Bob Lord Posted by Bob Lord I almost missed this whopper by the Thuckmeister in a comment to a BlueMeanie post: You are running the Roosevelt play book in using Hoover as a metaphor for Bush. But, that doesn't cut it any more. Thanks to Lee Ohanian's (top ranked economist) work we know that a modest recession … Read more
Posted by Bob Lord
Dear Second Nine Percent (and those of you in the lower reaches of the top one percent):
I know the debate about inequality in America troubles you, but I assure you that it really isn’t about you. I have a friend who shares your feelings. He expressed to me his concern that he had worked hard to get to where he is, making substantial sacrifices when he was younger. He’s afraid he’s the target of efforts to redistribute wealth and income and he doesn’t think he should be taxed at a higher rate in order to “even things out.”
He has no need to worry, and neither do you. Quite the contrary. A more equal society will be better for you as well.
Posted by Bob Lord No, I don't mean politically survive; I mean survive survive. Look, having your lies scrutinized is stressful stuff. You have to be really careful of everything you say. You have to worry about who might turn on you. You have to feign outrage at the actions you instructed your subordinates to … Read more
Posted by Bob Lord
An interesting pair of opinion pieces in today's NY Times, Losing the Propaganda War, and Why Israel Fears the Boycott. It's not clear if they were intended as point and counter-point. They're juxtaposed in a manner suggesting they are and one is written by an Israeli while the other is written by a Palestinian. But in important ways they're somewhat aligned. Both are sharply critical of Israel. Both acknowledge the increasing effectiveness of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions, or BDS, movement.
Decades ago, the economic boycott of South Africa was crucial in bringing an end to apartheid. So it is with apartheid in Israel.
Omar Barghouti, the Palestinian writer, reaches a logical conclusion about the survival of Israel if the BDS movement succeeds in brining an end to apartheid in Israel:
Would justice and equal rights for all really destroy Israel? Did equality destroy the American South? Or South Africa? Certainly, it destroyed the discriminatory racial order that had prevailed in both places, but it did not destroy the people or the country.
Likewise, only Israel’s unjust order is threatened by boycotts, divestment and sanctions.
Hirsh Goodman, the Israeli writer, ultimately arrives in a similar place:
Posted by Bob Lord
Oh, Thucky, you poor, pathetic, intellectually dishonest, little gnome.
In my last post, Thucky On Double Secret Probation, I called Thucky out for this statement in a comment:
You ought to be concerned, we now have three years without any increase in government revenues in the United States. All these tax increases have yielded nothing.
Because Thucky was speaking of tax increases, I figured his reference to government revenues was to tax receipts. And, because the tax increases were federal tax increases (many of the states have been reducing their tax rates), I figured the reference was to federal tax receipts. After all, if federal tax increases had the effect of increasing federal tax receipts, you would think they had yielded more than nothing.
Alas, Thucky was not referring to federal tax receipts, or even total federal, state and local tax receipts, but to actual revenues, including, as we'll see, a category of state revenue that by its nature fluctuates wildly from year to year.
When you drill down into the government revenue numbers upon which Thucky relies and make appropriate adjustments for the revenue numbers that not only are unrelated to tax policy but are random in the short-term, the result is the same: The picture Thucky painted is wildly misleading and dishonest.
The complete analysis follows after the jump.