Byline: By armand limnande section: Section mm; Column 0; T: Men's Fashion Magazine; Pg. 76 Length
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URL: http://www.nytimes.com SUBJECT: JUSTICE DEPARTMENTS (89%); MURDER (88%); WITNESSES (87%); SHERIFFS (71%); POLICE FORCES (69%); LAW COURTS & TRIBUNALS (69%); APPELLATE DECISIONS (68%); ATTORNEYS GENERAL (67%); TESTIMONY (67%); RESIDENTIAL CONDOMINIUMS (67%); APPEALS COURTS (63%); BOARDS OF DIRECTORS (62%); INTERVIEWS (62%); INTEREST RATES (54%); ECONOMIC NEWS (54%); CRIMINAL CONVICTIONS (87%); JAIL SENTENCING (66%) PERSON: ELIOT SPITZER (53%) GEOGRAPHIC: FLORIDA, USA (94%); NEW YORK, USA (79%); CALIFORNIA, USA (79%) UNITED STATES (94%) LOAD-DATE: January 20, 2008 LANGUAGE: ENGLISH GRAPHIC: PHOTO: A resident of New York for decades, Jerard Steuerman now lives in a gated condominium community in Boca Raton, Fla. (PHOTOGRAPH BY BARBARA P. FERNANDEZ FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES)(pg. 36) CHART: ''The Web of a Long Island Murder Case'' Martin Tankleff's conviction has been overturned, but the investigation of his parents' murders continues. Over the years, a web of players emerged as Mr. Tankleff's legal team found new witnesses to support his case. (Source: Court documents and interviews)(pg. 33) PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company 1162 of 1231 DOCUMENTS The New York Times
Late Edition - Final Is the New Supply Side Better Than the Old? BYLINE: By AUSTAN GOOLSBEE. Austan Goolsbee is a professor of economics at the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business. He is advising the campaign of Senator Barack Obama of Illinois for the Democratic presidential nomination. E-mail: goolsbee@nytimes.com SECTION: Section BU; Column 0; Money and Business/Financial Desk; ECONOMIC VIEW; Pg. 6 LENGTH: 1085 words THE presidential campaign has brought back to the fore the vexing question of how much to tax high-income Americans. For the most part, the arguments have run strictly along party lines. The leading Democratic contenders would allow President Bush's tax cuts to expire for the very well-off -- those earning more than, say, a quarter-million dollars a year -- on the grounds of restoring balance and raising money. All the major Republican candidates have called for extending the Bush tax cuts indefinitely, and several advocate several hundred billion dollars in additional high-income cuts -- on the grounds that this would help the economy grow. The Republicans have not been shy about claiming the old mantle of supply-side economics, proclaiming that tax cuts will pay for themselves by getting people to work harder or to start their own companies. In some circles, supply-side economics fell into disrepute because it didn't seem to work. After all, the budget deficit exploded when the government cut taxes in the 1980s and again in the 2000s, and it disappeared when the government raised taxes in the 1990s. But many critics have missed important research by some very prominent economists that has revived some supply-side ideas, giving them an aura of academic respectability. The leading Republican candidates do not advertise their academic influences, but they appear to have adopted these ideas. The work of the new supply-siders shies away from the old claims that low taxes will generate an explosion of entrepreneurship or extra hours on the job. Instead, it just looks at the data. When top marginal rates fell, as they did under President Ronald Reagan in 1981 and 1986 or under President Bush in 2001 and 2003, taxpayers whose rates declined the most reported the biggest increases in income in the following years. The supply-side advocates attribute those gains to tax cuts and argue that the Laffer curve -- which suggests that some tax cuts can pay for themselves -- may live yet. Some of the most important research was done by Lawrence B. Lindsey, former head of the National Economic Council under President Bush and now the senior economic adviser to the Republican presidential contender Fred D. Thompson. But the origins of the current debate, and the seriousness with which it is taken in