News
Market Watch | Home values are up, but should you sell?
Many residential real estate markets finally seem to be getting better. In fact, some are getting a lot better. That means there are more people with hugely appreciated homes. If you fit into this category, please don’t sell without considering the heavy tax hit that would result.
Bloomberg | Best-Performing Fund Manager Sees U.S. Pipeline Growth
Kevin McCarthy, the world’s best- performing energy fund manager in the past year, stared at the tangle of tax-exempt partnerships and corporate parents that drive the U.S. oil and gas pipeline business and kept his cool.
CNN Money | There's a home price recovery... but it's really, really slow
Just about everybody agrees that the housing market is finally recovering -- but don't expect big price gains.
Market Watch | U.S. third-quarter productivity revised up to 2.9%
The increase in U.S. productivity in the third quarter was revised up to 2.9% from an initial reading of 1.9%, as companies generated more goods and services than originally estimated.
USA Today | Mortgage deduction is popular, but few claim it
Designed to boost homeownership, the mortgage interest deduction is one of the most popular provisions of the tax code. But Internal Revenue Service data show that only a quarter of tax filers claim it.
Bloomberg | Euro-Area Manufacturing, Services Contract for 10th Month
Euro-area services and manufacturing output shrank for a 10th month in November, suggesting the economy may struggle to pull out of a recession as governments toughen spending cuts to fight the sovereign-debt crisis.
Econ Comments & Analysis
CNN Money | The economy: What to expect in 2013
When you find yourself on a precipice, the standard advice for keeping calm is to not look down. Next year, don't look up.
Real Clear Markets | Now They Tell Us The Economy Is Weak?
Little noticed in President Obama's "fiscal cliff" plan is a demand for a huge new stimulus package. Wait! Wasn't he and everyone in the press telling us just before the election how the economy was gathering steam?
Forbes | Come On, President Obama, Your Economic Policies Aren't Even Keynesian
This election was brought to you by the letter “O” and the number 16 trillion, as Mitt Romney put it back in October, mocking Sesame Street.
Fortune | Municipal bonds: A train wreck waiting to happen
Investment-grade municipal bonds used to be Snooze City. You know, the kind of thing that we retail investors buy, stick into our portfolios, and then forget about. But these days, thanks to the Federal Reserve's holding down interest rates and the prospect of steeper income taxes facing top-bracket types, high-grade munis, which pay tax-free interest, have become insanely popular. And are a train wreck waiting to happen.
Real Clear Markets | It's Time For the FDIC To Stop Playing "TAG"
At the end of this month, a federal deposit insurance program created during the crisis and extended by Dodd-Frank is scheduled to come to an end. Under the so-called TAG (transaction account guarantee) program, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation provides unlimited insurance for noninterest-bearing transaction accounts, such as business checking accounts.
Market Watch | On the road to zero growth by 2050
Near zero economic growth by 2050? Yes, America’s economy is collapsing. Fast. Yes, the “most depressing forecast ever,” says InvestmentNews, trusted source for 90,000 professional financial advisers across America.
WSJ | The Underworked Public Employee
With state and local governments struggling to balance budgets in a still sluggish economy, government employment has fallen by 562,000 jobs since September 2008, a decline of 2.6%. In response, the Obama administration has called for more federal aid—on top of the $250 billion doled out in the 2009 Recovery Act—to help keep state and local government payrolls near prerecession levels.
Blogs
WSJ | Fourth Quarter Likely to Deliver Economic Lump of Coal
In a best-case scenario, the economy would be heading out of 2012 with enough momentum to offset the fiscal drag coming in 2013. But this is not a best-case scenario.
The Hill | Gohmert calls for replacing CBO with competitive scoring system
Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) on Tuesday called for the elimination of the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) as the sole scorer of congressional legislation and the creation of a new, competitive system that would open the job of scoring to several entities at once.
