General Economics

News                                                                                                                             
Bloomberg | Economic Expansion in U.S. Has Been Stronger, More Irregular
The recovery from the worst U.S. recession in the post-World War II era has been stronger than previously estimated. It’s also been more uneven.
Market Watch | Chicago PMI edges up in July, reports say
Chicago PMI, or the Chicago business barometer as it's formally called, accelerated a bit in July, according to published reports Wednesday.
Market Watch | The new GDP methodology: What you need to know
The Commerce Department has made changes to how it calculates gross domestic product, designed to have the data better reflect the so-called knowledge economy. The U.S. government adjusted data all the way back to 1929, and other countries have or are about to make similar changes to their data.
Bloomberg | American Dream Slipping as Homeownership at 18-Year Low
The U.S. homeownership rate, which soared to a record high 69.2 percent in 2004, is back where it was two decades ago, before the housing bubble inflated, busted and ripped more than 7 million Americans from their homes.

Econ Comments & Analysis                                                                                            
Real Clear Markets | Housing Finance Reform: Fool Me Once Shame On You, Fool Me Twice Shame On Me
In 1992 Congress enacted a bill to regulate Government Sponsored Enterprises (GSEs) Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Called the "Federal Housing Enterprises Financial Safety and Soundness Act" (the Safety and Soundness Act), its ostensible goal was to protect taxpayers.
Fortune | U.S. pay raises: Not so hot, but outpacing inflation
Maybe your latest raise hasn't got you breaking out the bubbly, but cheer up. It probably still beats what managers are getting in some other countries.

Blogs                                                                                                                             
WSJ | Five Takeaways From GDP Report
Appearances can be deceiving. The 1.7% pace of growth in the second quarter is markedly better than the roughly 1% rate economists expected, and well ahead of the most pessimistic estimates.
Library of Economics | The Economics of Self-Imposed Price Ceilings
About once every two weeks, I drive to Costco for my favorite fast food per dollar: the famous Costco hotdog. It's priced, along with a soda with free refills, at $1.50 plus tax. In Sand City, California, my local Costco, the tax-inclusive price is $1.62.
WSJ | Highlights From GDP’s 83 Years of Revisions
Comprehensive revisions to the country’s economic growth measures were released Wednesday by the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Economic Analysis, an exercise the agency undertakes every five years.

Health Care

News                                                                                                                             
CNN Money | Government shutdown won't shut Obamacare: Report
The new health care law draws funding from sources that are not subject to the congressional budget process, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service. Also, the revenue collected under Obamacare is considered to be part of a category that ensures the "safety of human life or the protection of property," which makes it immune to government shutdowns, the report said.

Econ Comments & Analysis                                                                                            
WSJ | How ObamaCare Hurts Patients
President Obama promised to mend the failings in the American health-care system, and yet for cancer treatment, ObamaCare is taking a rotten feature of the old system and making it worse.
NBER | Evidence for Significant Compression of Morbidity In the Elderly U.S. Population
The question of whether morbidity is being compressed into the period just before death has been at the center of health debates in the United States for some time.
CATO | Defunding Obamacare: Worth a Try
After a summer of relative quiet on the fiscal front, Congress is approaching two deadlines that will be vital not just in terms of the U.S. economy, but for the future of the Republican party as well.
Heritage Foundation | Defunding Obamacare: The Next Best Option
Congressional opponents of Obamacare continue to search for the best approach to relieve the American public of the unpopular law’s burdens. Of course, the ideal solution is Obamacare’s full repeal. However, short of its full repeal, Congress’s best option is to defund the entire law to prevent its implementation.

Blogs                                                                                                                             
CATO | CBO: One-Year Delay of Employer Mandate Increases Spending, Debt, and Dependence
The Congressional Budget Office has released its cost estimate of the Obama administration’s one-year repeal delay of ObamaCare’s employer mandate and anti-fraud provisions. The CBO expects the Obama administration’s unilateral rewriting of federal law (my words, not CBO’s) will increase federal spending by $3 billion in 2014 and reduce federal revenues by a net $9 billion, thereby increasing the federal debt by $12 billion.

Monetary

News                                                                                                                             
Bloomberg | Following Bernanke Means Using Precedent of Unprecedented Policy
The success of the next Federal Reserve chairman, be it Janet Yellen, Lawrence Summers or someone else, will depend less on their grounding in monetary policy orthodoxy than on their readiness to reach beyond it.
Bloomberg | Fed’s Debit-Card Swipe-Fee Rules Rejected by U.S. Judge
The Federal Reserve disregarded Congress’s intent when deciding how much banks can charge merchants for debit-card transactions, a judge ruled, rejecting Dodd-Frank-imposed regulations governing “swipe” fees.

