Bonus Coverage
Um, someone explain to me why everyone is so outraged over bonuses being paid to AIG executives? It’s not like this was some kind of a secret that this is how they were going to be paid, and that they… Continue Reading
Money
Taxing Zima
In a bid to increase revenues, the State Board of Equalization took a look at ultra-sweet “malt liquor beverages” like Mike’s Hard Lemonade, Smirnoff Ice, and any remaining bottles of the clear, oddly-sweet-yet-undelicious alcholoic soda known amongst my law school… Continue Reading
An Effective Tactic Indeed
The British government is worried about economic deflation. Deflation, as in money becoming too valuable as compared to the goods and services for which it is exchanged. And damn, did they find an effective way to fight that. The Bank… Continue Reading
Troubling Tax Trope
I wrote a few days ago about tax policy. One of the things I wrote was: I cannot believe that 600,000 people paid 40% of the Federal government’s $2.15 trillion in tax revenues in 2005; that would work out to… Continue Reading
Debunking Myths About Middle Class Taxes
A quick bit of armchair fiddling around gives me this experiment: Let’s take a taxpayer who makes $60,000 a year in taxable income in 2009, and normalize that for the various years I looked at earlier. I’m assuming that this… Continue Reading
We Are All Agnostics About Tax Policy
I want to point out that last night, after considerable analysis of tax tables going back to 1945, I discovered something quite interesting. Individual income tax rates, whether high or low, seem to have little direct correlation with whether the… Continue Reading
Meme First, Think Later
Okay, I admit that I’m sometimes guilty of the blogging sin described above. But this time it seems particularly annoying to me. So first, the meme that is being repeated all over the internets; I’ve traced it back to ABC… Continue Reading
Won’t Someone Please Think Of The Children?
Who’s Getting Help Anyway?
As I see it, there are three categories of people out there who have suffered losses because of the collapse of the real estate and financial markets. Category 1 is represented by the green field in my improvised diagram. These… Continue Reading
Federal Spending Update
Total money appropriated by the House of Represenatives, as of today: $1.2 trillion. Number of days in Obama Administration, as of today: 38. Spending per day: $31.5 billion. Annual spending per year at this rate: $11.5 trillion. Just-released budget from… Continue Reading