John Maggs covers the economy and taxes for National Journal. He previously worked for 11 years at the Journal of Commerce, a daily business newspaper, for most of that time as senior reporter in Washington covering international economics. In that capacity, he traveled frequently to Europe, Asia and Latin America, and is familiar with business and government officials abroad. Maggs attended Columbia College at Columbia University.
Scott Talbott, the top lobbyist for the Financial Services Roundtable has this assessment of the new compensation rules: “The Treasury executive compensation proposal focuses on compensation for top executives at 7 institutions that have accepted exceptional assistance from the federal government. For any institution that accepts taxpayer dollars, reasonable restrictions are part of the territory. It should be noted that Congress has imposed restrictions on TARP companies by limiting tax deductions and prohibiting any incentive compensation. The Treasury proposal correctly focus on reducing excessive risk-taking and eliminating those compensation programs that focus on the short-term, rather on the long-term risk… Read more
In a comment below, Jamie Galbraith refers to a paper he co-wrote that links the Fed's interest rate decisions to the election cycle -- Until we can fix the link, it can be found at: http://utip.gov.utexas.edu/papers/utip_42.pdf.… Read more
Normal 0 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language:#0400; mso-fareast-language:#0400; mso-bidi-language:#0400;} Charles Calomiris and two co-authors dispute the idea that house wealth (or its loss) has or would have a sizable effect on consumer spending. The NBER paper is available by subscription here, but a good summary is available to all here. … Read more
A Correction Please read below the excellent comment by Peter Wallison of the American Enterprise Insitute, whose postion is presented much more clearly than in a story I wrote in last week's National Journal. I made the gross error of characterizing Peter's presciption for much more forceful action by the govenrment as nationalization, when it is not. I compounded the error by bunching him in with Paul Krugman, not a happy place for a conservative to be. No excuses here -- I screwed up, and I'm grateful that Peter has been gracious about it. I'll resist the temptation to put… Read more
Mitt Romney’s answer to that question, today at least, is no. In “Let Detroit Go Bankrupt” in the New York Times, Romney says that reorganization would allow the Big Three to “shed excess labor.” In January, when he was trying to win the Michigan primary, Romney vowed to “fight for every job” in the auto industry and promised help from Washington. Compare Romney today to the way he sounded then, here and here.… Read more
GM is the iconic example in this academic case for creative destruction, which I wrote about in 2006. Beyond the dated information on GM's status, note in particular the argument about how companies like GM insulate themselves from competition. When he was chosen as President Eisenhower's Defense secretary, General Motors President Charles Wilson resisted pressure to sell his $2.5 million in GM stock. Asked whether he would be prepared to make a decision as secretary that would hurt GM's interests, Wilson doubted that this would ever be necessary: "I thought what was good for the country was good for General… Read more
While on conservative talker Glenn Beck's radio show 10/21, Sarah Palin was asked "Are you for this new stimulus package?" Palin replied: "There's some points in it that make sense, some provisions in there that make sense, but how far are we going to go here in asking taxpayers to bail out even further, I guess entities, individuals, those who have made some poor decisions and then being able to kind of sit back and rely on others to prop them up and bail them out. This next one of the Democrats being proposed should be very, very concerning to… Read more
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