“The U.S. economy grew at an annual rate of 2 percent in the third quarter, in the latest sign of how the delta variant of the coronavirus held back the economic recovery.
The gross domestic product figures for the July-through-September period, released Thursday by the Bureau of Economic Analysis, came in far lower than the booming 6.7 percent growth in the previous quarter, reflecting an economy struggling anew amid the delta variant surge, which tore through unvaccinated communities in August and September and is only easing now.
The third quarter was the economy’s worst since the pandemic devastated the economy in the first half of 2020, as global supply chain backlogs, higher prices and labor shortages continue to bedevil the recovery.
Economists, policymakers and consumers alike had hoped that widely available vaccines would help bolster the recovery going into the fall. But the coronavirus surge held back progress and underscored how intertwined the pandemic and economy remain 21 months after the country’s first confirmed case of the virus.” Read more at Washington Post
“WASHINGTON—Leading U.S. intelligence agencies failed to predict the rapid Taliban takeover of Afghanistan prior to the final withdrawal of American troops and instead offered scattershot assessments of the staying power of the Afghan military and government, a review of wide-ranging summaries of classified material by The Wall Street Journal shows.
The nearly two dozen intelligence assessments from four different agencies haven’t been previously reported. The assessments charted Taliban advances from spring 2020 through this July, forecasting that the group would continue to gain ground and that the U.S.-backed government in Kabul was unlikely to survive absent U.S. support.
The analyses, however, differed over how long the Afghan government and military could hold on, the summaries show, with none foreseeing the group’s lightning sweep into the Afghan capital by Aug. 15 while U.S. forces remained on the ground.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
“Top Democrats signaled a deal is within reach on President Joe Biden's big domestic bill, but momentum fizzled and tempers flared late Wednesday as a paid family leave proposal fell out and a billionaires' tax appeared scrapped . With his signature domestic initiative at stake, Biden will visit Capitol Hill Thursday morning to urge Democratic lawmakers to bring talks on the social services and climate change bill ‘over the finish line’ before he departs for global summits overseas, according to multiple outlets. Still in the mix: Expanded health care programs, free pre-kindergarten and money to tackle climate change remain in what's at least a $1.75 trillion package. A Sunday deadline also looms for approving a smaller, bipartisan infrastructure bill or risk allowing funds for routine transportation programs to expire. But that $1 trillion bill has been held up by progressives who refuse to give their support without the bigger Biden deal.” Read more at USA Today
President Biden exits Marine One this week on the South Lawn of the White House.
“President Biden heads to Europe today for the second foreign trip of his presidency. First up is Rome for the G20 summit, where he and other leaders will discuss issues facing the international economy, including supply chain snarls and energy prices. Biden will also stop at the Vatican to meet with Pope Francis. Then, it’s to Glasgow for COP26, a UN climate summit. He’ll give a major speech there, and the pressure will be on for him to deliver on his proposed climate agenda. Many see this trip as a chance for Biden to reassure the international community of America’s leadership on critical issues, like climate change. As he departs, fossil fuel executives are preparing to get grilled by Congress for the first time today about disinformation on the climate crisis and the role their organizations have played in it.” Read more at CNN
“The Houston Astros' powerful lineup pounded Atlanta Braves ace Max Fried in his first World Series start and stormed to a 7-2 victory in Game 2 Wednesday night in front of a sellout crowd of 42,833 at Minute Maid Park in Houston. Six different Astros hitters had runs batted in, culminating with Jose Altuve's 22nd career postseason home run in the seventh inning. The series is now tied 1-game apiece and will resume with Game 3 Friday night in Atlanta.” Read more at USA Today
“While many parents in the US are waiting eagerly for emergency authorization of a Covid-19 vaccine for younger children, a new study finds the majority of parents don’t plan to get their kids vaccinated right away. Only 27% of parents in a Kaiser Family Foundation survey said they’ll vaccinate their child as soon as it becomes available. As part of this pending vaccine wave, manufacturers are presenting much smaller doses -- one-third of an adult dose for the Pfizer vaccine for kids 5 to 11 and one-half for the Moderna vaccine for kids 6 to 11. The idea is to use the smallest amount needed to create an immune response while avoiding side effects. Meanwhile, more new data from the Kaiser foundation reveals 43% of Americans say they have more or less returned to their normal, pre-pandemic lives.” Read more at CNN
“Four executives from global oil companies will testify before a House committee today about climate change. Rep. Carolyn Maloney says the companies have spread disinformation for decades and ‘manufactured and concealed a global emergency while reaping trillions in corporate profit.’” Read more at NPR
“The EU’s top court fined Poland over $1 million a day over its judicial overhaul. The fine will continue until Warsaw complies with an order to scrap a disciplinary tribunal whose powers include the ability to fine or demote judges, a move the EU says opens up Poland’s courts to political interference and undermines their independence.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
“Facebook faces an FTC probe over internal research that identified ill effects from its products. Officials are looking into whether Facebook research documents indicate that it might have violated a 2019 settlement with the agency over privacy concerns that led to a record $5 billion penalty.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
“Most Americans pay an annual wealth tax on their largest asset. It’s called property tax. Each year, they pay an amount equal to a small percentage of the estimated value of their house, and a house is by far the most valuable item that most families own.
