Yves here. This post addresses an important but oft-neglected topic: that of the stealth subsidies to the rich and connected that take place via economic development projects.
Read more...Transfers don’t matter for investment, and most savings are transfers. Thus Piketty’s wealth tax won’t hurt investment.
Read more...Spain’s conservative government, eager to change the media’s emphasis on its repudiation in recent EU elections, has launched a media campaign stressing its adoption of an aggressive “stimulus” program. But once you get past the hype, this new program is the same old failed austerity snake oil.
Read more...Governments use taxes to move resources to the public sector, where they can be used to promote social goals.
Read more...Conventional wisdom that extreme parties on the right and left won in the European Parliamentary elections. In fact, only one extreme won.
Read more...How major energy companies are selling their former first world product, fossil fuels, to the third world, replaying Big Tobacco’s ploy.
Read more...The West needs to curb its enthusiasm over the recent elections in the Ukraine. Gazprom is tightening the energy screws next week.
Read more...How the Vietnam War helped usher in neoliberalism, financialization of the economy, and the use of military spending as stealth stimulus.
Read more...Were the results of the European elections a tremor or an earthquake?
Read more...In an important, well-reaserched article, Gretchen Morgenson flags several types of private equity fee abuses. Did the incoming New York Times editor, Dean Baquet, bury her story by running it Memorial Day weekend?
Read more...Although Piketty’s Capital has garnered a great deal of praise, the criticisms were initially overlooked. They are finally getting the attention they warrant.
Read more...Climate scientists are understating their findings to a significant degree. “Least drama” might be too kind a characterization. “Self censorship” might be closer to the mark.
Read more...Yves here. A lot of people argue for redistributive taxes, contending that they were very successful in the golden age of the American middle class, from the end of World War II through the Reagan era, in constraining the concentration of income and wealth at the top. However, that tax structure reflected a broad social consensus in favor of fostering prosperity for ordinary Americans, in no small measure to keep Communist impulses at bay.
In Yankee terms, Wray’s argument against using taxes to create a more egalitarian distribution of income is “You can’t get there from here”.
Read more...How supranational and pan-European institutions, along with US meddling, have vitiated democracy in Europe.
Read more...The Department of Justice wants the public to see the guilty plea it obtained from Credit Suisse as a Big Deal. Is it?
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