Taxes

Tax cuts introduced by the Bush regime are due to expire (it was probably the only good thing done by him!)

This is a brilliant article by Greg Mankiw (economist at Harvard) on the disincentives of taxes. Do remember to read his reply to Barry Ritholtz in his blog. He is at his wittiest best!

He himself was the Chairman of President Bush's Council of Economic Advisors from 2003-2005.

And if you want to know the furore caused by his article in NYT amongst the 'liberal intellectuals' (isn't it an oxymoron ;-) ), just click this.

PS: I myself was not convinced on this until it happened to me last year. After spending all my evenings, most of my nights and some of my mornings in the office, when my boss gave me an 11% increment citing that the present policy does not allow to differentiate too much amongst people, I stopped making efforts to get differentiated. As a result I had (like rest of the team) a great time in the next three months. Just to realize one fine Monday morning that our team is being closed.

It was a team at the end of the day, just imagine what would happen to the country called United States of America. Probably under democrats, US is heading the Europe way. Are the voters listening?

PPS: For last 2 years, I have seen the direct effect of taxes. On my bonus day I used to get an i10 but taxes would convert it into an Alto! :)

Irrationality and Capital Markets

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704657304575539592465679482.html?mod=WSJINDIA_hpp_LEFTTopWhatNews

"On Wall Street, bad may be the new good when it comes to economic data.

Investors translated a grim September jobs report as a welcome sign that central banks might rush to inject additional stimulus into the economy. It's a twist of logic as Wall Street now views negative economic snapshots as a positive for the stock market.

The Labor Department report was the catalyst for the stock market as the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed above 11000 on Friday for the first time since early May. There are building expectations that the Federal Reserve, Bank of England and perhaps the Bank of Japan might embark on a second round of quantitative easing—dubbed by investors as "QE2"—to keep the recovery going.

George Stahl explains why a weak jobs report actually helped stocks advance today, pushing the Dow back above the 11,000 level for the first time since May.

That means Wall Street has been viewing every negative economic report as another reason to snap up stocks."

Only at spencer's :)

And then people wonder at 15% Food Price Inflation!

Is it merely a coincidence that extremely high Food Price Inflation and these retail outlets started almost at same time in India. And does Correlation imply Causality here?

Any ways you know my answer!