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Tuesday, November 6, 2012

General Economics

News                                                                                                                             
Market Watch | Weak big bank risk controls still a concern: FSB
Weak risk controls are still a concern at big global banks and supervision of the largest financial institutions needs to be strengthened, said the chairman of an international bank-regulation standard setter Monday.
CNN Money | Greece's misery won't end with bailout vote
Greece is back on investors' radar this week as its parliament agonizes over new austerity measures aimed at averting bankruptcy. But analysts believe the $17 billion package may buy only temporary relief for Athens as its debt burden continues to grow.
Market Watch | China to subsidize shale-gas development
China unveiled plans Monday to subsidize energy companies working to develop shale gas resources, a move seen by analysts as likely to help turn around a loss-making industry and potentially mark a bright spot in the nation’s drive for alternative energy sources.

Econ Comments & Analysis                                                                                            
WSJ | The FHA's November Surprise
The Department of Housing and Urban Development is scheduled to file its annual, independent actuarial report on the FHA this month, and market scuttlebutt is anticipating a big financial hole. The agency was careening toward a taxpayer bailout earlier this year until the feds and state Attorneys General plugged the hole with about $1 billion from a $25 billion bank settlement.
Washington Times | BOLTON: Restoring American global pre-eminence
The Constitution entrusts the bulk of foreign- and defense-policy decision-making to the executive, but Congress has ample responsibilities in budget and oversight matters to ensure that any administration is held accountable.
WSJ | Dodd-Frank's Financial Outsourcing
But a real-life Obama policy is already encouraging financial transactions to occur outside America. Two big international banks now say they won't participate in the U.S. swaps market.
Washington Times | RAHN: Congressional control as important as White House
The president often is blamed for the deficit by folks on both the right and the left, but under the Constitution, it is those in Congress who must approve all taxing and spending, and thus they are directly responsible.

Blogs                                                                                                                             
Econlog | FDA Breaks Its Own Regulations
Most people believe that the FDA needs to ensure that the medicines we Americans consume have been proven to be safe and effective long before we ever get a chance to use them.
AEI | Income inequality and education
OK, so let’s say you are really worried about rising income inequality. How, exactly, would the Buffett rule or raising taxes on private equity investors address this problem?
NRO: The Corner | Another Failed Promise: Obama Edition
But one of the biggest failures of this administration is that the president never delivered on the promise to put an end to the unhealthy marriage between the private sector and the government, as well as the terrible incentives to pass bad laws and the corruption of public officials that are born from such a shameful union.

Health Care

Econ Comments & Analysis                                                                                            
NBER | The Most Egalitarian of All Professions: Pharmacy and the Evolution of a Family-Friendly Occupation
Pharmacy has become a female-majority profession that is highly remunerated with a small gender earnings gap and low earnings dispersion relative to other occupations. We sketch a labor market framework based on the theory of equalizing differences to integrate and interpret our empirical findings on earnings, hours of work, and the part-time work wage penalty for pharmacists.

Blogs                                                                                                                             
Heritage Foundation | By the Numbers: Medicare Costs for Seniors to Rise Under President’s Plan
President Obama has planned in his 2013 budget proposal to increase income-related Part B and Part D premium coverage by 15 percent. As a result, out-of-pocket costs are expected to rise by 2017 under the president’s budget proposal.

Monetary

News                                                                                                                             
Market Watch | Fed's Williams sees no asset bubbles from QE
The Federal Reserve's latest round of bond buying has not led to asset bubbles, John Williams, the president of the San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank, said Monday.

Blogs                                                                                                                             
Coordination Problem | Type the Title You Want People to See
Although there are a few people who deliberately advocate a continuous upward movement of prices, the chief source of the existing inflationary bias is the general belief that deflation, the opposite of inflation, is so much more to be feared that, in order to keep on the safe side, a persistent error in the direction of inflation is preferable.

Taxes

Econ Comments & Analysis                                                                                            
AEI | Extend Bush-era tax cuts to spur economy
In August 2009, Mr. Obama warned against raising taxes in an economic downturn since it "would just ... take more demand out of the economy and put business further in a hole." Now, he must heed his own advice.

Employment

Econ Comments & Analysis                                                                                            
WSJ | A Part-Time, Low-Wage Epidemic
The number of Americans now working part time has soared to 8.3 million—up 313,000 in the past two months alone. With economic growth declining or stagnant for quarter after quarter, many companies feel it is too risky to take on people full time.

Blogs                                                                                                                             
Political Calculations | Public or Private Sector Workers: Who's Doing Finer After Four Years?
By and large, when a recession happens, it's mainly the private sector who gets hit the hardest. We can see that clearly in the two most recent recessions, where the numbers of people who work for the public sector in the U.S. rose despite the poor economic situation in the nation.

Budget

Econ Comments & Analysis                                                                                            
Bloomberg | If You Want to Save Greece, Stop Lending It Money
The Greek rescue program is seriously derailed. By the end of this year, the economy will be a fifth smaller than it was five years ago, and the government is forecasting another 4.5 percent decline in 2013. This figure may once again prove overly optimistic.