News
WSJ | As Firms Rev Up, the Slack Tightens
With demand rebounding, many U.S. companies are putting the production capacity they idled during the recession back to work. Some have reached the point where they need to invest in new plants and equipment, and hire workers, helping to boost the economy and the labor market.
WSJ | Economic Gains Fail to Revive Housing
Construction of homes and apartments dropped 10.6% in April to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 523,000, compared with a month earlier, the Commerce Department said Tuesday. Home starts are down 23.9% from the same month a year ago, reflecting a market that has struggled as foreclosures drive down prices and builders face financing difficulties.
WSJ | With $4 Gas, More Folks Skip the Trip
Wal-Mart and Lowe's Say Rise in Pump Prices Gives Some Consumers Pause About Shopping—and Sales Receipts Suffer.
Politico | The gas price blame game
More Americans actually believe in UFO's and ghosts than blame President Barack Obama for causing their pain at the pump.
Econ Comments
Washington Times | MILLER: Reid: No cheap gas for you
Families pay at pump while Senate Democrats play political games.
Financial Times | America: Dallas and destiny
Crane counting is an economic indicator that works anywhere. At the height of the 2005-06 boom you could see 11 of them from the windows of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. In the recession that followed, they all vanished.
CNN: Money | How foreigners will buy the U.S.
Think we're in hock up to our eyeballs now? Wait till 2025.
Washington Post | Welfare-queen states
Okay. Just for the hell of it, let’s go after the debt and the deficit the Republican way. No new taxes. All through cutbacks. And I’ll confine my quibbles to a few parenthetical asides
Blogs
Daily Capitalist | What To Tell A 22 Year Old About Social Security
This is an interesting video from Learn Liberty (Institute for Humane Studies at George Mason University).
Café Hayek | Trade Adjustment Assistance?
Pres. Obama here seeks to subsidize certain workers against the downside of being part of an open, competitive, and dynamic market economy. Preventing consumers from dealing more freely with foreigners until and unless Congress authorizes such subsidies, however, is economically unjustified because there’s nothing unique about international trade in ‘destroying’ jobs.
Cato@Liberty | One-third of College Degrees Wasted?
The most recent, comprehensive Pew higher education survey has gotten a lot of coverage for its findings on how important the public thinks college is, its financial payoff for grads, etc.
Reports
CRS | Low-Income Assistance Programs: Trends in Federal Spending
In total and in inflation-adjusted terms, federal outlays for major need-tested programs increased in each decade examined in this report, from the 1960s to the present.
CBO | The Highway Trust Fund and Paying for Highways
The United States spends about $160 billion annually on highways, with about one-fourth of that total, or roughly $40 billion, coming from the federal government. Federal highway spending is funded mainly through taxes on gasoline and other motor fuels that accrue to the Highway Trust Fund. In recent years, the Congress has spent more on highways than the revenues accruing to the fund for that purpose, and it has supplemented the trust fund’s balance with money from the general fund of the Treasury.
