Welcome to The Breakfast Club! We’re a disorganized group of rebel lefties who hang out and chat if and when we’re not too hungover we’ve been bailed out we’re not too exhausted from last night’s (CENSORED) the caffeine kicks in. Join us every weekday morning at 9am (ET) and weekend morning at 10:00am (ET) (or whenever we get around to it) to talk about current news and our boring lives and to make fun of LaEscapee! If we are ever running late, it’s PhilJD’s fault.

New Orleans marks completion of Louisiana Purchase; South Carolina is first state to secede from Union; Vermont Supreme Court rules in favor of homosexual couples; ‘It’s A Wonderful Life’ premieres in New York.

We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.

Plato

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Paranoia is not irrational if people are actually out to get you.

Here’s 13 Worst Things in Trump-GOP Tax Scam
Common Dreams Staff
Tuesday, December 19, 2017

The analysis by American for Tax Fairness (ATF)— a coalition of more than 425 groups that advocate for progressive tax reform— found that the Republicans’ plan would give more than 80 percent of tax cuts to the nation’s richest one percent while also— among other things— raising taxes on 92 million middle-class families; increasing healthcare premiums; encourage outsourcing of U.S.-based jobs; and limiting deductions for state and local taxes.

ATF’s analysis warns that the GOP’s proposed legislation:

1. Gives 83% of the tax cuts to the richest 1% by 2027. The richest 1% of taxpayers will get one-fifth (21%) of the tax cuts in 2018, but that grows to 83% by 2027. Their tax cut will average $51,000 in 2018; the bottom 60% of taxpayers will get about a dollar a day. [Tax Policy Center (TPC)]
2. Raises taxes on 92 million middle-class families by 2027 to pay for tax breaks for the wealthy and corporations. That is more than one-half (57%) of all households making less than $200,000 a year. 69 million households making less than $100,000 a year would also pay more in taxes after the temporary tax cuts for individuals expire. [TPC]
3. Mandates automatic Medicare cuts of at least $25 billion in 2018 and $400 billion over 10 years. In effect, seniors will pay for tax breaks for corporations and the wealthy as automatic spending cuts are triggered because the tax cuts add $1.5 trillion to the national debt. Automatic cuts altogether will total $136 billion in 2018 and include reductions in agriculture subsidies, student loans, military retirement and more. [Congressional Budget Office (CBO)]
4. Increases health care premiums and leaves 13 million families without health coverage, to raise revenue for tax breaks that mostly benefit the wealthy and corporations.
   • The plan repeals a key part of the Affordable Care Act: the requirement for individuals to have health coverage if they can afford it. That makes $314 billion available for tax cuts. [Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT)]
   • This will lead to 13 million more people being uninsured and cause a 10% increase in health insurance premiums for people getting insured on the individual market. [CBO]
5. Provides a corporate tax rate cut of $1.4 trillion and makes those cuts permanent, but makes tax cuts for individuals and families temporary. [JCT]
   • The corporate tax rate is slashed from 35% to 21%, and the corporate Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) is eliminated.
   • The $1.4 trillion corporate-tax-rate cut is nearly equal to the $1.5 trillion by which the whole tax plan increases the national debt, and to the $1.5 trillion cut the Republican budget makes to Medicare ($473 billion) and Medicaid ($1 trillion). [Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP)]
   • Tax cuts that benefit working families will expire after 2025. However, one individual tax cut made permanent changes the way tax brackets are adjusted for inflation, resulting in growing tax increases over time. [CBPP]
6. Adds $1.5 to $2.2 trillion to the national debt, jeopardizing critical services. The plan includes at least $1.5 trillion in tax cuts that are not paid for, such as by closing loopholes used by the wealthy and corporations. [JCT] Because the bill contains several budget gimmicks that obscure the true cost of the tax cuts, the cost could be as much as $2.2 trillion. [CBPP] This will balloon the national debt and further endanger funding for Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, public education and more.
7. Prioritizes the wealthiest taxpayers over working families with children. The plan lowers the top individual tax rate from 39.6% to 37%, giving more tax cuts to the richest 518,000 households. The GOP chose not to fully adjust changes in the Child Tax Credit so that some 24 million children in working families could fully benefit. Both of these changes would cost roughly the same amount, about $80 billion over 10 years. [Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP), CBPP]
8. Prioritizes wealthy business owners and real estate developers like Donald Trump. They get a net $265 billion tax cut from a new 20% deduction for “pass-through” business income combined with a tightening of rules on losses. Applied to the new 37% top individual tax rate, this 20% deduction on business income will drop the top pass-through business tax rate from 39.6% to 29.6%. More than 80% of this tax cut will go to the top 5% in 2019. Trump owns more than 500 pass-throughs. Pass-through owners—which include sole proprietorships, partnerships, LLC’s and S corporations—pay taxes due on their business income on their personal returns at individual rates. [JCT, ITEP]
9. Kills American jobs by encouraging outsourcing and profit shifting. The plan creates a territorial tax system, which exempts foreign profits from U.S. taxes. While the plan will tax some of those offshore profits, the effective tax rate will be far below the U.S. rate. U.S. multinationals will have even more tax incentives to outsource more jobs and shift more profits offshore.
10. Hands a $400 billion tax cut to offshore tax dodgers. American corporations have $2.6 trillion in profits stashed offshore on which they owe $750 billion in U.S. taxes. Rather than make them pay what they owe, like all the rest of us do, the tax plan will charge them only $339 billion— over a $400 billion discount. Apple will save $44 billion and Microsoft $25 billion, based on their Securities and Exchange Commission tax filings. [ITEP]
11. Limits the federal deduction for state and local taxes (SALT), hurting the middle class. The bill caps at $10,000 the amount of state and local property and income or sales taxes that can be deducted from federal taxable income. This is one of the reasons that nearly 8 million families will see tax increases in 2018. The impact of this change will be felt especially in the 20 states that claim an average SALT deduction of more than $10,000. Limiting SALT will put pressure on state and local budgets, likely forcing cuts to education, health care, and infrastructure. [TPC, CBPP]
12. Lets many wealthy heirs avoid paying the estate tax. The estate tax is substantially weakened, losing $83 billion and allowing very rich families to inherit wealth tax-free. Under current law, the tax only applies to estates worth over $5.5 million per person or $11 million per couple— about 5,500 estates. Under the bill, only estates worth at least $11 million per person or $22 million per couple (about 1,800 estates) would pay the tax. [JCT, TPC, CBPP]
13. Enriches President Trump and his family. In addition to cutting the top individual income tax rate and creating a tax break for income from pass-through business entities (of which Trump owns 500), the bill preserves the many existing tax loopholes for real estate investors and even creates a new one. The final bill exempts real estate owners from a provision meant to limit abuse of the new pass-through income deduction. [ITEP]

