Tim Fernholz

Felix Salmon does yeoman’s work figuring out what the hell his bank is trying to tell him: So in a fit of masochistic perversity, I decided to do what I was told, and call Customer Service to ask them what on earth this notice meant. It took a while to get a human, of course: […]

Tax deal apologist that I am, it behooves me to offer some constructive criticism, too, along with a reminder that this deal isn’t final until the legislative process makes it so: Congressional Democrats, unable to unify around an original proposal, may try and adapt this framework. Here are a few changes they want: Rep. Jan […]

David Leonhardt offers a good analysis: Of its estimated $900 billion-plus cost over two years, roughly $120 billion covers the high-end tax cuts and the estate tax cut, $450 billion covers Mr. Obama’s wish list and $360 billion covers the tax cut extensions both parties favored. Was anyone else expecting a $450 billion stimulus this […]

One galling aspect of the tax deal framework proposed by the White House and Senate Republicans is that emergency unemployment insurance became a policy option that had to be bargained for, rather than a given during tough times: In October 1983, with Republicans controlling the White House and the Senate and the national unemployment rate […]

Like Jon Chait, I think this from future House Majority Leader Eric Cantor is nonsense: “No one gets everything they want in a deal, but our top priority is to restore certainty to the private sector so that businesses small and large can start hiring again.” It is not certainty to postpone an argument for […]

Basically, in exchange for temporary extension of all the Bush tax cuts and a capitulation to the conservative Democrat-Republican consensus on the estate tax, President Obama will get 13 months of unemployment benefits, a yearlong pay-roll tax cut, extensions of tax credits in the stimulus, and some business-focused tax breaks. Basically, it’s a tax-focused stimulus […]

Greg Mankiw, claiming agnosticism about whether or not unemployment insurance should be renewed, offers some bad arguments against it: [W]hen I hear economists advocate the extension of UI to 99 weeks, I am tempted to ask, would you also favor a further extension to 199 weeks, or 299 weeks, or 1099 weeks? If 99 weeks […]

Julian Assange has apparently prepared a poison pill of damaging classified files to release should WikiLeaks be threatened. However, it also appears that the files will be released if he is detained in response to sexual-assault allegations in Sweden. That’s troubling, to say the least: If Assange’s blackmail threat is taken seriously, he will have […]