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.
