I have been writing about the revolving door between Wall Street and the government. Yesterday’s Wall Street Journal has an article that sheds an interesting light on this process and how favorably it is viewed by Wall Street. It concerns primarily Jack Lew, president Obama’s current Chief of Staff and nominee to be Treasury Secretary. [Read more…]
Across Europe, a movement has started to implement what is called a Robin Hood Tax that seeks to levy a small tax on financial transactions that would produce large amounts of revenue to pay for much-needed public services. The details can be seen here.
The Robin Hood Tax is gaining support. The European Parliament in December 2012 voted 533 to 91 (with 32 abstaining) in favor of the Financial Transaction Tax, which is the same idea as the Robin Hood Tax, and then last month the European Union gave approval to 11 countries to implement it.
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I was chatting one day with the handyman who does stuff at our house and was shocked at the prices that he and his wife (who is also self-employed) have to pay to buy health insurance. Even after paying so much, that coverage provides much less than what my wife and I have through her employer-based insurance. For even routine medical procedures, he pays far more out-of-pocket than I do. [Read more…]
Economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman is clearly so fed up with the quality of public discourse on budget issues and the kinds of people the media hold up as being authorities that he departs from his usual measured language. This time he unloads on the execrable Alan Simpson, the former senator and co-chair of the Simpson-Bowles deficit cutting commission created by president Obama. [Read more…]
The New York Times reports on yet another deal in which the government lets a big bank get off lightly with crimes and does not disclose the deal to the public. The deal between the New York Fed and Bank of America occurred in July but only came to light because of court filings last week. Not only did the government give the bank a mere slap on the wrist, it then maneuvered to release the bank from other massive legal claims against it totaling billions of dollars. [Read more…]
I have mentioned my concern with the revolving door between government and the private sector (especially between the Treasury Department and Wall Street) and that Jack Lew, currently president Obama’s chief of staff and his nominee to become Treasury Secretary, has some problems in that regard. Now a new problem has cropped up. [Read more…]
Susie Madrak has been following new-elected US Senator Elizabeth Warren’s performance at the first meeting of the Senate Banking Committee and says she proved her worth by putting regulators on the spot about why they go aggressively after powerless defendants while allowing big banks to make deals with them by paying fines that are just included as the cost of doing business and do nothing to deter future wrongdoing. [Read more…]
Academics tend to be respected because of their reputations for having expert knowledge and some level of objectivity. As a result they are often sought as endorsers for various positions. I have written many times before of the danger that exists when that esteem is abused. This danger seems to be most present in the field of economics and medicine, not coincidentally because there is a lot of money at stake there. [Read more…]
Neil Barofsky was a career federal prosecutor who was appointed by George W. Bush at the end of 2008 as the Special Inspector General overseeing the Troubled Asset Relief Program (SIGTARP) that was a major part of the bailout program following the financial collapse, and he continued in that role under president Obama until he resigned in March 2011. [Read more…]
For nonbelievers like me, one of the most irritating aspects of the US tax system is the tax-exemption given to churches under the section of the code known as 501(c)(3) that is meant to provide tax relief for organizations that improve the general welfare. This topic has been discussed before in the context of whether churches that overtly take political stands should continue to receive that benefit and I concluded that it was unlikely that the IRS or the courts would eliminate it. [Read more…]