The very rich are different. While they pay property taxes too, their homes tend to make up a tiny share of their net worth. The bulk of their assets are not taxed.
In past decades, other taxes — like the corporate tax (the burden of which falls on stockholders) and the estate tax — served almost as de facto wealth taxes. But those other taxes have declined, causing the total federal tax rate on the wealthy to plummet:
Source: Gabriel Zucman of the University of California, Berkeley
Over the same period, wealth inequality has soared:
Source: Gabriel Zucman of the University of California, Berkeley
Today, the wealthy both own a much larger share of the country’s assets than they once did and pay less tax on each dollar of assets. This combination creates problems for everybody else. Many Americans own only modest assets, and the federal government struggles to raise enough tax revenue to pay for society’s needs, like education, health care, transportation, scientific research and the military.
This week, Senate Democratic leaders proposed a solution, in the form of a new kind of wealth tax. People with at least $1 billion in net worth or $100 million in annual income would be taxed each year on the increase in the value of many of their assets.
The fate of this specific tax is uncertain, after Senator Joe Manchin expressed skepticism of it yesterday. But wealth taxes — which also featured in the 2020 Democratic presidential campaign — will probably remain part of the political debate in the years ahead, given the country’s level of inequality.
Today, I want to evaluate the most common objections to wealth taxes. Some are stronger than others.
1. They’ll destroy the economy
This is probably the weakest empirical argument against a wealth tax. It’s a version of the same case that opponents of tax increases on the rich always make. And it has a very poor historical record.
When taxes on the rich were much higher than today, in the decades just after World War II, the economy boomed. Since the 1980s, high-end taxes have plummeted, and the U.S. economy has struggled: Economic growth, incomes for most people and other measures of well-being (like life expectancy) have stagnated since the 1980s. One exception was the 1990s — after Bill Clinton had raised income taxes on the rich as well as the corporate tax.
Teasing out cause and effect on these issues is difficult. But there is no good evidence that low taxes on the wealthy help the larger economy.
2. They’re doomed to fail
One part of this argument also has little evidence to support it, while another is more debatable.
The weaker part claims that the wealthy will figure out a way to avoid all the effects of a tax increase. That, too, is historically inaccurate. When the federal government has raised tax rates on the rich, tax payments by the rich have risen.
‘Many people have the view that nothing can be done,’ Gabriel Zucman, an economist at the University of California, Berkeley, has told me. ‘That’s wrong. Look at history.’
Here’s another way to think about it: If the very rich could actually avoid the effects of tax increases, they probably wouldn’t spend so much money and effort trying to defeat proposed tax increases.
The more serious argument is that creating a new wealth tax would be more logistically difficult than raising existing taxes, like the inheritance tax, corporate tax or income tax. (Senator Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona and nearly all Republicans evidently oppose many of those other increases, making them impossible to pass and causing some Democrats to turn their attention to wealth taxes.)
A new wealth tax would require federal officials to do something new: estimate the value of assets each year. They would also have to decide which were subject to taxation. Many experts consider these challenges to be surmountable, but other countries have sometimes struggled with the details.
3. They’re unconstitutional
The federal government has the power to tax income, thanks to the 16th Amendment. It is less clear which wealth the federal government can tax.
The tax code does already include some provisions similar to a wealth tax, like a tax on mutual funds based on their current value. Still, the power to decide what’s constitutional ultimates lies with the Supreme Court. Under Chief Justice John Roberts, the court has been friendly to the interests of the wealthy. The Roberts court has also been aggressive at times about overruling Congress.
Even if the court threw out the wealth tax, other parts of the Democrats’ bill — expansions of health care, education and clean energy — could survive, New York magazine’s Jonathan Chait has pointed out.
