News
Bloomberg | IMF Cuts Global Outlook as EU Ensnares Emerging Economies
The International Monetary Fund cut its 2013 global growth forecast as Europe’s debt crisis prolongs Spain’s recession and slows expansions in emerging markets from China to India.
WSJ | Moody's Cuts Pakistan Rating
Moody's Investor Service Friday downgraded Pakistan's sovereign credit rating by a notch, citing strains on the economy's external payment position, which has been hurt by a widening trade deficit and a decline in capital inflows.
Market Watch | Manufacturing rebounds a bit in New York
Manufacturers in the New York region said business improved modestly in early July, after barely expanding in June, according to a report released Monday by the New York Federal Reserve Bank.
NY Times | Two Classes, Divided by ‘I Do’
The economic storms of recent years have raised concerns about growing inequality and questions about a core national faith, that even Americans of humble backgrounds have a good chance of getting ahead. Most of the discussion has focused on labor market forces like falling blue-collar wages and lavish Wall Street pay.
Bloomberg | Business Inventories in U.S. Increased in May as Sales Fell
Inventories in the U.S. rose more than forecast in May as sales declined for a second month, indicating companies may limit factory orders.
CNN Money | Severe U.S. drought slams small businesses
Farmers, boating companies and restaurants are among the growing number of small businesses reeling from the worst drought to hit the United States in 12 years.
Econ Comments & Analysis
Washington Times | Crowding out the middle class
When people talk about the problem with immigration, they usually are referring to illegals. It is easy to scapegoat the rule-breakers who escape corrupt countries such as El Salvador and Mexico for a better life in America. But the truth is, the 11 million or 12 million illegals in this country represent just a fraction of the problem.
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. The federal government spent more than $50 billion a year—mostly in the form of grants to state and local entities, which then determined what projects to fund—and state and local governments spent more than $150 billion a year of their own funds.
WSJ | Clean Green Scam
The EPA runs a program that is supposed to ensure 36 billion gallons of biofuels are blended into the gasoline supply by 2022. Every gallon produced earns something called a renewable identification number, or RINs, which are then sold to and traded among refiners and other "obligated parties" to help meet their annual biofuel quotas.
Washington Post | Changing focus to inequalities in opportunity
Even if the process proves protracted, the U.S. economy will eventually recover. When it does, issues relating to inequality are likely to replace cyclical issues at the forefront of our economic conversation.
WSJ | The Shale Gas Secret
'Whoever owns the soil, it's theirs up to Heaven and down to Hell." So goes the ancient common-law principle. Today, however, almost no major country recognizes full subsurface private property rights, except for the United States.
Daily Beast | Are Millennials the Screwed Generation?
‘Boomer America’ never had it so good. As a result, today’s young Americans have never had it so bad.
Washington Times | High cost of fantasy fuel
Why does America’s economy feel like an SUV running on fumes? The Obama administration’s laughably rigid enforcement of a Bush-era ethanol mandate typifies today’s regulatory climate. When Uncle Sam governs with a tire iron in his hand, U.S. companies wisely pull off the road and pray for new management.
WSJ | When Pockets of Strength Just Aren't Enough
America's Great Plains and Midwest regions are rebounding from the recession faster than other parts of the country, but economists say their recoveries aren't enough to lift the rest of the economy out of the doldrums.
City Journal | The Road to Recovery
Burdened by slow growth and high unemployment—especially long-term unemployment—the American economy faces an uncertain future.
Bloomberg | What the U.S. Can Learn From Australia’s Coal Mines
America became great because it transformed its vast natural resources -- Iowa farmland, Mesabi iron, Texas crude -- into human capital, equipped with skills to succeed in the Information Age.
WSJ | It's True: Corporations Are People
Of course corporations are people. What else would they be? Buildings don't hire people. Buildings don't design cars that run on electricity or discover DNA-based drug therapies that target cancer cells in ways our parents could never imagine.
Blogs
Calculated Risk | Schedule for Week of July 15th
This will be a very busy week for economic data. Key reports include retail sales, housing starts, and existing home sales for June.
Library of Economics | A Short History of Gasoline Price Controls
And one thing you know from experience is when you control the price of something, you end up getting less of it. So if you control the price of health-care providers, you will have fewer of them and that's gonna wind up as a crisis. The most vivid expression of that . . . was Jimmy Carter's gas lines.
National Review | Cronyism + Dependency = the Farm Bill
With the support of many Republicans, the House Agriculture Committee has approved a five-year farm and nutrition bill. The 35–11 committee vote is troubling when you realize how incredibly similar the House version of the bill is to the horrendous Senate version.
Politico | Analyst: Today's economy is November's economy
Neither President Barack Obama nor Mitt Romney should expect big changes in the economy by November, a top economist said Sunday.
Calculated Risk | Unofficial Problem Bank list declines to 912 Institutions
As such, it was a quiet week for the Unofficial Problem Bank List with two removals and one addition. The changes leave the list with 912 institutions with assets of $352.9 billion.
John Taylor | One of the Most Important Lessons of Modern Macroeconomics
I completely agree with John Cochrane when he writes in his review of my book First Principles that the “preference for rules is one of the most important lessons of modern macroeconomics” and that it is still the major point of disagreement among those writing about economic policy today.