Blogs                                                                                                                             
WSJ | What to Expect From Fed Today
The Federal Reserve wraps up its latest policy-meeting today. The bottom line: The Fed may tweak the wording of its policy statement to reflect comments that Chairman Ben Bernanke has made since its last policy meeting in June, but officials are unlikely to actually announce any policy shifts.

Taxes

News                                                                                                                             
Politico | Senators vague on tax-break cuts
Indiana Democratic Sen. Joe Donnelly’s proposal was three paragraphs long. Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) called for major tax cuts without explaining how to finance them. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) skipped it altogether.
Washington Post | Obama’s plan to link corporate tax reform, jobs spending is quickly rejected by GOP
President Obama on Tuesday proposed spending more on creating jobs in exchange for an overhaul of business taxes. But the idea quickly devolved into the type of partisan finger-pointing that shows why any agreement will be so difficult.

Econ Comments & Analysis                                                                                            
Washington Times | Marketplace fairness deception
The deceptively named Marketplace Fairness Act, H.R. 684, currently being considered in Washington would change these principles. It would create a new requirement for online retailers to charge taxes based on where a consumer lives or where he intends to use the product purchased. That’s like requiring any retailer to “card” customers, find out where they live, and then charge them that sales tax at the checkout counter. What a nightmare — for everyone involved.
WSJ | Obama's 'Grand Bargain' With Obama
In Chattanooga on Tuesday, the latest stop on his economic inequality tour, President Obama made himself an offer he couldn't refuse. If Congressional Republicans agree to a corporate tax increase, he said, then he'll agree to spend more money on his favorite public-works projects. If Republicans bargain hard, will he also offer an expansion of ObamaCare as a sweetener?

Employment

News                                                                                                                             
CNN Money | Private sector jobs growth stronger than expected
Private firms added 200,000 jobs in July, according to a report Wednesday from the payroll processing firm ADP. That's up slightly from an additional 198,000 jobs in June.
Bloomberg | Employment Costs in U.S. Rose Above Forecast in Second Quarter
Employment expenses in the U.S. grew faster than forecast in the second quarter as private industry spent more on wages.
CNN Money | Eurozone's employment crisis might have peaked
The eurozone -- plagued in recent years by sky-high joblessness and rampant youth unemployment -- might be turning a corner.

Econ Comments & Analysis                                                                                            
Forbes | Would A Higher Minimum Wage Help McDonald's Workers?
In the recent fury over a proposed budget for low-wage workers circulated by McDonald’s, Forbes contributor Laura Shin asked “Will the McDonald’s Employee Budget help Get the Minimum Wage Raised?” I hope not, but not just for the sake of McDonald’s customers and shareholders. I hope not for the sake of McDonald’s workers and for the sake of low-wage workers everywhere.

Blogs                                                                                                                             
Heritage Foundation | Keystone XL Jobs vs. Subsidized Green Jobs
President Obama criticized the job estimate numbers from the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline in an interview with The New York Times over the weekend, but if the president wants to complain about job creation, he should really take a look as his failed green jobs programs.
WSJ | Students Make College Towns’ Poverty Look Worse
College students living in off-campus housing have been throwing off poverty measures, according to a new report.

Budget

News                                                                                                                             
Market Watch | Treasury will sell fewer notes this quarter
The Treasury Department said Wednesday it will sell fewer notes this quarter given the improvement in the fiscal outlook. A Treasury official said the department expects to gradually reduce the sizes of 2-year and 3-year notes between now and the end of September.

General Economics

News                                                                                                                             
Bloomberg | Euro-Area Economic Confidence Jumps to Highest in 15 Months
Economic confidence in the euro area improved for a third month in July, reaching the highest in 15 months and adding to indications the 17-nation currency bloc is emerging from a record-long recession.
CNN Money | Home prices keep soaring
Home prices continued to gain steam in May according to a closely-watched reading, even as mortgage rates climbed.
Bloomberg | Consumer Confidence Index in U.S. Fell to 80.3 in July
Confidence among U.S. consumers declined more than forecast in July after reaching a five-year high a month earlier as Americans grew more pessimistic about the outlook for the economy and employment.

