Richer Health Benefits - 11/30/12

A new study demonstrates that health benefits are richer in the public sector than the private sector in America.

More

Morningstar: Unsound Pension Systems - 11/30/12

The firm's report found 21 states’ aggregate funded ratios fell below 70 percent, which Morningstar considers the threshold for “fiscally sound” systems. Illinois (43.4 percent), Kentucky (50.5 percent) and Connecticut (53.4 percent) registered the lowest funding levels of all examined.

More

The Rich and Their Taxes - 11/29/12

Warren Buffett insinuates that the tax code is not progressive enough to adequately tax the rich. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the income tax system is nearly twice as progressive as it was when Jimmy Carter was in the White House. 

More

Slow-Demand Recovery - 11/29/12

It has taken four years for demand to recover just back to levels back in 2008 in the industrialized countries of the world.

More

Housing's A Bad Investment - 11/27/12

In the wake of the housing market's 2008 meltdown, housing remains a popular investment. This popularity is surprising because, over the post-war period, US house prices have been essentially flat in real terms while the US stock markets have risen more than fourfold in real terms over the same period.

More

Racing to Beat Dividend Cliff - 11/26/12

Companies are acting to beat the clock on higher dividend taxes for their shareholders by increasing their 2012 dividends. They are pulling the money to pay them from the funds that they might otherwise have used to pay dividends in the first quarter of 2013.

More

How to Collect More In Taxes - 11/26/12

Instead of phase-outs for existing deductions above certain income thresholds that raise marginal rates, or reductions in the tax value of deductions, Congress should consider caps on the deductions themselves or an across-the-board limitation on deductions.

More

Taxes and Cliffs - 11/26/12

The ill effects of taxation -- the "distortions" -- depend on the total, marginal rate including transfers. If I earn an extra dollar, how much more stuff do I get, or how much more of someone else's services can I receive? That calculation has to including all taxes, federal, payroll, state, local, sales, excise, etc. and  phaseouts.

More

College Texbook Bubble - 11/23/12

The cost of college textbooks has been rising at almost twice the rate of general CPI inflation for at least the last thirty years. As Glenn Reynolds reminds us, “a process that cannot go on forever, won’t,” and the college textbook bubble is certainly one of those processes.

More

States: Who Gets Dividend Income - 11/23/12

The map shows qualified dividend income as a percentage of total income for each state - the top states will be the ones most affected by any increase in taxes on dividends.

More

State Spending and Fiscal Cliff - 11/23/12

Relying on data from the Federal Funds Information Service, Pew found that 82% of all federal grant revenues to states would be exempt from sequestration.

More

Small Business Remains Uncertain - 11/22/12

A survey of small firms, conducted before the presidential election, found that the percent of owners uncertain about whether business conditions will be better or worse in six months, was at a record high of 23%.

More

Something To Be Thankful For - 11/20/12

The retail cost of menu items for a classic Thanksgiving dinner including turkey, stuffing, cranberries, pumpkin pie and all the basic trimmings increased less than 1 percent this year, according to the American Farm Bureau Federatio.

More

Fiscal Cliff and Household Taxes - 11/20/12

Average increases in household taxes, by state.

More

Bursting Law School Bubble - 11/19/12

All of this bodes extremely ill for law schools desirous of maintaining the quality of their student body while satisfying their universities' need for income....

More

Global Economic Skeptism - 11/19/12

Business executives around the world are slightly more optimistic than they were over the summer, but only in a few regions are they actually bullish.

More

Pensions and the Pentagon - 11/16/12

A new report points out the military has $1 trillion in unfunded pension liabilities.

More

Volatile Jobless Claims - 11/16/12

The United States would appear to have entered a new trend for new jobless claims, one characterized by outliers and volatility. In fact, the data is so volatile right now that we're not able to accurately determine what the real trend in new jobless claims might be.

More

Rise of Saudi Dakota - 11/15/12

The United States is on its way to becoming the world’s largest oil producer. Based on new estimates, the IEA projects that America will surpass the world’s longstanding top oil producer, Saudi Arabia, by the year 2020.