The bottom line
A wealth tax is legally and logistically riskier than an increase in existing taxes. But it also has advantages that those other taxes do not. It directly addresses the enormous increase in wealth inequality over recent decades.
Unless the federal government takes steps to reverse that increase — through existing taxes or new ones — economic inequality in the U.S. will almost certainly remain near its current, Gilded Age-like levels.” Read more at New York Times
“Interest in IT and media jobs is surging, but no one wants to fill sorely needed child-care and home-health roles, Axios' Erica Pandey writes.
Why it matters: Workers hold unprecedented power at the moment, and some industries are struggling way more than others, according to a new report from the jobs site Indeed.
Labor shortages will continue to hobble the economy.
Interest in civil engineering jobs and IT operations jobs has surged the most since the pre-pandemic era. Postings for both types of jobs are getting 59% more clicks on Indeed now than in February 2020.
People are eager to secure those jobs for their work-from-home flexibility, says Indeed economist AnnElizabeth Konkel.
IT and civil engineering are also welcoming to career-switchers.
Employers in those fields will often hire applicants who have taken short-term skill-building courses, even if their educational background is not in tech.
Indeed's report shows interest in loading and stocking jobs at warehouses has cratered 40%. Clicks for food service jobs are down 18%.” Read more at Axios
“An inexpensive antidepressant cuts the chance of hospitalization for high-risk Covid patients, a clinical trial found.” Read more at New York Times
“Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, has endorsed Senate candidate Herschel Walker in Georgia, backing a former football star who once gave the GOP pause over allegations that he threatened the lives of two women, including his ex-wife, and embellished his business record.
McConnell’s support means the leaders of the party’s establishment have just about fully thrown their weight behind Walker, who entered the race with former president Donald Trump’s blessing.” Read more at Boston Globe
“Toni Morrison’s ‘Beloved’ has become a flash point in the Virginia governor’s race.” Read more at New York Times
“A member of the far-right Oath Keepers militia who was outside the Capitol on Jan. 6 will be on the ballot in New Jersey next week.” Read more at New York Times
“The assistant director of ‘Rust’ said he didn’t fully inspect the gun that killed the cinematographer Halyna Hutchins, according to an affidavit.” Read more at New York Times
“As the federal government prepares to unveil new vaccination rules for workplaces, 5% of unvaccinated adults say they have already left a job because of a COVID-19 vaccination requirement , according to a survey released Thursday. That represents 1% of all adults, according to the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation, which conducted the survey of 1,519 adults from October 14-24. The White House is reviewing an emergency Labor Department rule requested by President Joe Biden spelling out vaccination rules for businesses with 100 or more employees. When released, the rule will fill in the details on how workers at larger businesses must get vaccinated or be tested regularly for the coronavirus. Separately, federal employees and contractors must get inoculated unless they qualify for an exemption.” Read more at USA Today
“LGBTQ candidates are seeking office in record numbers this election year, advancing a sea change in the nation's political landscape, according to a report.
At least 410 LGBTQ candidates ran or are running for office in 2021, a 7% increase over the last odd-numbered election year of 2019, says the report from the LGBTQ Victory Fund, a nonpartisan political action committee dedicated to electing openly LGBTQ people.” Read more at USA Today
“Texas has become the latest, and the most populous, state to bar transgender girls from participating in girls’ sports at public schools.
Texas interscholastic rules had already prevented athletes from competing outside the gender category they were assigned at birth, unless they had changed their birth certificates to reflect their gender identity. But conservative lawmakers wanted to close the loophole, so they put forward a bill that was signed into law on Monday by Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican.
The legislation, commonly referred to as House Bill 25, or H.B. 25, is scheduled to take effect on Jan. 18.
The Texas law came after a flurry of statehouse activity earlier this year, mostly in the South and the Midwest, and many supporters and critics of these laws anticipate more legislative action in the coming year on issues of participation for transgender athletes in sports.” Read more at New York Times
“As world leaders prepare to meet in Glasgow next week to address the devastating impact of wildfires, floods and extreme weather caused by rising greenhouse gases, a revolt has been brewing inside the world’s most influential consulting firm, McKinsey & Company, over its support of the planet’s biggest polluters.
More than 1,100 employees and counting have signed an open letter to the firm’s top partners, urging them to disclose how much carbon their clients spew into the atmosphere. ‘The climate crisis is the defining issue of our generation,’ wrote the letter’s authors, nearly a dozen McKinsey consultants. ‘Our positive impact in other realms will mean nothing if we do not act as our clients alter the earth irrevocably.’
