Comments on: OPA, Part 2

By: Michael

Michael — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 22:46:48 +0000

@foosion: have you heard of “externalities”?

By: David

David — Sun, 18 Dec 2011 15:35:29 +0000

And how do you propose to pay for this? You seem to be long on ideas and EXTREMELY short on the paying for it. I would also argue that MOST of this problem in education is brought on by goverment by promising unions WAY nore that we could ever pay for.
The forgotten factor is that the money I earn is MINE and I can make my own decisions about where I spend it. Therefor I can make good decisions or bad ones and goverment is NEVER going to fix that.
Goverment actually makes no money it only consumes it. The answer is not more goverment but less, a revamped and no loop hole tax code and a balanced budget amendment.
By the way you are so wrong on Biden. No “shovel ready jobs” and a waste of 800 billion on basically nothing.

By: Jim Edwards

Jim Edwards — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 11:00:28 +0000

There’s a couple of issues that have me puzzled about macroeconomics and how it effects the middle class and especially global trade. The first is that India recently sold a bunch of dollars in an effort to strengthen the Rupee. This brought two questions to mind.

First, why would India want to strengthen the rupee when it already has very strong laws restricting foreign investment?

And second, does a central bank in a country that does not have a reserve currency, like the dollar or the Euro, face different decisions regarding interest rates and currency value?

The other issue I don’t understand is that it seems time after time when there is a large infusion of money into the economy like the housing or dot com booms there is full employment and lots of stuff to buy, but no skyrocketing inflation or shortages. This seems that rather than efficiently allocating scarce resources to excessive demand, money has become the scarce resource?

I hope you find time to discuss these. I’m trying to educate myself on economics, but don’t have many resources in India.

By: Jim Z.

Jim Z. — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 23:41:07 +0000

Good list. My only qualm is how often even good analysts keep returning to “tax credits” for, well, anything. Tax credits are about as inefficient a tool as it gets, yet both the left and right can’t seem to wean themselves off them.

By: Lynn

Lynn — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 22:09:11 +0000

Employees of corporations are as valuable as the capital contributions (shareholders) to the long term success of a business. Consequently there should be significant employee representation on all corporate boards. Consideration of the impact of policy decisions on both the profitable activities of a company as well as the effect it will have on the work force of a company should be factored into decisions It has worked fairly well for Germany as a model to study.

By: pjr

pjr — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 20:34:58 +0000

Bernstein and Reich together. One big thing missing: help to localities in funding good schools and teachers at elementary and high school levels (not just pre-K and post-H.S levels). We need to level this field at a high level if we are to restore upward mobility and compete internationally. Take the burden of funding schools off the backs of people living in poor communities. Use a much more progressive national income tax to give all kids good schools.

By: davesnyd

davesnyd — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 17:51:01 +0000

Any comments on Robert Reich’s “offer” today?

http://robertreich.org/post/14235608988

It doesn’t seem perfect to me– we ought to inflation adjust the brackets. Also it isn’t clear whether he wants to tax capital gains as normal income (which makes sense) or at the highest bracket rate (which is how it reads to me and doesn’t make sense). But other than that– sounds pretty sensible.

By: Sharon

Sharon — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 16:46:06 +0000

I’m on board as well and a huge thumbs up to universal pre-K.

Wishes, horses, well… you know the drill!

By: Tom

Tom — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 15:50:56 +0000

Sign me up! I am with you on all of this.

By: Tom in MN

Tom in MN — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 15:08:05 +0000

I agree on the higher education as well, but lets also make expand the pre-K to universal daycare. Before you can save for college you have to pay for daycare and it’s not cheap.