Wells Fargo CEO reveals the scam at the heart of Republicans’ tax bill
Rebekah Entralgo, Think Progress
Dec 19, 2017

The House of Representatives is set to vote on the final version of the GOP tax bill Tuesday, with the Senate to follow close behind. Most Republican members of Congress are heralding the plan’s giant, permanent tax cut for corporations as the reason behind their support. The GOP argues that when corporations get a tax cut, they put that money toward creating more jobs and raising wages.

But history shows that just isn’t correct — and history may be about to repeat itself.

In an interview with CNN Money, Wells Fargo CEO Tim Sloan made it clear what he plans to do with the corporation’s tax windfall — and it doesn’t benefit the average American worker.

“Is it our goal to increase return to our shareholders and do we have an excess amount of capital? The answer to both is, yes,” Sloan told CNN Money. “So our expectation should be that we will continue to increase our dividend and our share buybacks next year and the year after that and the year after that.”

“Is it our goal to increase return to our shareholders and do we have an excess amount of capital? The answer to both is, yes,” Sloan told CNN Money. “So our expectation should be that we will continue to increase our dividend and our share buybacks next year and the year after that and the year after that.”
…
The statement from Wells Fargo’s CEO confirms the suspicion that many observers had a few weeks ago, after White House chief economic adviser Gary Cohn attended an Wall Street Journal event where CEOs were asked whether their company plans to invest more if the tax reform bill passes.

Very few hands went up.

But it shouldn’t be all that surprising. The general consensus among economists is that cutting corporate taxes to spur economic growth — known as “trickle-down economics” — hardly worked in the 1980s economy and would surely fail in today’s modernized economy.

The economy President Donald Trump is operating in is rife with start-ups, meaning corporations are more likely to invest in research and automation to stay competitive or turn over their gains to their shareholders, two things that generally don’t promote job growth. Even one of President Ronald Reagan’s economic policy advisers who helped shape the Republican myth of trickle-down economics now says it doesn’t work, calling the GOP rhetoric around tax cuts “wishful thinking.”

