Tuesday items: Multiples responses to the Obama/Buffett tax hike argument; Tamny on bank bailouts; The WSJ chides Romney's China stance.

AP rebuts the President’s (and Warren Buffett’s) claims regarding tax rates paid by the rich.

The WSJ critiques the Obama/Buffett analysis.

On NRO, Larry Kudlow bashes the President’s tax attack.

From The Fiscal Times, Steve Forbes opposes tax increases on the rich.

At The WSJ, Paul Gigot comments on the President’s tax proposal:

 

At RCM, John Tamny notes that three years after the bailouts, the banking system is weaker.

On Café Hayek, Don Boudreaux echoes Douglas Irwin’s claim that Smoot-Hawley played a minor role in the Great Depression.

In The WSJ, Bret Stephens predicts the eurozone’s break up.

Alhambra Investments foresees a breakup of the euro.

The WSJ chides Mitt Romney for his rhetoric on China’s currency.

London’s Chatham House features documents from its 1929-31 conference on The International Gold Problem.

Sanjuktamoorthy.com explains Robert Mundell’s desire for a single world currency.

In The Washington Times, Richard Rahn notes that elevated inflation combined with ultra-low interest rates means a huge tax on savers.

On Bloomberg, Caroline Baum reports the Fed’s upcoming replay of Operation Twist.

On The Kudlow Report, James Pethokoukis debates the President’s low poll numbers:

 

In The NYT, Bruce Bartlett advocates rolling back tax code expenditures.

From First Trust, Brian Wesbury argues a new recession is unlikely.

At The Weekly Standard, Jonathan V. Last suggests China’s One Child Policy will prevent it becoming a great nation.

The Huffington Post reports Newt Gingrich will unveil a Contract with America 2012. No word as to whether currency and exchange rate reform will be on the agenda.

In The NYT, conservative Keynesian Ben Stein supports for higher taxes on the rich.

At COAL, Paul Krugman claims the current crisis is caused by a failure of demand, but that supply-side problems may be emerging.

Wednesday round up: Stoll on a split among supply-siders; Kudlow on Cantor's growth agenda; Ferrara on inflation.

At Future of Capitalism, Ira Stoll reports supply-siders are split on whether to emphasize fiscal or monetary policy.

From NRO, Larry Kudlow applauds Republican House leader Eric Cantor (VA) for rolling out a pro-growth agenda, but notes Cantor omitted the dollar from his proposal.

The Kudlow Report covers Portugal’s rejection of additional budget austerity:



At The American Spectator, Peter Ferrara worries about inflation.

On Gordon Liddy’s radio show, John Tamny discusses the dollar.

From TGSN, Ralph Benko recounts the dollar standard's three economic disorders (here, here and here).

In The WSJ, Stephen Moore reports on labor’s electoral maneuvers in Wisconsin.

On NRO radio, Douglas Irwin discusses his book on Smoot-Hawley but seems to miss Jude Wanniski’s point that the market meltdown began in 1929 due to expectation the legislation would pass.

At Minyanville, David Stockman rails against the Federal Reserve.

From 2009, Gabriel Fagan, James R. Lothian, and Paul D. McNelis find the gold standard era’s prosperity hard to beat.

Wednesday update: Swanson profiles Cochrane; Benko recounts fiat money's political disorders; Laffer talks inflation.

From Forbes, Bret Swanson surveys the compelling opinions of University of Chicago economist John Cochrane.

AT TGSN, Ralph Benko recounts the dollar standard’s three political disorders (here, here and here).

On The Kudlow Report, Art Laffer discusses the producer price index’s surge:



At RCM, John Tamny advises Japan to avoid bad economics as it strives to recover.

In The Journal, James Grant reviews Douglas Irwin’s book on Smoot-Hawley.

From Bloomberg, Caroline Baum notes Bastiat’s counter to Keynesian ideas about government projects creating prosperity.

From Mises.org, David Stockman unleashes on the 2008 bailout and the dollar standard:

Viewed more broadly, the carnage on Wall Street in September 2008 was the inevitable crash of a 40-year financial bubble spawned by the Fed after Nixon closed the gold window in August 1971. As time passed, the Fed's market-rigging and money-printing actions had become increasingly destructive — leaving the banking system ever more unstable and populated with a growing bevy of Too Big to Fail institutions.

The 1984 rescue of Continental Illinois; the 1994 Mexican peso crisis bailouts; the Fed's 1998 life-support operation for LTCM — were all just steps along the way to the fall of 2008.

Then, faced with the collapse of their own handiwork, Washington panicked and joined the Fed in unleashing an indiscriminate bailout capitalism that has now thoroughly corrupted the halls of government, even as it has become a debilitating blight on the free market.

In The WSJ, Newt Gingrich and Peter Ferrara advocate making the Bush tax rates permanent.

At The Journal, Stephen Moore reports congressional conservatives are unsatisfied with the pace of spending cuts.

