Jacoby: Class warfare only ok for rich

Jeff Jacoby has an article about possible tax increases on the wealthy:
President Obama, who said last year that he would use the presidency to “spread the wealth around,’’ is seeking to raise the top marginal income tax rate from 35 percent to 39.6 percent, and to collect even more tax revenue by limiting the deductions [...]

Andrew Ross Sorkin, unions, and corporate raiders

On a panel on Morning Joe on MSNBC, Andrew Ross Sorkin asked whether anyone on the panel could name a successful company that had a union (this was in the midst of union bashing). He sent an ‘apology‘ to TPM:
“Boy did I touch the third rail! My off-handed comment was admittedly flip. I apologize for that. It was [...]

But we need secret elections to stop intimidation

People who want to keep out unions, always say they’re against the Employee Free Choice Act because there needs to be a secret ballot so that the unions can’t intimidate workers. Let’s see what such a fair election is like:
An N.L.R.B. judge concluded that management had committed so many serious violations of the law — [...]

Nationalization

President Obama has forced the resignation of GM’s CEO and is requiring strict conditions before the government gives more money to GM and Chrysler. Here are two critiques in the article:
“This nationalization of business may prove to be folly,” warned Louis E. Lataif, dean of Boston University’s School of Management and a former president of [...]

In the long run

It turns out that the government agency that insures private pension funds decided in 2008 that it should put more money in the stock market. It turns out the timing was about as bad as it could be:
The agency refused to say how much of the new investment strategy has been implemented or how the [...]

Republicans give, admit they’re stupid

Since people have complained that they haven’t actually made any proposals only complain, House Republicans have put together ‘The Republican Road to Recovery.’ It was announced as a budget proposal, but because they have no actual proposals or budget estimate in it, they quickly backtracked and said the details will come out later. As Ezra [...]

More money to small banks?

It will depend on how it’s done, but this could be a good thing:
US Representative Barney Frank yesterday called on the Obama administration to quickly issue rules to get public funds into the hands of smaller banks, including many in Massachusetts, which to date have been shut out of the Treasury’s capital lending programs.
Compared to [...]

No wonder banks are going under

I read this yesterday, but didn’t have time to put it up:
The federal agency that insures bank deposits, which is asking for emergency powers to borrow up to $500 billion to take over failed banks, is facing a potential major shortfall in part because it collected no insurance premiums from most banks from 1996 to [...]

Tierney, Pielke, and Lomborg and Global Warming

John Tierney (really, why is he still with the NY Times) has another article downplaying global warming. He pretends to be in some sort of center in the global warming debate: global warming is real and caused by humans, but it’s not that big a deal and it’s better to fix things after than to [...]

Rahm Emanuel and the Stimulus package

Via Kevin Drum, here’s Rahm Emanuel talkingabout Paul Krugman’s objection to the size and proportion of tax cuts in the Stimulus package passed:
“They have never worked the legislative process,” Emanuel said of critics like the Timescolumnist Paul Krugman, who argued that Obama’s concessions to Senate Republicans—in particular, the tax cuts, which will do little to [...]

Patrick regulations to put homeless on the street

The Patrick administration has been trying to change the way the state deals with the homeless. Much of what they do is good, but this isn’t:
The regulations, scheduled to take effect April 1, would deny shelter to families who in the last three years had been evicted from or had abandoned public or subsidized housing [...]

The end was near?

Via Pandagon , here’s a video that’s been making the rounds (although it was put up in January):

Here’s a bit of the transcript (from here):
It was about September 15th [sic]. … On Thursday at about 11 o’clock in the morning the Federal Reserve noticed a tremendous drawdown of, uh, money market accounts [...]

$500,000 is not much?

The proposal by President Obama to have a salary cap of $500,000 for executives in bailed out companies, brings this comment (bold added):
“That is pretty draconian — $500,000 is not a lot of money, particularly if there is no bonus,” said James F. Reda, founder and managing director of James F. Reda & Associates, a [...]

Is Jeff Jacoby in a time warp?

Jeff Jacoby has a column about the stimulus package today and says:
According to the CBO, less than half of the $355 billion the bill allocates to infrastructure and other “discretionary” projects would actually be spent by the end of 2010; of that, a mere $26 billion would be spent in the current fiscal year. “The rest [...]

Tax Cuts or Spending

There seems to be a divide between Republicans and Democrats about how to create jobs. Let’s look at estimates for the number of jobs created with $1 billion if it’s spent on certain things (click on the image to see it better):

Here are a couple of the results: for tax cuts 10,779; for mass transit [...]

Freight Trains

I read this article on freight trains:
In a study recently presented to the National Academy of Engineering, the Millennium Institute, a nonprofit known for its expertise in energy and environmental modeling, calculated the likely benefits of an expenditure of $250 billion to $500 billion on improved rail infrastructure. It found that such an investment would get [...]

Banks: It’s Our Money Now, Go Away

Let me put together two articles:
At Bank of New York Mellon Corp., chief executive Robert P. Kelly’s stipend for financial planning services came to $66,748, on top of his $975,000 salary and $7.5 million bonus. His car and driver cost $178,879. Kelly also received $846,000 in relocation expenses, including help selling his home in Pittsburgh [...]

Jacoby: We Should Cut Taxes, Because (Fill in the Blank)

It’s good to see that some people never change their mind. Here’s Jeff Jacoby (talking about a proposed tax holiday by US Rep. Louie Gohmert):
Granted, a two-month tax holiday isn’t ideal. The best economic medicine right now – the best way to stimulate new spending, investment, and saving – would be a permanent reduction in marginal [...]

A Sit-In in Chicago

Here’s another example of corporate compassion:
Fried said the company can’t pay its 300 employees because its creditor, Charlotte, N.C.-based Bank of America, won’t let them. Crain’s Chicago Business reported that Republic Windows’ monthly sales had fallen to $2.9 million from $4 million during the past month. In a memo to the union, obtained by the [...]

Tweeter Shafts Workers, Again

What is it with the company Tweeter? Last year they closed stores without paying severance that was promised workers and then tried to get bonuses for its executives. Yesterday they shut all their stores (they were being closed, but this was cut short) and:
The employees, including roughly 150 in Massachusetts, are still owed at least [...]