Category Archives: Taxes

Debunking Bush Tax Cut Myths

A school of political and economic argument goes something like this: every economic ill can be cured by tax cuts. It’s clearly rubbish when stated that way, yet the same logic is given far too much credence every time it is overused. A very good piece by William Gale at the Washington Post, “Five myths […]

Which is the Bigger Threat: Terrorism or Wall Street Bonuses?

Cross-posted from New Deal 2.0 By Wallace C. Turbeville, the former CEO of VMAC LLC, and a former Vice President of Goldman, Sachs & Co. The current system of trader compensation will continue to decay the heart of Wall Street. Which is a greater threat to the nation — terrorism or the relentless decline of […]

Reader Inquiry: Tax Havens, aka the Sunny Bahamas

Can any of you shed light on these reader questions about tax havens? The US tolerance for tax havens is puzzling, given that the US taxes citizens on their income earned anywhere in the world, and takes a dim view of foreign bank accounts (I am under the impression the rules have been tightened even […]

Our New York Times Op Ed on the Corporate Savings Glut

Rob Parenteau and I have an op-ed at the New York Times today. Rob’s last post here argued energetically that the now-established trend of the corporate sector to save, as opposed to invest in growth, in advanced economies, and even most emerging economies, was tantamount to capitalists abandoning their traditional role. It reminded me of […]

Backfire at “America Speaks” Propaganda Campaign vs. Social Security and Medicare

For those who did not catch wind of it, the Peterson Foundation, which has long had Social Security and Medicare in its crosshairs, held a bizarre set of 19 faux town hall meetings over the previous weekend to scare participants into compliance and then collect the resulting distorted survey data, presumably to use in a […]

Mirabile Dictu: $19 Billion Fee Added to Financial Reform Bill (Updated)

In a weak nod to “too big to fail” concerns, House Financial Services Committee chairman Barney Frank announced that larger banks and hedge funds would pay a fee as a way of pre-funding resolution costs. From the Financial Times: The proposed levy emerged as an unwelcome surprise for the industry deep into a late-evening congressional […]

Will Planned Bank Taxes Go Far Enough?

The UK emergency budget, which will impose a £2billion tax on banks, both domestic and foreign bank operations domiciled there, along with the upcoming G20 meetings, is pushing a contentious issue to the fore: how and how much to tax banks. There are two motivations at work. First, with most advanced economies keen to narrow […]

DOJ: Banks Colluded with Municipal “Advisers” to Rig Bids on GICs

Bloomberg has a detailed story up on its website about a pending Department of Justice suit that charges that municipalities were not simply played for fools by big financial firms and sold down the river by their supposed advisers. Sadly, that is all too common. What is noteworthy here is that the advisers engaged in […]

Campaign to Cut Entitlements Picking Up in U.S.

The first part of this two part series proved to be very popular among blog readers, given the level of comments, so I thought I’d feature the second part, which was posted by Real News Networks on Monday. Enjoy!

US Retirement Benefits to be Cut?

Tom Ferguson, professor of political science professor at the University of Massachusetts, Boston, is in fine form here. Enjoy!

Senators Propose 50% Bonus Tax on Big TARP Recipients

Hhhm. Even though the UK 50% bonus “supertax” was deemed to be a bit of a failure (the banks just grossed up bonuses to compensate for the levy), Senators Barbara Boxer and James Webb have proposed a similar measure, and one wonders how it might fend off the sort of gaming that plagued the UK […]