academic circles, largely center on the work of the Harvard economist Martin Feldstein. Professor Feldstein, head of the National Bureau of Economic Research, is perhaps the godfather of modern public-sector economics and is often cited as a potential Nobel laureate. The former chairman of President Reagan's Council of Economic Advisers, he has always been known for his conservative views. He has brought more comprehensive data to bear and has made the most influential case; if you accept the evidence he offers, progressivity in the tax code appears very damaging. Raising taxes on high-income people seems to make the economy much less efficient and raises little revenue. As he put it in a 2006 interview published in a magazine of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, when you raise top marginal rates, ''it shows up as lower taxable income.'' He added: ''A reduction in taxable income, whether it occurs because I work less or because I take my compensation in this other form, creates the same kind of inefficiency.'' But for all the renewed interest in supply-side ideas, the politicians espousing these views have missed three important points that have come out of the continuing academic debate. First, the impact of high-income tax cuts depends on how much additional income a person can keep. When President John F. Kennedy cut top marginal rates to 70 percent from 91 percent, take-home pay more than tripled for these taxpayers, to 30 percent from 9 percent. That is a big difference. By contrast, letting the Bush tax cuts expire so top rates rise to 39.6 percent in 2011 from 35 percent, cutting the take-home share to 60.4 percent from 65 percent, hardly seems the stuff of tax revolution. Second, other research has shown that the new supply-side movement missed a fundamental shift over the last 30 years -- the dramatic, disproportionate rise in the compensation of high-income people. The new supply-siders have confused this shift with the impact of tax cuts. An example illustrates the point: Emmanuel Saez, a professor of economics at the University of California, Berkeley, has compiled data on the incomes of the very rich from 1913 to 2006. Using his data, my calculations show that in the four years after top marginal rates were cut in 1981 and 1986, and in the three years after the rate cut of 2003, average real salaries (subtracting inflation) for the top 1 percent of earners grew 18.8 percent, 22.5 percent and 17.4 percent. But for the bottom 90 percent of earners over those periods, the average salary changes were 2.6 percent, minus 0.3 percent and minus 0.1 percent. A supply-sider might see this as evidence of the growth power of cutting top rates. But the data also show that incomes at the top have been growing rapidly regardless of what happened to tax rates. In the four years after the increase in top marginal rates in 1993, average salaries grew 18.7 percent among the top 1 percent of earners and less than 0.1 percent for the bottom 90 percent. Seeing the same pattern when taxes rose as when they fell indicates that tax cuts weren't responsible. It suggests that cuts for high-income taxpayers likely gave windfalls to those whose incomes were already rising sharply because of broader market forces. Third, recent research has documented that much of what the new supply-side economics attributed to tax cuts was really just the relabeling of income. Sometimes the increase in personal income was matched by an equal and opposite decrease in corporate income. At other times, increases in personal income turned out to be a result of corporate executives shifting the timing of their year-end compensation from a high-tax year to a low-tax year. Shifts like these have nothing to do with supply-side economics. The academic debate continues, but thus far, the new Laffer curve has looked more like a fleeting figment of economic imagination. That is sad, because it would be great if we could cut taxes and raise revenue at one stroke. Alas, the research suggests that we will have to pay for high-income tax cuts the old-fashioned way -- by actually cutting spending or just busting the budget.
Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company 1163 of 1231 DOCUMENTS The New York Times
Late Edition - Final Red, White And Blue Tag Sale BYLINE: By MAUREEN DOWD SECTION: Section WK; Column 0; Editorial Desk; OP-ED COLUMNIST; Pg. 12 LENGTH: 777 words DATELINE: WASHINGTON When President Bush finished doing his sword dances and Arabian stallion inspections, when he finished making a speech in Abu Dhabi on the importance of freedom that fell flat, when he finished lounging in his fur-lined George of Arabia robe in the Saudi king's tent, he came home. Or he came to what was left of home. A Washington Post cartoon by Tom Toles summed it up best: ''Great to be home,'' W. enthuses on Air Force One, heading toward the East Coast. ''Anything interesting happen while I was gone?'' Hanging on the skyline of New York is a sign reading: ''U.S.A. Now a Wholly Owned Subsidiary of Foreign Investors.'' Wherever he went, W. seemed dazzled by the can-do spirit of the J. Pierrepont Finches of the new Middle East. ''It's important for the president to hear thoughts, hopes, dreams, aspirations, concerns from folks that are out making a living,'' he told Saudi entrepreneurs. In Dubai, he commended young Arab leaders, saying, ''The entrepreneurial spirit is strong.'' In Abu Dhabi, he marveled at the royal family's plans to build a city based entirely upon renewable energy. ''Amazing, isn't it?'' W. said. You know you're in trouble when your Middle East oil pump is greener than you are. Even as W. played cheerleader for Arab business, the Arabs were cleaning our clocks -- then buying them. Our addiction to oil has allowed our pushers in the Persian Gulf to go on a shopping spree to snap us up. Hillary Clinton was right when she said it was ''pathetic'' that President Bush had to beg the Saudis to drop the price of oil. One cascading rationale he offered for invading Iraq was the benign domino theory, that bringing democracy to Iraq would sway the autocrats in the region to be less repressive. But when W. visited Saudi Arabia and Egypt last week, he did not have the whip hand. He could not demand anything of the autocrats in the way of more rights for women and dissidents, much less get the Saudis to help on oil production. He needs their help in corralling Iran, which has been puffed up by the occupation of Iraq. So he was a supplicant in Saudi Arabia. The American economy is a supplicant, too. Two decades ago, we fretted that Japan was taking over America when Sony bought Columbia Pictures and Mitsubishi bought a chunk of Rockefeller Center. But they overpaid for everything. Now, because of Wall Street's overreaching, our economy depends on foreign oil and foreign loans to stay afloat. China and Arab countries have a staggering amount of treasury securities. And the oil-rich countries are sitting on so many petrodollars that they are looking beyond prestige hotels and fashion labels and taking advantage of the fire sale to buy eye-popping stakes in our major financial institutions. Like the president, Citigroup and Merrill Lynch came with tin cups to Middle Eastern, Asian and American investors last week, for a combined total of nearly $19.1 billion, after the subprime mortgage debacle blew up their books. Citigroup, which raised $7.5 billion from Abu Dhabi in November, raised another $12.5 billion, including from Singapore, Kuwait and Saudi Prince Walid bin Talal. Merrill Lynch gave $6.6 billion in preferred stock to Kuwait, South Korea, a Japanese bank and others. (While the great sage Bob Rubin was advising Hillary Clinton on sound fiscal policy, he seemed to be asleep at the Citigroup switch.) As Warren Buffett has said, we are giving ourselves a party to feed our appetite for oil and imported goods and paying for it by selling off the furniture, our most precious assets. When the president got back Thursday night from a trip that made it clear he has no clout overseas, he had to rush the ailing economy into intensive care. Next to the cool, strong euro, the dollar is a comparative runt in the world's currencies. The weak dollar lets foreigners snap up real estate in Manhattan. It is striking that the Bush scion, who has tried so hard to do the opposite of his father, also ends up facing the prospect of a recession in his final year in office. Maybe if the president had spent the trillion he squandered on his Iraq odyssey on energy research, we might have broken the oil addiction. Now it's a race between Iraq, stupid, or the economy, stupid, to see which one will usher out W. The country is engaged in a fit of nativism and Lou Dobbsism, obsessing about the millions of Mexicans who might be sneaking across the border when billions in foreign money are pouring into Citigroup. You figure out what might be a bigger problem. The national boundaries that really matter are the financial ones: Who's going to own the American