Econ Comments & Analysis                                                                                            
Politico | Reform the ethanol mandate
The federal corn ethanol mandate is prima facie evidence that the law of unintended consequences is always in effect.
Businessweek | The Whole World Is Getting Richer, and That's Good News
This month the most accurate source for global data on the size of the world’s economies got a makeover. As a result, we have measures of economic growth and relative income across countries that are better than ever. These numbers suggest something surprising: a world of ubiquitously increasing wealth, where predictions of Malthusian traps and permanent poverty look increasingly archaic.
Fortune | Why the housing market could grow even if the economy slows
Home prices across America's 20 major cities in May climbed 12.2% higher from a year earlier, according to the S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price index, a widely watched gauge of the health of the U.S. housing market. This number was higher than most expected and the biggest annual gain since March 2006.
Mercatus | Regulatory Process, Regulatory Reform, and the Quality of Regulatory Impact Analysis
Regulatory impact analysis (RIA) has become a key element of the regulatory process in developed and developing nations alike. A thorough RIA identifies the potential market failure or other systemic problem a regulation is intended to solve, develops a variety of alternative solutions, and assesses the benefits and costs of those alternatives.
Heritage Foundation | A Guide to Understanding International Comparisons of Economic Mobility
International comparisons of economic mobility can be very helpful both in understanding patterns in one’s own country and in assessing social conditions and policy impacts, but they can also be misleading when used to rank mobility or economic opportunity in various countries.

Blogs                                                                                                                             
WSJ | A Look at Case-Shiller by Metro Area
Home prices extended a winning streak of year-over-year gains and two cities surpassed their prefinancial crisis peaks, according to the S&P/Case-Shiller indexes.

Health Care

Blogs                                                                                                                             
CATO | Obamacare: House Hearing on the IRS’s Illegal Taxing, Borrowing & Spending
As Jonathan Adler and I detail in our Health Matrix article, “Taxation Without Representation: The Illegal IRS Rule to Expand Tax Credits Under the PPACA,” the Obama administration is attempting to rescue Obamacare from oblivion by literally taxing, borrowing, and spending more than $700 billion without congressional authorization. In a recent letter to the editor of the Washington Post, I explain how these illegal taxes are already hurting workers. 
Heritage Foundation | How the Obamacare “Honor System” Will Encourage Fraud
Earlier this month, the Obama Administration—in a 600-plus page regulation—announced that for 2014, Obamacare insurance subsidies will essentially operate on the “honor system.” This will create incentives for fraud, as some applicants may report an income that is actually lower than their true income in order to qualify for the taxpayer-funded subsidy.

Monetary

News                                                                                                                             
Bloomberg | Bank Revenues Surge on Trading Over What Fed Will Do
Diverging monetary policies are creating ideal conditions for banks to make money from trading currencies as Credit Suisse Group AG (CSGN) to Goldman Sachs Group Inc. say rising volatility is boosting earnings.

Econ Comments & Analysis                                                                                            
AEI | End the Fed as we know it
Of possible Fed candidates, only former Obama White House economist Christina Romer has explicitly endorsed N.G.D.P. targeting, though it’s believed Janet Yellen is also a fan. Larry Summers, on the other hand, seems a bit dubious of Fed quantitative easing programs and the potency of monetary policy when rates are superlow.
WSJ | The Near-Zero Interest Rate Trap
The conventional critique of the Federal Reserve's policies of near-zero interest rates and massive monetary expansion is that they risk kindling excess aggregate demand and high inflation. Yet inflation world-wide remains low, and some major trading partners of the United States, such as Japan and now China, are worried about deflation. China's Producer Price Index fell 2.7% in June, the 16th consecutive monthly decline.
NBER | Deflation Risk
We study the nature of deflation risk by extracting the objective distribution of inflation from the market prices of inflation swaps and options.
American | Big Bureaucracy: The CFPB Turns 2
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is everything that both proponents and critics thought it would be, and that’s not a good thing.
Heritage Foundation | Damaging Dodd-Frank is Making Things Worse
It’s been three years since the passage of Dodd-Frank, Washington’s response to the housing market collapse, the failure of major financial firms, and the resulting shock to the economy in 2008. Are Americans better off today because of it?

Blogs                                                                                                                             
Market Watch | New York Times endorses Yellen for Fed post
The race for the top Federal Reserve post  between former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers and Fed Vice Chair Janet Yellen is looking more like a political campaign by the day.

