Tag: economics

The Story: The beginning of 2021 marked the increase of the legal minimum wage in 20 states. Four additional states will increase their own wage...

The Story: On Monday, December 3, the yield curve on U.S. Treasuries inverted. Specifically, the spread between three and five year bonds dropped below zero....

The Story:  In both Missouri and Arkansas, voters this Tuesday have been asked to increase the state minimum wage. Both are "red" states, both voted...

However, compelling ideas from economics do not necessarily suspend the laws of politics. Since the 1997 Kyoto agreement, the rate of non-symbolic carbon price adoption has been rather modest. And carbon taxes and cap-and-trade are among the most likely climate policies to be reversed after they have been launched. In the United States, the political path forward is challenging at best. Even after last year’s multi-state declaration of fealty to meeting Paris emission reduction goals with aggressive bottom-up innovation, the actual adoption of state carbon pricing policies remains quite modest and confined to coastal states. But there are important success stories to consider, cases where carbon pricing has not only been adopted but sustained through subsequent election cycles while delivering on some of its performance goals. There is no one singular formula that has guided this modest set of success cases and can easily be applied to fix the political challenges linked to carbon pricing. But all of them were guided by political leaders who found credible ways to link the imposition of price increases with immediate and tangible benefits through allocation of revenue generated by the policy. These benefits have included reductions in other taxes, electricity bill rebates, and investment in energy transition, all presented to citizens in clear and persuasive ways. So break out the champagne for William Nordhaus and scores of other economists who have placed this intriguing idea into global, national, and sub-national climate policy debate in past decades.

Economist Peter Morici breaks down Trump's economic accomplishments over the last two years. FOX News Channel (FNC) is a 24-hour all-encompassing news service dedicated to delivering breaking news as well as political and business news. The number one network in…

President Donald Trump says NAFTA will be renamed the "US-Mexico trade agreement" after the two countries reached a preliminary agreement resolving key bilateral trade issues.

Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) has introduced a bill (H.R. Predictably, Washington Post writer Matt O’Brien instantly dismissed the idea as “Trump’s new plan to cut taxes for the rich.” O’Brien relies on a two-page memo from John Ricco which yanks mysterious estimates out of a black box – the closed-economy Penn-Wharton Budget Model. Another Washington Post article said, “Researchers have estimated that the top 5 percent of households in terms of income hold about two-thirds of all stock and mutual fund investments, putting wealthier Americans in the position of benefiting much more than others from any changes to capital gains rules.” But the capital gains most likely to be seriously exaggerated by decades of inflation are not gains from selling financial assets, but from selling real assets. When the top tax rate on realized gains was 28-40%, very few gains were realized – particularly among top-bracket taxpayers. When the top tax rate fell to 20% in 1982-96 and 1997-2000, and to 15% in 2003-2007, inflation-adjusted real revenue from the capital gains tax soared for several years (market crashes in 2001 and 2009 overwhelmed taxes, of course). This is just one reason static estimates of the alleged revenue loss from indexing are not credible: The elasticity of realizations is extremely sensitive to the tax rate and indexing is one way to reduce that tax rate (and raise realizations) for assets held for a long time. The rush to sell before an increase in the capital gains tax in 1987 meant a third of all “income” reported by Top 1% taxpayers in 1986 was from bunching the realization of capital gains. It is certainly true that people who have not yet accumulated much capital – which means most young people regardless of their current income – have also not yet accumulated capital gains. When it comes to political arguments for high capital gains taxes on capital gains, the redistributionist left has never grasped that the people who are most fearful of high capital gains taxes are not “the rich” but seniors. The table, from the CBO/JCT study, shows that net capital gains accounted for only 1% of income among those age 35-44, 3% at age 55-64, and 6% for taxpayers 75 or older.

Figure 1: ECB 2010 Rate Hikes Delayed Europe's Recovery for Four Years but it's Now Underway. Eurozone inflation remains extremely low, with core inflation nearly a point and a half below that of the U.S. (Figure 7). This implies that the ECB can probably wait at least 12-18 months before raising rates. On a similar note, Draghi will almost certainly bring QE to an end before leaving the ECB in October 2019. The Power of the Bond Market and the Syrizification of the Europe One major risk to our dovish forecast for the ECB would be a dramatic fiscal deterioration in Europe owing to widespread tax cuts or spending increases. Moreover, some policy normalization, such as an end to QE and to negative interest rates, might actually boost bank profits without hurting Europe's borrowers. Political concerns in Europe from Brexit to the stability of the governing coalitions of Germany, Italy and Spain are also pulling the euro lower. Europe's fiscal position continues to improve while U.S. budget deficits explode. When it comes to bonds, continued growth in the eurozone, the likelihood that Italian and German politics won't, in the end, spiral out of control, and an end to QE, could put a bearish tilt on the EU's bond markets. Bottom Line Key European countries are governed by fragile coalition governments Populist governments will likely moderate once in power European economic indicators continue to improve Many European nations are achieving a dramatic post-crisis deleveraging Public sector finances continue to improve European banks may have challenges, but bank failures are unlikely with zero rates EURUSD remains caught in a fiscal versus monetary policy tug-of-war If investors focus on Europe's growth, Eurozone fixed income could sell off to the detriment of U.S. Treasuries

This carried over into FIFA when it was established in 1904, sought to take control of the Olympic football competition and then organised its own professional World Cup. As one of the most politically charged World Cups gets set to kick off in Moscow, we look back at five other moments in history when politics did mix with football internationally. After Uruguay hosted and won the first World Cup in 1930, Mussolini was determined that Italy would do the same four years later. Argentina was denuded of star players who were “persuaded” to play for Italy, while Italy’s own players were threatened with immediate conscription into the army if they failed to win. Hungary fails to show, Soviets claim gold At the height of the Cold War in the 1950s and ‘60s, the Soviet Union was determined to make its mark through the game as well. If the Chileans could win the second leg at home, they would go to West Germany. The second match was never played. Argentina ended up beating the Netherlands in the final to become the fifth host to win the World Cup at home. (He was still trying to win the prize right up to his dismissal from the organisation.) His non-vote ended up sending the World Cup to Germany, but Blatter got his prized South Africa World Cup four years later.

"That means bigger taxes on middle Australians, year after year. "It's not a magic number, or some sort of fundamental law. It seems more like politics than economics." The remarks by Professor Holden, a strong supporter of the Coalition's corporate tax cuts, have been echoed by other economists after the government vowed to formalise the tax-to-GDP cap as a new core fiscal rule in Tuesday's budget. "So if Labor wants to increase the overall tax burden in the economy at a cost to growth and jobs then they would have to formally change the fiscal strategy settings." "There are two sides to the budget – revenue and spending – and imposing a speed limit on one but not the other is fraught with risk," he warned. "Twenty-three-point-nine per cent of GDP is a decent tax speed limit in its own right – a worthy objective – but it's above the long-term average tax take. "It was almost plucked out of thin air. Who says the average during the Howard years is the optimal figure? "There was meant to be a rule that any windfall gains be applied to reducing debt and deficits, and clearly that's not going to happen this time."