News
CNN Money | Gas prices: Up 20% from January
Gas prices have risen for 15 days straight days and are getting closer to the all-time high of $4.114 a gallon, reached in July 2008.
Fiscal Times | Japan’s Economy Will Recover Quickly and Grow Fast
While we continue to grieve for the victims of the Japanese earthquake and its aftermath, it is perhaps time to cast a colder eye on the consequences of the country’s worst disaster since the atomic attacks of 1945. What is this calamity going to mean for the Japanese economy?
Bloomberg | SEC Fannie Mae Probe Said to Examine CEO’s Testimony to Congress
As the housing market deteriorated in April 2007, Fannie Mae Chief Executive Officer Daniel Mudd reported to Congress on his company’s health. The firm’s exposure to subprime loans, he told lawmakers, “remains minimal, less than 2.5 percent of our book.”
Bloomberg | Solar Costs May Already Rival Coal, Spurring Installation
Solar panel installations may surge in the next two years as the cost of generating electricity from the sun rivals coal-fueled plants, industry executives and analysts said.
Market Watch | China to Raise Gasoline, Diesel Prices
China said it will raise prices for gasoline and diesel fuel by around 5%, bowing to pressure from rising global crude-oil prices despite concerns about rising inflation in the world's second biggest economy.
CNN Money | Could oil, housing, and spending cuts derail the economy?
The recovery is slowing, and economists are slashing their forecasts for economic growth.
Econ Comments
CNN Money | Carmen Reinhart: Recovery is 'right on track'
Why does the nation's current economic malaise seem so prolonged -- and what, if anything, can we do about it? Few people are better equipped to answer that question than Carmen Reinhart.
Fox | Rising oil prices beginning to hurt US economy
Just when companies have finally stepped up hiring, rising oil prices are threatening to halt the U.S. economy's gains.
Washington Times | FEULNER: A better way to reform welfare
Make public assistance conditioned on job search
NRO | Fannie and Freddie’s Profiteers
Democrats used the agencies as a friends-’n’-fat-cats protection plan.
Blogs
Heritage Foundation: The Foundry | Coburn Moves to Eliminate Ethanol Subsidies
Ethanol. Henry Ford called it the “fuel of the future” in the 1920s. Decades later, policymakers put laws in place to increase the amount of ethanol in our fuel supply.
Café Hayek | Getting the Point of Economics
Now I myself, in my principles-of-economics courses, use graphs and some equations. These can be useful – indeed, in the case of supply-and-demand graphs, damn near indispensable. But to make them useful requires that they be always related to real-world phenomena, and related deeply and compellingly with stories, anecdotes, metaphores, examples.
Heritage Foundation: The Foundry | Poverty Immigrating to America’s Welfare State
Welfare spending is projected to skyrocket over the next 10 years, costing taxpayers $10.3 trillion and driving the United States toward bankruptcy.
Café Hayek | Predatory Pricing
Yesterday in my Masters-level microecon-theory course I discussed with my students the theory and practice of “predatory pricing.”
Calculated Risk | Reis: Apartment Vacancy Rates fell sharply in Q1, Lowest in almost three years
From Reuters: U.S. apartment vacancies fall in Q1, rents edge up
The Economist: Daily Chart | Market troubles
Which countries are most in favour of the free market?
The Economist: Free Exchange | Housing markets
The rent is high, and getting higher
Reports
Mercatus Center | Free Trade, Protectionism, and Trade Deficits
Whether it is good for a regional or national economy to be a net borrower from the rest of the world is much like asking whether it is good for a household to be a net borrower. It depends on the reason for the borrowing.
RCM: Wells Fargo | ISM Non-Manufacturing: Slower Growth in Service Sector
The ISM non-manufacturing index dipped to 57.3 in March. While this represents a drop in service sector business sentiment from 59.7 in February, the present level is still consistent with expansion.
