News
Market Watch | U.S. March business inventories up 0.4%
Inventories at U.S. businesses rose 0.4% in March, the Commerce Department said Tuesday.
National Journal | Our Fragile Economy Still Needs Time to Gather Its Strength
The best thing about long airline flights is the time they offer for delving into long reports, uninterrupted by phone calls and emails. This includes reports from economic departments of investment houses—economic consulting firms and groups that advise institutional investors—that give a texture to what is going on in the economy that can shape public opinion. One of my favorite lines about politics is from Yale political scientist and statistician Edward Tufte in his book Political Control of the Economy: "When you think economics, think elections; when you think elections, think economics."
Bloomberg | American Shoppers Take Breather After Retail Sales Surge
American consumers took a respite from going to malls and restaurants as retail sales climbed less than forecast in April after the strongest gain in four years.
Bloomberg | Company-Tax Boost May Be Best U.S. Highway Funding Option
Temporarily boosting U.S. taxes on companies’ overseas earnings is the most feasible way to provide the additional funding needed to rebuild aging highways and mass transit systems, Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx said.
Market Watch | Fannie, Freddie’s regulator won’t cut loan limits
Mortgage-finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac won’t be directed to lower the limits for home loans that they back, the head of their federal regulator said Tuesday in a move aimed to avoid derailing the housing market’s recovery.
Econ Comments & Analysis
Washington Times | Economic freedom versus big government
Do you think there would be more jobs, less poverty and higher real incomes if government was 60 percent or 18 percent of gross domestic product? Fortunately, a global economic-growth experiment has been underway for more than a half-century. Some countries have opted for the big-government model, others for the small-government model. Based on the data, the small-government crowd wins.
WSJ | The Paradox of Financial Crises
During the terrifying autumn of 2008, when I was serving as president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, my team was on a conference call with Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke debating whether the administration should ask Congress for stronger weapons to confront the crisis. Meg McConnell, a colleague, pressed the mute button on the speakerphone and pleaded with me to tell them that if they didn't go to Congress now, "there will be shantytowns and soup lines across the country."
Real Clear Markets | Our Recovery May Well Be the Envy of the World
We are nearing the fifth anniversary of the economic recovery from the Great Recession. This already makes it the fourth longest expansion of the postwar period, and it is not over yet. The forecasting community widely expects a strong bounce back in second quarter GDP following the weather-driven stall of the first quarter.
Mercatus | Consumers Are the Best Regulators
My wife makes beer. Very good beer. Years ago, we talked about starting what we called a “picobrewery” – something smaller than a microbrewery, like a hobby with a positive cash flow. We figured that for a few thousand dollars, we could create a small business that would provide part-time employment for several people, generate a unique product, and maybe one day would grow into something more substantial.
Blogs
WSJ | If Debt Caused the Last Crash, Boosting Risk for Lenders Might Soften the Next
For economists Amir Sufi and Atif Mian, the culprit is clear: too much borrowing, particularly by those least able to pay up when the economy started to crumble in 2007. To avoid another such meltdown, they argue, lenders should have some skin in the game, earning more when home values climb and sharing the pain if they fall.
