News
CNN Money | Affording a home harder for average buyer
Stagnant incomes, higher home prices and climbing mortgage rates made affording a home a lot more difficult for the average homebuyer during the second quarter.
Bloomberg | Europe Growing Again Means Boost for Global Economy
The euro area is turning into more of a help than a hindrance for the world economy.
CNN Money | More mergers on the horizon
Following several years of relatively lackluster M&A activity, it now seems that market conditions are ripe for a new wave of deals.
Bloomberg | Rise in U.S. Retail Sales Points to Pickup in Spending
Retail sales rose in July for a fourth consecutive month, showing American households are regaining momentum as employment climbs.
MarketWatch | Business inventories flat in June
Business inventories were flat in June at a seasonally adjusted $1.65 trillion, according to data from the Commerce Department. Compared to a year ago, inventories were up 3.5%. May's inventories were revised to show a 0.1% drop instead of an initally reported 0.1% gain.
Econ Comments & Analysis
Politico | President Obama’s phony recovery
The truth may be more ingenious than most of us realize. Continued bickering serves as a distraction from what should be the biggest scandal of all: the phony recovery.
RCM | With Immigration, Congress Shouldn't Set Wages
Our immigration system is a mess that serves no one, least of all we Americans. The House bills have the potential to be giant leaps in the right direction.
CNN Money | The credit crunch is officially over
Banks are finally lending more than when Lehman fell, but much of the new lending is going to corporations.
Washington Times | PUGLIARESI: Obama’s Keystone pipe blockage
President Obama continues to delay approval for construction of the northern leg of the Keystone XL pipeline, a $5.3 billion project that would bring Canadian oil sands production to U.S. refineries on the Gulf Coast.
AEI | Government mortgage guarantees lead to bailouts
Given the spectacular failures of U.S. housing finance and the enormous cost to taxpayers of two massive bailouts in twenty years, the housing industry should be required to show why it needs government support again.
Blogs
Cato Institute | Welfare Can Make More Sense than Work
When residents in Connecticut consider getting a job, they assume they would be better off having a job than not. They’d be wrong. Because in Connecticut, it pays not to work.
Economist | Are we doomed?
If the trials of the last half decade yield one-tenth the intellectual dividend of those of the 1930s, then the world has good reason to expect the future to be quite a lot better than the past, in much the same way that the recent past is a world apart from the horrors of the 1930s.
MarketWatch | House Republicans have decided against a government shutdown, report says
House Republicans will not tread into a shutdown battle with the Obama White House, according to a report from conservative publication National Review.
WSJ: Real Time Economics | GDP Is, Like, Totally Overrated
Investors rely too heavily on the quarterly gross domestic product report to understand the current economy. And they’re not even looking at the right figures.
