News
WSJ | Obama Shift Marks New Bet
More-Populist Stance Is an Effort to Harness Sentiment, but Move Carries Risks.
CNN: Money | A rough 10 years for the middle class
For American households in the middle of the pay scale, income fell to $49,445 last year, when adjusted for inflation, a level not seen since 1996.
WSJ | Government Shutdown Possible Over Disaster Aid
Congress once again found itself embroiled on Tuesday in a display of brinksmanship and the threat of a government shutdown, despite the public's recoiling against such maneuvering earlier this year.
WSJ | IMF Cuts Growth Forecast
The International Monetary Fund cut its forecast for global growth to 4% and warned of "severe repercussions" to the global economy unless euro-zone nations strengthen their banking system and the U.S. gets its fiscal affairs in order.
National Journal | GOP Likely to Prevail on Limiting Disaster Aid; Expect to Avert Shutdown
Republican Senate leaders are likely to prevail in defeating an amendment adding billions of dollars in disaster aid to a federal funding bill set for House passage, making prospects of a government shutdown unlikely, leadership aides in both parties and a key senator predicted on Tuesday.
Econ Comments
RCM | A Politician's Version Of Ponzi Scheme
Looking out over the policy decisions that have shaped Social Security, it may not be accurate to call it an investment fraud. But it does seem to resemble what I call the politicians' version of a Ponzi scheme, that is, a spending program whose long-term unsustainability is clear early on and often in subsequent years, but whose advocates leave it to some future generation of political leaders to do the tough job of fixing it.
CNN | Social Security -- Are you kidding me?
Yes, I've paid into Social Security. No, I don't expect to benefit from it, at least not at the level those who are currently collecting are benefiting. And I don't know anyone in any line of work my age or younger who does.
RCM | Was Solyndra's Fall the Fault of China?
Trade is a favorite scapegoat whenever jobs are lost. That's why Congress is holding free trade hostage to a porky program that would give more aid to displaced workers. Solyndra's failure shows why it's a bad idea.
Cato Institute | Still Spreading the Wealth
The American welfare state is alive and well.
Blogs
Café Hayek | Digging into the Data
The reason median household income has not grown is because we have far more households per capita than we used to.
Econlog | More on the Economic Freedom Indexes
Time to start looking into buying property in one of those other countries.
Cato @ Liberty | Free Market Capitalism vs. Cronyism in Russia
Russian philosopher Leonid Nikonov explains the differences between socialism, cronyism, and free market capitalism.
Reports
NBER | Complex Mortgages
We investigate the characteristics and the default behavior of households who take out complex mortgages. Unlike traditional fixed rate or adjustable rate mortgages, complex mortgages are not fully amortizing and enable households to postpone loan repayment.
RCM: Wells Fargo | Housing Starts Drop Much Fruther Than Expected in August
Housing starts fell 5% to a 571,000 unit pace in August with weakness in single family and multifamily starts. Building permits howerever rose 3.2% and are up 7.8% on a year ago basis.
