News
Market Watch | Builder sentiment stays at nearly 5-year high
A measure of sentiment for builders of new single-family homes in March stayed at the highest level in close to five years after a downward revision to the preceding month, according to data released Monday.
Bloomberg | Housing Starts in U.S. Fell in February from Three-Year High
Housing starts in the U.S. fell in February from a three-year high, showing the recovery in the residential real estate market will take time to develop.
Econ Comments & Analysis
Washington Times | Fund but verify Export-Import Bank
Ordinarily, a question of whether to reauthorize the U.S. Export-Import Bank of the United States (Ex-Im Bank) and increase its loan limit would be about as uncontroversial a proposition as one could find on Capitol Hill.
Market Watch | Oil could spark next crisis: IMF's Lagarde
High oil prices, caused either by supply concerns or geopolitical tensions, could be the next threat to global growth, International Monetary Fund chief Christine Lagarde said on Tuesday.
CATO | What to Do about Inequality? Free Market Education
David Grusky assumes that income inequality is necessarily a bad thing, and lays it at the feet of “market failure.” I’ll not address the overall contention because it is not my area of expertise, but in education, while Grusky is correct in perceiving many problems, they cannot be ascribed to markets. They are government failures.
Blogs
Heritage Foundation | Tales of the Red Tape #29: Drowning in New Regulations
Some 120 regulations taking effect in the past year require enhanced accommodations for disabled individuals at 65 different types of public and private facilities- all of which will cost more than $1 billion annually for each of the next 15 years, according to the Department of Justice (DOJ)
CATO | Should the Small Business Administration Be Abolished?
That’s the question being debated at the Wall Street Journal’s website. Representing the pro-abolition position is Cato adjunct scholar Veronique de Rugy.
Reason Foundation | Securities Regulation Continues to Frustrate
Ask any trader their opinion about regulators at the SEC or CFTC and they’ll respond with variants of one of the following two responses
National Review | Abolish the SBA
Today, in the pages of the Wall Street Journal I debate Barbara Kasoff, the president and chief executive of Women Impacting Public Policy, about whether or not we should abolish the Small Business Administration. I say, yes, abolish SBA; she disagrees.
WSJ | Secondary Sources: Food Stamps, Generation Gap, Gas Prices
A roundup of economic news from around the Web.
Library of Economics | The Speculator of Last Resort
If you can buy bonds in a crisis and sell them later at a profit, then you might argue that you were acting as a speculator of last resort during a liquidity crisis. However, I think of a liquidity crisis as something temporary
