News
Bloomberg | Import Prices in U.S. Fall for Fourth Time in Five Months
The 0.1 percent decrease in the import-price index followed a 0.8 percent gain in November, Labor Department figures showed today in Washington. Prices excluding fuel climbed 0.1 percent, the first increase in three months.
Market Watch | Paychecks will grow in 2012 — but not much
With lower inflation expected this year, workers may take home greater earnings than in 2011.
CNN: Money | Iran's 'distressed' oil to keep flowing - at deep discount
Despite tightening sanctions on Iran's oil industry, experts say the country's crude should still flow -- but perhaps at a deep discount. In fact, the bargaining has already begun, two analysts said.
Bloombeg | Obama Will Seek Authority to Merge Agencies in Effort to Shrink Government
The president is scheduled to speak today at 11:20 a.m. Washington time on steps to make the U.S. government leaner and more consumer-friendly, said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity in advance of the remarks.
Market Watch | U.S. trade deficit widens sharply in November
After declining for four straight months, the U.S. trade deficit widened in November, bringing the trade gap up to its highest level since June.
CNN: Money | Business group and consumer bureau in cease-fire
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has been in the spotlight since President Obama sidestepped Congress and made a recess appointment of its new director Richard Cordray last week.
WSJ | Euro Zone Posts Rare November Trade Surplus
A surge in exports helped the euro zone post a major surplus on trade with the rest of the world in November, an unexpected development that could boost hopes that the region will avoid a severe economic downturn.
Daily Finance | Billion Dollar Phobia? Friday the 13th Fears Take a Big Economic Toll
Superstitious investors may remember the mini-stock market crash of Oct. 13, 1989, when a megabillion-dollar leveraged buyout of struggling airline carrier United Airlines hit the skids and contributed to the Dow plummeting nearly 7% on that fateful day.
Econ Comments and Analysis
NBER | Time-Varying Fund Manager Skill
Mutual fund managers can outperform the market by picking stocks or timing the market successfully. Previous work has estimated picking and timing skill, assuming that each manager is endowed with a fixed amount of each and found some evidence of picking skills and little evidence of timing skills among successful managers.
WSJ | How Private Equity Works
The companies in which private-equity investors are able to turn a profit generally grow, rather than shrink. This is because the preferred "exit strategy" by which private-equity firms profit is to take the private companies in which they invest and enable them to go public and sell shares that will help the company grow even stronger.
Market Watch | U.S. has growth without prosperity, economist says
Credit Suisse’s Neal Soss says we’ll just have to wait it out.
AEI | Rolling the housing dice, again!
Recall that as late as July 2008, a mere two months before being placed in conservatorship, Fannie and Freddie's regulator found them to be "adequately capitalized, holding capital well in excess of the OFHEO-directed requirement, which exceeds statutory minimums."
Politico | Far-reaching effects of refining regulations
It is not only the EPA’s burdensome and often contradictory federal standards that pose serious technological and financial burdens on refiners.
CNBC | Why Aren't Banks Lending More? What Both Sides Say
Banks need to lend more. That is what regulators in Washington have been saying for months, even years now.
Bloomberg | An Upside-Down Recovery Goes Back to Square One: Caroline Baum
The U.S. recession may have ended in June 2009, according to the official arbiter of the business cycle. But by all signs, the recovery is just beginning.
Forbes | The Worst Economic Recovery Since The Great Depression
What that record shows is that President Obama, with his throwback, old-fashioned, 1970s Keynesian economics, has put America through the worst recovery from a recession since the Great Depression.
Daily Finance | Ponzi Scheme or Not, Social Security Can't Keep Up the Pace
Even if Social Security's trust fund weren't in trouble, the program generally replaces only about 40% of a person's average lifetime income, indexed for inflation. When Social Security's trust fund is gone and the program pays out reduced benefits, the typical recipient will get closer to 30% of average earnings.
Blogs
Heritage Foundation | The 2012 Index of Economic Freedom: Latin America’s Underperformers
When it comes to Latin America, most of the rankings won’t come as much of a surprise. Of the 29 nations in South and Central America and the Caribbean, Chile held strong at the top, jumping up to become the world’s seventh-freest economy with its overall score increasing by 0.9.
