News
Bloomberg | BP Is Biggest Loser Among U.S. Government Contractors
BP Plc (BP), once the Pentagon’s top fuel supplier, is now the biggest loser among U.S. government vendors.
Market Watch | Global business optimism at 2-yr high: Markit
Global business optimism reached a two-year high in February, according to a survey conducted by Markit based on responses from 11,000 companies.
WSJ | New-Home Building Is Shifting to Apartments
The share of new homes being built as rental apartments is at the highest level in at least four decades, as an improving jobs picture spurs younger Americans to form their own households but tighter lending standards make it more difficult to buy.
WSJ | Japan GDP Growth Revised Down
Japan's economy grew even more slowly than initially calculated in the final three months of 2013 and posted another record current-account deficit in January, poor figures that suggest the economy could be in for a rocky period.
Econ Comments & Analysis
Investors | Economic Growth Is The Greatest Anti-Poverty Program
For the last 50 years real income per person in the United States has grown at a rate of about 2.3% per year. That may not sound like such a big deal, but it adds up year after year. So much so that real incomes will actually double every 31 years.
WSJ | Surging Home Prices Are a Double-Edged Sword
It is hard to overstate the benefits of rising prices to the economy broadly and to homeowners, banks and home builders specifically after years of declines. Price gains have pulled more Americans from the brink of foreclosure and given home buyers more confidence that they won't get stuck with an asset whose value will decline.
Politico | Don’t Send America’s Natural Gas to Ukraine
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has given a boost to those calling for the United States to expedite natural gas exports to help allies overseas. In this thinking, American gas exports — in the form of liquefied natural gas, or LNG — are not only a boon to the domestic economy but also a potent geopolitical tool to be wielded against the Kremlin.
WSJ | American Gas for Europe
One silver lining—or sliver of a lining—from the Russian invasion of Crimea is that it may awaken Western Europe from its strategic slumbers. A sign of hope came Sunday when British Foreign Secretary William Hague said that European leaders may seek to buy more natural gas from the United States.
Blogs
WSJ | Highlights of Marco Rubio’s Economic Plan
Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio had a rough time last year after he stirred a backlash among conservative Republicans with his quest to revamp the country’s immigration laws. As if to make up for lost time, the freshman senator is now speaking out on foreign policy, education and the consolidation of poverty funding , among a range of other policy proposals he has floated in recent months.
Library of Economics | Is Outrage at the Top 1% Distracting Us?
I worry about growing income inequality. But I worry even more that the discussion is too narrowly focused. I worry that our outrage at the top 1 percent is distracting us from the problem that we should really care about: how to create opportunities and ensure a reasonable standard of living for the bottom 20 percent.
