The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age

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Our marginal tax rate is a moral hazard.

By Flavius on Wed, 10/05/2011 - 12:40pm |

The marginal tax rate was

91% under Ike starting at $400,000

70% from  Nixon to Carter, at $200,000

28% under Reagan at  $300,000.

40% under Clinton at $288,000. Which became 35%, under the famous Bush  tax cuts.

(remind me why we can't afford social security!)

If you were an AIG trader collecting $6 million in 2004 after taking a risk which might -and did- bankrupt your employer you'd have kept $3,900,000 to comfort you if your social security was inadequate. 

How Barack failed the Suskind test

By Flavius on Tue, 10/04/2011 - 6:03pm |

Confidence Men: Wall Street, Washington, and the Education of a President pretty much boils down to Suskind's view that Obama's incompetent management blighted his first two years in particular by causing him to blow two key decisions: he didn't put Citicorp into Chapter 11 (or even Chrysler)  and in creating the Affordable Health Care Act (AHCA) he opted for coverage instead of cost reduction.

Punishing Citicorp ( or somebody)

And the score was....Geithner 1, Volker 0.

Suskind subscribes to the moral hazard school: when something's gone wrong, someone should suffer. Perhaps even  those responsible. Somehow I'm reminded of Shirley Jackson's The Lottery, but never mind.

Suskind's book

By Flavius on Wed, 09/28/2011 - 11:07am |

... is reviewed by Brad Delong . The link is below in the first comment(don't ask!)

It (the review) is worth reading. Whether you agree or disagree with Brad, it sort of provides a check list of the issues you have to consider in trying to come to a rational position about Obama's record on the economy.

As to the book itself, well whether or not you disagree with Suskind, it's impressive in all the stuff it covers. But not in its manipulative argument by adjective or anecdote. From Brad's review:

You're not going to have Obama to kick around any more

By Flavius on Thu, 09/15/2011 - 10:24am |

after Nov 2012.

On Countdown last night Nate Silver explained that this week's special congressional elections were even worse than they had seemed on the surface. We knew that the Republican carried Anthony Weiner's Brooklyn  seat and won in the open  Nevada seat.

Brooklyn was  discounted as Netanyahu's revenge: the district's large Jewish electorate punishing Obama for being insufficiently pro Israel.  No reason to expect that to change between now and Nov 2012 when Ed Koch will presumably endorse Rick Perry or whomever the Tea Party anoints.

 

Let the uninsured die on the door step of the ER

By Flavius on Tue, 09/13/2011 - 3:25pm |

Here's the report that's going viral today.

http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-pn-ron-paul-gop-debate-20110913,0,3161863.story?track=rss

I deeply disagree with those who applauded the idea of letting the uninsured die.

But of course that's what we do already,  but we can hide it from ourselves by not looking very hard.

 

And it's why I back Obamacare.

 

Juan Cole taking a victory lap

By Flavius on Mon, 08/22/2011 - 10:55pm |

Here's Juan Cole's summary of why he thought in March we/Obama were right to support the Libyan rebels.

And still does.

http://www.juancole.com/

Mr. Sachs, Mr Keynes. Oh, you've met already

By Flavius on Thu, 08/18/2011 - 3:26pm |

The New Yorker

I fondly remember a cartoon a decade ago. A blackboard full of equations.  Two elderly physicists. One, pointing at a spot on the board., which says “then a miracle occurs”.

 

The Financial Times

 Aug 18 2011

Jeffrey Sachs

 …….. No need to blame the rating agencies: governments.. have been unable to cope with the realities of global capital markets and competition from Asia…

Keep it quiet, a Democratic victory

By Flavius on Thu, 08/18/2011 - 12:57am |

Tuesday. In Wisconsin . By the two Dems against whom the Reps had organized a Recall. Well publicized by NPR in a sucky piece a week before the election introducing us to Patriotic Wisconsin Housewife, out there fighting the Good Fight and organizing one of the Recalls. Yawn.

Not saying NPR didn't have the right. Just pointing out that anyway the Dems got 54% and 58% of the vote.Which sounds like an improvement over the General judging by the absence of Republican claims of an improved share.

Maybe the Downgrade was a pre-emptive strike

By Flavius on Fri, 08/12/2011 - 11:24pm |

Suppose S&P knew it had some sub-prime skeletons which it wanted to protect from any investigation. The Downgrade did that since now any investigation could be characterized as Obama's revenge.

What sort of skeletons?

Consider the initial period of minimal payments in sub-prime loans..

Wisconsin-not quite enough

By Flavius on Wed, 08/10/2011 - 1:43am |

Best case the dems will only pick up two seats. They needed 3.

Worst case there could be no change

 

As of 1 40 edt the democrats were only able to unseat two of the 6 republican senators they were challenging. A third repub was in a tight race but will probably survive..

 

Next week two democrats will undergo a recall vote.so it's possible that the apparent gain of two seats tonight could be offset.  

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