It's the stupid, economy!

Hi, it's Stupid to say that it's still the economy, whatever David Brooks may think.

Shorter David Brooks, "It's Not the Economy, Stupid", New York Times, 29 November 2018:

The US economy is the best ever, so if you're not happy there must be something wrong with you, like not going to church or getting married often enough. This explains why life expectancy has declined three years in a row for the first time since 1915-18. It's your fault.

Looks like he thinks the Republicans might lose the election two weeks ago, but only time will tell. Disclaimer: I am not writing this because I think there is anything interesting or worth responding to in the Brooks argument. I think it's dumb, and we've dealt with it before. But he's got some new errors and deceits and instances of terrible writing and he still has a gig with the New York Times, so I don't have any choice.

We’re enjoying one of the best economies of our lifetime.

Are you now? It looks delicious. Did you get it at Ottomanelli's?

The gains are finally being widely shared, even by the least skilled. As Michael Strain of the American Enterprise Institute recently noted, the median usual weekly earnings for workers who didn’t complete high school shot up by 6.5 percent over the past year. 

Does the House tax bill subject all Donald Trump's income to a 25% marginal tax rate?

Via. May I play through?

How much of a tax cut is Donald J. Trump hoping to give himself in this week's House bill?

I think the correct answer is it's not clear yet, but there's certainly a good chance that it's meant to get him down to a top marginal rate of 25%, and a likelihood that that's what it's intended for, him and people like him.

The crucial question is that of the taxation of what is called pass-through income, or income a person receives purely by virtue of owning a business.

According to the conservative economic orthodoxy, making money this way is more virtuous—more beneficial to society—than mere working, because when you invest your money, or one of your ancestors does it for you, you are taking the heroic risk on which capital itself depends, whereas if you're just putting goods and services together you're just selling your labor. Investors are makers, workers are takers, as Willard Mitt Romney put it, or was it Paul Ryan, and this is why investment income should be taxed at a lower rate than labor income, as we do with capital gains (when you cash in the profits on a previous investment).

Retroactionary Watch

Updated 3/23

Thers found a gorgeous case in a column by Thomas Sowell which starts off from an old newspaper column reminding him how good the persons of color had it back in Ronald Reagan's day:

One of the front-page headlines said: "White-Black Disparity in Income Narrowed in 80's, Census Shows."

The 1980s? Wasn't that the years of the Reagan administration, the "decade of greed," the era of "neglect" of the poor and minorities, if not "covert racism"? [jump]

Salvador Dali, Voltaire, 1940. From Art History Videos.