Category: Biz and Econ

Discussion on all things business related.

Three Steps Toward a Balanced Budget

Three Steps Toward a Balanced Budget:

“Our personal and national relationship to debt is indeed a moral issue. Leaving our children to pay the bills for excessive spending cannot be justified. But, if a budget really is a moral document, how we reduce the deficit is also a moral issue. Our budget should not be balanced on the backs of the poor. Cuts should not come from the services and programs that people rely on now more than ever. The reality is that we have a lot of wasteful spending in our federal budget, but most of it does not come from things that help the most vulnerable people in our society.”

(Via God’s Politics Blog.)

In short, he suggests cuts to:

  • Defense spending
  • Return to Clinton-era tax rates for the wealthy
  • Eliminate farm subsidies

We’d save billions upon billions and we’d have a more moral budget to boot.

Why Friends Dont Let Friends Vote Republican, Ever

Why Friends Don’t Let Friends Vote Republican, Ever: “

Ezra Klein watches newly-elected Republican House member Andrew Harris (R-MD) demonstrate why he should immediately resign his post and let himself be replaced by somebody who is more intelligent:

GOP legislator frets over 28 days without insurance — but what about 30 million he’d leave uninsured?: It’s worth dwelling for a moment on the reaction of Rep. Andy Harris, an incoming legislator who staunchly opposes the new health-care law and ran promising its repeal, to news that he’d had to wait a month for his government-funded health-care benefits to kick in:

Republican Andy Harris, an anesthesiologist who defeated freshman Democrat Frank Kratovil on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, reacted incredulously when informed that federal law mandated that his government-subsidized health-care policy would take effect Feb. 1 – 28 days after his Jan. 3rd swearing-in. ‘He stood up and asked the two ladies who were answering questions why it had to take so long, what he would do without 28 days of health care,’ said a congressional staffer who saw the exchange. … ‘Harris then asked if he could purchase insurance from the government to cover the gap,’ added the aide.

The point is… Harris’s fear at being uninsured… whatever else you think of the health-care law, it really does keep people from being uninsured…

“

 

(Via Grasping Reality with Both Hands.)

Why Our Tax Code?

Why Our Tax Code?:

“But if you are the rich people in a democratic society where most people believe in reduced inequality, what kind of tax code do you want? You want to start with an overall progressive structure (so the people won’t revolt), and then you want a boatload of exceptions to that structure that (a) favor the rich and (b) can be individually defended on plausible (and sometimes even reasonable) grounds. Which is what we’ve got.”

(Via The Baseline Scenario.)

Best summary of our tax code I’ve ever heard or read.  Democracy is chess, not checkers.  If you aren’t playing, you get played.  Simple as that.

Comparing Democratic and Republican tax plans

Comparing Democratic and Republican tax plans:

GR2010081106717.gifSOURCE: Joint Committee on Taxation

(Via The Washington Post.)

Reason #4080 to vote against the GOP: rational economic self-interest.

Amos on Economic Justice

“We will buy the lowly for silver, and the poor for a pair of sandals; even the refuse of the wheat we will sell!’ The LORD has sworn by the pride of Jacob: Never will I forget a thing they have done!” What does that say about minimum wage?

USCCB | NAB – September 19, 2010:

“Am 8:4-7

Hear this, you who trample upon the needy and destroy the poor of the land! ‘When will the new moon be over,’ you ask, ‘that we may sell our grain, and the sabbath, that we may display the wheat? We will diminish the ephah, add to the shekel, and fix our scales for cheating! We will buy the lowly for silver, and the poor for a pair of sandals; even the refuse of the wheat we will sell!’ The LORD has sworn by the pride of Jacob: ‘Never will I forget a thing they have done!'”

(Via United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.)

This was the First Reading at Mass this morning on the theme of the day: socio-economic justice.  I always read this Bible passage as a general attack on the exploitation of the poor and so it is.  But it’s worth examining exactly what’s going on here.  Diminishing the ephah and adding to the shekel is pretty straightforward: It’s evil to cheat the poor.  But buying the lowly for silver the the poor for a pair of sandals hit me because it speaks to the morality of living wages and paying people below them.

Continue reading “Amos on Economic Justice”

Efficiently Just?

“These are not idle academic ruminations. Suppose a restructuring of the economy has the effect of increasing the growth of average gross domestic product per capita, but that the benefits of that growth accrue disproportionately to a minority of citizens, while others are worse off as a result, as appears to have been the case in the United States in the last several decades. Can economists judge this to be a good thing?”

Is ‘More Efficient’ Always Better? – Economix Blog – NYTimes.com:

“These are not idle academic ruminations. Suppose a restructuring of the economy has the effect of increasing the growth of average gross domestic product per capita, but that the benefits of that growth accrue disproportionately to a minority of citizens, while others are worse off as a result, as appears to have been the case in the United States in the last several decades. Can economists judge this to be a good thing?”

(Via Economix Blog.)

And this is where politics comes in.  Free market zealots (so-called, but that’s an argument for another day) argue in terms of GDP growth, side stepping the issue that only the top 10% of wage earners saw any of the gains over the last few decades.

Morally Impoverished Economics?

One must wonder whether physicians, nurses and other workers toiling day and night in health care — let alone the medics and helicopter pilots who risk their lives to help the wounded — see their work and its product quite as Mr. Limbaugh casts it.

One further wonders whether families with a cancer-stricken member are likely to view going without health care as the moral equivalent of going without a beach house.

via Is Health Care Special? – Economix Blog – NYTimes.com.

Great article.  There are moral dimensions to healthcare and it shows how economics can handle something as thorny as morality. But, as for Limbaugh, I can see why Jon Stewart calls him a douche.  Wow.

The Man in San Fran

Here on a long term business trip. Teaching a course and running the program encapsulating it. In addition meeting up with Wharton alums and networking my proverbial ass off. Difficult being away from my family. Miss them terribly. Just makes me more determine to squeeze this trip for all the value I can.

Larry Kudlow Vote of Confidence for Obama

Stock Market Rise Under Obama

Krugman quotes Kudlow:

I have long believed that stock markets are the best barometer of the health, wealth and security of a nation. And today’s stock market message is an unmistakable vote of confidence for the president.

Paging Larry Kudlow – Paul Krugman Blog – NYTimes.com.

Rational Markets

Justin Fox | The Daily Show | Comedy Central:

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(Via The Daily Show.)

Why regulation, but not regulators, is necessary.