Taxes

News                                                                                                                             
Politico | Max Baucus tax reform push at risk
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus’s effort to cement his legislative legacy with an overhaul of the Tax Code is at risk of faltering.
National Journal | Lawmakers, Lobbyists Push for New Tax Breaks Through Secret Process
The Senate's top tax writers' "blank slate" approach to tax reform was supposed to give Congress the chance to throw out all tax breaks and start fresh. Instead, lawmakers and lobbyists are using their confidential and off-the-record testimony and letters of support to ask for brand new or expanded tax breaks in addition to the old.

Econ Comments & Analysis                                                                                            
Market Watch | Obama to call for business tax overhaul
President Barack Obama on Tuesday will call for a restructuring of business taxes to generate revenue to fund job-creation programs.
Washington Times | The last days of the IRS
There has been much discussion about which banks and other financial institutions are “too big to fail.” In reality, no institution is too big to fail, including any private company or political entity, whether it is Detroit or the former Soviet Union. The more relevant question is, which institutions are “too big to succeed”?
Mercatus | Some Measures of the Progressiveness of the U.S. Tax Code
In 2013, federal income tax nonpayers were distributed throughout the earnings spectrum, with 32.2 percent of tax returns reporting less than $10,000 paying no income tax, and 33.0 percent of those making between $10,000 and $20,000 paying no income tax; the remaining 34.8 percent of Americans not paying income taxes were distributed throughout all income levels.

Employment

News                                                                                                                             
Gallup | In U.S., Fewer Young Adults Holding Full-Time Jobs in 2013
Fewer Americans aged 18 to 29 worked full time for an employer in June 2013 (43.6%) than did so in June 2012 (47.0%), according to Gallup's Payroll to Population employment rate. The P2P rate for young adults is also down from 45.8% in June 2011 and 46.3% in June 2010.
Bloomberg | Euro Jobless Rate Seen at Record Even as Recession Ends
Euro-region unemployment probably stayed at a record high in June even as the economy emerged from the longest recession since the single currency’s creation, economists said.
WSJ | Cities Begin Hiring Again
Cities across the U.S. are starting to hire new teachers, firefighters and police officers as a deep and prolonged slide in local-government employment appears to have bottomed out four years after the recession ended.

Econ Comments & Analysis                                                                                            
Fortune | America's hourly wage battle heats up
Thousands of low-wage workers in several cities are planning a walkout this week to demand bigger paychecks.

Budget

News                                                                                                                             
Politico | Is a grand bargain out of reach?
They’ve been wined and dined by President Barack Obama, spoken repeatedly with the White House chief of staff and met privately in the Capitol.

Econ Comments & Analysis                                                                                            
Investors | Sorry, Secretary Lew, But Soaring Debt Is A Real Crisis — Not A 'False' One
Treasury Secretary Jack Lew calls concerns over federal debt a "false crisis." Like someone falling out of an airplane who refuses to realize he'll soon hit the ground, Lew is deluding himself — and us.

Blogs                                                                                                                             
Heritage Foundation | Student Loans: College Costs Will Continue to Rise
Last week, the Senate passed a bill that would peg interest rates on federal student loans to Washington’s cost of borrowing (the Treasury rate) plus 2.05 percent. The bill also caps interest rates at 8.25 percent in the event they rise in the coming years. The House has praised the move, meaning it is likely to become the law.

General Economics

News                                                                                                                             
CNN Money | JPMorgan to exit commodities businesses
JPMorgan said Friday it is exiting the business of owning physical commodities, including electricity, oil and aluminum.
WSJ | Scientists Envision Fracking in Arctic and on Ocean Floor
Scientists in Japan and the U.S. say they are moving closer to tapping a new source of energy: methane hydrate, a crystalline form of natural gas found in Arctic permafrost and at the bottom of oceans.
Washington Times | Economy hums along, proves taxing and spending prognosticators wrong
The U.S. economy has fared better than expected this year after widespread fears that $85 billion of automatic spending cuts and sharp increases in taxes imposed at the beginning of the year would snuff out growth.
CNBC | Obama says income gap is fraying US social fabric
In a week when he tried to focus attention on the struggles of the middle class, President Obama said in an interview that he was worried that years of widening income inequality and the lingering effects of the financial crisis had frayed the country’s social fabric and undermined Americans’ belief in opportunity.