More

Energy Independence Day - 11/15/12

With all sources of energy taken together (including nuclear, renewables, etc) America could hit net self-sufficiency by 2035. The rest of the world is set to rely even more heavily on imports, with the exception of Japan and South Korea, which already import all their oil and gas

More

States With Most Student Debt - 11/13/12

Two-thirds (66%) of college seniors who graduated in 2011 had student loan debt, with an average of $26,600 for those with loans.1 The five percent increase in average debt at the national level is similar to the average annual increase over the past few years.

More

How QE3 Squeezes Seniors - 11/13/12

With U.S. and global growth slowing, Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke is pumping more money into the banking system in an attempt to rescue the economy. This has lowered interest rates, reducing the return from savings. Seniors are particularly hard-hit, because 10 percent of their income comes from interest on savings. If interest rates were 2 percent rather than 1 percent, the average senior would have an... More

AMT: Looking Over Fiscal Cliff - 11/12/12

If Congress cannot negotiate a compromise to avoid the so-called fiscal cliff, one result would be higher alternative minimum tax bills for millions of Americans. Here is a map of which areas would be most affected.

More

Rise of the Machines? - 11/12/12

Economists Henry Siu and Nir Jaimovich point out that since the end of the Great Recession in June 2009, U.S. real GDP per capita has grown by 3.6% but per capita employment has fallen by 1.8%. They argue that jobless recoveries “can be traced to a lack of recovery in a subset of occupations; those that focus on “routine” or repetitive tasks that are increasingly being performed by machines.”

More

Who's Afraid of Sequestration? - 11/12/12

Some have claimed that the fiscal cliff threatens doom for state and local governments-are they right? Well, there would be cuts, but let's maintain perspective. There are some important mitigating factors to consider.
More

Recession Territory - 11/09/12

The probability of recession in the U.S. suddenly surged to the 20% level from the 2% level recorded a month earlier, according to one model.

More

Munis Unperturbed - 11/08/12

The past few years have been a continuous and near-total fiscal disaster for state and local governments. The one exception is borrowing costs.

More

Home Ownership Low - 11/08/12

The political obsession with homeownership starting in the mid-1990s raised the U.S. homeownership rate from below 64% in 1994 to an artificial level above 69% by 2004, but obviously failed to create a homeownership rate that was sustainable in the long run. 

More

Europe's Lost Decade - 11/06/12

One has to pity Europe. Almost three years into its sovereign debt crisis, there are no signs that its crisis is letting up. Indeed, last week, in a remarkable moment of candor, Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, told a regional party meeting that one should expect the Euro crisis to grind on for five years or more.

More

Foreign Investment Flops - 11/06/12

Despite its inflows falling, China became the world's largest recipient of foreign direct investment (FDI) in the first half of 2012, largely because FDI to America flopped.

More

Presidents and Regulation - 11/05/12

Under which President do you suppose the U.S. economy performed the best for each indicated period of time?

More

Public School Hiring Spree - 11/03/12

America’s K-12 public education system has experienced tremendous historical growth in employment, according to the U.S. Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics. Between fiscal year 1950 and 2009, the number of K-12 public school students in the United States increased by 96 percent while the number of full-time equivalent (FTE) school employees grew 386 percent.

More

Record Disability Payouts - 11/03/12

This month, the number of Americans collecting disability benefits from the Social Security Administration rose to a new record.



More

States Shortchange Catastrophe Funds - 11/03/12

Of all accounting frauds state leaders commit to push devastating costs onto future generations, the worst is deluding citizens about the security of so-called catastrophe insurance funds. Hurricane Sandy should be warning enough for governors to start paying the premiums.



More

What Tariffs Cost Consumers - 11/03/12

The tire tariff case, decided by the president in September 2009, exemplifies efforts to get China to "play by the rules" and serves as a plank in his larger platform of insourcing jobs to America. However, our analysis shows that, even on very generous assumptions about the effectiveness of the tariffs, the initiative saved a maximum of 1,200 jobs. Our analysis also shows that American buyers of car and truck tires pay a... More