Knock, Knock: Mitt Romney's Housing Plan Is a Joke
Mr. Fix-It doesn't have a credible plan to fix the economy's biggest problem More »
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Matthew O'Brien is an associate editor at The Atlantic covering business and economics. He has previously written for The New Republic.
Mr. Fix-It doesn't have a credible plan to fix the economy's biggest problem More »
He still pays less than many middle class households More »
We do not live in the world Ayn Rand imagined More »
It turns out that the 47 percent are really the 100 percent. More »
Do Republicans think Milton Friedman was a big government liberal? More »
Approaching Mitt Romney's tax plan like an LSAT puzzle shows that his plan is mathematically possible if income inequality grows even more than expected More »
Whether it's 1896 or 2012, it doesn't make sense to crucify our economy on a cross of gold More »
Electronic pollution is hurting the economy More »
A counterfactual history of the past four years. More »
The worst legacy of the Great Recession is the worst long-term joblessness since the Great Depression More »
Forget gold. If Scrooge McDuck were around today, he'd be diving into a big pile of capital gains. Okay, and maybe some dividends too.The charts below, courtesy of Bob Williams of the Tax Policy Center, compare where the merely rich and the super-rich get their money from. The first shows the breakdown for households with adjusted gross incomes of $1 million or greater, but who aren't among the top 400 tax filers. The second shows the same for that latter group.… More »
We finally know the real winner of the euro crisis. It's Australia.Would you believe it if I told you that Australia's financial sector is worth more than the eurozone's financial sector? Well, it doesn't matter if you believe it or not. It's true. The technical term for this is "jaw-dropping." The chart below, from Cullen Roche of Pragmatic Capitalism, puts it all in rather stunning picture perspective.It turns out that depressions aren't so good for banks. A big… More »
It's time to put down Ayn Rand, and pick up Milton Friedman. More »
Paul Ryan's plan is a path to prosperity for Mitt Romney. More »
Congratulations, world. It's been five years since the credit crunch began, and the global economy began to gradually -- and then all at once! -- implode. The good news is we avoided the abyss. The bad news is we didn't avoid a lost half decade. It's been a particularly bad time for equity investors. Stocks will hopefully be better in the long run, but the medium run has been pretty miserable -- in the United States, China, Great Britain, Germany, Japan, and… More »
India might have 99 problems, but finding a place to keep all its Olympic medals ain't one. They're not so good at winning those -- a little bit better than Michael Phelps. In their entire history.Why does a country with a billion plus people only have 24 Olympic medals? Well, there's more to capturing athletic glory than having more people than other people. Consider the chart below, which compares the populations and medal hauls of the most successful nations… More »
There's one certainty about the economy. Uncertainty is bad for it.Actually, there's another certainty about the economy. Uncertainty never goes away. Sometimes we forget this; then we belatedly remember it. This alternating cycle of optimism and pessimism is what Keynes famously called "animal spirits" -- in other words, the psychological drama that drives our economic drama. And it does drive the economy. Consider the chart below, which compares the inverted… More »
A silver bullet into the heart of Keynesianism, this is not. More »
