Monthly Archives: September 2012

Wisconsin in the Fall

Just sharing — Wisconsin is a beautiful state. Fall colors are spectacular this year.

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Taxes Not Collected Would Make the Bush Tax Cuts Permanent and More

Via Stan Collender’s Gapital Gains and Games: “In August, the IRS issued yet another Tax Gap report.  The IRS estimates that in 2006 alone, the Treasury missed out on $385 billion in revenue due under the current tax law from … Continue reading

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Paul Ryan In His Own Words: “Social Security Right now is a Collectivist System”

Paul Ryan at the Atlas Society via Brad Delong Paul Ryan: Good morning everybody. Nice to have you here. This looks just like my living room at home. It’s beautiful, isn’t it? My constituents know otherwise. I just want to speak to … Continue reading

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The Game Changer – The 47% Tape

Nate Silver clearly depicts the adverse effect of Governor Romney’s ‘47% statement‘ on the popular vote metric. His graph also depicts a significant jump in President Obama’s popularity after the Democrat National Convention with a simultaneous drop in Governor Romney’s … Continue reading

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Since 1962 Men Never Recover from Recessions

The following graph reveals a striking finding, observed by Matthew Yglesias. The “labor market for men never recovers from recessions. Each trough is followed by a new peak, but the new peak is lower than the previous peak.”  (The gray vertical bars in … Continue reading

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America’s Tax Revenues in Comparison to Countries in the Industrialized World

Foreign Affairs, the journal of  the Council on Foreign Affairs, has published an article comparing industrialized countries total tax revenues as a percentage of GDP. The following graph depicts the findings, demonstrating the U.S. is third from the bottom in total tax … Continue reading

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America’s Reliance on Foreign Oil Declines

Bloomberg reports positive news regarding America’s declining reliance on foreign oil. “Crude output rose by 3.7 percent to 6.509 million barrels a day in the week ended Sept. 21, the Energy Department reported today. America met 83 percent of its … Continue reading

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Equal Opportunity at Harvard? A Closer Look

What are the chances of low and high income individuals attending Harvard? “If we do assume that almost all students from families making less than $200,000 annually applied for financial aid, we come to the stunning conclusion that approximately 45.6 … Continue reading

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Delaying Enrollment and Degree Completion: An Inverse Relationship

A Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland economist, Jonathan James, finds delaying enrollment in postsecondary education is inversely associated with degree completion. “One of the strongest correlates with bachelor degree completion is the timing of postsecondary education. About two-thirds of new … Continue reading

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Is ObamaCare “The Largest Tax Increase in History?”

It’s often said that ObamaCare is the “largest tax increase in history.” The evidence suggests otherwise.  Austin Frakt at the Incidental Economist utilized Kevin Drum’s data to produce the following chart, depicting ObamCare in the bottom six revenue increasing pieces … Continue reading

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