Coyote Blog

9 Comments

1. Bryan:

   Sheer awesomeness! Reposting to Facebook.

   January 25, 2010, 6:27 pm

2. Esox Lucius:

   That Effin Rocked.

   January 25, 2010, 9:21 pm

3. Jeremy:

   I expect that to catch like wildfire, if there is justice in the world. I've sent it to everyone I know, anyway.

   January 25, 2010, 9:53 pm

4. Andrew:

   This is brilliant. O.o

   January 25, 2010, 11:30 pm

5. hub:

   Hiphoponomics 101! It should be a required course.

   January 25, 2010, 11:41 pm

6. anon:

   Sorry for the OT post, Warren, but did you see this?

   http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/22/AR2010012202273.html

   If the cops lied about the description -- why not the rest of the evidence?

   Duke lacrosse, Sheriff Joe -- that's just the tip of the iceberg.

   January 26, 2010, 5:58 am

7. Ron H.:

   For those interested, lyrics here at John Papola's website.

   http://econstories.tv/home.html

   January 26, 2010, 7:54 pm

8. Link:

   Not totally off topic.

   The following merits a Holy Shit Headline.

   The US federal fiscal year begins on Oct 1, so first quarter Fiscal Year 2010 ran from Oct 1 to Dec 31, 2009.

   Actual receipts for this quarter were 17% less than Obama's budget -- roughly a $100 billion shortfall from budget for the quarter. Obama's budget assumed that revenues would rebound to a 2008-like run-rate -- after a 2009 decline. Instead they've declined even further. This is an alarming trend, although I'm not surprised. I suspect that reported deficit figures don't fully reflect this trend, including because of the non-GAAP way that the government accounts for things like TARP.

   Our federal taxes mostly come from (1) income taxes on high earners, (2) payroll taxes, with lesser amounts from (3) corporate taxes and (4) "other."

   Because taxes on high earners are progressive, they decline a lot in an economic downturn. The same is true for corporate taxes. Thus, if high earners and corporations don't go back to making a lot of money, the federal budget blows up even faster. There is no reason to expect such a rebound given the course Obama has put us on. We can stand a year or two of trillion dollar deficits, but not a continued and worsening trend line.

   There are several "big picture" problems with our federal budget, but they get a lot of worse -- and faster -- if we don't have GDP growth and we don't have some us being financially successful so we can pay more than our fair share. I don't expect this to be talked about in tonight's State of the Union, even though it's also tied to why we can expect continued high private sector unemployment.

   The overhang of Obama's agenda has been a big part of the problem. This isn't "Main Street v Wall Street", although the issue is being framed that way. The bigger problem is that the private sector has figured out that Obama is a disaster and is hunkering down in response. Nothing Obama says tonight will change this, and he may even make it worse.

   January 27, 2010, 8:34 am

9. Carol:

   Great! Should be used in teaching economics.

   January 29, 2010, 7:41 pm