Econ Comments & Analysis                                                                                            
Market Watch | Half full or half empty? Jobs and GDP differ
GDP says U.S. growth is subpar, but the monthly jobs report suggests the economy is on the upswing. What’s an investor to do?
Forbes | For The Sake Of The Economy, Obama Should Keep His Eye Off Of The Ball
Last Wednesday in Illinois, President Obama unwittingly explained how economies grow. Our 44th president asserted without a hint of irony that “Washington has taken its eye off the ball.” Exactly!
Washington Post | Bankrupt Detroit needs to reinvent itself
If nothing else, Detroit’s bankruptcy marks the symbolic closure of an era when heavy industry dominated the U.S. economy and, through its factories, the United States dominated the world. We think of our time as a period of wrenching change, but it’s not in the same league as the tumultuous transformations of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
FOX Business | It Isn’t You: The Economy Still Stinks
Did you listen to President Obama’s speech on the economy the other day? No? Me neither. At least not much of it. What little I could stomach sounded like the same old partisan politics, pointless policies, finger pointing, and pandering to middle-class voters.
NBER | Family Welfare Cultures
Strong intergenerational correlations in various types of welfare use have fueled a long standing debate over whether welfare dependency in one generation causes welfare dependency in the next generation.
AEI | Fact-free 'middle out economics'
Here’s how Obama rewrites economic history: The shared national purpose of World War II was followed by a golden age of shared prosperity in the 1950s and 1960s. Unions were strong, taxes high, pension benefits guaranteed — thanks to a grand egalitarian bargain between Big Government, Big Business, and Big Labor. “But over time, that bargain began to fray,” Obama said.

Blogs                                                                                                                             
WSJ | Children With Parents on Government Assistance More Likely to Become Dependent
Does dependence on government assistance in one generation cause dependency in the next? A new economics paper suggests it does.
WSJ | IMF: Manufacturing Could Lift Long-Term U.S. Growth
A resurgent manufacturing sector is poised to lift long-term U.S. growth if exporters can capture a bigger share of fast-growing Asian markets, the International Monetary Fund said Friday.

Health Care

News                                                                                                                             
Politico | Mississippi Insurance Commissioner’s Affordable Care Act plan
After suffering through a high-profile intraparty squabble with the governor and averting a near disaster for the state’s insurance marketplace, Mississippi Insurance Commissioner Mike Chaney is giving another go at running an Obamacare exchange.
WSJ | More Doctors Steer Clear of Medicare
Fewer American doctors are treating patients enrolled in the Medicare health program for seniors, reflecting frustration with its payment rates and pushback against mounting rules, according to health experts.

Econ Comments & Analysis                                                                                            
WSJ | The Affordable Care Act's Rate-Setting Won't Work
Continuing efforts by congressional Republicans to "defund" further implementation of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, even if it takes shutting down the federal government, are willfully destructive. As Sen. Richard Burr (R., N.C.) told the press last week, "I think it's the dumbest idea I've ever heard . . . as long as Barack Obama is president the Affordable Care Act is gonna be law."

Monetary

News                                                                                                                             
Bloomberg | ECB Board Members Call for Publication of Meeting Minutes
Two European Central Bank Executive Board members said the minutes from policy meetings should be published, adding to signs the ECB may soon follow other major central banks in taking the step to increase transparency.
CNN Money | Dollar coin advocates renew push to replace dollar bill
People who want to replace the flimsy dollar bill with a sturdier metal coin are pushing their cause again.
Forbes | Investors who love QE should fear Larry Summers
One of Obama's top choices of the next head of the Federal Reserve has some reservations about current monetary policy.
Bloomberg | Investors Are Lab Rabbits in Central Bank Experiments
The European Central Bank and Bank of England are emulating Ben S. Bernanke’s experiment in offering monetary-policy guidance to financial markets. Investors could well end up being the guinea pigs.

Econ Comments & Analysis                                                                                            
Market Watch | Bernanke’s lame-duck status having policy impact
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke’s perceived lame-duck status adds a wild card for markets trying to understand monetary policy, as the central bank prepares to meet this week.
Politico | Pulling the plug on failed financial institutions
The legislation we supported in 2010 does create death panels. But they found them in the wrong place. The U.S. federal government now has the power to terminate the lives of large, heavily indebted financial institutions — not frail, gravely ill old people.
NY Times | Not Too Big to Fail
New rules on bank capital, recently proposed by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and other bank regulators, are a welcome step toward a safer and sounder financial system. And they come at a politically timely moment. Big banks invariably argue that new rules will impede their ability to thrive and, in the process, harm the economy. But their profits are soaring, even as the economy slows, a situation that makes their shopworn anti-regulatory argument all the more threadbare.

