News
USA Today | Drought could cost $12 billion, most since 1988
The Department of Agriculture said Wednesday that food prices next year could go up by 3%-4% as a result, with beef expected to take the highest jump at 4%-5%.
USA Today | New home sales fall to 5-month low in June
The Commerce Department said Wednesday that sales of new homes fell 8.4% last month from May to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 350,000. That's the biggest drop since February 2011.
Econ Comments & Analysis
WSJ | Dodd-Frank's Unhappy Anniversary
Two years ago, I was one of 43 members of Congress appointed to the conference committee for the Dodd-Frank financial-reform bill. Along with others, I fought against the legislation and lost.
Investors | Businesses Aren't The Problem, They're The Solution
Lately, it seems that the only form of acceptable hate speech left in America is hostile invective heaped upon entrepreneurs and innovators by a vocal minority of pundits, and increasingly, political leaders who should know better.
Market Watch | Global economy’s cure is worse than the disease
The patient’s history includes a seizure in 2007/ 2008 — financial losses, banking problems, a major recession. Liberal injections of taxpayer cash avoided catastrophic multiple organ failure, assisting a modest recovery.
WSJ | America's Two Economies
For a long time, the United States had one economy. Now we have two economies that compete for America's wealth: A private economy and a public economy. The 2012 election will decide which will be subordinate to the other. One economy will lead. The other will follow.
Blogs
Library of Economics | Does Import Dependence Make Us More Vulnerable?
An increasing reliance on imports, combined with the fraying of the nation's power grid, highways and rail lines, leaves the United States more vulnerable to the damage of natural disasters and terrorist attacks, according to a report to be released Wednesday by former homeland security secretary Tom Ridge.
WSJ | Mid-Sized Companies Holding Back Investment
Mid-sized companies are holding onto cash and pulling back on investments in response to mounting fears of a global economic slowdown.
National Review | Hold on to Your Wallet: The Cost of Corporate Welfare and Rent-Seeking
Cronyism takes many forms: It is Solyndra, the farm bill, subsidies to oil-and-gas corporations, banks and automobile companies, but also the protections granted to the sugar industry and other industries, tax credits to private companies, and much more.
Coordination Problem | What Great Stagnation?
In last week's Washington Post, Robert Samuelson reported on the results of the Pew Mobility Project, looking at the income and wealth mobility of Americans over the last several decades. Although not all the news is good, most of it is.