The American public is catching on to the scam as well. A recent CNN poll from Tuesday found only 33 percent of Americans say they favor the GOP tax bill, while 55 percent oppose it. Sixty-six percent of Americans say they believe the bill favors the wealthy over the middle class.

CEOs Aren’t Waiting for the Tax Bill to Pass — They’ve Already Started Pocketing the Windfall
by David Dayen, The Intercept
2017-12-18

U.S. corporations are already beginning the process of pocketing the winnings from the tax bill jackpot they expect to hit any day now, undercutting, in a remarkably public fashion, the pretense that the corporate tax cut will lead to greater investment in job creation.

Since the Senate passed its version of the tax bill on December 2, 29 companies have announced $70.2 billion in stock buybacks, a maneuver that uses company cash to buy its own shares, which then drives up the price of those shares, rewarding major investors and executives whose compensation is directly tied to the company’s stock price.

The figure comes from a new report by Senate Democrats, which relies on the public statements of company executives. Stock buybacks, meanwhile, had been declining. There were $120 billion in buybacks in the entire second quarter of 2017, among all companies. The new figure — $70.2 billion in just 10 days, from just 29 companies — suggests that a surge of buybacks is in the offing if the tax bill becomes official, representing a staggering transfer of wealth from taxpayers straight to the wealthy.

As part of the tax bill, corporations will be able to bring back trillions of dollars parked overseas at a much lower tax rate than current law. Companies also benefit from a slashing of the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 21 percent and the elimination of the corporate “alternative minimum tax,” which enables the use of as many deductions as possible to hold onto earnings.

Republicans insist that the trillions of dollars headed back to corporations will get funneled into investments, job creation, and wage growth, a recitation of the theory of trickle-down economics.
…
The companies announcing buybacks include some of the biggest in the world, like Home Depot, Oracle, Honeywell, Bank of America, Anthem, Boeing, MasterCard, and United Airlines. All of the announcements have come since December 5.

“Corporate CEOs have made clear that the massive tax giveaways in the Republican plan will not be passed on to workers but to rich investors — including the wealthy foreign investors who own about a third of the shares in American companies,” said Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., in a statement accompanying the Senate Democrats’ report. “This plan will do nothing to stimulate the economy or raise wages — but it sure will make a bunch of rich guys a lot richer.”

The case of Oracle in particular is instructive. The software maker had $52 billion stashed overseas as of the end of 2016, the fifth most of any U.S. company, according to Moody’s Investors Service. Under the tax bill, that money would come back to the U.S. at a dramatically reduced tax rate. On December 14, the company announced a $12 billion buyback, with investors enjoying the benefits of the repatriated funds. Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison will receive an estimated $103.7 million in stock over the next five years, which actually represented a drop from his previous stock awards. With the buybacks, Ellison’s stock holdings will jump in value.

In 2004, President George W. Bush gave companies like Oracle a “repatriation tax holiday.” Hundreds of companies returned $312 billion in overseas earnings to the U.S. at a 5.25 percent tax rate. The Congressional Research Service cited one study showing that 91 percent of that money went to stock buybacks. Stock buybacks, as a result, jumped by 84 percent, according to a Goldman Sachs analysis.

The spectacle of companies announcing buybacks before the ink dries on the GOP tax bill ends all debate, if there was any left, on whether the tax cuts will lead to more jobs and better wages, or mass shareholder enrichment.

GOP Tax Plan Would Give 15 of America’s Largest Corporations a $236B Tax Cut
by Jake Johnson, Common Dreams
Monday, December 18, 2017

In “further proof that the Republican tax bill is a massive giveaway to the largest corporations in the country,” a new report (pdf) prepared for Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and published on Monday found that 15 of America’s most profitable corporations would receive a combined $236 billion tax cut if the GOP plan becomes law.

Released as Republicans gear up for a final vote on their tax bill as early as Tuesday, the report notes that “[o]ver the last 30 years, 15 of the largest U.S. corporations have accepted $3.9 trillion of corporate welfare in the form of subsidies, tax credits, and bailouts, and another $108 billion in government handouts in the form of federal contracts.”

“On top of this $4 trillion boondoggle,” the analysis adds, “Republicans want to give these corporations an additional $236 billion tax cut.”

