News
Politico | Obama trip stirs emotions over Asia trade pact
President Barack Obama’s abilities as negotiator-in-chief for the United States will be put to the test this week on a trip to Asia that could set the stage for the conclusion of a huge new free-trade agreement. But the deal faces even more hurdles at home because of opposition from fellow Democrats.
CNN Money | Rebirth of America's dead factories
The past two decades have been brutal for American manufacturing as companies shifted production overseas and introduced high-tech systems that eliminated jobs.
Bloomberg | U.S. Home Prices Rose 6.9% in February as Recovery Cools
U.S. house prices rose 6.9 percent in the 12 months through February, the smallest gain in a year, in a sign that the housing market’s recovery is cooling.
WSJ | Price of Gas in U.S. Rises as Refiners Export More to Other Countries
Drivers in the U.S. are facing rising gasoline prices ahead of summer-vacation season, just as refiners here are shipping more gas to other countries.
Econ Comments & Analysis
Real Clear Markets | Deficits Bother You? The Real Problem Is Inept Governance
For about a decade now, budget hawks have been warning that the federal budget is fundamentally out of balance. Spending on entitlements and interest payments on the federal debt will grow more rapidly than revenues, eventually producing a debt spiral that will precipitate another financial crisis.
CNN Money | 5 ways to stay ahead of rising costs
Imposing accountability and awareness can go a long way to taming the bane of many businesses.
Washington Times | Resisting the rising tide of regulations
If you’re like most Americans, the phrase “the cost of government” brings to mind thoughts of spending programs and tax increases. There’s another way that government costs us money, though. It’s something that often flies under the radar; namely, regulations.
Fortune | How to shrink America's income gap
The key is to find the sweet spot where everyone has a fair chance of sharing the gains in profits and productivity.
CNBC | How income inequality can hurt the economy
Given that the adjectives most used in describing the economy's recovery from the great recession include "sluggish" and "disappointing" it may come as a surprise to some that average household income in the U.S. is higher, in nominal terms, than it was in 2008.
NBER | Understanding the Great Recession
We argue that the vast bulk of movements in aggregate real economic activity during the Great Recession were due to financial frictions interacting with the zero lower bound.
AEI | Fannie and Freddie are obviously SIFIs
We have a new post-crisis financial category: systemically important financial institutions, meaning anybody big enough and leveraged enough to possibly create "systemic risk" for everybody else. If you are a super-big and super-leveraged financial firm, the Financial Stability Oversight Council can designate you as a SIFI. But it has not so designated Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
Blogs
WSJ | The Leading Index Shows Economy Will Warm Up after Winter’s Chill
The Conference Board’s leading index is designed to forecast economic activity, not the weather. So, the split between the leading and coincident indexes so far this year offers further evidence of how the weather slowed growth in the first quarter. It also supports expectations that economic activity is picking up this quarter.
Heritage Foundation | What’s Another Few Months for a Keystone XL Decision?
Despite the promise of construction jobs and a dependable source of Canadian oil for American refineries, last week the State Department announced an extension of the inter-agency comment period, likely pushing back the final decision until after the November mid-term elections. The project, which has bipartisan support, the backing of several unions, and approval from former energy and interior secretaries, would bring up to 830,000 barrels of oil per day from Alberta, Canada down to Gulf Coast refineries.
WSJ | The Hows and Why of Economic Optimism
The recovery from the financial crisis is now one of the longest in U.S. history, and economists don’t see it running out of steam anytime soon. But why are they so confident?
