Paul Krugman Discusses Piketty’s Capital and the Rise of Inherited Wealth on Bill Moyers
Paul Krugman discusses Thomas Piketty’s new book, Capital in the Twenty-First Century, on Bill Moyers’ show.
Read more...Category Archives: Taxes
Tiny Maine Against Tax-Dodging Multinationals
While Congress cowers before multinationals’ lobbyists and moves to re-enact loopholes that let corporations like GE and Apple hide their income from the IRS, the Maine Legislature decided it had had enough.
Read more...Was Marx Right?
We participated in a Room for Debate forum at the New York Times, on the topic of “Was Marx Right?” Readers are likely to say, “But of course!” Yet Marx had such a large opus and his forecasts were so bold that any fair reading has to come to more nuanced conclusion.
Read more...Los Angeles Public Pension Fund Tells Us It Is a Happy, Trusting Victim of Investment Managers
Our efforts to learn more about the private equity industry are revealing how determined public pension funds are to hiding as much as they can, even when they don’t have a legal leg to stand on.
Read more...China Rumored to be Shutting Down Bitcoin Sites; Why IRS Ruling that Bitcoin is Property is Fatal to Its Use in Commerce in the US
Bitcoin is getting hammered today.
Read more...As Predicted, IRS Deems Bitcoin to be Property, Limiting Its Usefulness in Commercial Transactions
We told readers earlier this month that the IRS was well-nigh certain to deem Bitcoin to be property, not a currency, and that would deter its use in commerce. We got pushback from Bitcoin defenders, who tried several lines of argument, basically along the lines of “digital currencies are inevitable” and “the tax authorities are irrelevant”. Today, the IRS issued a release that states that it regards Bitcoin as tradeable property, which will make it cumbersome to use it in commercial transactions.
Read more...Joe Firestone: Progressives Need to Up Their Game Against Social Security’s Enemies
Yves here. I must confess I find it difficult to counter the simple-minded and inaccurate arguments of the deficit scaremongers. Joe Firestone offers some pointers
Read more...Whistleblower Reveals Favoritism Toward the Rich, Robo-Signing at the IRS
The great David Cay Johnston has obtained a letter written by a veteran IRS lawyer to 10 members of the Senate Finance Committee, alleging not only a gaggle workplace conduct violations but favoritism toward well-connected tax filers and even document fraud.
Read more...Is UCC Article 9 Going to Kill the Use of Bitcoin by US Businesses?
Warning to Bitcoin enthusiasts: if you airily try dismissing UCC Article 9 as a nothigburger, you’ve just established you are unqualified to comment on commercial transactions in the US. Read what follows and be warned.
Read more...Bitcoin is Not a Currency
Bitcoin is not a currency any more than gold bars or collectable baseball cards are. And that has serious implications for this “innovation”.
Read more...J.D. Alt: Forget the 1%
All this talk about the 99% versus the 1%? I say the easiest—and likely the most useful—thing to do is just forget the 1%.
Read more...Tax Havens Make US and Europe Look Poorer than They Are, Exaggerate Size of “Global Imbalances”
Peculiarly, despite the importance of tax havens, a pathbreaking paper published in 2013 by Gabriel Zucman of the Paris School of Economics, The Missing Wealth of Nations: Are Europe and the U.S. Net Debtors or Net Creditors? (hat tip Dikaios Logos) has received perilous little attention. Perhaps that’s because, among other things, it undercuts the Bernanke-flattering claim that “global imbalances” were a major driver of the financial crisis.
Read more...Randy Wray: When Will They Ever Learn – Uncle Sam is not Robin Hood
Why Obama’s budget is yet another economic policy failure.
Read more...Money and Elections in Washington: Pro Wrestling, but With More Respectable Clothes
kayfabe: Term in pro wrestling. Kayfabe was the unsaid rule that the wrestlers should stay in character during the show and in public appearances in order to maintain a feeling of reality (albeit suspended) among the fans.
Read more...The Economics of the 1%: Neoliberal Lies About Government
Yves here. This is a short, straightforward Real News Network interview with John Weeks, Professor Emeritus of the University of London, which dissects the logic, such as it is, by which neoliberals argue against taxes and for smaller government.
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