News
WSJ | Fed Signals Resolve on Rates
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said the central bank's easy-money policies are still needed to confront deep problems in the labor market, moving to reinforce his plan to keep interest rates low for years.
Econ Comments & Analysis
Real Clear Markets | Ben Bernanke's Shocking Gold Standard Ignorance
America's monetary problems could be solved by implementing the right kind of gold standard. However, doing this would render the Fed Chairman no more important than the head of The National Institute of Standards and Technology.
Blogs
Minyanville | Has the Market Become Addicted to Quantitative Easing?
Minyanville's own Todd Harrison just sat on a panel for the Maxim Group Growth Conference in New York. Todd debated with Paul LaRosa, Maxim Group's chief market technician, and Ed Yardeni, president and chief investment strategist of Yardeni Research in a session titled "Perspectives on the Global Economic and Political Landscape."
Library of Economics | George Selgin on "The Bernank"
George Selgin has an excellent commentary on Ben Bernanke's maiden lecture on monetary policy at George Washington University. Not only does George dispel myths that most people believe, but also he dispels myths that I believed.
Daily Capitalist | Fed Policy: Bernanke Is Warming Up His Helicopter
Economists cling to statistical data like barnacles in order to have some kind of anchor to explain what is going on in the world. They will try to cram the square data peg into the round holes of economic ”laws” rather than abandon them when they are obviously wrong. Which is not a very satisfactory way to explain things.
WSJ | Economics Survey: Fed Should Hold Back From QE3 This Year
The Federal Reserve shouldn’t undertake a new round of bond buying this year, an overwhelming majority of a group polled by the National Association for Business Economics said in a survey released Monday.
Tuesday, March 27, 2012
Taxes
News
CNBC | Not-So-‘Mad’ Ideas About Taxes
This month, the Roosevelt Hotel, on East 45th Street, initiated a special offer in commemoration of “Mad Men,” whose return to television on Sunday night for a fifth season is something surely known now even to preschoolers of merely middling sophistication.
Politico | Senate votes to debate bill that would kill oil tax breaks
As promised, Senate Republicans gave the green light Monday to debating a Democratic bill that would repeal billions in oil industry tax incentives — the latest twist in the parties’ struggle to seize the high ground on gasoline prices.
CNBC | Economists See Higher Taxes as Way to Cut Deficit
Economists say a combination of higher taxes and lower spending is the best way to reduce the federal budget deficit.
Econ Comments & Analysis
CNN Money | Tax reform: Why it's so hard
Tax reform. Politicians tout it as fiscal nirvana. It will spur economic growth, curb deficits, reduce income inequality, you name it. But all the happy talk belies the truth about tax reform, which Bruce Bartlett knows a thing or two about, having worked as a senior policy analyst for President Reagan in 1986. That was the last time Washington embarked on a major overhaul of the tax code.
Blogs
The American | White House considered a $170 billion soda tax to pay for Obamacare
Back in April 2009, Nancy-Ann DeParle, the Obama White House healthcare czar, wrote a memo that suggested President Obama would have to reverse his campaign stance against an individual mandate to purchase health insurance. Blame the Congressional Budget Office, she said
CNBC | Not-So-‘Mad’ Ideas About Taxes
This month, the Roosevelt Hotel, on East 45th Street, initiated a special offer in commemoration of “Mad Men,” whose return to television on Sunday night for a fifth season is something surely known now even to preschoolers of merely middling sophistication.
Politico | Senate votes to debate bill that would kill oil tax breaks
As promised, Senate Republicans gave the green light Monday to debating a Democratic bill that would repeal billions in oil industry tax incentives — the latest twist in the parties’ struggle to seize the high ground on gasoline prices.
CNBC | Economists See Higher Taxes as Way to Cut Deficit
Economists say a combination of higher taxes and lower spending is the best way to reduce the federal budget deficit.
Econ Comments & Analysis
CNN Money | Tax reform: Why it's so hard
Tax reform. Politicians tout it as fiscal nirvana. It will spur economic growth, curb deficits, reduce income inequality, you name it. But all the happy talk belies the truth about tax reform, which Bruce Bartlett knows a thing or two about, having worked as a senior policy analyst for President Reagan in 1986. That was the last time Washington embarked on a major overhaul of the tax code.
