How income inequality destroys the economy

From the first view lower taxes promote investment and growth. Could it be that we have too much of the good thing (too low taxes on investment) at the moment?

_Research by Raghuram Rajan of the University of Chicago has also underscored the importance of deregulation. “Starting in the early 1970s, advanced economies found it increasingly difficult to grow,” he wrote this year. “The shortsighted political response to the anxieties of those falling behind was to ease their access to credit. Faced with little regulatory restraint, banks overdosed on risky loans.”

Starting in the 1970s, earnings were squeezed for low- and middle-income households. They borrowed to improve their standards of living — buying bigger houses than they could afford and using those houses as piggy banks. Families bet that housing prices would keep rising, making a three-bedroom outside Phoenix a safe store of wealth. But the housing bubble collapsed, and took the rest of the economy with it.

Thus, inequality might help explain the recession and the sluggish recovery after it [1]._

1. By ANNIE LOWREY, Published: October 16, 2012. The New York Times.

Prezidentės patarėjas: referendumas dėl VAE tapo rinkimų įkaitu

Užtenka pilti pamazgas ant Lietuvos rinkėjų. Nuomonę išsakė svarbiausieji: balsuojantys ir aktyviai kovojantys už geresnį gyvenimą Lietuvoje. Tai ir yra demokratijos veikimas. Nepatinka? Susikraukite lagaminus, pasiraitokite sijonus ir briskite į Rusiją.

Valstybės kontrolė: universitetai neįvertina darbo rinkos pokyčių

Ar negalime pasakyti paprastai ir aiškiai: universitetai neįvertina jų darbo kokybės ir šio įvertinimo rezultatus nepaskelbia. Todėl studentai negali pasirinkti tinkamas programas.

Pradėkime publikuoti internete, kiek kiekvieno universiteto buvusių studentų įsidarbina su kokiu atlyginimu ir kokios specialybės darbe, ir situacija universitetuose bei darbo rinkoje pagerės.

Hedging foxes

Please, do not tax additionally wealth creators from hedge funds. Recent research shows that in long term they are great at creating wealth for themselves only. Not so exciting for their investors though. We should keep the people from the hedge funds immensely rich as cunning examples that audacity in marketing pays. Like foxes in fairy tales.

What a great idea that old fox Romney has. Means testing of Medicare would eliminate support of middle class for Medicare. This is first and necessary step in order to kill this popular program, to drawn it in the bathtub. So clever.

Trys priežastys, kodėl dar neemigravau iš Lietuvos:

 esu durnas, nesigydau ir nenoriu gydytis.

Ko jie taip nervuojasi?

Praeitų rinkimų Seiman metu senas Vytautas Landsbergis dėjo ant visos Lietuvos skersą, sunkiai užsikabarojęs. Dabar ant lovio sėdinti mergaitė blevyzgoja.

Atominių katilų silpnosios pusės

_LETTER

Nuclear Plant Safety

Published: October 10, 2012

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To the Editor:

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For Op-Ed, follow@nytopinion and to hear from the editorial page editor, Andrew Rosenthal, follow@andyrNYT.

Re “Safety Report Says Europe’s Nuclear Reactors Need Repair” (news article, Oct. 4):

I spent the last year reviewing Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, Fukushima and so on and found that neither they nor practically any of the 435 operating nuclear plants around the world are designed for safe shutdown in case of simultaneous external and internal electricity failure.

Similarly, few of them are protected against hydrogen explosions, and practically none can handle regular or cyberterrorist attacks.

I also found that most are not fully automated but operated in the dangerous, old semimanual mode. Many were designed for a useful life of 30 years and yet reached 40. There is still no permanent disposal site for their waste, and decommissioning of the few that have been shut down takes decades: Chernobyl occurred in 1986, yet the end of decommissioning is planned for 2015.

In spite of all that, and in spite of the doubling of radioactivity in the atmosphere, 60 new plants are under construction, 150 more are planned and Europe is writing reports about possibly repairing some.

In short, while the question is not if but when and where the next accident will occur, even our presidential candidates neglect the issue.

BÉLA LIPTÁK
Stamford, Conn., Oct. 4, 2012

The writer is the author of “’Post-Oil Energy Technology.”_

Nejaugi mus ir vėl apgaus? Nejaugi balsuosime už atominį klystkelį?