News
CNN Money | JPMorgan's trading loss: $5.8 billion
JPMorgan said Friday that the loss from the bank's chief investment office's errant trades has totaled $5.8 billion so far this year.
Market Watch | Consumer sentiment lowest since December
The University of Michigan-Thomson Reuters consumer-sentiment index fell to a preliminary July reading of 72 -- the lowest since December -- from 73.2 in June, according to Friday reports.
USA Today | Moody's downgrades Italy debt rating 2 notches
Credit ratings agency Moody's Investors Service has downgraded Italy's government bond rating two notches on concern that deteriorating financial conditions in Europe will lead to a sharp rise in borrowing costs.
CNN Money | Euro slides to fresh 2-year low
The euro continued to weaken against the dollar Thursday, falling to another two-year low as investor fear over European stability intensified.
USA Today | Thirty-year mortgage rate drops to another record low
Average rates on fixed mortgages fell again to record lows, giving would-be buyers more incentive to brave the housing market.
CNN Money | 700,000 homeowners no longer underwater on mortgages
Thanks to improving home prices, fewer mortgage borrowers owe more on their homes than they are worth.
Econ Comments & Analysis
WSJ | What's Really Behind the Entitlement Crisis
Demography is not a popular subject, nor is it discussed much in the public square. But it casts a long shadow over the entitlement crises in nations everywhere, including our own.
CBO | Infrastructure Banks and Surface Transportation
From 2008 to 2011, governmental spending on surface transportation infrastructure—highways, mass transit, and passenger rail—totaled $200 billion a year.
Washington Times | Exit strategy from the United Nations
For years, pundits, politicians and columnists - including me - have fiercely criticized the United Nations. This institution has become a political cesspool controlled by totalitarian states and rogue nations that despise democracy, liberty and freedom. It’s only getting worse with time.
NBER | Men, Women, and Machines: How Trade Impacts Gender Inequality
This paper studies the effect of trade liberalization on an under-explored aspect of wage inequality – gender inequality. We consider a model where firms differ in their productivity and workers are differentiated by skill as well as gender.
WSJ | The Middle Class Needs a Lifeline
You can't conduct a small-group discussion with ordinary Americans today without coming back shaken. They are in trouble, and they know they are in trouble. They are holding on or slipping, dealing with unemployment in the family, the overhang of debt and loss of any cushion in life.
Blogs
Heritage Foundation | CBO Report Confirms Rich Already Pay Their “Fair Share”
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) just released its latest estimates on the share of taxes paid by income level, giving voters a way to check the argument that the rich do not pay “their fair share.”
AEI | Julia’s mother: Why a single mom is better off with a $29,000 job and welfare than taking a $69,000 job
The U.S. welfare system sure creates some crazy disincentives to working your way up the ladder. Benefits stacked upon benefits can mean it is financially better, at least in the short term, to stay at a lower-paying jobs rather than taking a higher paying job and losing those benefits. This is called the “welfare cliff.”
Calculated Risk | Buffett: US Housing Picking Up, Rest of economy slowing down
In a live CNBC interview from Sun Valley with Becky Quick of "Squawk Box," Buffett says the general economy's growth has "tempered down" so that it is now "more or less flat."
AEI | Exposing the food stamp stimulus fallacy
Here’s some amazing, Keynesian-style voodoo economics from the U.S. Department of Agriculture claiming that every additional $1 of food stamp spending magically creates almost $2 in new economic activity