Among the companies the report highlights are Apple, Pfizer, and Walmart, all of which utilize fancy “accounting tricks to dodge taxes” while also taking advantage of government programs that add to their bottomlines at the expense of American taxpayers.

The report goes on to observe that far from living up to its lofty goal of discouraging outsourcing, the deeply unpopular GOP tax bill actually “encourages companies to shift their jobs and profits overseas by moving to a ‘territorial’ tax system that would exempt future offshore profits of U.S. subsidiaries from taxation.”

While these companies stand to benefit massively from the GOP’s bill, “more than half of middle class families will pay more in taxes at the end of ten years,” Sanders said in a statement.

“Further, by running up a $1.4 trillion deficit, the Republicans are paving the way for massive cuts to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid,” Sanders concluded. “This is a tax bill written for wealthy Republican campaign contributors, not for the average American. It must be defeated.”

Sanders’ report coincides with an analysis (pdf) released Monday by the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center, which found that over 82 percent of the GOP bill’s benefits would go to the top one percent of Americans and nearly 60 percent would go to the top 0.1 percent by 2027.

Welcome to The Breakfast Club! We’re a disorganized group of rebel lefties who hang out and chat if and when we’re not too hungover we’ve been bailed out we’re not too exhausted from last night’s (CENSORED) the caffeine kicks in. Join us every weekday morning at 9am (ET) and weekend morning at 10:00am (ET) (or whenever we get around to it) to talk about current news and our boring lives and to make fun of LaEscapee! If we are ever running late, it’s PhilJD’s fault.

President Bill Clinton impeached; General George Washington opens camp at Valley Forge; Charles Dickens’ novel “A Christmas Carol” is first published; Apollo 17 splashes down in the Pacific Ocean; ‘The Music Man’ opens on Broadway.

The right to do something does not mean that doing it is right.

William Safire

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“Everything about that statement is false including ‘a’, ‘and’, and ‘the’.”

Republicans Agree on Tax Bill “Of, By and For the Political Donor Class” with Tax Cuts for the Rich

A Guide to Why the Trump-Republican Tax Plan is a Disgrace (for When you Confront Your Republican Uncle Bob During the Holidays)
Robert Reich
Saturday, December 16, 2017

Here are the 3 main Republican arguments in favor of the Republican tax plan, followed by the truth.

1. It will make American corporations competitive with foreign corporations, which are taxed at a lower rate.

Rubbish.

1. American corporations now pay an effective rate (after taking deductions and tax credits) that’s just about the same as most foreign based corporations pay.
2. Most of these other countries also impose a “Value Added Tax” on top of the corporate tax.
3. When we cut our corporate rate from 35% to 20%, other nations will cut their corporate rates in order to be competitive with us – so we gain nothing anyway.
4. Most big American corporations who benefit most from the Republican tax plan aren’t even “American.” Over 35 percent of their shareholders are foreign (which means that by cutting corporate taxes we’re giving a big tax cut to those foreign shareholders). 20 percent of their employees are foreign, while many Americans work for foreign-based corporations.
5. The “competitiveness” of America depends on American workers, not on “American” corporations. But this tax plan will make it harder to finance public investments in education, health, and infrastructure, on which the future competitiveness of American workers depends.
6. American corporations already have more money than they know what to do with. Their profits are at record levels. They’re using them to buy back their shares of stock, and raise executive pay. That’s what they’ll do with the additional $1 trillion they’ll receive in this tax cut.

2. With the tax cut, big corporations and the rich will invest and create more jobs.

Baloney.

1. Job creation doesn’t trickle down. After Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush cut taxes on the top, few jobs and little growth resulted. America cut taxes on corporations in 2004 in an attempt to get them to bring their profits home from abroad, and what happened? They didn’t invest. They just bought up more shares of their own stock, and increased executive pay.
2. Companies expand and create jobs when there’s more demand for their goods and services. That demand comes from customers who have the money to buy what companies sell. Those customers are primarily the middle class and poor, who spend far more of their incomes than the rich. But this tax bill mostly benefits the rich.
3. At a time when the richest 1 percent already have 40 percent of all the wealth in the country, it’s immoral to give them even more – especially when financed partly by 13 million low-income Americans who will lose their health coverage as a result of this tax plan (according to the Congressional Budget Office), and by subsequent cuts in safety-net programs necessitated by increasing the deficit by $1.5 trillion.

