News
CNN Money | Moody's puts European Union on notice
Moody's put the European Union on notice Monday that its top-notch Aaa rating is at risk of downgrade, cutting the outlook on the EU's creditworthiness to "negative" from "stable" because of the continent's ongoing debt crisis.
Market Watch | ISM factory index weakens to 49.6% in August
Activity for the nation's manufacturers showed contraction for the third straight month in August, the Institute for Supply Management reported Tuesday.
FOX News | Drought putting a drain on Midwest economy
A monthly survey suggests that the continuing drought and lessening export demand for U.S. products are among the drains on the economy in nine Midwest and Plains states.
Bloomberg | Manufacturing in U.S. Probably Stagnated Amid Global Slowdown
Manufacturing probably teetered between growth and contraction in August, a sign the pillar of the recovery is now struggling, according economists surveyed before a report today.
Econ Comments & Analysis
WSJ | Spain's Bad Banks
Government ministers from Madrid to Brussels cheered Spain's much-anticipated bank-reform law, unveiled Friday, which creates new procedures for winding down failing institutions.
NBER | Carry-Along Trade
Large multi-product firms dominate international trade flows. This paper documents new facts about multi-product manufacturing exporters that are not easily reconciled with existing multi-product models.
Economist | Democracies and debt
Almost half the world’s population now lives in a democracy, according to the Economist Intelligence Unit, a sister organisation of this newspaper. And the number of democracies has increased pretty steadily since the second world war.
WSJ | AIG, Surprise Moneymaker
AIG's bailout is getting the revisionist treatment. The rescue hasn't been the dismal federal experience that, say, GM's has been. Taxpayers are showing a $5 billion profit on their 53% stake in the insurer, as of yesterday's closing price.
Forbes | Obama's Accelerating Downward Spiral For America
New income data from the Census Bureau reveal what a great job Barack Obama has done for the middle class as President. During his entire tenure in the oval office, median household income has declined by 7.3%.
The American | ‘Top-Down’ vs. ‘Bottom-Up’
“Top-down economics” is a hijacked phrase. Objectively, it should be the label assigned to rule-of-czar capitalism steered by government officials. Instead, campaign rhetoric has been assigning it to rule-of-law capitalism driven by consumers and entrepreneurs—supposedly a system steered by the already-rich, in which money gradually trickles down to the middle class.
Fortune | Listen up, biz leaders: It's time to rethink everything
We're not living in ordinary economic times. Every company needs to determine if its strategy requires an overhaul or just thoughtful tweaks. Here's how to start.
AEI | Are entitlements corrupting us? Yes, the American character is at stake
The American republic has endured for well over two centuries, but over the past 50 years, the apparatus of American governance has undergone a radical transformation. In some basic respects—its scale, its preoccupations, even many of its purposes—the U.S. government today would be scarcely recognizable to Franklin D. Roosevelt, much less to Abraham Lincoln or Thomas Jefferson.
Blogs
Calculated Risk | Schedule for Week of Sept 2nd
The key report for this week will be the August employment report to be released on Friday, Sept 7th. Other key reports include the ISM manufacturing index on Tuesday, vehicle sales also on Tuesday, and the ISM non-manufacturing (service) index on Thursday.
AEI | Gas prices around the world: Relative to income, U.S. has some of the cheapest gas in the world
A few weeks ago Bloomberg featured the “Highest & Cheapest Gas Prices by Country, where they ranked 60 countries by the average retail gas price at the pump and by the “pain at the pump,” which is measured by the percentage of average daily income needed to buy a gallon of gas. Here are some of the findings
Calculated Risk | Unofficial Problem Bank list declines to 891 Institutions
The FDIC released its actions for July 2012 as anticipated. This week there were 10 removals and three additions leaving the Unofficial Problem Bank List with 891 institutions with assets of $331.5 billion, down from 898 institutions with assets of $346.7 billion.
AEI | Thomas Sowell quotations on why comparing income brackets over time is comparing abstractions, not people
“Sports statistics are kept in a much more rational way than statistics about political issues. Have you ever seen statistics on what percentage of the home runs over the years have been hit by batters hitting in the .320s versus batters hitting in the .280s or the .340s? Not very likely.”
Political Calculations | Are Americans Better Off Than They Were Four Years Ago?
"Are Americans better off than they were four years ago?" The various responses that Democratic Party politicians offered to that question dominated the political news headlines this past Labor Day weekend, so we thought we'd take a stab at answering the question today.
