Tariffs

Republican Tax Scam Reading

Republican Tax Plan Leaves $1.5 Trillion Bill For Middle Class To Pay
Law Professors Just Published A Delightful, 34-Page List Of Ways People Will Game The GOP Tax Plan
Cut We Cut The Crap On The Debt From The Tax Bill Hurting Our Kids?
What Happened When North Carolina Cut Taxes Like The GOP Plans To For The Country
I'm A Depression Historian. The GOP Tax Bill Is Straight Out Of 1929.
The Biggest Tax Scam In History
Incidence And Welfare Effects Of Corporate Tax Cuts
Voodoo Too: The GOP Addiction To Financial Deregulation
Schroedinger's Tax Hike
It Started As A Tax Cut. How It Could Change American Life.
Republicans Are Getting Ready To Repeat Kansas' Tax Cut Disaster
The Four Big Tax Deceptions

Mapping The New Deal

The Living New Deal Project at UC Berkeley has released an awesome interactive map showing every New Deal project in the country. Since the New Deal spanned from Alaska to Puerto Rico and Panama, you need a very wide view to take it all in:

Today, with interest rates at record lows and no inflation in sight, you might think the government would be undertaking a comparable surge of investment projects. Instead, after a brief-but-significant boost in 2010 associated with the federal stimulus bill, government investment has been falling:

[source]

Sunday Reading

The Most Partisan Supreme Court Justice Of All
Two-Thirds Of States Still Haven't Recovered Jobs Lost In Recession
401(K)s Face 'Crisis,' Says Nobelist Merton
Gaming The Poor
The Trap In The Supreme Court's "Narrow" Decisions
Extreme Poverty Has Dropped In Half Since 1990
Americans Fared Better After Great Depression Than Today
5 Ways The American Health Care System Is Literally The Worst
Why Free Parking Is Bad For Everyone

Weekend Reading

U.S. Jobs Total Surpasses Pre-Recession Level
Walker Job Promises Appear Out Of Reach
WMC Head, UWM Professor Discuss Wisconsin Job Creation
Sheriff David Clarke: You Just Can't Take Him Seriously
Chief Judge Tells Sheriff Clarke Probation Must Be Considered In Nearly All Sentencings
DA John Chisholm Fires Back At Sheriff David Clarke
Privatisation And Government Debt
American Fared Better After Great Depression Than Today

The Worst & Slowest U.S "Recovery" Since The Great Depression

[source]

Private Employment Slowly Reclaims Pre-Downturn Peak

Rich Man’s Recovery

A Sick Job Market -- and How to Cure It

Fiscal Austerity Is Undermining Long-Term U.S. Economic Prospects

Hundreds of Wall Street Execs Went to Prison During the Last Fraud-Fueled Bank Crisis

The Last Mystery of the Financial Crisis

Elizabeth Warren 2016

It appears as though if we (Democrats, leftists, Labor, environmentalists, the reality-based, etc.) really want change, we need Elizabeth Warren leading the way. The strongest, most relentless, and most lucid voice of public service and public policy.

[source]

Spending, GDP & Other Republican Fairy Tales

Republicans are trying to use fear to convince voters that government spending as a percent of GDP is growing and must be cut. "Spending is out of control! If we don't stop it, we're doomed!"

As the first graph below shows, over the last century, at various points, spending as a percent of GDP was at, near or above it's current level. It was much higher after the Great Depression and during World War II. 

Like then, we were now in the midst of an economic downturn second only to the Great Depression. And, we've been involved in war for the last decade. Overall, an extremely similar situation. 

Spending then was almost twice what it is now. And that spending, after the Great Depression, created the middle class. 

Today, the middle class is shrinking. Plus, we're spending a lot less to rebuild our economy. We should be afraid of austerity, not spending.

[source] 

It's great to hear all this talk of decreasing federal government spending...but, the fact of the matter is, most government spending is done at the state and local level. At the federal level, money goes to defense, Social Security and Medicare. At the state and local level, spending is on police, education, and libraries, amongst other necessities. Regardless, this spending is done because citizens like these programs and services. If we cut federal spending, that just means states have to pay more - which means, they have to tax more to pay for the services citizens want.

Debt, Investment & America's Future

Debt, as a percentage of GDP, hasn't been this high since the Great Depression.

And?

Television personalities, pundits, supposed-experts, and other talking-heads are going on and on about how U.S. debt is dooming America.