3. It will give small businesses an incentive to invest and create more jobs.

Untrue.

1. At least 85 percent of small businesses earn so little they already pay the lowest corporate tax rate, which this plan doesn’t change.
2. In fact, because the tax plan bestows much larger rewards on big businesses, they’ll have more ability to use predatory tactics to squeeze small firms and force them out of business.

Don’t let your Uncle Bob be fooled: Republicans are voting for this because their wealthy patrons demand it. Their tax plan will weaken our economy for years – reducing demand, widening inequality, and increasing the national debt by at least $1.5 trillion over the next decade.

Shame on the greedy Republican backers who have engineered this. Shame on Trump and the Republicans who have lied to the public about its consequences.

9/28/17

12/17/17

I have a very bad feeling about this.

Yes, yes I have seen Last Jedi. No spoilers but I think the title is highly misleading.

I don’t want to get your hopes up as my expectation is that Republicans will find a way to pass this incredibly bad Bill, but there were some positive developments in terms of blocking it this weekend that give us, as Egon Spengler would say, “a very slim chance of survival.”

First of all, and this is kind of sad because I don’t wish anyone dead (I want them to linger and suffer), John McCain is going to an Arizona hospital for treatment of “side effects” from his cancer therapy and will not be back in the Senate before January at best. This is completely plausible as it is severely debilitating and the possibility of damaging other organs due to its extreme toxicity quite real. It may be he shall never return, the prognosis is not good and many people survive mere months after diagnosis. Thad Cochran of Mississippi however is likely to be available.

Secondly Bob Corker of Tennessee, who initially voted against the Bill but has since signaled support, is being subjected to a fire storm of criticism over the #CorkerKickback.

“CorkerKickback?”: Sen. Supports Tax Bill After Last-Minute Provision Would Personally Enrich Him

Sen. Bob Corker Could Save $1.1 Million Per Year From GOP Tax Scam ‘Kickback’
by Jake Johnson, Common Dreams
Monday, December 18, 2017

The firestorm of outrage sparked by a provision in the GOP tax bill that would personally enrich Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) and President Donald Trump continued to grow on Monday as a leading economist estimated that, if passed, the measure could shave over $1.1 million from Corker’s taxes each year.

First unveiled by the International Business Times on Saturday, the provision— buried in the 500-page Republican tax plan— “would allow income from real estate investment trusts to be taxed at a 20 percent rate, as opposed to the 37 percent tax rate paid by high income individuals,” notes Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research. “According to Corker’s disclosure forms, he makes between $1.2 million and $7.0 million annually in this sort of income….If we plug in the top end $7 million figure, Corker could be saving as much as $1,190,000 from this late addition to the tax bill.”

These savings serve as a marked contrast to the benefits that would be seen by low-income families as a result of the highly-touted child tax credit changes demanded by Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) in exchange for his vote, Baker goes on to observe. While Corker, one of the wealthiest members of Congress, could potentially see a million-dollar annual benefit from the GOP tax plan, a married couple with two children earning $30,000 a year would only get an extra $800 from Rubio’s tax credit efforts.
…
Following reports that Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) is expected to miss the Senate’s vote on the final version of the GOP tax plan, which could come as early as Tuesday, the widespread fury prompted by what has been termed the “Corker Kickback” gained even more significance. With McCain likely out of the mix, the Senate can only afford to lose one vote if the $1.5 trillion tax bill is to reach Trump’s desk.

The outrage prompted by the real estate provision, which was not in previous versions of the tax bill, has not gone unnoticed by Corker. In response to the International Business Times’ reporting on Saturday, Corker conceded that he has not read the tax bill in full—just a “a two-page summary”—and claimed that he was unaware of the addition that has drawn so much condemnation.

Late Sunday, Corker— the lone Republican to vote against the Senate version of the tax bill— sent a letter to Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, highlighting “concerns” that the provision has raised and requesting “an explanation of the evolution of this provision and how it made it into the final conference report.”

David Sirota— who, along with his colleague Josh Keefe, broke the initial stories on the provision, which critics have said “reeks of bribery“— called Corker’s demand “big news” and “a truly rare moment in American politics.”

“The senator at the center of the #CorkerKickback scandal is facing a national firestorm and is now publicly demanding answers from his own party— and he’s doing it hours before he could sink the entire tax bill,” Sirota noted on Twitter.

