News
Bloomberg | Productivity in U.S. Rises as Companies Try to Lower Costs
The productivity of U.S. workers rose in the first quarter as companies tried to contain labor costs.
Market Watch | Latvia approved for euro-zone membership
The European Commission on Wednesday gave the go-ahead for Latvia to adopt the euro in 2014, making the Baltic nation the 18th country to join the euro zone.
Washington Post | New report says US hasn’t seen expected ‘Great Recovery’ as economy continues to fall short
An economic forecast says the country’s expected “Great Recovery” hasn’t materialized and the economy’s fallen short of even normal growth.
CNBC | FHA's Worst-Case Losses May Be Even Worse: Issa
The Federal Housing Administration may have tried to hide the magnitude of losses it could face under the most severe economic shock, according to a congressional committee.
Econ Comments & Analysis
WSJ | The Path to Double Happiness
When President Barack Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping meet this week in California for an unusually private set of conversations, national-security issues are sure to dominate. Make no mistake: Whether, and how deeply, the two countries cooperate on North Korea and Iran will be an important test of their relationship.
Fortune | Closing the Fortune 500's emerging markets gap
Here's what companies really need to do to grow in emerging markets.
Market Watch | Japan's Abe unveils economic blueprint
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Wednesday unveiled a flood of fresh economic policies to revive his nation's economy, including plans to allow public pension funds to buy more stocks and creating special economic zones to spur foreign investment, according to reports.
AEI | Why Japan must join the TPP
If Japan really is “back,” as Prime Minister Shinzo Abe stated in Washington last February, the government must prove the long-term sustainability of Japan’s current short-term growth.
CATO | Asia’s Story of Growing Economic Freedom
The global financial crisis reinforced a sense that the world is "shifting East"—to Asia. The essential story of modern Asia is its unprecedented expansion of economic freedom, enabled by market liberalization. Economic freedom, however, remains substantially repressed across the region.
Blogs
Heritage Foundation | Social Security’s Unfunded Obligation Rises by $1 Trillion
Contrary to claims by cheerful news sources, Social Security’s deficit outlook is not “unchanged” or “no worse.” Social Security’s unfunded obligation rose by $1 trillion according to the latest trustees’ report.
Café Hayek | Capital-based Macroeconomics
My dear old friend, fellow Atlanta Braves fan, and mentor Roger Garrison – from whom I’ve learned more macroeconomics than I’ve learned from anyone else – discusses in this hour-long lecture, from last summer, the Austrian theory of the business cycle capital-based macroeconomics.
Wednesday, June 5, 2013
Health Care
News
Bloomberg | Most Doctors Don’t Meet U.S. Push for Electronic Records
Fewer than 1 in 10 doctors used electronic records last year to U.S. standards, according to a survey that shows the challenge facing a multibillion-dollar effort to digitize the health system for improved patient care.
Bloomberg | States to Lose $8.4 Billion Without Medicaid Expansion
Texas, Louisiana and 12 other U.S. states that are declining to expand Medicaid under President Barack Obama’s health overhaul will lose at least $8.4 billion in federal funding in 2016 alone, a study found.
Econ Comments & Analysis
Real Clear Markets | Diagnosing the Real Reasons For Reduced Healthcare Spending
Signs of a revival of the U.S. economy may remain mixed, but at least one sector is booming. There's a growth market for health economists scrambling to explain the reasons for a slowdown in the rate of national health spending in recent years. Unfortunately, too many of their diagnoses of the past and predictions for the future seem to track their political hopes and wishes more closely than the underlying evidence.
Bloomberg | Most Doctors Don’t Meet U.S. Push for Electronic Records
Fewer than 1 in 10 doctors used electronic records last year to U.S. standards, according to a survey that shows the challenge facing a multibillion-dollar effort to digitize the health system for improved patient care.
Bloomberg | States to Lose $8.4 Billion Without Medicaid Expansion
Texas, Louisiana and 12 other U.S. states that are declining to expand Medicaid under President Barack Obama’s health overhaul will lose at least $8.4 billion in federal funding in 2016 alone, a study found.
Econ Comments & Analysis
Real Clear Markets | Diagnosing the Real Reasons For Reduced Healthcare Spending
Signs of a revival of the U.S. economy may remain mixed, but at least one sector is booming. There's a growth market for health economists scrambling to explain the reasons for a slowdown in the rate of national health spending in recent years. Unfortunately, too many of their diagnoses of the past and predictions for the future seem to track their political hopes and wishes more closely than the underlying evidence.
Monetary
News
Politico | Foreign banks seek level field on derivatives
Foreign banks are hoping for a last-minute reprieve from the Federal Reserve and other banking regulators over new restrictions on how they run their U.S. derivatives businesses, after efforts to get Congress to come to their aid have been complicated by a broader fight over derivative market reforms.
Econ Comments & Analysis
Forbes | The Fed's Zero Interest Rate Policies Amount To A War On Jobs
It is easy to conclude that Federal Reserve policy has failed. Despite record low rates generated by massive purchases of government and mortgage back securities, economic growth is stuck below 2.5 percent and unemployment remains far from pre-recession levels.
CNN Money | Bill Gross: Hey Fed, your stimulus isn't working
The saying may go "Don't fight the Fed," but Bill Gross, founder and co-chief investment officer of bond giant Pimco, is challenging the Federal Reserve and other central banks around the world.
Blogs
WSJ | Inflation Slows Across Most Developed Countries
The annual rate of inflation across developed economies fell to its lowest level in three and a half years during April, a development that opens the way for leading central banks to continue to shore up weak growth through stimulus measures.