Blogs                                                                                                                             
Economist | The new monetary ideology
Quantitative easing, which almost no one had heard of five years ago, is the great new discovery in macroeconomic policy. Policymakers put their faith in it as the engine of recovery; variations in the quantity of money supplied by the central bank has graduated from an emergency measure to a permanent tool.

Taxes

Econ Comments & Analysis                                                                                            
Heritage Foundation | Expanding Education Choices: From Vouchers and Tax Credits to Savings Accounts
Education is on the verge of a new frontier. Online virtual schools are spreading around the country, and charter schools now account for some 2 million students. Parents are able to find hundreds of educational applications on an iPad or use programs such as Skype or instant messaging to find tutoring programs for their children anywhere in the world.

Employment

News                                                                                                                             
CNN Money | Amazon hiring 7,000 workers
Amazon announced plans Monday to hire 7,000 workers for its U.S. operation, with most jobs offering pay and benefits far above typical retail wages, the company said.

Econ Comments & Analysis                                                                                            
WSJ | Keystone Contradictions
As President Obama continues his income inequality tour, the contradictions multiply. In the latest example, the President disparaged the number of jobs that would be created by the Keystone XL pipeline even as laments the lack of opportunities for the middle class.

Blogs                                                                                                                             
Heritage Foundation | Green Jobs: Surely You’re Joking, Mr. President
In his speech at Knox College, President Obama laid out his plan for the Detroitification of America: higher taxes, higher spending, increased minimum wages, more mandates, and rerouting the path of upward mobility through tried-and-failed social programs.

Budget

News                                                                                                                             
WSJ | Grand Bargain Eludes Budget Negotiations
Top White House officials are stepping up meetings with Senate Republicans in hopes of averting a deadline-driven clash over federal spending this fall, according to people familiar with the sessions. But the two sides remain far apart on basic questions of whether to raise tax revenue and how to rein in the cost of Medicare.

Econ Comments & Analysis                                                                                            
CRS | An Examination of Student Loan Interest Rate Proposals in the 113th Congress
The interest rates that borrowers pay on federal student loans made through the William D. Ford Federal Direct Loan program are specified in statutory language of the Higher Education Act of 1965, as amended. For the past two years, one type of loan—Direct Subsidized Loans—has been made with a fixed interest rate of 3.4%.

Blogs                                                                                                                             
Heritage Foundation | Sequestration “Meat Cleaver” Is Really a Scalpel
In his speech yesterday, President Barack Obama referred to sequestration as a “meat cleaver” again, when news reports in fact show that the cuts have been much more targeted and much less devastating than he claims.

General Economics

News                                                                                                                             
Bloomberg | Consumer Sentiment in U.S. Increases to Six-Year High July
Consumer confidence unexpectedly increased in July to the highest level in six years as Americans’ views of their finances improved.
National Journal | The Surprisingly Simple Solution to Underwater Mortgages
Step One: Buy delinquent mortgages. Step Two: Actually work with homeowners to modify loans.
CNN Money | CBO: Cancel spending cuts now, boost economy in short run
The economy could get a modest boost if Congress cancels the across-the-board budget cuts known as the sequester, according to new estimates from the Congressional Budget Office.
Bloomberg | China Cuts Capacity in Some Industries to Reshape Economy
China ordered more than 1,400 companies in 19 industries to cut excess production capacity this year, part of efforts to shift toward slower, more-sustainable economic growth.
AEI | Germany's 5 awkward economic truths
An unfortunate characteristic of modern day electoral campaigns is that they rarely provide the electorate with a frank discussion of the major policy issues.

Econ Comments & Analysis                                                                                            
Forbes | Economic Success Isn't Achieved Just By Working Hard, Mr. President
Like lamenting against your ongoing inability to levitate, as hard as you work at it, you’re going to be lamenting for a long time, Mr. President, if you think the lack of economic progress by the middle class is going to change under your policies.   Such will be the case when you fundamentally fail to understand where economic success comes from.
Fiscal Times | Why Detroit’s Economic Ills Are Not Contagious
Don’t believe the hype that Detroit’s filing for bankruptcy last week will trigger a wave of municipal copycats.
Fortune | The rise of the mooching millennial
Until recently, hedge funds and private equity firms drove the U.S. housing market's recovery, buying a shrinking pool of foreclosed and distressed homes to rent. It seemed like a lucrative investment, given that rents were rising while homeownership fell to record lows.
Real Clear Markets | As A Society We're Better Off For Detroit's Collapse
Owing largely to quirks in the inherent physics of electrified communication, largely related to power issues and signal decay, there developed a two-stage system of telephony inside the United States.
Washington Times | Lowered expectations for the Obama economy
In the fifth year of Barack Obama’s presidency, America’s job-starved economy remains weak, insecure and undernourished.