economy? URL: http://www.nytimes.com SUBJECT: EDITORIALS & OPINIONS (90%); US PRESIDENTS (90%); ENTREPRENEURSHIP (87%); OIL & GAS INDUSTRY (74%); FOREIGN INVESTMENT (74%); ENERGY & UTILITY POLICY (71%); WOMEN (66%); OIL & GAS PRICES (65%); FOREIGN LENDING (50%) COMPANY: COLUMBIA PICTURES (51%); CNINSURE INC (60%) TICKER: CISG (NASDAQ) (60%) PERSON: GEORGE W BUSH (85%); HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON (53%); ABDULLAH BIN ABDUL AZIZ (58%); MICHAEL MCMAHON (54%) GEOGRAPHIC: ABU DHABI, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES (93%); DUBAI, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES (79%) NEW YORK, USA (79%); DUBAI, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES (79%); INDIAN OCEAN (79%) SAUDI ARABIA (96%); UNITED STATES (94%); UNITED ARAB EMIRATES (94%); IRAQ (93%); MIDDLE EAST (92%); IRAN (79%); GULF STATES (79%); EGYPT (79%) LOAD-DATE: January 20, 2008 LANGUAGE: ENGLISH DOCUMENT-TYPE: Op-Ed PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company 1164 of 1231 DOCUMENTS The New York Times
Late Edition - Final Free Trade: The Math and the Morality SECTION: Section WK; Column 0; Editorial Desk; LETTERS; Pg. 10 LENGTH: 1095 words To the Editor: Re ''What to Expect When You're Free Trading'' (Op-Ed, Jan. 16): Steven E. Landsburg should be commended for presenting us with an unabashed exposition of the social Darwinist mantra that is at the core of the right-wing establishment in America. The absence of even the slightest compassion or of any commentary about the need for assistance for those who have fallen victim to the deleterious side of free trade is quite revealing and instructive. As it pertains to those losers, as he refers to them, one would hope that Mr. Landsburg might be kind enough to ''let them eat cake.'' Alan J. Ross Newton, Mass., Jan. 16, 2008 To the Editor: Steven E. Landsburg may be right that when the direct costs and savings are summed up, ''Americans as a group are net winners'' from outsourcing, but there is more to it than that. He spends his time adding and subtracting, but he has not figured out how to count the corrosive effects of widespread insecurity on American democracy. Many products made abroad have become cheaper, but globalization is forcing us to balance those measurable gains against a pernicious vulnerability that undermines the implicit social compact of shared progress in advanced civilizations. The efficiency-driven economy that Mr. Landsburg extols may produce a large monetary return, but it does not value what it cannot enumerate: the collective benefits that arise from broad optimism and confidence in a secure future for each person. William S. Kessler Seattle, Jan. 16, 2008 To the Editor: Yes, I would rather pay $5 than $20 for anything. But when my $15 savings results in a lower standard of living for my fellow Americans, a larger subclass and the resultant economic disparity (and perhaps impact on social services), then maybe I ought to just chalk up my increased costs to the advantage of living in a country that cares enough to promote safety standards, a living wage and economic opportunity. There's nothing free about free trade. David Chavez San Francisco, Jan. 16, 2008 To the Editor: Steven E. Landsburg does not point out why ''free trade'' is not what we have in America today. Corporate cronyism and corporate welfare prevent the establishment of true free trade. Legislation that makes it virtually impossible for people to start their own businesses because of all the rules and required permits means that people do not have the freedom to be truly innovative on their own. Don't confuse capitalism with true free trade. Karen Leonard Willits, Calif., Jan. 16, 2008 To the Editor: Steven E. Landsburg suggests that displaced American workers are ''churlish'' to criticize free trade when their manufacturing jobs (and millions others) are sent overseas. It's his view that ''what we lose through lower wages is more than offset by what we gain through lower prices.'' This is not what we found in a study released last year that looked at the impact of trade-related market distortions across 10 United States industries from steel and shrimp to furniture, cement and raspberries. We discovered that there is, on average, a 50-to-1 economic advantage in keeping jobs in the United States through penalties on illegally subsidized or dumped imports. Any slight increase in consumer prices was more than offset by the economic activity that wages, business and profits contributed to the economy. And so, despite Mr. Landsburg's attitude that workers should just get over it, the correct course for the country and its workers should be to strengthen domestic manufacturing, enforce fair trade laws and, with those steps, allow more Americans to share in the benefits of the global economy. To do otherwise is to court continuous borrowing