The Obama administration is proposing to lower corporate taxes from the current 35 percent to 28 percent for most companies and to 25 percent for manufacturers. The move is supposed to be “revenue neutral” – meaning the Administration is also proposing to close assorted corporate tax loopholes to offset the lost revenues. One such loophole [...]
This posting is from the January 30 issue of my newsletter, and so ignores recent events in Chongqing, but of course those events make my discussion of the political debate entry all the more relevant, I think. Before getting to the policy debate, I want to mention that in late January Caixin, one of my favorite magazines, [...]
There’s a lot of pushback anytime someone points the finger at banks. As I’ve argued for a couple of years now, virtually all recent foreclosures really amount to theft. The banks have no legal standing to take homes. They created the MERS monster, which destroyed the chain of title and “lost” all the documents. That [...]
Slow Motion Train Wreck or Crisis Averted?
From Project Syndicate: Since late last year, a series of positive developments has boosted investor confidence and led to a sharp rally in risky assets, starting with global equities and commodities. Macroeconomic data from the United States improved; blue-chip companies in advanced economies remained highly profitable; China and emerging markets slowed only moderately; and the [...]
If you print (or in China’s case, import) money and spend it on projects with a zero or negative return, you will get an initial GDP boost (as long as you keep spending), but eventually you will get stagnant growth AND inflation: stagflation.
Edward Hugh
Don't Shoot the Messenger
Congratulations to Edward Hugh whose EconoMonitor blog was #14 on CBNC's NetNet list of best alternative financial and economic blogs. Edward is a macro economist, who specializes in growth and productivity theory, demographic processes and their impact on macro performance, and the underlying dynamics of migration flows. Edward is based in Barcelona, and is currently engaged in research on aging, longevity, fertility and migration, and the impact of all of these on economic growth.
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