News
Bloomberg | U.S. Outlook Revised by Moody’s to Stable on Deficit Reduction
The U.S.’s Aaa credit-rating outlook was revised to stable from negative by Moody’s Investors Service, which said the government’s debt trajectory has steadied with budget deficits narrowing.
Bloomberg | Microsoft Profit Misses Estimates Amid Surface Writedown
Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) fell the most in four years after fourth-quarter profit missed analysts’ projections by the biggest margin in at least a decade as demand weakens for personal computers running Windows.
Econ Comments & Analysis
Fortune | Why the spike in gas prices won't hurt spending
Most economists do not expect gas prices to reach the levels that typically force consumers to stop spending elsewhere.
Bloomberg | The Myth of China’s Economic Reform
Can we please have a moratorium on the word “Likonomics”? Premier Li Keqiang’s plans to overhaul the Chinese economy have hardly earned such a grand moniker yet.
AEI | Europe: It's going to get a lot worse before it gets any better
Shakespeare memorably wrote that when sorrows come, they come not as single spies but as battalions. He could very well have been writing about the current spate of political troubles in Europe’s beleaguered economic periphery. For there we now find the most dangerous aggregation of political troubles, which hardly bodes well for the long run survival of the euro.
Blogs
WSJ | Will Rising Mortgage Rates Halt The Housing Rebound?
Could rising mortgage rates derail the housing market’s slow healing? Economists in the latest Wall Street Journal survey are divided on the question. Among those surveyed, 40% said the rise “won’t have a noticeable effect,” 35.6% warned “it will slow sales” and 24.4% said “it will slow home-price gains.”
