a spine in time to pass such a bill, even in the face of some opposition?
How it could have been done if the preachers of the free market had stuck to their principles instead of launching a moronic war
Posted by jtellerelsberg on April 25th, 2008[Originally posted here.]
In my post a moment ago I mentioned how I’d once heard that, for the money the US spent on the war in Vietnam, we could have paid for the installation of an in-ground swimming pool for each and every Vietnamese family instead. What a great way to win the hearts and minds of our enemies, eh? So I decided to try out the math for this stupid, awful, and infuriating Iraq war. What if we [...] read more >
Don’t give me the creeps
Posted by mash on February 23rd, 2008Here is a quick quiz question and reality redefinition brought to you by President Bush’s Council of Economic Advisers. Fill in the blank:
“[A]s people’s real incomes grow, they become subject to higher tax rates.”
This phenomenon is known as _______________________.
