News
CNN Money | Obama forms group to streamline natural gas policies
President Obama issued an executive order Friday, establishing a meeting of the minds to work on natural gas policies for his administration.
Market Watch | Bernanke: Housing was trigger of crisis, not cause
Subprime mortgages and the housing bubble were the trigger while high leverage, unstable funding and deficient risk management and supervision were the vulnerabilities that led to the financial crisis, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said Friday.
Bloomberg | No Double-Dip Deja Vu Seen for U.S. Economy
The U.S. looks unlikely to suffer the same sort of swoon this year as the one in 2011: Household, bank and company balance sheets are stronger, and the shocks hitting the economy so far are weaker, with retail sales rising more than forecast as gasoline prices show signs of slipping from an early-year increase.
NY Times | Many U.S. Immigrants’ Children Seek American Dream Abroad
Samir N. Kapadia seemed to be on the rise in Washington, moving from an internship on Capitol Hill to jobs at a major foundation and a consulting firm. Yet his days, he felt, had become routine.
CNN Money | Small firms avoiding loans, citing slow recovery
Small firms are faring better, but they aren't seeing enough fortune ahead to justify taking on debt to grow.
Market Watch | U.S. retail sales rise sharply again in March
Americans splurged on a wide range of goods and services for the third straight month, suggesting the U.S. economy grew somewhat faster than expected in the first quarter.
Bloomberg | Banks Seen Dangerous Defying Obama’s Too-Big-to-Fail Move
Two years after President Barack Obama vowed to eliminate the danger of financial institutions becoming “too big to fail,” the nation’s largest banks are bigger than they were before the nation’s credit markets seized up and required unprecedented bailouts by the government.
Econ Comments & Analysis
Washington Times | On the tracks to bankruptcy
California’s fanciful bullet train project embodies everything that is wrong with government today. The state’s High-Speed Rail Authority on Tuesday released details of a revised business plan that claims laying down tracks from Los Angeles to San Francisco will now cost a mere $68 billion instead of $98 billion - as if that were a bargain.
NY Times | Competition Is Healthy for Governments, Too
Most everyone agrees that competition is vital to a well-functioning market economy. Since the days of Adam Smith, economists have understood that the invisible hand of the marketplace works only if producers of goods and services vie with one another.
Spectator | The Poverty of Equality
This vision of equality as a social goal, with equal incomes and wealth for all, is severely counterproductive economically, and so makes for a poor society as well.
CRS | Reduce, Refinance, and Rent? The Economic Incentives, Risks, and Ramifications of Housing Market Policy Options
The bursting of the housing bubble in 2006 precipitated the December 2007 - June 2009 recession and a financial panic in September 2008. With the housing market seen as a locus for many of the economic problems that emerged, some Members of Congress propose intervening in the housing market as a means of improving not only the housing market itself but also the financial sector and the broader economy.
NBER | Macroeconomic Effects of Corporate Default Crises: A Long-Term Perspective
Using an extensive new data set on corporate bond defaults in the U.S. from 1866 to 2010, we study the macroeconomic effects of bond market crises and contrast them with those resulting from banking crises.
Blogs
Heritage Foundation | DeMarco Warns of the Dangers of Large-Scale Forgiving of Mortgage Debt
To hear certain parts of the press tell it, the acting director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), Ed DeMarco, announced that the agency is willing to consider wholesale write-downs of underwater mortgages in a recent speech on the subject. However, a closer reading of DeMarco’s speech and the news stories shows that he actually understands the dangers of such a move.
CATO | Obamanomics on Display
Is the Buffett Rule a step toward tax fairness? Or, as Hill Republicans argue, is it a gimmick that would do nothing to boost job growth or make a real dent in paying down the nation’s ballooning debt? Which side of the argument will win politically in November?
Calculated Risk | Unofficial Problem Bank list declines to 944 Institutions
As a result, it was quiet week for the Unofficial Problem Bank List with no failures, three removals, and one addition.
The American | Responding to Derek Thompson on income inequality
Some smart cookies take issue with my recent blogging on the Burkhauser-Cornell University study on income inequality.
Calculated Risk | Schedule for Week of April 15th
There are three key housing reports that will be released this week: April homebuilder confidence on Monday, March housing starts on Tuesday, and March existing home sales on Thursday.
National Review | Congress’s Chance to Take on Corporate Welfare
In the last two days, the Washington Examiner’s brave Tim Carney has been reporting live from the Ex-Im Bank conference. It means that he had to sit through sessions where he heard both former president Bill Clinton and Chicago Mayor Rahm Emmanuel rationalize how they could be simultaneously in favor of free trade and of export subsidies.
