News
CNN: Money | Iowa's economy: Not issue No. 1?
Today, unemployment is relatively low. Farmland -- and its edible bounty -- are in high demand. Home prices are stable. That's not to say things are great. But they could be a lot worse.
Bloomberg | U.S. Auto Dealers Have Best December in 5 Years
U.S. consumers, who are more confident than they have been in eight months, were lured to auto showrooms by holiday discounts and may have pushed car sales to the second fastest pace in more than two years.
USA Today | S&P 500 perfectly flat for 2011, Dow up 5.5% for year
The Standard & Poor's 500 index closed 2011 a tiny fraction of a point below where it started the year, ending up with a 0.00% change. For the last day of trading before the new year, the S&P closed at 1,257.60, up 5.4 points or 0.4%.
WSJ | Welfare Lines Overflow
Crowded Public-Assistance Centers Interrupt Services as Demand for Aid Grows.
Market Watch | PMI data underline euro-zone recession fears
Dec. manufacturing gauge shows fifth month of contraction.
CNN: Money | European recovery? Wait till 2013
Don't expect the economic problems dogging Europe to be solved any time soon. Economists sure don't.
USA Today | U.S. Treasuries end 2011 as one of year's best investments
Investors clamored for Treasuries in 2011, giving the market its best return since 2008, even after the U.S. government lost its sterling AAA credit rating. The turmoil in global markets only seemed to increase demand for Treasuries, which are still seen as the lowest-risk investments anywhere.
WSJ | New Hurdles Loom in Euro Crisis
Italy Bond Sales, France Vote Are Among Signal Events for Europe's Economy—and the World's.
Bloomberg | Global Manufacturing Displays Resilience to Europe’s Debt Crisis: Economy
Manufacturing from the U.K. to India showed improvement in December, suggesting production is weathering strains from Europe’s sovereign debt crisis.
WSJ | America as Number Two
Hong Kong again beat the NYSE in new stock offerings in 2011.
NY Times | For 2012, Signs Point to Tepid Consumer Spending
Macroeconomic Advisers, a forecasting company, projects growth of around 2 percent for the first half of this year, down from an estimate of 3.6 percent in the fourth quarter of 2011 and just 1.8 percent in the third quarter.
USA Today | In a first, gas and other fuels are top U.S. export
Measured in dollars, the nation is on pace this year to ship more gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel than any other single export, according to U.S. Census data going back to 1990.
Econ Comments
Washington Times | RAHN: Purveyors of financial destruction
Blame for national decline belongs with Democratic incompetents.
WSJ | The Rise of Consumption Equality
Getting rich requires serving a mass market, which means the rest of us can buy what the rich buy.
Washington Times | FEULNER: Congress’ performance in 2011
Mixed results leave lawmakers unpopular with voters.
AEI | Why European loans could hurt US taxpayers
"In assessing how serious the risk of IMF lending is to U.S. taxpayers, it is of note that the IMF's loan commitments to Greece, Ireland and Portugal amount to as much as 10% of those countries' gross domestic products."
NY Times | I Just Got Here, but I Know Trouble When I See It
Believe it or not, times are getting better.
Project Syndicate | Rethinking the Growth Imperative
Modern macroeconomics often seems to treat rapid and stable economic growth as the be-all and end-all of policy. But does it really make sense to take growth as the main social objective in perpetuity, as economics textbooks implicitly assume?
WSJ | 2012: A U.S. Referendum on Europe
The EU's crisis is not just fiscal and monetary. It's also a crisis of vision and character.
Blogs
Cato @ Liberty | Cato @ Liberty The Opportunity Costs of Bailing Out Fannie and Freddie
We’ve sunk $169 billion, and counting, into bailing out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
WSJ: Real Time Economics | Five Economic Trends to Watch in 2012
The Council on Foreign Relations polled economists to identify five trends to watch in the coming year. They all fall under the increasingly common theme of “uncertainty,” and most of them touch on U.S. or euro-zone policies.
Cato @ Liberty | Our Freedom to Trade Expanded in 2011
The news right now is full of retrospective stories about 2011. Not to be left out, here are a few observations on the real if modest progress made in 2011 to expand the freedom of Americans to trade in the global economy.
Café Hayek | Café Hayek Fannie and Freddie and the crisis
The SEC suit against former execs of Fannie and Freddie appears to vindicate the Pinto/Wallison view that government housing policy pushed Fannie and Freddie into unsafe loans and caused the financial crisis.
Minyanville | Suppression of Financial Information Likely to Continue in 2012
The fixing of prices and rates by officials threatens the role of markets.
WSJ: Real Time Economics | Top 5 Economic Charts of 2011
As the year draws to a close, Real Time Economics takes a look back at five of our favorite charts from the Journal in 2011. These graphics look at the most recent year as well as the past to give us some insight into the future.
Daily Capitalist | Daily Capitalist Making Sense Of 2011
This is the time of year when you are supposed to look back and make sense of what happened during the year and make predictions about the new year. A futile task if there ever was one.
Café Hayek | Keynes was right?
It’s hard to ignore deficits when the interest rate you can borrow at is rising steadily and investors become nervous that they’re not going to get their money back.
Reports
CRS | CRS Changes in the Distribution of Income Among Tax Filers Between 1996 and 2006: The Role of Labor Income, Capital Income, and Tax Policy
Taxes were less progressive in 2006 than in 1996, and consequently, tax policy also contributed to the increase in income inequality between 1996 and 2006. But overall income inequality would likely have increased even in the absence of tax policy changes.
