Taxing Thoughts

Brad DeLong explains how the budget (deficit) and tax cuts are currently screwing up the economy and will do so for many years to come.

It’s an Industrial Sealant! No, It’s a Dessert Topping!

Paul Krugman takes aim at the Bush tax cut. The underlying problem is that the Bush administration had no agreement about what its economic plan was. (a) The political shop seems to have demanded a bold policy that would fight the recession and create jobs. (b) The people who actually control things demanded a tax cut for the rich. (c) The economists (chiefly Glenn Hubbard) sought a program to boost economic growth. This “It needs to be an industrial sealant! No, it needs to be a dessert topping!” policy-development process produced (a) an increase in the deficit that is not front-loaded toward today (when a bigger deficit would be good and boost employment) but back-loaded toward the distant future, and as a result the (b) tax cut for the rich that was proposed took the form of (c) proposing to permanently reduce the double taxation of corporate income.

Yesterday was Earth Day. Slashdot had a poll asking the readers what they were doing for Earth Day. One reader explained why Earth Day will have a new name in the near future:

Actually, I hear the US will rename this day Iraq Liberation Day. Instead of removing the dangerous oil from Alaska, we are going to focus on removing it from Iraq first. They have much more of it, so they are more of an at risk population.

In order to destroy all of the oil liberated, the US will sponsor soccer moms to drive their SUVs into a national park to plant seedlings.

Hilarious

Results of Poll-

If you ever ship an item that you care about via FedEx or UPS, etc. then you should really read this article from a person who used to handle those packages.

This is the best quote from the article:

I worked as a package handler for roughly ten months, and in that time I handled many packages. I couldn’t even hazard a guess at the number, as I moved several thousand some nights. The point being: I’ve seen a lot of packages. From this I’ve learned something: Most people have no idea how to pack cargo. Not only do they not know, they don’t even try. In fact, I believe most of them to be under the delusion that I, the Package Handler who was paid but a pittance for hours of physical labor, was in some way concerned with the welfare of their package(s).

Brad DeLong of the Semi-Daily Journal is asking the same question that I and many others are asking, “Where are Saddam’s WMDs?”

Mr. DeLong states:

Where are Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction?

I was certain–certain–that we had lots of hard intelligence telling us of Saddam’s large quantities of chemical and biological weapons, and his ongoing nuclear program. Otherwise, the decision to invade Iraq made no sense: it might have made sense for an Administration that believed the U.S. had a humanitarian mission to take down cruel and genocidal dictators when it could do so easily, but not for the Bush II Administration that was so certain back in 2001 that it “did not do nation building.”

The Detroit Free Press had an article on bonuses recently given at Kmart to both employees, as well as executives, rewarding them for sticking with the company through its bankruptcy. What is really troubling is the amount that the executives received as a bonus.

Here are the relevant parts of the article:

Chairman Jim Adamson will walk away from Kmart with a $3.6-million bonus when the Troy discounter comes out of bankruptcy by April 30. Adamson has been Kmart’s chairman since shortly before the retailer declared bankruptcy Jan. 22, 2002, and was its chief executive for 10 months.

Julian Day, Kmart’s chief executive since January and its president for just over a year, gets a $1-million bonus. The retailer’s chief restructuring officer, Ron Hutchison, takes home an extra $1 million for his work.