News
Fox News | No break this spring at the gas pump
With gas prices above $4 in some states, Americans are canceling spring break plans and rethinking summer vacation, and some tourist destinations are offering gas vouchers of as much as $50 to talk people out of giving up and staying home.
Politico | Poll suggest deep economic pessimism
Americans are more pessimistic about the conomy than they have been in more than two years, as gas prices soar, unemployment remains high and Washington battles it out over federal spending.
Market Watch | Recession cost Uncle Sam $4.2 trillion
The federal government was spilling a lot of red ink even before the housing and credit bubbles burst in 2007, but the Great Recession turned the leak into a geyser.
Econ Comments
CNN: Money | Where's the wealth effect?
Rising assets are supposed to create a feeling of confidence, which in turn leads to more spending. But neither higher stocks nor a rebound in home prices will likely have that effect this time.
Politico | Look to natural gas to revive economy
The US consumes 20 million barrels of oil per day, with only seven million of that produced domestically. In January, the US spent $32.6 billion on imported oil, at roughly $89 per barrel. At the current prices of $105, we could spend an additional $100 million per day. That means nearly $500 billion leaving American's economy in one year.
AEI: American | Economists in the Wild
Far from damaging brains and killing seals, applying basic economics to the environment preserves it.
Blogs
WSJ: Real Time Economics | Middle Ground in the Public Pension Fight?
Pension experts at the Center for State and Local Government Excellence say there’s a middle ground between protecting traditional defined-benefit pensions for public-sector employees and eliminating them in favor of 401(k)-style defined-contribution plans that now dominate the private sector.
Reason Foundation | Home Prices Continue Their Downward Slide
The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) released its latest monthly house price index today, showing that national home prices declined 1.63% from January to February. Worse, housing prices dropped 5.74% from February 2010. And FHFA revised its January price decline down from a 0.3% decrease to a drop of 1%.
American: EnterpriseBlog | Public Pensions Fire Back on Investment Returns
Reuters and Pensions and Investments report on a new study released yesterday by the National Association of State Retirement Administrators (NASRA) that supposedly “slams” a 2010 paper by Northwestern’s Josh Rauh and Rochester’s Robert Novy Marx for concluding “that unfunded state pension liabilities total $3 trillion by using inaccurate liability and return assumptions.”
