TO: Thomas Piketty FROM: Pejman Yousefzadeh RE: Incurring Paul Krugman's Contempt Dear Professor Piketty: Congratulations on successfully positioning yourself so that you may be looked down upon by Paul Krugman until the end of time itself. Your ability to cause Professor Krugman to consider you to be less intellectually developed than your average paramecium--and make no mistake; …
The Truly Awful Idea to Tax 529 Plans
Megan McArdle: Earlier in the week, I discussed the Obama administration's proposal to tax earnings on so-called 529 college savings plans, part of a package of tax hikes that will pay for new programs such as his proposal to make the first two years of community college free. This has been touted as a plan to hike taxes on …
Once Upon a Time, Warren Buffett Was Barack Obama’s Favorite Billionaire
He never should have been, of course, but never mind that for a moment. Focus instead on the fact that Warren Buffett just made life very inconvenient for a White House that professed to venerate his every word, thought, gesture and action:The White House might need a new poster child for its “tax fairness” campaign.Famed billionaire investor Warren Buffett, …
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This Blog Post Is Dedicated to Stephen Bainbridge
The "moral outrage over tax inversions" is feigned outrage. It is ginned up, fake, astroturfed outrage that will go away as soon as the midterm elections are over. It currently commands (too much) attention because President Obama and the Democratic party are worried that they might lose the Senate in the midterms, because they have no genuine …
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Some Common Sense on Corporate Tax Inversions
Courtesy of Greg Mankiw:“Some people are calling these companies ‘corporate deserters.’ ”That is what President Obama said last month about the recent wave of tax inversions sweeping across corporate America, and he did not disagree with the description. But are our nation’s business leaders really so unpatriotic?A tax inversion occurs when an American company merges with …
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Integrity Inverted
Anyone really surprised by this?President Barack Obama won’t return campaign donations to executives, advisers and directors who have profited from offshore mergers that reduce corporate taxes using a technique he has called “unpatriotic.”Responding to a Bloomberg News report that described connections between more than 20 Obama donors and the tax-cutting transactions, White House Deputy Press Secretary …
If Only We Had Some “Economic Patriotism” in the White House
To wit:President Barack Obama says U.S. corporations that adopt foreign addresses to avoid taxes are unpatriotic. His own administration helped one $20 billion American company do just that.As part of the bailout of the auto industry in 2009, Obama’s Treasury Department authorized spending $1.7 billion of government funds to get a bankrupt Michigan parts-maker back …
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Summing Up Jonathan Alter
A know-nothing when it comes to economics and a McCarthyite when it comes to discourse. The notion that corporations and other businesses now have to take "loyalty oaths" so that they will be prevented from acting rationally in the face of ridiculous and onerous taxes and tax policy insults the intelligence of just about everyone, …
It’s Time for a Big, Giant Health Care Reform Roundup
I have been neglectful in posting about the continuing travails of Obamacare; real life demands mean less time for blogging. There is a lot of news to cover, and the news does remain bad for Obamacare fans. Let's start with what might be the next big problem for Obamacare: Obamacare’s rollout dented the Department of …
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The Case for Jeeves
A fascinating experiment: Jon Steinsson and Emi Nakamura do not have enough time to do everything they need to do. They’re recently tenured, highly productive rising stars at Columbia University, as well as parents to an infant. But they have a secret weapon helping them prioritize: Econ 101. One of the oldest, if not entirely …
Pejman Yousefzadeh 