News
CNN: Money | A costly winter ahead for home heating oil users
The price of heating the average home with oil is expected to jump 10% this year to an average of $2,535 over the winter heating season (October 1 through March 31), according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA). That's 45% higher than just two years ago, when the average bill was just $1,752.
WSJ | Euro-Zone Manufacturing Downturn Deepens
The euro zone's manufacturing sector contracted at a faster rate in November, with production and new orders falling at the strongest rate since the height of the credit crunch in 2009, a monthly survey by Markit showed Thursday.
WSJ | Fed Names a New Chief Regulator
The Federal Reserve said Wednesday that Michael Gibson would take over as director of its regulatory division, a key role as the U.S. central bank implements the Dodd-Frank financial overhaul law.
CNN: Money | Oil's up, gas is down. Why?
Those anxiously watching the rally in U.S. oil prices over the past few weeks have received a pleasant surprise at the pump: while oil has shot upward, gasoline is moving in the opposite direction.
Econ Comments
Daily Caller | Uncertainty: America’s competitive disadvantage
This may sound like a rallying cry from Cairo’s Tahrir Square, but today companies must consider these political risk factors when making investment decisions in the U.S.
Washington Times | GHEI: Eurozone free-fall
U.S. taxpayers may bankroll Old World’s big spenders.
National Journal | Fiscal union can’t save Europe
Advocates of the European Union often cite the United States as a model of successful continent-wide government. Some have even suggested that the problem with Europe is that it is not centralized enough. On this view, the modern E.U. resembles not so much the American constitutional system as it does its predecessor, the Articles of Confederation.
Blogs
WSJ | China's Superior Economic Model
The free-market fundamentalist economic model is being thrown onto the trash heap of history.
Calculated Risk | Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac Serious Delinquency Rates mostly unchanged in October
Fannie Mae reported that the Single-Family Serious Delinquency rate was unchanged at 4.00% in October. This is down from 4.52% in October of 2010. The Fannie Mae serious delinquency rate peaked in February 2010 at 5.59%.
AEI: American | Governments are not the same as countries
Most discussions of the European sovereign debt crisis make a common error. This is the failure to distinguish between the country and the present government of that country. For example, they may wonder “how to save Greece.” But the debt in question is the debt of the government of Greece, not of Greece, the country.
Volokh Conspiracy | When Laws Hurt the People They’re Supposed to Help
It just seems to me that the general question is difficult, and that our normal intuitions in favor of exceptionless equal treatment may not be sound in all such cases.
Café Hayek | Even less precise
CBO “estimates” of the effect of stimulus on employment in the the third quarter of 2011 are even less precise than earlier ones. Stimulus spending “increased the number of people employed by between 0.4 million and 2.4 million.
Reports
NBER | Financial Sector Ups and Downs and the Real Sector: Big Hindrance, Little Help
We examine how financial expansion and contraction cycles affect the broader economy through their impact on 8 real economic sectors in a panel of 28 countries over 1960-2005, paying particular attention to large, or sharp, contractions and magnifying and mitigating factors.
