News
Bloomberg | ISM Services Expands at Slower Pace
Service industries in the U.S. expanded in November at the slowest pace since January 2010 as employment cooled, a sign improvement in the biggest part of the economy will be uneven.
Market Watch | Shale gas gives rise to era of energy independence
A boom in shale gas production in recent years has helped lift U.S. natural gas supplies to a record level, creating an ideal environment to sustain low prices and offering a launching pad for a new era in a country striving for energy independence.
WSJ | Euro-Zone Economy Shrinks
The euro zone's four largest economies all contracted in November, with German activity shrinking for the first time in two and a half years.
CNN: Money | Credit card use is on the rise
Purchases made with credit cards rose 8.2% in the first quarter of 2011, 9% in the second quarter and 10.6% in the third quarter, according to First Data. That compares with gains in debit card use of 9.6%, 8.3% and 5.9% for the same quarters.
Market Watch | Trade data to hint at U.S. economic difficulties
After a week of key employment and manufacturing-sector data, Wall Street can be forgiven for directing their focus away from the economic reports that come out of the Capitol this week and toward Europe ahead of key meetings there.
CNN: Money | Gasoline: The new big U.S. export
The United States is awash in gasoline. So much so, in fact, that the country is exporting a record amount of it.
USA Today | As home prices sink, home ownership heads to new lows
Home prices across the nation are right back where they were at the beginning of 2003. All that was gained is largely now lost, and the effect on home ownership could continue for decades.
CNN: Money | Europe goes back to the drawing board
European leaders will meet this week for yet another summit to discuss ways to save the euro, and this time they are talking about rewriting European Union treaties.
NYT | Secrets of the Bailout, Now Told
It is dispiriting, of course, that we are still learning about the billions provided to various financial firms during the crisis. Another sad element to this mess is that getting the truth requires the legal firepower of an organization as rich as Bloomberg.
Econ Comments
Cato Institute | Keynesian Policies Have Failed
Policymakers should ignore the Keynesians and their faulty models, and instead focus on reforms to aid long-run growth..
WSJ | Reworking The Workplace
Many companies that trumpet social responsibility have found it a useful tool for cutting costs and wooing customers.
NYT | Know What You’re Protesting
Perhaps the protesters were motivated by an inchoate feeling that standard economic theory is inherently slanted toward a conservative world view. If so, they would be following a long tradition.
Washington Post | The welfare state’s reckoning
We Americans fool ourselves if we ignore the parallels between Europe’s problems and our own. It’s reassuring to think them separate, and the fixation on the euro — Europe’s common currency — buttresses that mind-set.
WSJ | How Regulators Herded Banks Into Trouble
Blame the Basel capital standards for over-investment in mortgage-backed securities and now government debt.
Washington Times | BURR: Labor-relations agency goes rogue
NLRB contravenes own rules to boost unions.
City Journal | The Regulatory Thicket
No wonder small businesses, the engine of the U.S. economy, have stalled in hiring. Chamber of Commerce surveys show that over 60 percent of small businesses have no plans to hire in the next year, and the firms cite greater regulation or the threat of it as a major reason for their reluctance.
MSN: Money | Something's wrong with the economy
Forget Friday's misleading drop in the unemployment rate. The evidence is building that global growth has stalled. And it's about to get much worse.
Blogs
Econlog | The PSST Just-So Story
PSST emphasizes the effect of technology on employment. In any industry where productivity rises faster than demand, employment will decline.
Café Hayek | Applause for John D. Rockefeller
Rockefeller was kind, forgiving and tolerant of others’ faults, enormously generous, intelligent, prudent, loyal to friends and family, and never venal or petty or vindictive. His employees, from top to bottom, seemed genuinely fond of him.
Econlog | Econlog Greenspan on Dodd-Frank: Start Over
In his Friday talk at the Hoover Institution, Alan Greenspan advocated two policies. The second is to scrap the Dodd-Frank financial regulation law and start over. The law, said Greenspan, "is unimplementable."
Calculated Risk | Unofficial Problem Bank list unchanged at 980 institutions
Since the publication of the Unofficial Problem Bank List in August 2009, this is the first week there are no changes to report as the list remains unchanged at 980 institutions with assets of $400.5 billion.