from overseas and encourage the market-distorting practices that are now roiling world markets. Scott Paul Director, Alliance for American Manufacturing Washington, Jan. 16, 2008 To the Editor: One would expect a professor of economics like Steven E. Landsburg to understand that the strength of our consumer economy rests squarely on the shoulders of the middle class. It is self-interest, not morality, that propels us to help those middle-class workers who lose their jobs because of free trade. Americans can thrive only if the middle class remains strong. Unfortunately, the loss of jobs is only one of the many threats to that core strength of our country. The transfer of wealth away from the middle class started decades ago with the trickle-down theory. It's time we started investing once again in the human capital that is America. Joan Marshall Fort Myers, Fla., Jan. 16, 2008 To the Editor: Steven E. Landsburg suggests that if I discovered I could buy shampoo online at a lower price than I had been paying at my local pharmacy, I would do so, and that I would feel no obligation to compensate my pharmacist. In fact, if I care about having a neighborhood with things like a local pharmacy (and I do, for what it's worth), then I will continue to buy my shampoo there even if I have to pay a bit more. And I would be getting a great bargain -- not only shampoo, but also a community. Yancy Hughes Dominick Seattle, Jan. 16, 2008 To the Editor: Many opponents of free trade like to appeal to a higher ideal. They see material progress as vapid and unimportant. But what about intellectual and artistic progress? How many artists, academics and intellectuals would be around if we had to grow our own food and build our own houses? Writing was developed when trade made it a necessity in Mesopotamia. Free trade makes artistic and intellectual pursuits possible. Intellectuals who disdain trade and its material progress do so at their own peril. Alex Nowrasteh Washington, Jan. 16, 2008 The writer is a research associate at the Competitive Enterprise Institute. To the Editor: The argument for compensating losers from free trade is that unless this is done, a majority might oppose free-trade agreements. The issue is not moral deserts but political needs. An electorate that valued greater equality with modest growth more than greater inequality with greater growth would oppose freer trade. The economy might flourish more under freer trade, but if too many voters are worse or no better off, political support for such trade will wither. Similarly, municipalities, which cannot ban interstate trade, often support locally owned businesses, like pharmacies and diners, through tax incentives because local citizens vote to do so. Christopher Ball Minneapolis, Jan. 16, 2008
Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company 1165 of 1231 DOCUMENTS The New York Times
Late Edition - Final Hi. Buy You a Drink? Save the Planet? BYLINE: By WENDY CARLSON SECTION: Section CT; Column 0; Connecticut Weekly Desk; ENVIRONMENTALISTS; Pg. 5 LENGTH: 567 words DATELINE: Norwalk IT was a typical pub scene at the Pirate Night Club and Restaurant in Norwalk on a recent evening, except that the banter around the bar was about bamboo, not baseball, and the drinks were green in the organic sense. ''The environment is on a lot of people's minds,'' said Heather Burns-DeMelo, 37, the founder of Fairfield County Green Drinks, a social networking group of eco-minded professionals, which held its fourth monthly meeting here on a recent Wednesday evening. On this occasion, the mixer drew about 100 people, uniting a wide range of environmentalists, including business executives, members of the Green Party, carpenters, chefs, makeup artists, architects, fashion designers and schoolteachers. Ms. Burns-DeMelo, the editor of the Hartford-based AllGreen Magazine and the Web site CTGreenScene.typepad.com, said she learned about Green Drinks International when she was working as a freelance writer covering environmental issues. The organization, which now has 309 chapters worldwide, began in 1989 in a London pub with an impromptu gathering of eco-conscious fashion designers. Seeing a similar need in Connecticut's green business community, Ms. Burns-DeMelo started a Fairfield County chapter in October, then helped organize a chapter in Hartford. The two groups now have a combined mailing list of 9,000. Next month, they will gather in Westport. The events aren't just about networking. ''It's really a think tank with the environment as the common denominator, and I have seen a little matchmaking going here, too,'' Ms. Burns-DeMelo said.
Directory: ~hesterj -> Entrepreneur Entrepreneur -> Byline: By richard siklos section: Section C; Column 5; Business/Financial Desk; Pg. 1 Length Download 3.51 Mb. Share with your friends:
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