Some Links

Tweet ^[1]

Writing in today’s Wall Street Journal, Jim Piereson helps us to better understand just who are in America’s top 1 percent of income earners ^[2].  A slice:

The top earners depend heavily on salaries. In 2010 the top 1% earned 36% of their incomes from salaries and wages (what the CBO calls labor income), 22% from businesses, farms and partnerships, and just 19% from capital gains. The majority of their income would thus be taxed today either at the corporate or the highest marginal rate rather than at the lower capital-gains rate of 23.8%.

Wanna get a sense of the size of labor-unions’ political contributions relative to those of, oh, the Koch brothers?  Mark Perry has the picture ^[3].

Speaking of political contributions, I wonder if billionaire Tom Steyer will cause as much anguish among “Progressives” as do, oh, the Koch brothers ^[4].

My friend Ross Kaminsky reminded me that many years ago I wrote this little piece on puffery ^[5].  I post it here simply so that I can more easily find it in the future if I need it.

David Henderson is less impressed than Tyler Cowen seems to be by Jason Furman’s performance in the White House ^[6].

Gene Healy explains why U.S. presidents emphatically are not worth celebrating ^[7].  (Duh!  They’re politicians – members of a profession as worthy of celebration as are, say, house burglars or purveyors of Ponzi schemes.)

John Cochrane makes available this 2008 video of Eugene Fama explaining the efficient-markets hypothesis ^[8].

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