The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office has released a comparison of the budgets offered by President Obama, House Republicans, and Senate Democrats. They’re a lot similar than you’d expect given how much the two parties are at each others’ throats about things like Social Security and taxes, huh? Anyway, for those who enjoy charts and graphs, the CBO’s blog post on its budget projections will not disappoint. (h/t Ezra Klein) source
Bank Head Resigns: Antreas Artemis, former CEO of Cyprus’ largest bank, stepped down on Tuesday, citing government interference with the Bank of Cyprus as his primary cause of departure. Banks throughout Cyprus remain closed on Tuesday, following a government ordered 48-hour delay of the previously scheduled return to semi-normalcy. Officials in Cyprus are working to verify that recently adjusted systems will function smoothly when banking operations resume, amid fears of a bank run in the recently bailed-out nation. Many in Cyprus have vehemently opposed the bailout plan, which will see steep levies on those who have more than 100 thousand euros in the bank. (Photo via EuroNews)
2 Americans win Nobel economics prize
AP:Alvin Roth and Lloyd Shapely have won the Nobel economics prize for the theory of stable allocations and the practice of market design.
‘Even though these two researchers worked independently of one another, the combination of Shapley’s basic theory and Roth’s empirical investigations, experiments and practical design has generated a flourishing field of research and improved the performance of many markets,’ the academy says.
Photo: Representatives of the Swedish Royal Academy of Sciences present the winners of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences on Monday in Stockholm. (Henrik Montgomery / AP)
In which two economists get lumped together because someone important thought their work was similar.
Dear Paul Ryan,
Would you please explain to Mitt Romney why he’s wrong about mandating coverage for pre-existing conditions. Please insist to him that he stay strong for a full repeal of Obamacare.
growing weary,
The American People
from TPM:
itt Romney said Sunday that he likes parts of ‘Obamacare’ and will keep key provisions involving pre-existing conditions and young people.
“I’m not getting rid of all of health care reform. Of course there are a number of things that I like in health care reform that I’m going to put in place,” he said on NBC’s “Meet The Press. “One is to make sure that those with pre-existing conditions can get coverage. Two is to assure that the marketplace allows for individuals to have policies that cover their family up to whatever age they might like.”
The remarks could have huge implications as they signal a marked shift from Romney’s strong, unequivocal support for full repeal of the Affordable Care Act, which he has consistently held since the Republican primaries.
Politically, the pivot risks drawing the ire of conservatives, who have been adamant that Republicans repeal the law in its entirety if elected. It’s a major gamble that could reflect Romney’s need to win over more independent voters, who support those provisions.
From a policy standpoint, however, the coverage guarantee for pre-existing conditions is economically untenable without other provisions of ‘Obamacare’ — most notably the individual mandate that requires Americans purchase insurance, which experts say is necessary to broaden the risk pool and prevent an upward spiral in costs.
The author here is right. The individual mandate is the only mechanism that makes guaranteed coverage work. The two are inseparable. You cannot mandate coverage for pre-existing conditions without also mandating that all Americans buy health insurance. To do so would with 100% certainly bankrupt the American healthcare system.
And why in the world would he continue the mandated freeloading of 26 year olds on their parents health insurance?
These things have already raised the cost of healthcare premiums. Premiums will not go down until they are repealed.
Hopefully Romney will come out and clarify his remarks by saying that health insurance companies are allowed to do so if they can negotiate it but not that they’re mandated.
Fellow conservatives, I would encourage you to contact Mitt Romney and make your voice heard.
I hate to break it to everyone against Obamacare, but these provisions are here to stay. Every year they stay in place public support for them grows, and Republicans are already having to adjust their positions as a reflection of this. The only possible stumbling year will be 2014, but after that the window of opportunity even for staggered dismantlement of the system closes. This was our Social Security fight, for better or worse (I say better), and it will become equally as entrenched.
The American People: Made up of people who agree and disagree with the ideals behind the Affordable Care Act. When painting in broad strokes, keep in mind that what makes the U.S. great is that there isn’t across-the-board agreement on everything.
Tumblr: The home of millions of people under the age of 26 that might benefit from having health care as they’re searching for a promotion at their retail job or first job out of college. Of all of the things you’re going to go after in this act, why that one? That’s the least controversial part of the whole thing.
The Indiana University political science professor, and first woman to win the Nobel Prize for economics, died as a result of cancer on Tuesday. Ostrom overcame societal barriers on women’s education, and obtained her bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees from the University of California at Los Angeles. Ostrom won the 2009 Nobel Prize for her work with Oliver Williamson, studying the organization patterns used by people to manage available resources. She is survived by her husband Vincent Ostrom. (Photo via Indiana Public Media) source
As fears of a Greek exit from the Euro zone grow, investors across the country withdrew hundreds of millions of Euros from Greek banks on Monday and Tuesday. As thousands of customers closed accounts, or transferred to euro-friendly banks in neighboring countries like Cyrus, analysts began to fear that a “bank run” was on the horizon. Bank runs take place when large groups of customers withdraw their holdings from banking institutions, fearing that the bank will soon be insolvent. As more people withdraw from the bank, the likelihood of insolvency increases, further increasing the number of customers who withdraw. Essentially, closure transforms from a possibility to self-fulfilling prophecy.
