An article in Fortune Magazine details how the regime of the AMT (alternative minimum tax) is on a path to expand dramatically. The AMT is an obscure section of the tax code that computes individual taxation in a parallel universe in which almost none of the standard deductions are allowed. The tax payer must pay at least the amount of the AMT when their tax as computed by the regular rules would be lower.
“Freddie Mac, the big buyer of mortgage loans, fired its president yesterday, contending that he failed to cooperate with an internal investigation into its accounting practices,” says Alex Berenson in the New York Times.
Financial Times quotes Milton Friedman: ”The use of quantity of money as a target has not been a success,” concedes the grand old man of conservative economics. “I’m not sure I would as of today push it as hard as I once did.”
Only half-kidding.
“Another battered truck hauling what appears to be a dazzling fortune in gold bars was stopped at a routine U.S. Army checkpoint in Iraq on Wednesday, the third such cache of bullion seized in two weeks.”
Today, June 10, I was a guest on two radio talk shows in which I defended Martha Stewart. In one case (KTSA, San Antonio), I was a lone guest and the interviewer, too, believed the charges were ridiculous, so it was a friendly time.
It has finally come down to this: Martha Stewart must go to prison, or at the very least be forced to step down permanently from her position as CEO of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, a company that she built from scratch.
Just arrived in the library: Faith and Liberty: The Economic Thought of the Late Scholastics by Alejandro A. Chafuen. This is the most accessible treatment of pre-Smith economic thought, showing not only that economic science predates the 18th century but proving that the late scholastics were very sophisticated pre-Austrians on economics, and generally free market in their political outlook.
Austrian-style analysis in “Money for the Market “(CNN): Think stocks have gone too far, too fast? Think the rally has got out of hand, and the market is way too expensive? You may be right, but with all the country’s cash spigots cranked open, things could get a lot nuttier. Indeed, today’s environment is beginning to look similar to what prevailed in 1999, when a huge influx of money into the global economy helped fuel an 86 percent rise in the Nasdaq.
The New York Times business page runs a headline unsupported by the content of the article: “The Man Pushing America to Get on the Internet Faster: Peter K. Pitsch, a self-described staunch free-market Republican, is pressing the government for a national Internet policy.” Sounds awful, until you find that he only seems to be looking for tax relief for broadband (unless I’m missing something here): “While Mr.
The blog seems as good a place as any to announce the results of the Rothbard Graduate Seminar’s Mündliche Prüfung (optional oral exams for honors credit). Brad Barlow and Stephen Carson passed, and Jan Havel and Peter van Maanen passed with honors. Congratulations to all!
