News
Bloomberg | Chinese Manufacturing Gauges Fall as Slowdown Persists
Two gauges of China’s manufacturing fell in June, underscoring a sustained slowdown in the nation’s economy as policy makers seek to rein in financial speculation and real-estate prices.
FOX Business | Europe's Economic Downturn Eases, Asia Falters
Europe's prolonged economic decline may have stabilised and even rebounded in some areas, business surveys showed on Monday, although Asia exhibited signs of slowing as global demand wanes.
BLoomberg | Citigroup to Pay $968 Million to Fannie Mae on Faulty Loans
Citigroup Inc. (C), the third-largest U.S. bank by assets, agreed to pay Fannie Mae $968 million to settle claims tied to more than a decade’s worth of defective home loans sold to the taxpayer-backed mortgage firm.
CNN Money | U.S. manufacturing resumes expansion
U.S. manufacturing activity expanded in June after it had contracted the previous month, according to a report released Monday.
Bloomberg | Construction Spending in U.S. Rises, Led by Residential Projects
Construction spending in the U.S. climbed in May, led by the strongest expenditures on residential projects in more than four years.
CNBC | 'Unprecedented' $80 Billion Pulled From Bond Funds
A record amount of money poured out of exchange-traded and mutual bond funds in June, according to a fresh report by TrimTabs, nearly double the amount pulled out of bond funds at the height of the financial crisis in October 2008.
Econ Comments & Analysis
Fortune | Only the wealthy feel economic recovery
One reason Ben Bernanke might be thinking it's time for the Federal Reserve to pull back on its stimulus efforts could be American consumers.
Washington Post | Housing finance reform is off to a promising start
Few tasks facing Congress are more necessary than housing finance reform. The Fannie Mae-Freddie Mac debacle cost taxpayers tens of billions of dollars and left the mortgage market in government-controlled limbo.
FOX Business | Rising Mortgage Rates: Straw that Breaks the Recovery's Back?
With the unemployment rate still sitting at 7.6% and economic growth at 1.8% for the first quarter, it seems the housing market is the backbone of the economic recovery—but its strength is about to be put to the test.
AEI | Too big to fail, forever
Over the past three decades, the U.S. financial system has suffered a nasty financial shock every half dozen years or so, on average. And each incarnation has been different — from the 1987 stock-market crash to the savings-and-loan crisis to the demise of Long-Term Capital Management to the Great Global Financial Crisis, which arguably began six years ago this summer with the collapse of two Bear Stearns hedge funds.
Blogs
Library of Economics | Why Don't Dying Firms Raise Prices?
"Demand is more elastic in the long-run than the short-run." It's a textbook truism. Implication: Raising prices is often a bad idea even if profits instantly rise. In the long-run, demand will get more elastic, and the price-gouging firm will discover that its behavior was penny-wise and pound-foolish.
