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Wednesday, July 30, 2014

General Economics

News                                                                                                                             
FOX Business | If the Bulls Stick Around, Stocks Could Rise Another 25%
Stocks may be near record levels but the bull market is not done. Digital technologies permit businesses to use investors’ cash far more efficiently these days, and could easily push up stock prices another 25%.
Bloomberg | Greenspan Says Stocks to See ‘Significant Correction’
Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said equity markets will see a decline at some point after surging for the past several years.
WSJ | Energy Regulators Say EPA's Climate Rule Poses Grid Challenges
President Barack Obama's proposed rule to curb carbon emissions from the nation's power plants could raise costs and affect reliability in the U.S. electricity system, federal regulators told Congress.

Econ Comments & Analysis                                                                                            
Real Clear Markets | Dodd-Frank's Birthday Marred By Its Many Inadequacies
Financial reform debates rarely dwell long on the purposes financial markets serve. Instead policy debaters move quickly from cursory diagnoses to regulatory remedies. As a consequence, the reforms that these discussions produce often inadvertently impede the proper functioning of the markets. An impaired financial industry can have deep and devastating effects on people far away from Wall Street and Washington.
WSJ | Liberals Love the 'One Percent'
Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen has said the central bank's goal is "to help Main Street not Wall Street," and many liberal commentators seem convinced that she is advancing that goal. But talk to anyone on Wall Street. If they are being frank, they'll admit that the Fed's loose monetary policy has been one of the biggest contributors to their returns over the past five years. Unwittingly, it seems, liberals who support the Fed are defending policies that boost the wealth of the wealthy but do nothing to reduce inequality.
Washington Times | An economic era defined by slowdown
President Obama’s job-approval polls slipped precariously closer toward the 30 percent range this week as many more Americans expressed deep dissatisfaction with his failed presidency.
Fortune | Explaining the mystery of fast economic growth under Democratic presidents
If you hang around enough enthusiastic Democrats during election season, you will surely hear these folks trumpet the fact that the economy performs much better during Democratic presidential administrations than Republican ones.
Market Watch | Breadth divergence is a troubling sign for the stock market
The general state of the stock market seems quite healthy, with the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index making new all-time intraday and closing highs on several recent days.
CATO | Dangerously Demagoguing Entitlements
The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee is financing an Iowa ad saying that GOP nominee Joni Ernst has “proposed privatizing Social Security [and] gambling our savings in the stock market.”

Blogs                                                                                                                             
WSJ | 5 Takeaways from Wednesday’s GDP Report
Economic output rebounded during the second quarter, advancing at a 4% rate, and the large decline during the first quarter was revised down slightly, to a 2.1% decline from a 2.9% drop, according to estimates published by the Commerce Department on Wednesday.
WSJ | Revisions Boost Growth in 2013, But Show Weaker Overall Recovery
The U.S. economy expanded at a stronger pace in the second half of 2013 than previously measured, growing at the fastest rate since 2003, according to revised data released by the Commerce Department on Wednesday.

Health Care

News                                                                                                                             
Politico | Court throws out an Obamacare tax law challenge
A federal appeals court Tuesday rejected yet another legal challenge to Obamacare, ruling that it did not violate a constitutional provision that requires tax laws to be written in the House. Most of what became the Affordable Care Act was written in the Senate.

Econ Comments & Analysis                                                                                            
Daily Signal | It Wasn’t a Tax Before It Was a Tax: Court Upholds Obamacare Individual Mandate
A three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals on Tuesday ruled against a challenge to Obamacare’s individual mandate based on the origination clause of the Constitution.

Monetary

News                                                                                                                             
Market Watch | U.S. inflation accelerates sharply in second quarter
Inflation as measured by the Federal Reserve's preferred price index surged in the second quarter to the highest annual rate in three years, potentially making the central's bank effort at managing the U.S. recovery more difficult.
WSJ | Regulator Wants Monitors in Deutsche Bank, Barclays U.S. Offices as Part of FX Probe
New York's banking regulator is pushing to install government monitors inside the U.S. offices of Deutsche Bank AG and Barclays PLC as part of an intensifying investigation into possible manipulation in the foreign-exchange market, according to people familiar with the probe.

Econ Comments & Analysis                                                                                            
Bloomberg | Fed Decision-Day Guide: QE Tapering to Inflation Debate
Here’s what to look for when the Federal Open Market Committee releases its policy statement at 2 p.m. today in Washington. Federal Reserve officials won’t provide new economic projections, and Chair Janet Yellen isn’t scheduled to give a post-meeting press conference.

Taxes

Econ Comments & Analysis                                                                                            
WSJ | Why Liberals Hate Kansas
Liberals accuse Republicans of exaggerating the damage of raising taxes. So it's amusing to hear the apocalyptic claims about Kansas Governor Sam Brownback's income-tax cuts. Their goal is to defeat Mr. Brownback for re-election but in particular discredit tax reform in the states.

Employment

News                                                                                                                             
National Journal | Women in Low-Wage Jobs Are Underpaid and Overloaded
Despite holding better educational credentials than ever before, women continue to make up two-thirds of the workers earning $10.10 per hour or less.
CNN Money | Amgen joins job-cut parade
Amgen became the latest company to announce major layoffs, despite signs that the U.S. jobs picture is improving. In its earnings presentation Tuesday, the biotechnology firm revealed it plans to eliminate 2,400 to 2,900 jobs, or about 12-15% of its workforce.
Bloomberg | ADP Says Companies in U.S. Boosted Payrolls by 218,000
Companies added 218,000 workers in July, exceeding the average for the year and showing improving demand is bolstering the U.S. job market, a private payrolls report showed today.
Market Watch | 40 years of presidents: Who fought unemployment and won?
If a president’s performance were based solely on the unemployment rate while he was in office, who should have left the White House with his head held high? A new state-by-state analysis of unemployment over the last 40 years aims to find out.

Econ Comments & Analysis                                                                                            
CATO | A Case against Child Labor Prohibitions
Halima is an 11-year-old girl who clips loose threads off of Hanes underwear in a Bangladeshi factory.1 She works about eight hours a day, six days per week. She has to process 150 pairs of underwear an hour. At work she feels “very tired and exhausted,” and sometimes falls asleep standing up. She makes 53 cents a day for her efforts. Make no mistake, it is a rough life.

Budget

Econ Comments & Analysis                                                                                            
USA Today | Keep chopping federal spending: Another view
President Obama is not doing enough to rein in spending and deficits. He says the deficit has been cut in half since he came to office. But that is a cut from the giant 2009 figure of $1.4 trillion, which was so high partly because of his costly stimulus bill.
Washington Times | In Congress, big spenders all
Politicians just can’t give up their free-spending ways, and it’s not difficult to find a Republican who wants to expand the government just like a Democrat. An accurate indicator of whether a congressman is a cheapskate or a spendthrift is which congressional organization he joins.

Blogs                                                                                                                             
WSJ | One Big Factor in the Economic Uptick: Government Spending
The U.S. economy rebounded strongly in the second quarter and a big contribution to that growth was renewed strength from the government, especially at the state and local level. Government spending climbed by 1.6% at an annual rate, its strongest three months since the third quarter of 2012.