It's a very good opinion piece, and there are facts to back it up. That said, it's an opinion piece and so states the facts as givens, rather than providing concrete evidence. Krugman is a good writer and a good economist. This essay makes the point very succinctly.
No. It's an opinion piece. And while I somewhat agree that the Obama proposals are campaign positioning, Mr. Brooks's entire essay is poisoned by the confusion tax amount with tax rate.
No. It's bad arithmetic and bad economics masquerading as fact. It's poorly and confusingly written. There is a constant confusion of payroll taxes with income taxes, no mention of the payroll tax cap, and the basic economic truth that all payroll taxes are paid by the employee, whether or not the employer is charged with half the cost. All employee costs are carried on the employer's books and come out of what the employer is willing to pay an employee. Thus, everybody making a salary of $106,00 (the Social Security cap) is thus taxed at least the approximately 15% that payroll taxes come to on the full amount of their salary.
The BLS says there are 14 million+ Americans unemployed. The Canadian equivalent says there are 18 million+ Canadians working. So the statement is false. Even if it were true, it’s meaningless— so it’s just stupid.
Wikipedia has a balanced presentation of the arguments (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Security_debate_(United_States)#Cost_of_transition_and_long-term_funding_concerns). Personally, having worked for both SSA and several Wall Street firms, I can imagine ... More »
Yes, although it reads like a novel. (The author actually indicates that it may end up as an update to his first book, "Liar's Poker") . A lot of it is not sourced, but it is written from personal experience and is very detailed.
I agree with the basic insights about 'quality of life' vs 'standard of living', but I don't think peak oil is going to cancel all the Caribbean vacations.
The gunshot part is interesting, but the skull surely isn't that of the first native of the Americas to be shot-- just the first found. The intimations of inter-culture native strife are no longer news, either. They have been well-popularized (and documented) in the book "1491". All-in-all, somewhat interesting, but not as novel or concept-shattering as the writer would have us believe.
I think the Editors’ “half-true” rating should be “mostly true, with exceptions”. I would need strong evidence to persuade me that the outliers comprised 10 percent, much less the 50 percent required for a mathematically accurate “half-true”.