Medical debt is a leading cause of bankruptcy for families, and surprise medical bills are a major contributor to rising levels of medical debt.

(This piece first appeared on my Patreon page.)

Last month, the Washington Post reported that Joe Biden is considering including a financial transactions tax (FTT) as part of his campaign for the Democratic nomination. For those of us who have long advocated such a tax, this is very good news.

On this issue, Bernie Sanders has taken the lead among presidential candidates, including an FTT as part of his plan for free college tuition free. Several other candidates also support an FTT, but if the Democratic Party’s leading centrist candidate endorses the tax, it would mark a new degree of acceptance within the mainstream of political debate.

It may be somewhat surprising, but Senator Warren is not among those supporting an FTT. This is certainly not due to a reluctance to challenge the interests of the wealthy. Warren has proposed a wide variety of measures that would directly challenge the interests of the rich and powerful.

The most ambitious item on this agenda is a wealth tax. Her tax would tax wealth above $50 million at the rate of 2.0 percent a year and wealth above $1 billion at the rate of 3.0 percent a year. (Sanders has an even larger wealth tax.) While there are good reasons for wanting to tax the very rich, an FTT is almost certainly a better economic policy and would have much better political prospects.  

We can see the economics of an FTT are superior when we consider the motivation for taxation by the federal government. As the proponents of Modern Monetary Theory remind us, the federal government doesn’t need revenue to spend, it prints money. The purpose of taxation by the federal government is to reduce consumption, so as to create the economic space for spending. The argument is that if the government spent a large amount of money, and didn’t have any taxes, it is likely to create too much demand in the economy, thereby generating inflation.

To see this point, imagine that the federal government was to spend another $1 trillion next year on Green New Deal policies (a bit more than 20 percent of current federal spending), such as clean energy and mass transit subsidies. If there were no increase in taxes, we would expect to see a huge surge in demand in the economy, likely leading to inflation. (Assume that the Federal Reserve Board simply prints more money so that interest rates are little changed.)

Now suppose we had another big Republican-style tax cut where we handed $1 trillion annually to the very richest people in the country. Also assume that we have no offsetting reduction in spending or increase in other taxes.

In this case, we almost certainly don’t have to worry about inflation. Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, and other multi-billionaires already have pretty much all the money they can possibly spend. This government handout will fatten their stock portfolios but will have little effect on demand in the economy. And for that reason it is not likely to lead to inflation.

October 10, 2019

October 10, 2019 (Prices Byte)

Lara Merling and Leo BaunachPágina/12, 9 de octubre, 2019

The international community should finally agree to a fair sovereign debt workout mechanism that prevents the interests of creditors and a broken system from hindering human and national development.

The research team that brought you a study that compared employment dynamics in companies taken over by private equity with similar companies not acquired by PE (“Private Equity, Jobs, and Productivity,” American Economic Review 2004) is out with a new p

It’s great to see leading presidential contenders proposing measures to seriously address the rise in inequality over the last four decades. However, the implications of these policies have to be considered carefully.

The Hahnemann tragedy represents a new wrinkle in the concentration of the hospital industry: the emergence of private equity as a driving force.

Donald Trump is bravely carrying on a trade war, not just with the bad guys with China, but with longtime allies like Canada and the European Union. Incredibly, the media just don’t seem that interested in reporting on the ongoing progress.

Last week the Commerce Department released trade data for August, and it got almost no attention whatsoever. The report showed that the trade deficit increased modestly from $54.0 billion in July to $54.9 billion in August. This is virtually identical to the deficit from August of 2018, so comparing these two months year over year, at least the trade deficit is not expanding.

Looking at a slightly bigger picture, in 2016, the last year of the Obama administration, the trade deficit was $518.8 billion, or 2.8 percent of GDP. The trade deficit expanded in both 2017 and 2018, reaching $638.2 billion in 2018, or 3.1 percent of GDP. It looks to come in slightly higher in 2019, with the deficit averaging $648.3 billion in the first half of 2019.

There are many factors behind the rise in the trade deficit. Growth in the U.S. has been somewhat faster than in major trading partners like the EU and Japan. The dollar has also risen in value, although most of that rise pre-dates Trump. But putting these aside, if Trump’s goal was to bring the trade deficit closer to balance, he’s been going the wrong way in the first two and half years of his administration.

If we look at his major nemeses in the international arena, there are not many signs of Trumpian success. Starting with China, in the last year of the Obama administration, the trade deficit in goods with China was $346.8 billion.[1] This had increased to $419.6 billion last year. It looks like the trade deficit is coming down somewhat in 2019, with the deficit for the first eight months at $231.6 billion, compared to just over $260.0 billion last year. Nonetheless, we are still likely to end up with a higher deficit with China in 2019 than we had in the last year of the Obama administration.

October 4, 2019

October 4, 2019 (Jobs Byte)

It’s likely that Trump is preparing to end this distraction and move on to the next one. We can only hope that it’s not something more violent and destructive, such as an actual shooting war.

Dean Baker
Truthout, September 30, 2019