News
WSJ | U.S. Land Gets More Expensive
A year ago, Nate Nathan, an Arizona land broker, struggled in vain to sell several hundred home sites in Vistancia, a new-home community about 15 miles from downtown Phoenix. He listed the lots for $54,000 apiece, but no buyers would offer more than $45,000.
FOX Business | OECD: Growth Picking Up in Most Major Economies
Growth is picking up in most industrialised countries, including in the euro zone, the OECD said on Wednesday, with the United States leading the way.
Bloomberg | Home Prices Seen Falling in Some Areas as Rates Increase
Home prices are climbing too fast relative to buyer incomes, signaling that property values may fall in some U.S. cities once mortgage rates rise and reduce affordability, according to a study by Zillow Inc. (Z)
WSJ | Lenders Used Aid to Repay TARP
A number of small banks used $2.1 billion in government cash intended to boost small-business lending to repay bailout funds from the financial crisis, a government watchdog said Tuesday in a report that also concluded the banks lent less money than firms that didn't take bailout aid.
Washington Post | IMF’s LaGarde worries about economic recovery ‘fatigue’ in Eurozone, mandatory US budget cuts
The head of the International Monetary Fund says the greatest threat to a lasting economic recovery in Europe is “the fatigue of both governments and populations” over painful steps already taken to boost growth and combat national debt.
Econ Comments & Analysis
WSJ | The Pension Rate-of-Return Fantasy
It has been said that an actuary is someone who really wanted to be an accountant but didn't have the personality for it. See who's laughing now. Things are starting to get very interesting, actuarially-speaking.
Washington Times | Reinflating the housing bubble
There is evidently no idea bad enough and no failure severe enough to stop the government from trying it once again. In myopia remarkable even by abysmal government standards, the White House is pushing for policies that fueled the housing bubble, which burst a mere five years ago.
Real Clear Markets | President Obama Trumpets 'Financial Capability' While Undermining It
The President proclaimed April to be National Financial Capability Month, a new twist on what used to be called financial literacy month. Who can argue with wanting to make sure that people have "access to the information and tools that empower them to operate safely and smartly in the marketplace"?
AEI | The cost of capital
Last week, President Obama called on banks to increase lending. Banks don’t need that call — the president’s regulators do. That’s because tighter lending is the unintentional but direct result of the Dodd-Frank Act and the Obama administration’s own priorities.
Blogs
Economist | How Mrs Thatcher smashed the Keynesian consensus
In March 1981, 364 eminent British economists published a letter to Margaret Thatcher in The Times condemning her plans to hike taxes even as her monetarist attack on inflation plunged the economy ever deeper into recession.