On the Peter Peterson funded Fiscal Times, James C. Cooper cites weak dollar advocate Fred Bergsten (of the Peterson Institute for International Economics) calling for dollar depreciation to boost exports. The irony is, the biggest barrier to US exports is the dollar standard Bergsten helped create in the 1970s.

At Mises.org, Frank Shostak argues economic growth doesn’t cause inflation.

Weekend round up: Lewis on currency boards; Danker on Utah's hard money legislation; Mitchell opposes raising taxes to lower the deficit.

From Forbes, Nathan Lewis argues that a currency board system tied to a specific gold price would fix the dollar.

Also at Forbes, Rich Danker suggests Utah’s bill to make gold and silver legal tender is the first tangible evidence of a populist revolt against Washington's weak dollar policy.

On The Kudlow Report, Stephen Moore discusses high oil prices:



At Forbes, Bill Flax links high oil prices to the weak dollar.

From New World Economics, Nathan Lewis continues his analysis of bank reserves.

Cato’s Dan Mitchell supports Grover Norquist’s argument that higher taxes will not lower the deficit.

At Heritage, David Weinberger cites Alan Reynolds on income inequality:

First, as Reynolds points out, shifting tax rates have influenced how income has been reported to the IRS. For example, after individual tax rate reductions throughout the 80s and 2000s, businesses shifted from corporate tax returns to individual tax returns, since they would pay less in taxes shifting income to the lower individual rate. This resulted in increased reported income at the top, when in reality there was a lot of income shifting – though not necessarily gaining – which Reynolds found to account for “more than half of the
apparent increase in the top 1 percent’s income share since 1986.”

Second, Reynolds argues that the Piketty-Saez tax return study excludes many transfer payments for low-income families, because these payments don’t show up in IRS data. These include things like Social Security, Medicare, food stamps and other lower-income subsidies. Excluding these payments shrinks the percentage of total income for lower income groups, making it appear to expand the percentage of total income top earners collect. Of course, employer health care contributions, which tend to favor upper-income earners and therefore offset some of the transfer payments to lower-income individuals, also need to be taken into account. But overall, middle- and lower-income earners receive
more subsidies than upper-income earners.

Third, tax rates also affect capital gains realizations. Prior to the 1987 capital gains tax increase, capital gains accounted for “18 percent or less of all the broadly defined income reported on the top 1 percent of individual income tax returns in the early 1980s,” according to Reynolds. However, starting in 1987, capital gains realizations as a share of the top 1 percent of incomes dropped to an average of 7.3 percent for the next decade.

From Cato, Robert F. Mullgan reports the institute's William Niskanen is working to rehabilitate the Phillips Curve.

On Forbes, Reuven Brenner suggests government art subsidies weaken the culture.

At Fiscal Times, Bruce Bartlett reviews Douglas Irwin’s Peddling Protectionism on the Smoot-Hawley tariff.

Thursday update.

On Bloomberg TV, Keynesian C. Fred Bergsten of the Peterson Institute for International Economics, calls China a currency manipulator for keeping the yuan stable, and advocates the U.S. buy Chinese currency.

At Café Hayek, Don Boudreaux explains that Chinese trade doesn’t diminish good jobs in the U.S.

On The Kudlow Report, Larry discusses rising oil and other commodities:



The WSJ’s David Wessell reports on a new paper suggesting low Fed interest rates caused the housing bubble.

On Asia Times, David Goldman suggests we have symptoms of deflation and inflation because:

When the Fed prints money, investors flee to other currencies, and foreign central banks intervene and buy dollars which they invest in Treasuries. It has precisely the same effect as the Fed’s own buying of bonds — yields fall. This increases the risk of future inflation so the market buys hedges against it (and you should, too).

The WSJ editorial board warns Democrats and Republicans against scapegoating China.

On CNBC, Paul Krugman calls China “the bad guy” in the currency war, and advocates for trillions in additional quantitative easing:



Reuters reports increased unemployment and inflation.

At Conscience of a Liberal, Krugman makes a convincing argument that the scariest part of debt-to-GDP analysis is the weak GDP:


At Forbes, Rich Karlgaard applauds Greg Mankiw’s recent tax analysis.

On The Kudlow Report, Stephen Moore analyzes the President’s NYT contrition:



Seeker Blog discusses Douglas Irwin’s recent paper, “Did France Cause the Great Depression?”

From 1997, Jude Wanniski argues the Great Depression was solely a fiscal crisis.

From June, John Tamny suggests there was a deflationary component in the 1920s.

Friday items.

Larry Kudlow gives this blog a hat tip in his discussion of Mundell's strong dollar theory.

Heritage argues against spending increases, saying, "Excessive spending--not low revenues--accounts for 92% of deficits by 2014 and 100% by 2017."

Still, in a time of high unemployment, wouldn't it be best to start addressing deficits by increasing employment and GDP growth?

John Tamny thinks Gates and Buffett should promote growth over charity.

Paul Krugman worries that austerity will produce crisis.

In The WSJ, Prof. Douglas A. Irwin restates Jude Wanniski's thesis that Smoot-Hawley caused the Great Depression.

Alan Greenspan, who is not a supply-sider, worries about deficits.