Everett and Jones Barbecue Restaurant in Oakland, CA

I saw Everett and Jones Barbecue on Nightly Business Report which had a nice puff piece.  I read some of the review on the internet and one dogged the place out.

Everett and Jones Barbecue

Cleveland Fed: College pays only a little more than high school in some fields.

There has been a recent slow down in wages for college graduates.  Many graduates are finding it hard to start their careers in their chosen fields.   Jonathan James studies the difference in wages based on college major.  Engineering comes out best.

The college wage premium by Jonathan James

Cleveland Fed: Labor's Declining Share of National Income

The Cleveland Fed has a piece on labor (vs. capital) receiving a declining share of national income.

Labor's Declining Share of Income and Rising Inequality by Jacobson and Occhino.

Traditionally labor income ad benefits have received about 2/3 of all national income and capital has received 1/3 of national income.  The article supports the idea that for the pass 30 years the returns to labor have been dropping. The result is flattening wages and increasing income inequality.

BusinessWeek: Housing policies of the rich have contributed to unemployment

Bloomberg Business Week


Bloomberg BusinessWeek has a great story on the lack of affordable housing in the suburbs contributing US income inequality. However, make a more startling argument that rich neighborhoods are using zoning and land use laws to keep the poor from jobs in high income area.. This "discrimination" has stopped the shrinkage of the rate of income inequality that existed from 1880 to 1980.

The business week article is based on a paper by "Peter Ganong and Daniel Shoag" called "Why has regional income convergence in the US Stopped". Both work a Harvard University.

What's new in the paper is they have developed a data set that models communities land use and zoning laws.  The restrictions increase the price of housing.

barriers to the poor in high income areas are discriminatinon against the poor by the rich though zoning lawas and regulation is responsibile for a large amount if income inequality.  That is unemployment due to geographic mis-match has contributed to income inequality. Interestingly, city with less restricted housing policies have not been affected by income inequality.

Dr. Dre shelters income in Ireland

Andre Young (Dr. Dre) is setting up three legal entities in Ireland to shelter income from the European sales of his beats head phones.  The fake corporations were set-up by and accounting firm in Cork, Ireland.  According to the article. Beats headphones has no other presence in Ireland.

The Irish Herald has the story here. 

The story in the Irish Independent is here.

Brown University Economic Impact Statement

Here is a report from Brown University detailing it's economic impact on the Rhode Island and Providence communities.  The report is here for 2012.

Year 2012
Year 2009
Year 2005

We go back and forth on these reports.  They are clearly done for public relations reasons.  Brown Univeristy must be feeling some heat to produce these reports.

On the other had we believe in making public investment decisions based on hard facts like cost benefit analysis.  These rudimentary economic impact reports are a good first step when state and local goverments have to make decisions about infrastructure and services.

Don't try do this at home kids: UK Austerity Update from NYT

The New York Times has a long look at UK austerity program under David Cameron's Conservative government. The New York Times article is here.  Cameron recently announced the austerity would continue for another five years.

The UK Independent has a piece on the UK budget deficit worsening.  The article from the UK Independent is here.

Here is a discussion in the London Review of Books calling the Cameron / Osborne policy a failure.  The story by John Lanchester.  He has a great reference in it to the International Monetary Fund's World Economic Outlook (October 2012) publication. On Page 41, of IMF Outlook,  they discuss the multiplier used calculating the effect of government spending cuts on the larger economy.  The IMF suggests that the GDP reduction effect could be as high as 1.7 times the cut.  In other word, removing 100 Billion pounds in spending would reduce economic activity by 170 Billion pounds.  Not something you want to be doing during a recession.

So you have to ask if the savings are worth crippling the economy.

In our opinion, voters want simple solutions to complicated problems and politicians are willing to do just that.

Thank goodness the US federal reserve has the right idea: Low, predictable interest rates for the short and medium term, short term stimulus until unemployment falls to a certain level and pressure on policy makers for gradually reduce long-term healthcare costs.