Taxmageddon sparks rising anxiety

By Lori Montgomery and Rosalind S. Helderman – Across the U.S. economy, anxiety is rising about the potential for widespread disruptions after the November election, when a lame-duck Congress will have barely two months to resolve a grinding standoff over taxes and spending.

The halls of the U.S. Capitol are already teeming with people warning of disaster if lawmakers fail to defuse a New Year’s budget bomb scheduled to raise taxes for every American taxpayer and slash spending at the Pentagon and most other federal agencies. more> http://is.gd/umu0PB

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• Speaker Boehner Plans to Stop Taxmageddon Train Wreck (rubinoworld.com)
• ‘Taxmageddon’ Could Cost You Big (foxnews.com)
• Snow: Taxmageddon Would Devastate the Economy and the Stock Market (taxprof.typepad.com)
• GOP senator says Obama misleading the public on deficit, Daniel Strauss, Hill
• Harry Reid puts nuclear option in back pocket, Alexander Bolton, Hill

Look To Sweden! Obama’s High-Tax Gurus

By Paul Roderick Gregory – In 1970, Swedish high earners paid marginal tax rates of 70 percent, rising to 85 percent by 1980. Marginal tax rates on dividends and capital gains were only slightly lower, if at all. Sweden’s entitlement state featured universal benefits replacing 90 percent or more of lost income, a state monopoly of social services, and a union-inspired ‘solidarity wage” that featured (as the Swede’s scornfully put it) “equal pay for all work.” Sweden’s distribution of income was as equal as the communist countries of Eastern Europe. Government spending rose to 60-70 percent of GDP versus the 45 to 50 percent in the rest of Europe at the time. Fifty percent more Swedes were “tax financed” than worked in the private sector.

Sweden then reversed course when confronted with the disastrous consequences of its policies. The Swedish story ends on an up-beat note. Sweden and Germany are today the two best performing European states, both governed by center-right parties. more> http://tinyurl.com/bsv4xnl

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• Twenty years of fiscal conservatism in Sweden: has it worked? (winteryknight.wordpress.com)
• Sweden Is Not Just About ABBA and IKEA Anymore (heritage.org)
• Marginal vs Effective Tax Rates (financiallyou.com)
• What Really Happened to Income Inequality in the 20th Century? (theatlantic.com)
• President Obama’s Frenzied Spending Caused A Feeble Recovery, Ralph Benko, Forbes

Physicists reveal nature’s mathematical formula for survival

By Miles O’Brien and Jon Baime – The vascular system of a leaf provides its structure and delivers its nutrients. Specific vascular pattern of loops within loops that is found in many leaves going down to the microscopic level. It’s a pattern that can neutralize the effect of a wound to the leaf, such as a hole in its main vein. Nutrients bypass the hole and the leaf remains completely intact.

Marcelo Magnasco, a mathematical physicist at Rockefeller University in New York, says this research is a jumping off point for understanding other systems that branch and rejoin, including everything from river systems to neural networks and even malignant tumors. more> http://is.gd/2su4tO

Months After Failed AT&T Merger, T-Mobile Champions Competitive Balance

Hatfield T-Mobile Office (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

By Brad Reed – Given its very recent attempts to merge with AT&T, you would think T-Mobile wouldn’t be a vocal proponent of maintaining competitive balance in the wireless industry.

The reality, however, is that T-Mobile has had no issues repositioning itself as a champion of small carriers everywhere in its vocal opposition to Verizon‘s proposed deal to purchase spectrum from several major cable companies. more> http://is.gd/BPleUE

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• T-Mobile Mum on Reports of MetroPCS Merger (pcmag.com)
• MetroPCS Holders Cheering The Wrong Merger… It’s Time to Revisit The Past (PCS, S, LEAP, T) (247wallst.com)
• Dear AT&T, it’s crap like this that killed the T-Mobile merger (venturebeat.com)
• A look at telecom-industry subscriber reports, Associated Press/BusinessWeek
• New Coalition Opposes Verizon and Cable Spectrum Deals, Grant Gross, IDG News/PCWorld