Politico | Foreign banks seek level field on derivatives
Foreign banks are hoping for a last-minute reprieve from the Federal Reserve and other banking regulators over new restrictions on how they run their U.S. derivatives businesses, after efforts to get Congress to come to their aid have been complicated by a broader fight over derivative market reforms.
Econ Comments & Analysis
Forbes | The Fed's Zero Interest Rate Policies Amount To A War On Jobs
It is easy to conclude that Federal Reserve policy has failed. Despite record low rates generated by massive purchases of government and mortgage back securities, economic growth is stuck below 2.5 percent and unemployment remains far from pre-recession levels.
CNN Money | Bill Gross: Hey Fed, your stimulus isn't working
The saying may go "Don't fight the Fed," but Bill Gross, founder and co-chief investment officer of bond giant Pimco, is challenging the Federal Reserve and other central banks around the world.
Blogs
WSJ | Inflation Slows Across Most Developed Countries
The annual rate of inflation across developed economies fell to its lowest level in three and a half years during April, a development that opens the way for leading central banks to continue to shore up weak growth through stimulus measures.
Taxes
News
CNN Money | Are you paying the iTunes tax?
If you live in one of the nearly 25 states that charge sales tax on digital goods or services you likely pay more for everything from downloaded music, e-books and ringtones to streaming TV shows and video.
WSJ | IRS Audit Details $4.1 Million Conference
The 2010 Internal Revenue Service employee conference that has drawn criticism paid $17,000 to a keynote speaker who drew pictures of the singer Bono and the physicist Albert Einstein to inspire IRS employees to free up their thought process and find creative solutions to challenges, according to a report released Tuesday.
Econ Comments & Analysis
Daily Caller | The fallacy of the ‘revenue neutral’ tax
The latest ruse by supporters of the Marketplace Fairness Act — more accurately described as an Internet sales tax mandate — is that raising taxes will actually result in making them lower. By allowing state governments to collect sales taxes on Internet purchases, they say, state governments will be able to lower or eliminate other taxes.
Heritage Foundation | CBO Report on “Tax Expenditures” Has It Wrong
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released a report on the distribution of “tax expenditures” that some are wrongly using to push for additional tax increases. This was inevitable because the report takes the wrong approach to the issue.
CNN Money | Are you paying the iTunes tax?
If you live in one of the nearly 25 states that charge sales tax on digital goods or services you likely pay more for everything from downloaded music, e-books and ringtones to streaming TV shows and video.
WSJ | IRS Audit Details $4.1 Million Conference
The 2010 Internal Revenue Service employee conference that has drawn criticism paid $17,000 to a keynote speaker who drew pictures of the singer Bono and the physicist Albert Einstein to inspire IRS employees to free up their thought process and find creative solutions to challenges, according to a report released Tuesday.
Econ Comments & Analysis
Daily Caller | The fallacy of the ‘revenue neutral’ tax
The latest ruse by supporters of the Marketplace Fairness Act — more accurately described as an Internet sales tax mandate — is that raising taxes will actually result in making them lower. By allowing state governments to collect sales taxes on Internet purchases, they say, state governments will be able to lower or eliminate other taxes.
Heritage Foundation | CBO Report on “Tax Expenditures” Has It Wrong
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released a report on the distribution of “tax expenditures” that some are wrongly using to push for additional tax increases. This was inevitable because the report takes the wrong approach to the issue.
Employment
News
CNN Money | ADP: Private sector job growth still weak
Companies continued to hire new employees in May, but job creation isn't keeping up with economists' expectations.
Washington Times | Senate immigration bill could double guest workers
The Senate immigration bill could nearly double the number of guest workers allowed into the U.S., according to a new analysis the Center for Immigration Studies is releasing Wednesday that says the jump is four times the increase of the last immigration bill in 2007.
CNN Money | ADP: Private sector job growth still weak
Companies continued to hire new employees in May, but job creation isn't keeping up with economists' expectations.
Washington Times | Senate immigration bill could double guest workers
The Senate immigration bill could nearly double the number of guest workers allowed into the U.S., according to a new analysis the Center for Immigration Studies is releasing Wednesday that says the jump is four times the increase of the last immigration bill in 2007.
Budget
News
Politico | Democrats seize on politics of budget
The newest exhibit in the Democrats’ case to voters that they are better stewards of the economy: the ongoing battle over what to do about the budget.
Bloomberg | U.S. Treasury Plans to Sell 30 Million More GM Shares
The U.S. Treasury Department announced plans to sell additional shares of General Motors Co. common stock on the eve of the automaker returning to the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index after a four-year absence.
Blogs
Roll Call | A Budget Bluff-Off, Four Months Before the Next Cliff Walk
The House is moving ahead with its plan to pass the year’s first two spending bills before going home for the weekend Thursday afternoon. There’s bipartisan agreement, albeit for different reasons, to ignore President Barack Obama’s warning that lawmakers are wasting valuable legislative time.
Politico | Democrats seize on politics of budget
The newest exhibit in the Democrats’ case to voters that they are better stewards of the economy: the ongoing battle over what to do about the budget.
Bloomberg | U.S. Treasury Plans to Sell 30 Million More GM Shares
The U.S. Treasury Department announced plans to sell additional shares of General Motors Co. common stock on the eve of the automaker returning to the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index after a four-year absence.
Blogs
Roll Call | A Budget Bluff-Off, Four Months Before the Next Cliff Walk
The House is moving ahead with its plan to pass the year’s first two spending bills before going home for the weekend Thursday afternoon. There’s bipartisan agreement, albeit for different reasons, to ignore President Barack Obama’s warning that lawmakers are wasting valuable legislative time.
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