With nationwide protests against the GOP tax plan already expected on Monday, reporting on the “Corker Kickback” appeared to further intensify opposition to the already deeply unpopular legislation.

I contest Jake Johnson’s Whip count. McCain’s absence means the vote is 51 – 48. Mike Pence gets a vote in case of a tie. If Corker actively votes against the Bill (he could also abstain) that brings the margin to 50 – 49. Then if another Republican actively votes against it, yes, the Bill would fail 49 – 50.

If there were 2 abstentions instead, the count would be 49 – 48 and the Bill would pass. If there were another abstention (a total of 3) it would be tied 48 – 48 and Mike Pence would get to cast his deciding vote. If dissenting Republicans choose to abstain instead of oppose the Bill it would take a “wave” of four of them to defeat it.

I think abstentions instead of “No” votes are much more likely- Plausible Deniability, the Bill still passes.

And if Corker’s vote is unsure (he has signaled he’s prepared to vote in favor) finding another Senator is even more problematic.

Sure, Jeff Flake. Meh. He voted in favor of the Senate Bill. More likely is Susan Collins (who also voted in favor of the Senate Bill) but not much. As I pointed out Friday she’s under considerable political pressure in Maine. The 3 “must pass” Bills she is selling her vote for are a) not going to be considered before the Cut Cut Cut Bill vote even though she was explicitly promised they would be (‘I have it in writing from Mitch himself!’ she says) and b) don’t have the remotest chance of passing the House or avoiding a Trump veto.

In short she’s been bought for a pig in a poke and a handful of Magic Beans. She’s not even as dignified as a sex worker.

Still, there is a chance to defeat this abomination, it’s not a sure thing.

I love this plan. I’m excited to be a part of it. Let’s do it.

Welcome to The Breakfast Club! We’re a disorganized group of rebel lefties who hang out and chat if and when we’re not too hungover we’ve been bailed out we’re not too exhausted from last night’s (CENSORED) the caffeine kicks in. Join us every weekday morning at 9am (ET) and weekend morning at 10:00am (ET) (or whenever we get around to it) to talk about current news and our boring lives and to make fun of LaEscapee! If we are ever running late, it’s PhilJD’s fault.

U.S. Supreme Court upholds the relocation and detention of Japanese-Americans during World War Two; U.S. begins 12 days of heavy bombing of North Vietnamese targets; Steven Spielberg is born; Tchaikovsky’s ‘The Nutcracker’ – publicly premieres in Saint Petersburg, Russia.

It often takes more courage to change one’s opinion than to keep it.

Willy Brandt

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TMC is busy today. I think I recently explained what ersatz means, right?

ps. Debt and the Deficit mean squat without inflation. Even Yellen admits that inflation is lower than Fed projections and far short of their goals.

(T)he Fed expects higher gross domestic product growth, a strong labor market and, hence, higher inflation in the coming years. Historically speaking, these trends have always been linked. But in recent years, something has changed. GDP growth now exceeds 2.5 percent annually. The official unemployment rate is at a generational low of 4.1 percent. But inflation? Despite forecasts from every stripe of economist, it simply hasn’t materialized. This past week, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that inflation is running at 1.7 percent, lower even than the slow pace that had been expected by the Fed and most economists at the beginning of the year.

That’s in the Washington Post, king of the Debt/Deficit Hawk sissies. Target inflation is 2%, on average, and it has rarely exceeded that even on a monthly basis and never over the course of a year since the Financial Crisis in 2007-8.

(A)lthough the official unemployment rate is low, there are still millions who are underemployed or out of the workforce, and hence the employment outlook in America isn’t quite as rosy as it appears.

True that. Why it suggests “while inflation has not yet returned, it’s only a matter of time, so it’s prudent for the Fed to take action now, gradually, while it can.” is reversion to the WaPo corporate norm.

The End. Period.

In case you missed it last week, Michael Che is the new Head Writer for Saturday Night Live. He is the first African-American to hold that position.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Michael Che

Ghosts of ek’smas Present

The Reason for The Season

Presents!

Under the Mistletoe

The Future Ain’t What It Used To Be

“The weed of crime bears bitter fruit. Crime does not pay. The Shadow knows.”

That’s the actual closing line from The Shadow radio series, memorably voiced by Frank Readick and later by Orson Welles.