Blogs                                                                                                                             
Library of Economics | Paul Krugman: The Average Family is Materially Much Better Off
This conclusion is controversial. Some people are upset because any reduction of inflation estimates will reduce Social Security benefits, which are indexed to the CPI. Others are upset because a revision of recent price history would mean abandoning a worldview on which they have staked their reputations.

Health Care

News                                                                                                                             
Politico | Michael Burgess warns of Obamacare enrollment fallout
Overeager Obamacare boosters could put the law’s first customers in a tight spot, a House Republican warned Thursday.

Econ Comments & Analysis                                                                                            
WSJ | Surgeons Eyed Over Deals With Medical-Device Makers
Ten months after an Afghan-born surgeon named Aria Sabit arrived in Ventura, Calif., local hospital staffers noticed he suddenly developed a preference for an obscure brand of spinal implants for many of his surgeries. Soon his volume of operations increased, with sometimes-tragic results.

Monetary

News                                                                                                                             
CNN Money | Dollar coin advocates renew push to replace dollar bill
People who want to replace the flimsy dollar bill with a sturdier metal coin are pushing their cause again.
Market Watch | Japan registers inflation for June; yen slips
Japan's consumer prices managed to register mild inflation in June compared with a year earlier, data out Friday from the Finance Ministry showed. The core consumer price index, which excludes volatile fresh-food costs, rose 0.4% from June 2012, though it was unchanged compared to May's levels.

Blogs                                                                                                                             
Economist | The new monetary ideology
Quantitative easing, which almost no one had heard of five years ago, is the great new discovery in macroeconomic policy. Policymakers put their faith in it as the engine of recovery; variations in the quantity of money supplied by the central bank has graduated from an emergency measure to a permanent tool.

Taxes

News                                                                                                                             
CNN Money | Tax reform proposals to be secret for 50 years
Tax reform is apparently so treacherous for senators these days that they require the utmost protection from the public -- half a century's worth.

Econ Comments & Analysis                                                                                            
WSJ | Reid to Tax Reform: Drop Dead
'We need tax reform," said Harry Reid on Thursday, by which he meant we don't need tax reform. The Senate Majority Leader effectively killed a rewrite of the tax code for this Congress by decreeing that it must be conducted "under the total understanding that it can't be revenue-neutral.
CRS | Federal Tax Benefits for Manufacturing: Current Law, Legislation in the 113th Congress, and Arguments For and Against Federal Assistance
Sparked in part by public statements by President Obama in favor of greater federal support for advanced manufacturing, a lively debate over whether additional federal assistance should be provided for manufacturing is taking place among policy analysts and lawmakers.

Blogs                                                                                                                             
CATO | Entrepreneurs and Capital Gains Taxes
The higher capital gains taxes that were recently enacted risk killing off future Apples and Amazons, which we will need to power tomorrow’s economic growth.

Employment

Blogs                                                                                                                             
Heritage Foundation | Obamacare Continues to Cut Workers Hours
A Washington Post front-page story reported what many of us already know: The employer mandate in Obamacare is causing employers to cut workers’ hours as well as the number of workers they employ.

Budget

News                                                                                                                             
Politico | Fiscal Armageddon could remake Hill in 2014 elections
The 2014 midterm season is about to heat up – and President Barack Obama and his Democratic allies are eager to tag the GOP as the root cause of Washington dysfunction. The Republicans say they can ill afford another game of high-stakes brinksmanship in the looming negotiations over raising the debt ceiling and funding the government.
CNN Money | CBO: Cancel spending cuts now, boost economy in short run
The economy could get a modest boost if Congress cancels the across-the-board budget cuts known as the sequester, according to new estimates from the Congressional Budget Office.
Bloomberg | Greece Wins 2.5 Billion-Euro Aid Loan, Buying Time in Crisis
Greece won the release of a 2.5 billion-euro ($3.3 billion) loan installment to tide it through the coming weeks, as European governments put off debate over Greek debt relief until after Germany’s election in September.
CNBC | Municipal bonds 'hemorrhage' $1.2 billion on Detroit fears
Municipal bond funds saw outflows of $1.2 billion in the week ending July 24, on concern that Detroit's filing for bankruptcy - the largest in U.S. history - will set an important precedent and more cities could follow suit. It was the ninth consecutive week of outflows from the fund type.

