current account surpluses

If the Chinese can buy US Treasuries to appreciate the dollar, why can't the US buy Chinese and German government bonds in order to reduce the trade deficit?

If they wont' allow it, then dont allow them to buy US Treasuries.

Waldman, Mason and Trump voters

The economic geography of a universal basic income by Steve Randy Waldman

Socialize Finance by JW Mason

Blame the identity apostles – they led us down this path to populism by Simon Jenkins

Liberal Anti-Politics by Shuja Haider

Everybody Hates Cornel West by Connor Kilpatrick

Rubin and the strong dollar

Big Deficit, Bob Rubin, and the Strong Dollar by Dean Baker

Rubin or Trump as the Strong Dollar Type by PGL

Two Generations of Trade Deficits: A Wee Complaint with Jared Bernstein by PGL

Needed: Plain Talk About the Dollar by Christina Romer

MONDAY, MAY 23, 2011
Strong Dollar = Strong Economy ?
An excellent column from Christy Romer.

they had one job by Atrios

They Had One Job by Atrios

Duy on Krugman and the working class

On Krugman And The Working Class by Tim Duy

Bryce Covert on Trump's supporters

No, ‘Economic Anxiety’ Doesn’t Explain Donald Trump by Bryce Covert

The Totebaggers who gave us Trump are in denial

EMichael, Trump and Obamacare

Jonathan Pie

The hard question isn’t why Clinton lost — it’s why Trump won by Ezra Klein

If the White Working Class Is the Problem, What's the Solution? by Kevin Drum

On Wisconsin! by Barkley Rosser

It's Rarely One Thing by Duncan Black

they’re going to keep losing by Freddie deBoer

Trump Won a Lot of White Working-Class Voters Who Backed Obama by Eric Levitz

      Nate Cohn: 

Clinton suffered her biggest losses in the places where Obama was strongest among white voters. It's not a simple racism story

Reich on Trump's enablers

Trump’s Three Enablers by Robert Reich

Legion FX February

deficit financing

Hillary Clinton’s Bad Promise on Debt by Bryce Covert

Sia - The Greatest

Sia - The Greatest ft. Kendrick Lamar

Bill Murray

Bill Murray celebrates the Cubs victory.

Cubs going to the World Series. First time since 1945.

Rosengren on dangers of low unemployment

Q. and A. With Eric Rosengren: The Danger of Low Unemployment
via Max Sawicky and Slackbot

Political Elements of Full Employment by Michael Kalecki

Taibbi on Trump

The Fury and Failure of Donald Trump by Matt Taibbi

Thomas Frank on the press and Sanders

Swat Team: The media’s extermination of Bernie Sanders, and real reform by Thomas Frank

Trump voters

There has always been an Alt Right culture: America First, John Birch Society, Nixon's Southern Strategy, Goldwater, Reagan, Fox News.

How Trump Happened by Joseph Stiglitz

What’s Behind a Rise in Ethnic Nationalism? Maybe the Economy by Robert J. Shiller

How Dictatorships Are Born by Roger Cohen

Max Sawicky and Brad DeLong link to Dylan Matthews. WTF

Taking Trump voters’ concerns seriously means listening to what they’re actually saying by Dylan Matthews

Baker on Furman

A Little Pre-Election BS From the White House on Income Inequality by Dean Baker

...

Anyhow, in spite of my respect, I feel the need to call him out on trying to pull the wool over folks' eyes in a recent column. The column touts many of the positive measures (in my view) to help people at the middle and the bottom under the Obama administration, such as expansion of the earned income tax credit, the child tax credit, and most importantly the Affordable Care Act which has extended health insurance coverage to 20 million people and allows people with serious health conditions to get insurance at the same price as every one else. These measures have been paid for by higher taxes on the wealthy. This is all very positive and the Obama administration deserves credit for these measures, even if I would have liked to see it go much further. 

However, the reason my BS detector went off is that Furman tried to claim we had turned the corner in some big way on the upward redistribution of income from the last four decades. He tells readers: 

"Partly as a result of these policy changes, the top 1 percent’s share of income after taxes was 12 percent in 2013 (the most recent year for which data are available), well below its 2007 peak and roughly equal to its share in 1997." 

The problem with this story is that the 2013 numbers for the top 1 percent are skewed downward in a big way as a result of the tax increase on the rich that the administration put in place in 2012. The wealthiest 1 percent often have considerable control over the timing of their income. They knew the top tax rate would rise from 35.0 percent for 2012 to 39.6 percent in 2013. This gave them a very strong incentive to declare income in 2012 that would have otherwise appeared in 2013. This makes 2012 look really good for the 1 percent and 2013 much worse. 

This shows up clearly in the data. According to the estimates from the Congressional Budget Office (Figure 7), the inflation-adjusted before-tax income of the top 1 percent rose by 37.9 percent in 2012. It then fell back by 22.0 percent in 2013. This is exactly what we would expect from this tax gaming. If we take the average of these two years, the before-tax income of the top 1 percent has risen by 73.3 percent from its 1997 level. On the plus side, it is down by 22.6 percent from the bubble peak of 2007. 

I should point out that this tax timing issue is hardly a secret. CBO mentioned it explicitly in the summary of its report: 

"In response to tax law changes that went into effect in 2013, some taxpayers—especially those at the top of the income distribution—shifted some income into 2012 to avoid the higher tax rates on that income in 2013." 

Anyhow, it is too early to claim any big victories in turning around the rise in before-tax income inequality. (This is also the view of CBO which projects that the bulk of the wage gains in the next decade will go to high-end earners, as has been the case for the last 35 years.) 

The Obama administration deserves credit for some big steps in the right direction, but we still have a very long way to go. This is why I wrote "Rigged: How Globalization and the Rules of the Modern Economy Were Structured to Make the Rich Richer," coming this week to a website near you.

centrist Hillary Clinton and Wikileaks

The Most Important WikiLeaks Revelation Isn’t About Hillary Clinton by David Dayen

THE ILLUMINATING BUT UNSURPRISING CONTENT OF CLINTON’S PAID SPEECHES by John Cassidy

Hillary Clinton’s Campaign Strained to Hone Her Message, Hacked Emails Show

Voters sour on traditional economic policy by Larry Summers

In the same way as with Brexit, the rise of Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders, the strength of rightwing nationalists in many European countries, Vladimir Putin’s strength in Russia and the return of Mao worship in China, it is hard to escape the conclusion that the world is seeing a renaissance of populist authoritarianism.

Obama and Shalizi

The way ahead by Barack Obama (2016)

Liberty! What Fallacies Are Committed in Thy Name! by Cosma Shalizi (2004)

Game of Thrones spin off

HBO programming president Casey Bloys said he's open to the possibility of a Game of Thrones spin-off series: "For us it's about finding the right take with the right writer."