Blogs
The American | White House considered a $170 billion soda tax to pay for Obamacare
Back in April 2009, Nancy-Ann DeParle, the Obama White House healthcare czar, wrote a memo that suggested President Obama would have to reverse his campaign stance against an individual mandate to purchase health insurance. Blame the Congressional Budget Office, she said
Employment
News
CNN Money | White House: Jobs recovery isn't 'statistical fluke'
President Obama's chief economic adviser continued to defend the strength of the latest jobs data on Tuesday, even though other economists have suggested that the economy is still in a slow recovery despite job gains.
NY Times | Bernanke Says Faster Growth Is Needed to Bolster Job Market
In a speech that sought by turns to deflate optimism and pessimism about the labor market, the Federal Reserve chairman, Ben S. Bernanke, said Monday that the Fed’s efforts to stimulate growth were gradually reducing unemployment, but that the scale and duration of the problem could leave lasting scars on the economy.
Econ Comments & Analysis
Bloomberg | Fire Up America’s Jobs Factory With Aid for Startups
Last week, with broad support, the Senate passed an amended version of the Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act (or the JOBS Act). Because the bill had already been passed by the House on March 8, and is supported by the White House, it seems bound to become law.
National Journal | Fed Economists Pour Water on Positive Unemployment News
February may have capped the biggest six-month drop in unemployment in nearly 30 years, but there may be more to the sunny news than meets the eye, two Federal Reserve Bank of New York economists wrote in a Monday blog post that echoes Fed president Ben Bernanke's morning comments.
Blogs
Marginal Revolution | The hysteresis effect on unemployed labor, and unemployment scarring
Here is a good WSJ piece on labor market hysteresis, a topic also of recent interest to Bernanke, Summers, DeLong, and others. I’ve been trying to learn more about that literature, and here is what I came up with.
CNN Money | White House: Jobs recovery isn't 'statistical fluke'
President Obama's chief economic adviser continued to defend the strength of the latest jobs data on Tuesday, even though other economists have suggested that the economy is still in a slow recovery despite job gains.
NY Times | Bernanke Says Faster Growth Is Needed to Bolster Job Market
In a speech that sought by turns to deflate optimism and pessimism about the labor market, the Federal Reserve chairman, Ben S. Bernanke, said Monday that the Fed’s efforts to stimulate growth were gradually reducing unemployment, but that the scale and duration of the problem could leave lasting scars on the economy.
Econ Comments & Analysis
Bloomberg | Fire Up America’s Jobs Factory With Aid for Startups
Last week, with broad support, the Senate passed an amended version of the Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act (or the JOBS Act). Because the bill had already been passed by the House on March 8, and is supported by the White House, it seems bound to become law.
National Journal | Fed Economists Pour Water on Positive Unemployment News
February may have capped the biggest six-month drop in unemployment in nearly 30 years, but there may be more to the sunny news than meets the eye, two Federal Reserve Bank of New York economists wrote in a Monday blog post that echoes Fed president Ben Bernanke's morning comments.
Blogs
Marginal Revolution | The hysteresis effect on unemployed labor, and unemployment scarring
Here is a good WSJ piece on labor market hysteresis, a topic also of recent interest to Bernanke, Summers, DeLong, and others. I’ve been trying to learn more about that literature, and here is what I came up with.
Budget
Econ Comments & Analysis
Washington Times | Restoring budgetary sanity
“I place economy among the first and most important virtues, and public debt as the greatest of dangers to be feared,” Thomas Jefferson once wrote. “To preserve our independence, we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt.”
WSJ | Ryan and the Right
It's no surprise that the White House has denounced Paul Ryan's new House budget as the end of welfare-state civilization. The puzzle is why some conservatives are taking shots at the best chance in decades for serious government reform.
Blogs
National Review | The Ryan Plan vs. the President’s Budget
This week, I would like looks at the 10-year spending projections from the House Republican Budget and the White House budget for 2013.
WSJ | Should Central Banks Help Governments Run Bigger Deficits?
Paul McCulley, who drew attention for his provocative commentary when he was a senior partner at U.S. bond giant Pimco, is challenging one of the most deeply held principles of modern central banking: That central banks should always strive to be independent of fiscal authorities.
Washington Times | Restoring budgetary sanity
“I place economy among the first and most important virtues, and public debt as the greatest of dangers to be feared,” Thomas Jefferson once wrote. “To preserve our independence, we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt.”