General Economics

News                                                                                                                             
Bloomberg | Comfort Index Climbs as U.S. Economy Views Reach Five-Year High
Consumer confidence rose last week as an improving job market helped make Americans the least pessimistic about the economy in more than five years.
CNN Money | Housing markets where cash is king
"The U.S. housing market is slowly but surely moving toward a more normalized and sustainable pattern after a flurry of institutional and cash buyers flocked to residential real estate last year, pushing up prices and picking clean the best inventory available in many areas," said Daren Blomquist, vice president at RealtyTrac.
Bloomberg | Orders for U.S. Durable Goods Increase More Than Forecast
Orders for U.S. durable goods rose more than forecast in June, showing a pickup in demand that will help propel manufacturing and the economy in the second half of the year.
MSN Money | An unstable recovery built on debt
Don't be fooled by the huge run in the US stock market and the rebound in the housing market. The financial crisis never really ended, and its effects continue to roil the global economy.

Econ Comments & Analysis                                                                                            
WSJ | Facing Up to America's Pension Woes
Right after Detroit filed for bankruptcy under federal law last week, Michigan's Ingham County Circuit Judge Rosemarie Aquilina issued a set of rulings that attempted to stop the process cold—she worried that a bankruptcy would restructure Detroit city workers' pensions in violation of the state constitution.
Mercatus | The Government Has Your Data at Its Fingertips
As news broke about the Internal Revenue Service’s accidental disclosure of thousands of social security numbers online, a representative of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau testified before a subcommittee of the House Financial Services Committee about the CFPB’s use of Americans’ personal financial data.
WSJ | SEC Rules Will Clip the Wings of Angel Investors
Following through on a key provision of last year's JOBS Act, the Securities and Exchange Commission has ended the ban on the general solicitation of capital for privately offered securities. The agency's action is being hailed as a boon that will open the door for vast stores of money that entrepreneurs can use to start up new businesses and hire workers. More likely, the SEC's move could slam the door shut.
Forbes | 10 Reasons The Best Time To Start A Business Is During A Downturn
Recessions are hard times. People lose their jobs, companies get wound up, and the lucky ones take the losses from their cash reserves. While the U.S. may not technically be in a recession right now, there’s still plenty of uncertainty and talk about dark clouds on the horizon.
WSJ | The Inequality President
President Obama made his fourth or fifth, or maybe it's the seventh or eighth, pivot to the economy on Wednesday, and a revealing speech it was. We counted four mentions of "growth" but "inequality" got five. This goes a long way to explaining why Mr. Obama is still bemoaning the state of the economy five years into his Presidency.

Health Care

News                                                                                                                             
National Journal | Poll: Americans Broadly Doubt Obamacare Will Help Them
United Technologies/National Journal Congressional Connection Poll finds most people are increasingly skeptical that the health law will improve the country or aid anyone but the poor.
CNN Money | Who loses out under Obamacare
When the state-based insurance exchanges open next year under Obamacare, many Americans should finally have access to affordable insurance. But millions of others will most likely be left out in the cold and remain uninsured.
WSJ | New Health-Care Law's Success Rests on the Young
The success of the new health-care law rides in large measure on whether young, healthy people like Gabe Meiffren, a cook at a Korean-Hawaiian food cart, decide to give up a chunk of disposable income to pay for insurance.

Econ Comments & Analysis                                                                                            
WSJ | Unworkable ObamaCare
Remember when President Obama famously promised that if you like your health-care plan, you'll be able to keep your health-care plan? It was a brilliantly crafted political sound bite. Turns out, the statement is untrue.

Monetary

News                                                                                                                             
CNBC | Will rising rates start to sting stocks?
Wary of rising rates, stock traders will keep an eye on the bond market Thursday as another wave of earnings reports roll in.

Econ Comments & Analysis                                                                                            
CNN Money | You don't know as much about bonds as you think you do
Don't feel bad if you weren't aware of the recent plummet in long-term bond prices. Most everyone else missed it too.