News
CNN Money | Cut your cooling costs by 30% or more
With electric rates predicted to climb 10% by summer, cranking up your air conditioner could cost you big this year. But that doesn't have to mean living in a sweat lodge.
FOX News | Taxpayers paid $5.7 million for global warming games
Taxpayers paid more than $5 million to create climate change games, including voicemails from the future warning that “neo-luddites” will kill global warming enthusiasts by 2035.
CNN Money | Mail delivery to your door at risk
Currently, 37 million American homes and businesses get mail delivered to their doors. Now, about 15 million of them are at risk of losing home delivery if House Republicans have their way.
Bloomberg | Durable Goods Orders in U.S. Unexpectedly Increase
Orders for durable goods unexpectedly climbed for a third month in April, a sign U.S. factories will help the world’s biggest economy strengthen.
WSJ | Signs of a Suburban Comeback
The long tug of war between big cities and suburbs is tilting ever so slightly back to the land of lawns and malls. After two years of solid urban growth, more Americans are moving again to suburbs and beyond.
Econ Comments & Analysis
Washington Times | Future for new college graduates looks bleak
It’s that time of year again — graduation season. While commencement ceremonies should be a time of celebration for college graduates, it has rather become a moment of panic.
Fortune | Home price growth slows down across 20 U.S. cities
Home values for single-family residences increased 12.4% from March 2013, according to the S&P/Case-Shiller index, which tracks property values across the top 10 and 20 biggest U.S. metropolitan areas. That's the slowest 12-month gain since July and down from the 12.9% annual increase reported in February.
Real Clear Markets | Obama's Plan To Make the Poor Even Poorer
President Obama has called inequality "the defining challenge of our time." But on June 2 he will announce new "cap-and-trade" environmental regulations that will make the poor a lot poorer and the rich a little less rich.
Fortune | The U.S. has the world's most competitive economy. So what?
The fact that the American economy is the world's most competitive comes as cold comfort to the nation's unemployed and to those who have not experienced real wage increases in a generation.
CNN Money | Did Piketty get it wrong? Analysis questions author's data
On one side is Thomas Piketty, author of the best-selling tome "Capital in the Twenty-First Century." He argues that wealth inequality is growing and "threatens to generate extreme inequalities that stir discontent and undermine democratic values," and published the data behind his conclusions online.
Mercatus | Why We Need Regulatory Reform in Two Charts
The Problem: The American regulatory system has no working, systematic process for reviewing regulations for obsolescence or poor performance, facilitating the accumulation of a vast stock of regulations.
AEI | What conservatives don't understand about the modern US economy
A new manifesto making the rounds in conservative circles is as much a time-travel tale as the new comic-book movie, X-Men: Days of Future Past. Activists hope that embracing supposedly timeless economic policies, such as tax cuts and balanced budgets, will unite and then ignite the Republican Party. Reagan-era nostalgia, unfortunately, is not much of a superpower. Without recognition that new economic challenges require new thinking and new solutions, this tired GOP sequel is unlikely to attract much of an audience.
Blogs
WSJ | Poor Americans Direct 40% of Their Spending to Housing Expenses
Housing and food expenses absorb more than half of low-income Americans’ annual spending. Even the wealthiest Americans devote a sizable share of their spending to keeping a roof over their heads and food in their refrigerators.
Heritage Foundation | 6 Small Towns With Big Government Problems
Out-of-control government, most common to Washington, D.C., can trickle down to small towns, too.
