Monday reading

Today in the NY Times, drug makers are raising the prices of brand name drugs by 9%. This equates to about $10 billion dollars in rising costs, effectively eliminating first year savings that the companies promised to provide in striking a deal with Obama to be left out of health care reform. Isn't America great?

Bruce Bartlett is still advocating the VAT.

Ezra Klein rants on Senators who voted for the debt-funded Medicare Part D and are now railing against Health Care reform. Hard to argue with him.

Robert Reich has an open letter to Harry Ried on Health Care.

In Dilbert I Trust

Scott Adams is scary good.

Paul Krugman agrees

Paul Krugman takes it to his critics that claim that his assertion that growth was better before 1980 is a lie. Um, no. This is something that I have also come to agree with. America did better with higher tax rates and lots of regulation.

The GOP has a health care refrom plan

So the GOP bill does less that the Democrats bill. Not a good move. Now they go from the party of no ideas to the party of bad ideas. David Frum explains how Republicans have fallen from their perch, and what they can do to change (become Moderates) I don't think this will happen until the leadership changes. It's going to happen the same way that same-sex marriage or legalized pot is going to slowly become accepted and normal. People resist change and resist change, even if the change is good. Then after the change is made and people get used to it and experience how it is better, then it becomes accepted and the new norm.

Oh, and it is in vogue now to pretend that the postwar era (1946 - 1970) didn't happen if you are a Republican arguing economic policy.

Planet Money gives a history of how our Doctors get paid, starting in 1968 when Medicare began. It is one of their best podcasts.

Special Interest groups SUCK. They are worse than lawyers.

The Keyboard Commandos question Obama's resolve with Afghanistan.

See? See!?!?

I told you this would happen.

Lessons forgotten

Here is a slide deck on the 10 lessons already forgotten from the financial crisis, meltdown, fiasco, I don't know what to call it.

Monday links

Why Keep Geitner? - Why is Tim Geitner still the Treasury Secretary?

Get American to work - Robert Reich argues that getting Americans back to work is more important that getting good health care reform passed.

If Best Buy sold healthcare - Ezra Klein does a fascinating look at healthcare from a retail standpoint.

Friday's Bill Moyer's Journal looked at the economic recovery so far in 2009.

I've been trying to figure out what happened in the 1970's that caused wages to stay flat while productivity increased. This page argues that high tax rates = high economic growth. David Rothkopf also argues that the high taxes during the period from 1946-1973 really helped America become strong during this Q&A back in March of 2009:

Q: I think one reason for our lack of leadership is the possibility of immense reward, i.e. greed. We need much higher marginal tax rates so executives do not have the ability to accumulate wealth that would embarrass an Oriental potentate. They make short term decisions that are bad for the US, the world and even their own institutions, but are good for their own balance sheet.

During the period 1946 - 1973 taxes were much higher. Marginal rates averaged 70%; they were 93% under Eisenhower. The economy was better than what we now have. For example, median wages went up 3 times as fast as since 1973. Also I recently saw a graph of the national debt as a percentage of the GDP from 1946 to the present. It started high, went straight down until 1973, and then flatten out and in 1980 made a sharp turn and went straight up except for a wiggle during the Clinton administration. CEOs earned 50 times what their workers earned; it is 500 times today. Staring in 1973, the percent of wealth and income taken by the richest 10%, 1%, and 0.1% has gone up at an ever increasing rate. This is a recipe for disaster.

David Rothkopf: I agree. In fact, much of my most recent book, Superclass, is devoted to this issue of growing inequality in the U.S. and internationally and the risks it poses. I'm not sure we need to consider 70 or 93 percent tax rates...and our economy is at a fundamental level much more dynamic and strong than it was in the 50s...but we do need to rethink senior executive compensation, what we let our pension funds pay hedge fund managers, and also what obstacles need to be removed to close the gap for those on the bottom.

And now, David Horsey of the Seattle PI: