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In RealTime posts, PIIE senior staff and colleagues discuss the fast-moving economic news, financial developments, and public policy choices confronting the United States and the world.
Senators are chomping down hard on Apple’s tax returns, trying to paint the company as Peck’s Bad Boy of corporate taxation. The lawmakers’ appetite has been whetted by a congressional investigation showing that the company avoided billions in taxes by setting up a complex web of global subsidiaries, some of them with no employees but [...]
Second in a series of postings on the European economic and budget situation. I am grateful to Natalia Aivazova for valuable research assistance. See also A Reassuring Choice for the Central Bank of Russia. Corporate profit taxes have fallen like stones throughout Western Europe in the last three decades. At the same time, their revenues [...]
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke recently said that Chinese currency manipulation “is blocking what might be a more normal recovery process.” In fact, the problem goes beyond China to include many other emerging economies and even a few advanced economies. Altogether, governments in these economies are spending about $1.5 trillion per year on currency manipulation. [...]
The Washington branch of Occupy Wall Street has moved in recent days to block the structurally deficient Key Bridge, arguing that rebuilding bridges is the right way to create jobs for hundreds of thousands of unemployed construction workers. The Tea Party violently objects to deficit spending and higher taxes. These political poles should unite on [...]