Extend the Bush Tax Cuts, but…

Washington will be consumed with thrashing out the politics and policy surrounding the Bush tax cuts.  Extend for some, or extend for all? Here’s the Policy Wonk Plan: 1. Extend for all under $250k, as proposed by Obama, plus 2. Extend and Expand tax break for all, but only for creating new jobs, in the [...]

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Bank Pay Cuts

When a company takes in major investors’ money, it usually comes with strings attached – a board seat, special control rights, and, often, a defined role on compensation committees.  This is especially true when the company has no better choices available than to take the money, along with the strings. It is disingenuous for the [...]

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The Marginal Utility of More

Economists like to measure the health of an economy by looking at growth.  But is there a point where we will simply have enough stuff, and the real human utility of additional industrial production will be zero?  Perhaps the current economic crisis a reflection, in part, of a world in which demand for more goods [...]

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The Credit Card and the Car Industry

If we’re going to continue to buy Japanese cars, Arabian oil, Chinese goods, and so on, then we must have something to sell, too.  We have a national ‘credit card’ with the highest credit limit of any nation in the history of the world, but for all that, it is also a finite credit limit.  [...]

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Motor City Blues – Shared Pain Shared Gain

If there is a bailout, it should like a whole lot like a planned bankruptcy.  What’s that look like? Stockholders – wiped out. Creditors – fully at risk, substantially written down, and in control.  Including Uncle Sam, who will be last in, and should be first out. Management - the creditors get to decide.  Largely out. [...]

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