Over the period following the Great Depression we heavily indebted ourselves to expand infrastructure, educate citizens, and to invest in our future...ending the Depression and moving America forward. From this period, with those large investments, the U.S. saw it's greatest period of prosperity and growth in our history. And, let me add, an income convergence. The middle class was created. The economy as a whole buzzed along, but rather than a select few taking most of the gains (like today), we enjoyed a shared prosperity where one breadwinner could support a family with a decent middle-class lifestyle (the American Dream); the boss made more, but not exponentially so, and the U.S. lifestyle and society were the envy of the world.

Schools, roadways, subdivisions, waterways, electrical grids, sewer systems, bridges ... almost every infrastructure, structural, and institutional entity embodying our national fabric - a majority of the things we now consider "the U.S." - were a direct result of those investments that were made to get out of the Depression.

[graph]

Interest rates are at historic lows. There is no better time to make infrastructure investments to propel us into another half-century of prosperity.

History Lesson

Weekend Reading

Chile's Privatization Failures
Contracting Out Costs Government Lots Extra
Higher Fees Paid to U.S. Physicians
Historically Low Taxes
The Investor's Dilemma
The Keynes-Hayek Rematch
The Legend of Margaret Thatcher
The Magical World of Voodoo Economists
Painful Medicine
Republican Assault on Post Office and Postal Unions
Studies Cite CEO Pay Cause of Wealth Inequality
U.S. Healthcare Costs High Because Doctor Fees are High
Was Marx Right?
What Caused the Recession of 1937-38?
Why Do Mayors Love Sports Stadiums?

Weekend Economic Reading

Everything's Made in China? Not Quite.

The Hope That Flows From History

Our Sputtering Economy

A Second Great Depression, or Worse?

Stop Coddling The Super-Rich

Ten Charts That Prove U.S. is a Low-Tax Country

20,000 Leagues Under the State

Unemployment versus Debt

Why do the Republicans continue to speak of a crisis of debt? Of fiscal challenges?

Our ability to obtain cheap money is not a problem. Interest rates are lower than they ever been. If we need money, it's there. The idea of "debt" implies we've splurged and broke the bank. That's not the case. The U.S. is still a very safe and attractive currency as a pillar of value. Rates on a 30-year fixed mortgage are the lowest they been in over 50 years!

We've got money. We need to spend it. We need to invest.

Unemployment is at almost 9 percent! Nearly 10 percent of our American workforce is being idly used.

We've had the worst economic catastrophe since the Great Depression. Which was largely caused by Robber Barons, Wall Street, and CEOs. The same people that have up-ended the lives of people all over the world and crashed the economy, not just in America, are the same ones making profits hand-over-fist (AGAIN!) and, also, according to Republicans, must not be increasingly-taxed on some of their ill-gotten gains and asked to pay more?

Debt?

Spending?

Public workers?

Make these [Robber Barons, Wall Street, and CEOs] lazy, greedy bastards pay already!!!

Is this country asleep?

Rage Against The Machine - Wake Up (Live) by popefucker

It's The Economy, Stupid

Dean Baker lays to rest any last gasp that might be heard from the Walker "we have no money" crowd; whom are using a budgetary "crisis" pretext in a desperate and cruel attempt to crush unionization and collective bargaining rights of workers.

"States always face financial stress in economic downturns." Remember, people, we're in a downturn. It's called that because (economic) indicators have declined. We're out of work because of Wall Street. Because we're working less, we're buying less. When we buy less, businesses sell less. They, therefore, need less workers. The economy slows. This is when government steps in to fund state and local functions, to invest in infrastructure and other public works, and to inject money into the economy for innovation and research. More people start getting back to work. They start spending. The economy picks up. Businesses start hiring.

Too bad Scott Walker has refused/returned over $1 billion in possible investment (rail, high-speed internet, wind turbines) in Wisconsin during his short time in office!

To pretend we don't know why things are tough right now, or to fantasize it's the fault of unions, is cognitive dissonance of the highest proportion. Wall Street gambled with our retirement accounts, our pensions, our mortgages, and our bond ratings. And we lost. Sorry, but I don't want to put my faith - and money - back into the Wall Street casino. Investing in each other, as we did to get out of the Great Depression, is a much better option.

Unionization has been a proud tradition of Wisconsin for over a century. Yet, the budget/collective-bargaining "story" appears to be: Unions are a budgetary firecracker. Wisconsin passed one of the first collective bargaining laws in 1959. And now, 52 years later, that firecracker has exploded.

