Kim Hyun Joong - Playful Kiss Korea

Foto Kim Hyun Joong dalam Film Playful Kiss Drama Korea KBS :

Film Playful Kiss Drama Korean

Foto Ciuman Kim Hyun Joong - Film Playful Kiss

Film Playfull Kiss adalah Film drama korea. Film yang diperankan oleh : Kim Hyun Joong (Baek Seung Jo) dan Jung So Min (Oh Hani), mereka beradu action dalam pembuatan film pertama mereka pada tanggal 24 di daerah perumahan di Sung Bok Dong, Seoul. Foto Adegan Ciuman Kim Hyun Joong and Jung So Min :

F4

F4 adalah Pemilih sekolah dalam Film Boy Before Flower. Mereka beranggotakan 4 cowok tampan, mereka adalah Gu Hye Sun (Geum Jan Di), Lee Min Ho (Goo Joon Pyo), Kim Hyun Joong (Yoon Ji Hoo), Kim Bum (So Yi Jung), Kim Joon (Song Woo Bin). 

The Simpson-Bowles Social Security Plan

Chuck Blahous identifies the winners and losers.  The three main groups of winners:

1) Low-income workers (and their advocates);
2) Fiscal conservatives concerned about the growth of system costs;
3) Advocates of bipartisan accomplishment.

And three main groups of losers:

1) Advocates of making substantial tax increases inevitable through prolonged inaction;
2) Advocates of improving intergenerational equity via personal accounts;
3) Senior-scaring political opportunists.

How to Improve Dodd-Frank

Oliver Hart and Luigi Zingales have a suggestion about how to improve the financial reform law.  Their goal is to "spare the most vibrant financial institutions from the rigidities and bureaucratization that a strict application of the Dodd-Frank bill would entail."

Barro on QE2

Via the Economist.

Department of "Huh"? (Why Oh Why Can't We Have a Better Blogosphere? Brad DeLong Edition)

Brad DeLong objects to my recent NY Times column by displaying some Tax Policy Center data that, he says, shows the Bowles-Simpson tax plan is hard on the poor and easy on the rich.  Progressives, he concludes, should oppose the plan.

The problem, however, is the benchmark used in this particular table: current law as of 2015.  Under current law, all of the Bush tax cuts expire, and millions of new taxpayers are hit by the AMT.  That is an outcome that has never been in effect and that neither political party endorses.  It is an artifact of legislative history.

A better benchmark, as noted by Howard Gleckman of the Tax Policy Center, is current policy.  Here are those results.  The implication is exactly the opposite.  All income groups take a hit, particularly those at the top of the distribution.

Taxes, Spending, and Semantics

Click here to read my column in Sunday's New York Times.

The Progressivity of Bowles-Simpson

Howard Gleckman reports,

The Tax Policy Center has taken a preliminary look at one version of the tax plan offered by Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson. And Paul Krugman & friends can rest easy. The Bowles-Simpson proposal is indeed an across-the-board tax increase-- and a fairly progressive one at that. In 2015, the lowest earners would face an average cut in their after-tax income of 3.4 percent or about $400. Middle-income households (those earning an average of about $60,000) would see their after-tax incomes fall by 4 percent or about $1,900. On the other end of the economic food chain, the top one percent of earners (who earn an average of about $2 million) would lose about $77,000 (5.3 percent) while the top 0.1 percent would see their after-tax incomes cut by nearly 8 percent, or close to $500,000.

The TPC estimate comes with a number of caveats. It assumes essentially the law we had in 2009. The 2001 and 2003 tax cuts still apply in 2015, about 25 million middle-income households continue to be protected from the Alternative Minimum Tax, and the 2009 estate tax is back on the books. Given political realities these days, that guess is a good as any, but it is a guess....

The TPC estimate is also static, thus it assumes no behavioral response to the proposed tax law changes. However, thanks to lower marginal rates and the smaller deficit in the overall plan, the economy could grow faster than the co-chairs predict and generate more tax revenue....

