June 2006
8 posts
Lawless in Guantanamo
The most important thing about today’s Supreme Court’s decision about Guantanamo prisoners is the Court’s view that the Geneva Conventions apply to them. The Bushies have been ignoring the Geneva Conventions in every possible way — not only holding war prisoners without trials but also using torture or sending them to countries that will torture them. Bush doesn’t...
On Turning 60 (Postscript)
Commentator Rodger doesn’t believe we can grow our way out of the pending Social Security crisis, but I think he’s (almost) wrong. Look, I was a trustee of the Social Security trust fund. I saw up close how the actuaries made their projections for when the fund will run out of gas. They plugged in (and continue to plug in) very low estimates of average annual economic growth over the...
On Turning 60
I’m sixty years old today. So is Cher. That’s old as hell, but not as old as it used to be. In 1946, when I was born, life expectancy in the United States was 62.9 years. So I’m glad I’m sixty now and not then. Eligibility for Social Security began at 65 then, which made Social Security a rather unsatisfactory deal for the majority of the population who never became old...
There's No "Inflation Genie."
I’ve spent much of the day on the phone, talking with financial reporters about inflation and the “consensus” view on Wall Street that Bernanke and the Fed must raise short-term rates again in order to stop the inflation genie from getting out of the bottle. Wall Street is wrong. It’s still haunted by the double-digit inflation of the late 1970s. It forgets the double-digit...
The American Model
Why, tell me, is economic growth so wonderful if it’s being enjoyed by such a small proportion of the people of this country — and if the burdens of growth (in terms of growing job insecurity, loss of corporate health-care benefits, lack of health insurance altogether, wage declines for the majority of hourly workers, loss of local communities and local retailers (look at the...
Sinking
I just did Kudlow’s show again. He and Steve Moore both wanted to argue that (1) Tom DeLay was a great American and (2) the phone and cable companies should be able to levy different charges on different content providers, thus ending net neutrality. The reality is (1) Tom DeLay was an irresponsible political hack who ran an extortion racket on K Street, and (2) the phone and cable companies...
Paulson's Real Job
According to today’s Financial Times online, my recent blog about Hank Paulson contributed to the dollar’s recent rout. Much as I’d like to believe my modest blog can move markets, I doubt it. The reality is this. Paulson was brought in to accomplish one big thing. That’s to oversee an orderly decline in the value of the dollar. By “orderly” I mean gradual. The...
The Super-Rich Estate Tax (Don't Call it a Death...
This coming week, Senate Republicans are putting up for a vote repeal of the estate tax (which Republicans have renamed the “death” tax in order to fool Americans into thinking most have to pay it when they die). Right now, the tax only hits families with more than $4 million to give to their heirs. That’s the richest one-half of one percent of American families. Families can...
