News
Bloomberg | Bond’s Liquidity Threat Is Revealed in Derivatives Explosion
The boom in fixed-income derivatives trading is exposing a hidden risk in debt markets around the world: the inability of investors to buy and sell bonds.
National Journal | Democrats Should Be Talking More About Economic Mobility
Hillary Clinton took heat for suggesting that her family was "dead broke" after leaving the White House, a remark that made her look out of touch with the working-class voters she'll need to woo in a presidential campaign. But while her gaffe isn't likely to resonate beyond the book tour, her party faces challenges in developing an economic message that's in tune with the pervasive anxiety that nonaffluent Americans face in their daily lives.
CNN Money | Why are oil prices rising?
Oil experts say the 4% price spike since June 6 -- which has taken a barrel of crude to $107 for the first time since September 2013 -- is being driven by fear that exports could be hit later this year, just as world demand peaks.
Bloomberg | Industrial Production in U.S. Increases More Than Forecast
Output at factories, mines and utilities rose 0.6 percent after a revised 0.3 percent drop in April that was smaller than previously estimated, a report from the Federal Reserve showed today in Washington. The median forecast in a Bloomberg survey called for a 0.5 percent increase. Manufacturing, which makes up 75 percent of total production, also increased 0.6 percent.
Market Watch | June Empire State index steady at 4-year high
Manufacturing activity in the New York region basically held steady in June after hitting an almost four-year high in May, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York said Monday.
Econ Comments & Analysis
Politico | As factories die, income gap grows
In August 2008, factory workers David and Barbara Ludwig treated themselves to new cars — David a Dodge pickup, Barbara a sporty Mazda 3. With David making $22 an hour and Barbara $19, they could easily afford the payments
Politico | Turn Detroit into Drone Valley
Imagine a Bitcoin Valley, for instance, where some country fully legalizes cryptocurrencies for all financial functions. Or a Drone Valley, where a particular region removes all legal barriers to flying unmanned aerial vehicles locally. A Driverless Car Valley in a city that allows experimentation with different autonomous car designs, redesigned roadways and safety laws. A Stem Cell Valley. And so on.
WSJ | End Corporate Welfare? Start With the Ex-Im Bank
Here's a neat trick: Ask a room full of congressmen what they think of corporate welfare. The scene will devolve into competing campaign speeches, each politician trying to one-up their peers' rhetoric. Now ask that same room what they think of the federally run Export-Import Bank. You'll only hear crickets—even though the bank is one of Washington's biggest corporate-welfare cash cows.
Washington Times | Uninspired growth makes weak recovery one of the longest
The U.S. economic recovery has distinguished itself as one of the weakest since World War II, but at five years and counting, it may go down as one of the longest as well.
Daily Signal | Elizabeth Warren Is Wrong. Big Government Programs Will Just Increase College Costs.
Congress has long tried to help students afford a college education. It has cut interest rates on federal student loans, vastly expanded federal lending and lifted caps on borrowing. In the 1980s, it even let parents borrow directly from the feds — through the Parent PLUS program — to pay for their children’s college.
Blogs
WSJ | Blast From the Past: Could Stocks Melt Up?
Even after small declines last week, the major stock indexes remain near records. Money managers and analysts are beginning to talk about an idea that dates from the roaring ’90s: a rapid stock gain known as a melt-up.
WSJ | Senior Fed Economist Sees Future U.S. Growth Restrained by Productivity Slowdown
The surge in U.S. workers’ productivity from the mid-1990s to the mid-2000s appears to have been a temporary effect from advances in information technology, a Federal Reserve economist argued in a research paper earlier this month. As a result, the U.S. economy’s potential future growth is more modest than previously assumed because productivity gains in the last decade have returned to their lower historical trend.