I'm curious how other state budgets - between then and now - were passed with those damn unions and their collective bargaining?!

"The number of jobs now stands at 7.7 million below its pre-recession levels." The is the second worst economic crisis - cause again by greedy speculation - in the history of our country. Does any one think this (and maybe not unions) may have something to do with the recession we're in? You know, the slow economy, and thus, lower revenues?

"The economy is operating at more than 6.4 percentage points below it potential level of output. If Wisconsin's state economy was 6.4% larger, and its revenues increased accordingly, it would have more than $4 billion in additional revenues in its coffers over the next two years...This increase would easily covered the projected deficit. This is even before we add in the savings from lower payouts for unemployment insurance and other benefits that would follow from a return to a normal level of unemployment."

It's the economy, stupid!

There has been, "A falloff of more than $1.2 trillion in spending from the private sector." And, this wasn't because they didn't have the money. They've just been hoarding the cash.

It is cruel disrespect when one of the institutions - unions - that lifted America from the Great Depression and helped create our middle class is now being wrongfully blamed as the cause of the current crisis.

Economics

Real Lesson From The Great Depression: Fiscal Policy Works

The Slump Goes On: Why?

When Will The Bond Auctions Begin To Fail?

Pushing On A String

Dean Baker tries to discuss the stimulus plan, the housing bubble, and the Federal Reserve, among other issues, with Megan McArdle (conservative/libertarian propagandist).

Megan 'seems' like a very bright person, and she even raises some good points (for the first few minutes). But too often she cuts Dean Baker off or uses deflectors like, "well, the real question is" or, "anyways, what really matters is." And sometimes she just doesn't seem to have a grasp of the facts or just won't admit that she doesn't, whereby she then rambles and morphs the discussion into a new argument.

She goes on and on about “make-work” jobs. Saying the WPA wouldn’t have been created if there was full employment. Duh! That is the purpose of demand-side stimulus. The government steps in to do that which the private sector will not or can not.

Megan implies that workers in the WPA program just recorded oral histories and painted murals. And, also (latter) in a rather immature quip she compares it to hiring people to mow their lawns. Ridiculous! She conveniently sweeps past Dr. Baker’s evidence of roads and bridges. As if to imply, the work being done added no long-term value, built nothing of value, created no jobs, nor helped the economy recover. The GDP and employment indicators of the time tell a different story.

She then goes on to say how proxies, ways of measuring, are imperfect…as if, there’s just no good way to measure anything, so therefore, we really don’t know anything, what works, or what doesn’t. But, stupendously, somehow she knows.

And, also, she makes the distinction between good and bad “make-work” jobs – if she doesn’t like the project or thinks it's wasteful, then it’s bad “make-work.”

Next, she explains how a son-in-law being hired because of nepotism is a “make-work” job. Huh, that’s an interesting one. The old saying, “it’s who you know, not what you know” didn’t come about for just any reason. So all the people who knew someone whom helped you obtain a job, because of that connection your job isn’t real. Wow, the unemployment rate is going to rise spectacularly under Megan’s new way of measuring.

To her this is all most likely bad debt. She feels we can't borrow and spend and have any good come from it. But that train of thought is debunked here, here and here.

I also was really 'charmed' by her use of phrases like “everyone knows,” implying everyone but Dr. Baker knows and he’s an idiot to even be debating her on this particular point. Or when he would squash her weak argument, she would then say, “we’re arguing about two different things,” or “that’s neither here nor there.” The only thing she seems to have done successfully here is muddle the discussion into the realm of incoherence (which is Republicans' want).

Or when she tries to sound academic and says things like the marginal product of labor ("if we value what they are creating more than we are paying them" - her definition). But this concept really supports the notion that productivity rather than debt is a better indicator of our growth and quality of life. That is, looking back years from now, even if we are paying off debt, yet we have increased our productivity (more so than we otherwise would have), the stimulus plan will have been successful.

Her whole argument also has an underlying assumption - there is no waste in the private sector. Which, if the last eight (or, for that matter, twenty-eight) years have shown us anything, this is definitely not the case. She appears to be nothing other than an enraptured ideologue.

One can only conclude Megan McArdle is a train-wreck.

During a few spots I was hoping Dean would just say, "OK. Next topic." Since it was obvious Megan only wanted to hear herself pontificate and bloviate.

But nonetheless, it's a good informative hour...at least when Dean is allowed to speak.