Thus, Bowles and Simpson have a clear goal: They want to raise taxes across the board while lowering rates. And TPC’s preliminary projections suggest that’s pretty much what they’d do.

QE2

Several people have asked my opinion of the Federal Reserve's new round of quantitative easing.  In particular, some have noted that I did not sign the open letter by conservative economists critical of recent Fed actions.

My view is that QE2 is a modestly good idea.  I say it is a "good idea" because, like Ben Bernanke, I am more worried at the moment about Japanese-style deflation and stagnation than I am about excessive inflation.  By lowering long-term real interest rates below where they otherwise would be, QE2 should help expand aggregate demand.  I include the modifier "modestly" because I don't expect these actions to have a very large effect.

Moreover, I do see some potential downsides.  In particular, the Fed is making its portfolio riskier.  By borrowing short and investing long, the Fed is in some ways becoming the hedge fund of last resort.  If future events require higher interest rates, the Fed will end up making losses on its portfolio.  And even if doesn't recognize these losses (by not marking to market), it could end up paying more interest on newly expanded reserves than it is earning on its newly acquired portfolio of long bonds.  Such a cash-flow deficit could potentially undermine the Fed's political independence (which is already not very popular in some circles).  Yet if the Fed tries to avoid these losses by failing to raise rates when needed, inflation could indeed become a problem down the road.  I trust the team at the Fed enough to think they will avoid that mistake.

So, in the end, I judge QE2 to be a small but risky step in the right direction.

-----

Addendum: While I do not agree with its conclusion, I did find this video on QE2 amusing.

Hubbard on the Bowles-Simpson Tax Plan

Glenn likes it.

Film Drama Korea Di Indosiar "Boy Before Flower - F4"

Judul : Boy Before Flower

Release year : 2009

Language : Korean

Subtitle : English

Episodes : 24 

Starring : Gu Hye Sun (Jan Di), Lee Min Ho (Gu Jun Pyo), Kim Hyun Joong, Kim Bum, Kim Joon.

Film Drama Korea "HERO"

Film Drama Korea "HERO" :

Film Drama Korea "Creating Destiny"

Film Drama Korea "Creating Destiny" :

Lee Min Ho 2010

Lee Min Ho adalah aktor tampan asal korea selatan. Sudah banyak sekali Film drama korea yang ia bintangi/mainkan, seperti Film Boy Before Flower - F4, sebagai Gu Jun Pyo, Film Personal Taste, dll. Foto Lee Min Ho Terbaru 2010 :

You Fix the Federal Budget

It takes about a minute.  Persuading your fellow citizens may take a bit longer.

Help me find the photographer

The above picture, taken in the midst of the Zimbabwe hyperinflation and posted around the internet, illustrates well how fiat money can become nearly worthless when the central bank creates too much of it.  I was hoping to put the photo in the next edition of my textbook, but my publisher is having trouble locating the photographer from whom to obtain reprint permission.  If you are photographer, or know his name and contact information, or have a similar picture for which you hold copyright, please contact me.

The Simpson-Bowles Social Security Plan

Chuck Blahous explains it.

Film Drama Korea "I Can't Stop"

Film Drama Korea yang menceritakan tentang Hong Yun-Shi (Kim Kyu-Ri) menemukan dirinya mengungkap misteri gelap bergulir ibunya Setelah menemukan bahwa ibunya sebenarnya masih hidup dan selamat tahun kecelakaan mobil yang mengerikan yang lalu "mati.", Yun-Shi telah di misi untuk mencari tahu siapa yang berusaha untuk membunuh ibunya.

Aktor Tampan "Kim Ki Bum" - Film Dream Drama Korea

Film Dream adalah Film Drama Korea SBS. Film yang percintaan yang lucu dan seru, film Dream ini diperankan oleh : Aktor Tampan korea "Kim Ki Bum" (Boy Before Flower).