Hacks and Hack Disclosures

Posted on 27 September 2017 by eehines

Equifax took six weeks to get around to bothering to tell us about it so we individual consumers could begin to take our own corrective and defensive action. That’s unconscionable, Equifax isn’t alone in delaying telling us about hacks into personal information those companies are holding for us, and it’s giving impetus to legislation that would force companies to disclose such hacks much sooner. One such proposed bill is Congressman Jim Langevin’s (D,RI) reintroduction of the Obama era’s Personal Data Notification and Protection Act.

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The Not Good Enough Legacy

Posted on 25 September 2017 by eehines

Here are some stats regarding Obamacare’s impact on our poor, courtesy of The Wall Street Journal.

More than one in three of taxed [via the individual mandate penalty] households earned less than $25,000, which is roughly the federal poverty line for a family of four.

And

More than 75% of penalized households made less than $50,000 and nine in 10 earned less than $75,000.

And

Fewer families paid the tax in 2015 than in 2014, yet government revenues increased to more than $3 billion from about $1.7 billion, as the financial punishment for lacking coverage increased.

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Some Thoughts on Graham-Cassidy

Posted on 25 September 2017 by eehines

These are…triggered…by Thursday’s Wall Street Journal piece on how the Graham-Cassidy Plan Would Change Health Coverage.

The Congressional Budget Office has said that, without a rule requiring insurers to charge all customers comparable premiums, health plans could become prohibitively expensive for some people with pre-existing conditions.

The plans wouldn’t be insurance plans, either, since the premiums wouldn’t have anything to do with the risk being transferred. The plans would be welfare plans.

Separately, states could also waive a requirement that insurers provide a set of medical benefits like mental-health services and prescription-drug coverage. If those benefits aren’t required, people with costly medical conditions could have difficulty buying insurance with the relevant services or medications.

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Raise Taxes, Don’t Lower Them

Posted on 24 September 2017 by eehines

That’s what the European Commission says is the correct thing to do.

The European Commission said the EU should proceed with an overhaul of taxes on digital firms even if the rest of the rich world did not follow suit, a draft report said.

And to the point:

The document is part of an EU push to tap more revenues from online multinationals such as Amazon and Facebook, who are accused of paying too little tax in Europe by routing most of their profits to low-rate countries such as Ireland or Luxembourg.

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Tax Reform and Legislation

Posted on 22 September 2017 by eehines

Business CEOs want tax reform. They’re right, even though to an extent their wish is self-serving. Or because of that—Adam Smith’s invisible hand, and all that, where every economic actor seeing to his own self interest aggregates to the benefit of all the actors, including those not party to a particular arrangement among particular actors.

Which brings me to a (not very) tangential point regarding a remark by Business Roundtable President & CEO Joshua Bolten regarding target tax rates:

15% would be terrific…. But it doesn’t have to end up at 15% for Business Roundtable companies to be happy about it.

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Tax Incentives and Taxes

Posted on 21 September 2017 by eehines

New York City is offering almost $10 million in tax breaks to get Aetna Inc to move from Connecticut to Manhattan, and this is in addition to $24 million the state is offering.

It’s a good deal, for Aetna, but it’s not a good deal for the people of New York City, or for the citizens of New York State or for the citizens of the United States. The reason is hinted at by Anthony Hogrebe, Senior Vice President of Public Affairs for the New York City Economic Development Corporation:

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False Premise

Posted on 21 September 2017 by eehines

Budget mavens, politicians, and the NLMSM have one regarding our national tax code. The Senate is considering a budget that sets an outer bound on the size of Federal tax cuts.

A budget with a tax plan that is revenue-neutral would effectively pay for itself, meaning any reduction in tax rates would be offset by reducing breaks or other revenue-raising measures.

No. “Revenue neutral” must also consider what’s done with the revenue collected. Revenue neutrality can be achieved, also, with sufficient spending cuts so that revenue collected meets or exceeds spending outflows.

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The PRC and Bitcoin

Posted on 20 September 2017 by eehines

The behavior of the People’s Republic of China regarding bitcoin has purpose far beyond controlling bitcoin. As background, The Wall Street Journal had this assessment of the PRC’s financial industry:

China has digitized its financial sector faster than any other nation.

The reason for their rapid pace is this according to Li Lihui, a spokesman for the National Internet Finance Association of China, and it has nothing at all to do with a sovereign nation’s legitimate desire to control its own currency and money supply:

A goal of China’s monetary regulation is to ensure that “the source and destination of every piece of money can be tracked[.]”

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Huzzah

Posted on 17 September 2017 by eehines

Regular order—it lives, sort of, at least on spending measures, in the House.

The House on Thursday voted to send 12 appropriations bills to the Senate. The chamber approved four of these 2018 spending measures prior to its August recess, and the remaining eight were debated and passed as part of the broader Thursday vote. They had previously passed out of committee. This is the first time since 2004 that a House Republican majority has passed all of its individual spending bills….

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Eat the Easter Bunny

Posted on 16 September 2017 by eehines

Peter Rabbit, too. Because that’s better than having actual food in the stores, in the pantry, and on the table, like a free market would produce in abundance. At least according to Venezuelan strong man Nicolas Maduro, who caused the food shortage.

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has introduced a “Rabbit Plan” that encourages people to start eating rabbits rather than keep them as pets in a bid to tackle the country’s food shortages.

Heads up, Bambi.

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Tag Archives: economics