News
National Journal | Don’t Fear the China Slowdown
Policy changes in China, rather than a 2-percent slowdown in growth, are more likely to impact the U.S. economy in a meaningful way, and they are unlikely to be made until Beijing’s new leaders come to power in 2013.
CNN Money | Economists: Congress won't fix economy
A survey of economists by CNNMoney found most don't expect Congress to pass any kind of economic assistance anytime in the foreseeable future.
Market Watch | Are the U.S. and China trading places?
By now, everyone has grown accustomed, if not physically weary, of articles extolling China’s economic dynamism and rehearsing America’s economic decline. While the United States is only now beginning to recover from the most serious recession in nearly 80 years, China skated through the global financial crisis essentially unscathed.
WSJ | An Engine of Recovery Shows Sign Of Abating
The manufacturing sector, a key engine of the economic recovery, is showing signs of vulnerability.
Fortune | Utility exec to feds: Save our tax break, or else
If federal tax breaks for wind farms go away, wind-farm operators will stop building them, says Lewis Hay III, chairman and CEO of NextEra Energy (NEE), the goofily named holding company for utility operator Florida Power & Light.
Econ Comments & Analysis
WSJ | The Argentine Model
'I'm the head of state, not a thug," Argentine President Cristina Kirchner felt it necessary to explain on Monday in Buenos Aires. This is never a good sign from a politician.
Real Clear Markets | Taking On the Notion of 'Too Big To Fail'
The financial crisis left the biggest U.S. banks bigger, and amplified concerns that these banks are TBTF: "Too Big to Fail." Calls for action to address TBTF were given considerable impetus by the recent annual report of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, which asserted that "the vitality of our capitalist system" and "long-term prosperity" depend on eliminating TBTF.
WSJ | The Inequality Obsession
If it were learned that the car driven by the average American is 10 times more likely to burst into flames than the car driven by the richest 1%, what should the policy response be? Should it be to mandate that cars driven by the rich burst into flames more often?
Washington Times | ‘Too big to fail’ casts a long shadow
As we approach the fourth anniversary of 2008’s financial crisis, it’s clear that Congress has done nothing to solve the crisis’s central problem.
WSJ | Rethinking 'Made in America'
Most people may think of Made-in-America exports as tangible goods such as heavy equipment and agricultural products, but the Obama administration has been seeking markets for American exports of all kinds—including services.
Politico | Austan Goolsbee plays petroleum politics
Looking to avoid the political perils of $4 gasoline, the White House is searching high and low for a chance to claim leadership on energy prices. That’s why one of their top allies in economics, Austan Goolsbee, took to the editorial pages last week to launch a clever — but too cute — argument to justify a politically motivated oil sale from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.
AEI | Debacle: Obama’s War on Jobs and Growth and What We Can Do Now to Regain Our Future
Are Americans better off today than they were before Barack Obama was elected to office? Americans for Tax Reform President Grover Norquist and economist John Lott, Jr. argue that increases in government spending, mounting debt, new regulations and higher effective marginal tax rates collectively answer this question with a resounding “no.”
Blogs
National Review | Spending Other People’s Money
Rich Lowry’s piece about the GSA and the incredible abuses of taxpayers’ dollars is, as he explains, “yet another reminder of the waste and laxity inevitable in organizations where it’s difficult to fire anyone and all the pennies are from heaven.”
Heritage Foundation | Morning Bell: Obama’s New Gas Price Scapegoat
High gas prices are not a president’s friend, especially in an election year, so it’s not surprising that President Barack Obama is trying his darndest to shift the blame for record-high fuel prices onto something other than his failed energy policies.
Library of Economics | The Crisis Response Worked Wonderfully
So says the Treasury. Below is the chart that proclaims that lending markets were unclogged.
Heritage Foundation | The Obama Oil Embargo
From canceling oil leases in his second week in office to denying the XL Pipeline this year President Obama and his administration have offered up a non-stop assault on affordable energy. Now that high gasoline prices have come home to roost, the president is flailing around for an energy policy.