Several of the authors have resigned since the letter, which has never before been reported, came out last spring — with one sending out a widely shared email that cited McKinsey’s continued work with fossil fuel companies as a primary reason for his departure.” Read more at New York Times
“College students voted in record numbers in 2020, the Boston Globe writes from a national college voting study published today by Tufts.
66% of college students voted for president last year, up 14 points from 2016 — a much greater increase than among voters at large.
Why it matters: This could signal a surge in civic engagement as Gen Z comes of age.” Read more at Axios
“Across Virginia, a GOP ‘election integrity’ push has driven an influx of election observers ahead of Tuesday's gubernatorial election, The Washington Post reports.
Usually, poll-watchers — who observe voter check-in, ballot drop boxes and nightly tallies — turn up only on Election Day, and mostly during presidential elections.
This year, Loudoun County General Registrar Judy Brown says, ‘we have had poll watchers here every day, all day long.’
She said Republicans often outnumber Democrats 2 to 1.” Read more at Axios
“California's Supreme Court has rejected Brad Pitt's appeal in his bitter custody battle with ex-wife Angelina Jolie, upholding a lower court ruling that will likely force them to relitigate the custody of their kids.” Read more at USA Today
“Viktor Bryukhanov, who helped build and manage the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine, where a reactor explosion in 1986 released a radioactive dust cloud over Europe and a humbling fog of finger-pointing and political fallout that contributed to the collapse of the Soviet Union, died on Oct. 13 in Kyiv. He was 85.
His death was announced by a spokesman for the now-closed power plant. After serving five years in prison, Mr. Bryukhanov returned to government service in Ukraine to head the technical department in its Economic Development and Trade Ministry.
He had been treated for Parkinson’s disease and had sustained several strokes since he retired in 2015.” Read more at New York Times
“Sunao Tsuboi, a survivor of the Hiroshima atomic bombing who made opposing nuclear weapons the message of his life, has died. He was 96.” Read more at USA Today
“Lives Lived: Arnold Hano’s ‘A Day in the Bleachers’ became a baseball classic, recalling what he saw, heard and felt during a 1954 World Series game in which Willie Mays made “the Catch.” Hano died at 99.” Read more at New York Times
“Los Angeles County is set to pay two families $1.25 million each after they accused county first responders of improperly sharing photos of their dead relatives from a helicopter crash that also killed Kobe Bryant.” Read more at USA Today
“The U.S. has issued its first passport with an "X" gender designation – a milestone in the recognition of the rights of people who don’t identify as male or female.” Read more at USA Today
“A Texas Republican lawmaker has launched an investigation into some of the state’s school districts’ libraries, demanding in a letter that educators say whether their schools own books named in a list of 850 titles, many of which cover issues of race and sexuality.” Read more at Washington Post
“A long-running spat between France and the UK over fishing rights may boil over after French authorities yesterday stopped and fined two British vessels fishing in French waters. One boat was stopped for not being on the EU’s approved list of UK fishing vessels, and the other was fined for not allowing French officials to board and conduct checks. This is the latest in a long line of tense exchanges between the two countries in the aftermath of new Brexit-era fishing laws. France used to enjoy unfettered access to UK waters where the UK government now refuses to grant fishing licenses to several French fishermen. The French government says it is preparing another series of retaliatory measures.” Read more at CNN
“Keeping control | Sudan’s army conducted a new wave of arrests of opponents of Monday’s coup, shrugging off African Union and World Bank suspensions and pressure from the U.S. as it looks to consolidate control. Cities countrywide were rocked by protests, strikes and civil disobedience as Sudanese challenged the takeover that’s thrown the North African nation’s democratic transition into chaos.” Read more at Bloomberg
“BANGKOK (AP) — A resident of a high-rise condominium in Thailand cut the support rope for two painters, apparently angry she wasn’t told they would be doing work, and left them hanging above the 26th floor until a couple rescued them, police said Wednesday.
The woman is facing attempted murder and property destruction charges, Pol. Col. Pongjak Preechakarunpong, chief of the Pak Kret police station north of the Thai capital, told The Associated Press.
Pongjak did not say what prompted the suspect to cut the rope, but Thai media reported that she was apparently frustrated when the workers appeared outside her room and hadn’t seen an announcement by the condo that they would be doing work on Oct. 12.” Read more at AP News
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