Tag: Business

Jul 19 2010

Monday Business Edition

It’s a very good country for the rich man. Chauffeurs, servants, big houses. The question is, who is suffering? The common man.

This is the tax policy that DC elites, Republicans and Democrats, want to see adopted.

I on the other hand favor moderate, mainstream, FDR tax rates of 90% on marginal income; and if corporations have the right to speak like individuals they have the right to be taxed like them too.

Who wants to be long on a July weekend anyway sucker?

From Yahoo News Business

1 Moody’s downgrades Ireland debt rating

AFP

2 hrs 2 mins ago

LONDON (AFP) – A top rating agency downgraded Irish debt on Monday, saying that the once Celtic Tiger is being greatly weakened by radical action to fight debt and rescue banks but may be stabilising.

Moody’s agency cut Ireland’s debt rating to Aa2 on Monday, blaming high debt levels, weak economic growth prospects and the huge cost of rescuing banks.

“Moody’s Investors Service has today downgraded Ireland’s government bond ratings to Aa2 from Aa1,” the group said in an official statement, but added that it had switched its outlook to stable from negative.

Ireland has gladly adopted a strong austerity policy.  This is what happens.

Jul 05 2010

Monday Business Edition

This is the first installment of what I hope is going to be a regular Monday feature.

I always find it instructive to keep track of the money since I think it explains a lot about politics.

There are 2 major interrelated economic stories moving in the background.  One is the question of stimulus and the recovery of the ‘Main Street’ economy and the other is the question of deficit reduction and austerity particularly related to Social Security.

What relates these 2 stories is the abandonment by modern economists of Keynesianism.  If you haven’t already, you should really read Krugman’s How Did Economists Get It So Wrong? from September of 2009 where he describes the irrational theories of the two main trends of academic economics, the salt and freshwater schools.

To me ignoring the proven facts of Keynesian Economics makes about as much sense as a biologist rejecting the ‘Theory’ of Evolution and Genetics.  I suppose it’s possible to do good and rigorously academically grounded work but you’re really rejecting everything that makes your ‘science’ umm… ‘scientific’, which is to say predictive of measurable future results.

Just because your second derivative (in the calculus sense) quant guy can give you a value for the change in the slope of a curve doesn’t make it anything but mathematical masturbation unless your model bears some relation to reality.

Anyway, below you will find some stories I’ve collected from the Business section of Yahoo News.  Just because some of these guys are rich doesn’t mean any of them are smart.

Monday Business Edition is an Open Thread

From Yahoo News Business

1 India rocked by strike over fuel prices

by Giles Hewitt, AFP

1 hr 14 mins ago

NEW DELHI (AFP) – An opposition-led strike over fuel price rises disrupted life across India on Monday, triggering transport mayhem and sporadic violence in major cities where schools and businesses closed down.

Flights were grounded in commercial airline hubs such as Mumbai and Kolkata, while protesters attacked buses, blocked roads with burning tyres and organised sit-down protests on inter-city railway links.

Police were out in force to prevent any large-scale unrest during the day-long strike called by the main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and leftist parties in a show of strength against the Congress-led government’s reform programme.

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