» Attempting to calm “bank run” fears: President Karolos Papoulias announced the staggering total during a speech before heads of Greece’s Panhellenic Socialist party. Papoulias admitted that analysts estimated similarly high withdrawals on Tuesday, but assured party members that there was no need to fear a “bank run”. Analysts seem to agree for now, with Mediobanca analyst Alex Tsirigotis telling Reuters, “We have witnessed periods of tension before when the banks experienced large outflows. In my view, the majority of people with these concerns would have done so by now.” (Photo via dullhunk)
Of Total Income Increase in 2010…
Steven Rattner, a Wall Street executive and New York Times Op-Ed contributor, writes:
In 2010, as the nation continued to recover from the recession, a dizzying 93 percent of the additional income created in the country that year, compared to 2009 — $288 billion — went to the top 1 percent of taxpayers, those with at least $352,000 in income. That delivered an average single-year pay increase of 11.6 percent to each of these households.
Still more astonishing was the extent to which the super rich got rich faster than the merely rich. In 2010, 37 percent of these additional earnings went to just the top 0.01 percent, a teaspoon-size collection of about 15,000 households with average incomes of $23.8 million. These fortunate few saw their incomes rise by 21.5 percent.
The bottom 99 percent received a microscopic $80 increase in pay per person in 2010, after adjusting for inflation. The top 1 percent, whose average income is $1,019,089, had an 11.6 percent increase in income.
Steven Rattner, The New York Times. The Rich Get Even Richer.
Yikes. The balance is off.
» As goes the country, so go the states: Or maybe it’s the other way around? Well, either way, figures released today by the Department of Labor show that unemployment, in addition to falling to its lowest level in two and a half years at the national level, also decreased on a state-by-state basis in all but seven states. This is promising, as it suggests that the uptick in employment is a nationwide trend, and not the result of, say, five or ten states doing abnormally well for one reason or another. Note: The usual disclaimers about the problems with how unemployment is calculated apply.
Editor’s Note: This is the third in a weekly series of talks between Decoder and The Motley Fool columnist Morgan Housel. You can find all of Housel’s Fool columns, including his most recent, “How succesfull will Bank Transfer Day be?,” here. Read last week’s talk the potential for labor to have its day in the sun here.
1. Perhaps thousands of Americans will transfer their money from for-profit banks to not-for-profit credit unions by this Saturday. (Read up on “Bank Transfer Day” here and read Housel’s column on it here.) But you think this may end up working out for banks AND customers. Why?
Housel: One of the drivers behind [Bank Transfer Day] is people trying to teach banks a lesson. The irony of that is since the financial crisis, and especially over the last three months as there has been a panic about Europe… banks have been inundated with cash deposits. They’ve been seeing a higher inflow of deposits than they can turn into loans. [more]
Are you taking part in Bank Transfer Day? It’s tomorrow. We’re curious about what’s going to happen.
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#FMMDI (at 30 Rockefeller Plaza)
Rick Perry says we shouldn’t be worrying about Herman Cain’s 9-9-9 plan so much as one 9; the nation’s 9% unemployment. This is a tricky tact for Perry to take, however, as he has yet to release any detailed economic platform, beyond his general call for “energy independence,” which drew cheers from the crowd but is yet pretty vaguely defined.
Be sure to check out all the further debate coverage over at DC Decoder!
Employment: Defending jobs | The Economist
Looking for a job? These are the world’s top ten employers. Welcome to the new global economy.
So, to put this another way: Pick your poison — communism, socialism, military, Big Macs or iPhones. (Hon Hai is better known as Foxconn, the company that builds many of Apple’s products.) It’s fascinating to see this in perspective.
» It’s becoming more and more apparent that we might be heading for a double-dip recession here. The Dow fell for eight days straight, only ending the losing streak yesterday — but it could fall steeply today. The new jobless numbers are mostly to blame for the weak market. There were 400,000 new unemployment claims in the week that ended July 30. That, in addition to a spreading debt crisis in Europe, has been enough to convince investors that the U.S. economy isn’t in a great spot right now, and it’s hurting our stock market bad.
» That is a stark difference. In their latest study, Pew compared the net wealth of families in various racial groups and found that blacks and Latinos in particular did very poorly compared to whites. (Asians, on the other hand, were somewhat within shouting distance. EDIT: Please see explanation.) This is a historic trend which has lasted decades, but has become all the more apparent with the Great Recession. “The bursting of the housing market bubble in 2006 and the recession that followed from late 2007 to mid-2009 took a far greater toll on the wealth of minorities than whites,” Pew writes in its study. While net wealth among whites fell roughly 16 percent, blacks families lost about 53 percent, and Latino families lost the most — losing 66 percent of their wealth on average.
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