News
WSJ | Old Debts Dog Europe's Banks
Lenders Slower Than Their U.S. Counterparts to Shed Risky Mortgage Assets.
USA TODAY | Federal borrowing mounts while household debt shrinks
The sharp rise in federal borrowing is overwhelming efforts of consumers to reduce debt, leaving the economy deeper in debt than when the recession began in December 2007, a USA TODAY analysis finds.
Econ Comments
NY Times | Sad Proof of Europe’s Fallout
Suddenly, all of those claims that American financial institutions have little to no exposure to Europe rang hollow.
CNN Money | Europe: Debt crisis 1, G-20 zero
The debt crisis in Europe continues to hang over the global economy after a summit of world leaders last week failed to produce any tangible new solutions.
WSJ | A Look Inside the Super Committee
The GOP opposes raising tax rates, but one idea being considered is limiting deductions as a percentage of income.
RCM | Analysis: United States gets reprieve to deal with deficit
Financial markets appear willing to give the United States something they offer fewer and fewer countries these days -- time to get public finances in order.
WSJ | Jerry Brown's Canoe Lesson
California has a roughly $500 billion unfunded pension liability, thanks largely to the legislature's generous payouts to public unions. Last year pensions cost the state about $5 billion, and the annual bill could double in a decade without reform.
Cato Institute | Why We Can't Escape the Eurocrisis
The debt crisis is not just an EU problem, but a trans-Atlantic financial crisis. The overwhelming debt problems on either side of the pond are interlinked through the banking system.
Blogs
American: Enterprise Blog | The ACRE Program: A budget nightmare
As the agriculture and super committees are discussing revisions to the Farm Bill, it’s essential to understand the ACRE program.
Mercatus Center: Neighborhood Effects | Pension News From Around the Country
Here, again, is Jeff Miron’s estimate of the date at which each state’s debt-to-GDP ratio will exceed 90 percent (the value at which economists believe debt tends to begin to hamper economic growth).
Think Markets | The Infrastructure Death Rattle
The case for infrastructure spending must be made on the value of what is to be built or repaired and the efficiency with which that is done, not on the number of jobs that may be created. Frederic Bastiat made this point in the middle of the nineteenth century.
NRO: The Corner | More on Stimulus Spending and Other Government Interventions
As you may recall from a previous post, the work of former Obama Council of Economic Advisers chairman Christina Romer and her economist husband, David Romer, shows how increasing taxes by 1 percent of GDP for deficit-reduction purposes leads to a 3 percent reduction in GDP. In other words, the project you finance through taxes had better be productive, to justify this negative effect.
Heritage Foundation | Chart of the Week: U.S. Debt on Track to Fuel Economic Crisis Like Greece
Greece’s troubles might seem a world away from what the United States is experiencing, but a new report and video from the Joint Economic Committee suggest the two countries have troubling similarities.
