News
WSJ | Trade Gap Grows As Exports Slide
U.S. exports in October posted their largest monthly drop in almost four years as slowing overseas economies curbed the global appetite for American goods and services.
NY Times | U.S. Students Still Lag Globally in Math and Science, Tests Show
Fourth- and eighth-grade students in the United States continue to lag behind students in several East Asian countries and some European nations in math and science, although American fourth graders are closer to the top performers in reading, according to test results released on Tuesday.
CNN Money | U.S. oil prices could sink to $50
U.S. oil prices could sink to $50 a barrel at some point over the next two years, according to analysts at Bank of America Merrill Lynch.
Bloomberg | American Companies Are Poised to Boost Capital Spending
American companies are poised to put idle cash to work as demand rebounds in 2013 after spending slumped amid the slowdown in China and Europe’s recession.
Market Watch | Economy will feel fiscal drag, top forecaster says
Even if Congress and the president reach a deal to avert the fiscal cliff, the U.S. economy will still labor next year under the burden of tighter fiscal policy, said Avery Shenfeld, chief economist for CIBC World Markets and the winner of the Forecaster of the Month award from MarketWatch.
USA Today | Mortgage delinquencies to remain high in 2013
If not for all the homeowners who haven't paid their mortgages in more than a year, the nation's home loan delinquency rate would be only slightly higher than normal, shows new research from credit monitor TransUnion.
CNN Money | Treasury sells remaining AIG shares
The Treasury Department said Tuesday it had agreed to sell the last of its shares in insurer AIG, resulting in what it says is a $22.7 billion profit on one of the key bailouts of the 2008 financial crisis.
Market Watch | Birth rates, migration expected to drop: Census
The population is expected to grow much more slowly over the next several decades as both the levels of births and net international migration fall.
Econ Comments & Analysis
Real Clear Markets | It's a Fact That Politicians Wreck Work Incentives
Despite gains in employment and a drop in the jobless rate in November, the labor force data released Friday were disturbing. They showed a drop of 350,000 in the number of people in the labor force, a big decline for one month and an extension of a troubling trend.
Real Clear Markets | Whom Do You Trust? A Bond Salesman or Government Official?
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the notorious government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs), had before their failure very high leverage and very small capital ratios, with credit risk of about 60 times their capital. Yet together they were able to borrow $5 trillion from buyers of their bonds and mortgage-backed securities around the world.
Washington Times | Apple’s made-in-U.S.A. plan fuels wishful thinking
Sorry to spoil the party, but I am completely unimpressed with Apple’s announcement last week that it will resume manufacturing some computers in the United States next year. I’m even less impressed with the larger narrative continually fed by such news for months — that America is reclaiming from an over-the-hill China the mantle of global industrial leadership.
CBO | CBO Releases a Report on Supplemental Security Income
In fiscal year 2013, more than 8 million people will receive Supplemental Security Income (SSI) payments at a federal cost of about $53 billion, CBO estimates.
Blogs
Heritage Foundation | Trade Deficit Increase Not Necessarily a Bad Thing
The U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) announced today that imports and exports both declined in October while the overall trade deficit increased.
Market Watch | U.S. economy may gain traction by half-time in 2013: Moody’s Analytics
The U.S. economy will temporarily go over the fiscal cliff, before lawmakers come under enough pressure to force them to reach a comprehensive agreement, according to Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics.
Café Hayek | Interviewed by James Pethokoukis
Jim Pethokoukis interviewed me for Ricochet about the economy, Alan Greenspan’s confession, and the what economics has to say about policy.
Political Calculations | Record Dividends as the U.S. Creeps Deeper Toward Recession
According to S&P's latest Monthly Dividend Action Report [Excel spreadsheet], the month of November 2012 was a record month that saw some 3,327 U.S. companies make some kind of declaration involving their dividends (that's not the record!)
Greg Mankiw | The Poverty Trap in France
Let’s take an unemployed mother living alone with two children between six and 10 years old. In 2010, there were 284,445 French families in this situation that were on welfare.