WSJ | Ryan and the Right
It's no surprise that the White House has denounced Paul Ryan's new House budget as the end of welfare-state civilization. The puzzle is why some conservatives are taking shots at the best chance in decades for serious government reform.
Blogs
National Review | The Ryan Plan vs. the President’s Budget
This week, I would like looks at the 10-year spending projections from the House Republican Budget and the White House budget for 2013.
WSJ | Should Central Banks Help Governments Run Bigger Deficits?
Paul McCulley, who drew attention for his provocative commentary when he was a senior partner at U.S. bond giant Pimco, is challenging one of the most deeply held principles of modern central banking: That central banks should always strive to be independent of fiscal authorities.
Monday, March 26, 2012
General Economics
News
WSJ | Firms' Cash Hoarding Stunts Europe
Banks are struggling to rebuild capital and repair the damage wrought by poor lending and investment decisions they made before the financial crisis, and are wary about new lending.
Bloomberg | German Ifo Business Confidence Unexpectedly Increases
German business confidence unexpectedly rose to an eight-month high in March, suggesting Europe’s largest economy will return to growth even as the sovereign debt crisis curbs euro-area demand for its exports.
Econ Comments & Analysis
AEI | Caricature of how Republicans see the financial crisis
Sir, Edward Luce's description of the competing views in the US about both the financial crisis and a supposed "crisis of capitalism" was a caricature, particularly his discussion of the view he ascribed to the Republicans
Investors | Obama Creates a Nation of Food Stamp Dependents
Dependency: When New Gingrich called President Obama "the best food stamp president in American history," the media pooh-poohed it. But, in fact, Obama has aggressively pushed dependence on government for food.
Forbes | How to Contain a Financial Crisis Without Bailouts
Four years after the fall of Bear Stearns our fallback policy in a crisis is just as it was in 2008: rely on emergency, ad hoc lending by the Fed. We should not settle for this approach.
Daily Finance | The Complete Overhaul Social Security Needs to Survive
In this DailyFinance exclusive, two retirement experts propose dramatically different solutions to the Social Security crisis. Below, Chuck Saletta weighs in.
Blogs
Heritage Foundation | An Alternative Energy Efficiency Program
Adding to a long list of energy-efficiency legislation, two Members of Congress—David B. McKinley (R–WV) and Peter Welch (D–VT)—recently proposed a federal energy-efficiency bill that gives tax rebates to homeowners who make energy-saving improvements to their homes. This bill and its predecessors reward consumers for saving money.
CATO | Red Team, Blue Team, and Gas Prices
Pretty clear Red Team/Blue Team answers. Republicans in 2006 accepted that there wasn’t much the president could do to reduce gas prices, but most of them think Obama could.
Calculated Risk | Schedule for Week of March 25th
The key reports this week are the January Case-Shiller house price index, to be released on Tuesday, the February Durable Goods report on Wednesday, the February Personal Income and Outlays report on Friday, and the third estimate of Q4 GDP on Thursday.
Keith Hennessey | Subsidizing wind and solar because China and Germany are doing it
The President has picked three industries and is arguing for an industrial policy to subsidize them in part because other countries are subsidizing them.
CATO | Don’t Look to Government If You Want Equality
In a not so subtle brief for taxing the rich, Washington Post business and economics columnist Steven Pearlstein looks critically today at Rep. Paul Ryan’s latest House Republican budget proposal.
Calculated Risk | Unofficial Problem Bank list declines to 949 Institutions
Here is the unofficial problem bank list for March 23, 2012.
WSJ | What if Young Adults Don’t Want to Leave Home?
78%: Percent of 25-34 year olds who have lived with their parents and are satisfied with the arrangement.
CATO | Why Is the Recovery Slow?
Everyone wonders why the recovery is so slow and unemployment remains so high. Just read the papers — in detail.
WSJ | Firms' Cash Hoarding Stunts Europe
Banks are struggling to rebuild capital and repair the damage wrought by poor lending and investment decisions they made before the financial crisis, and are wary about new lending.
Bloomberg | German Ifo Business Confidence Unexpectedly Increases
German business confidence unexpectedly rose to an eight-month high in March, suggesting Europe’s largest economy will return to growth even as the sovereign debt crisis curbs euro-area demand for its exports.
Econ Comments & Analysis
AEI | Caricature of how Republicans see the financial crisis
Sir, Edward Luce's description of the competing views in the US about both the financial crisis and a supposed "crisis of capitalism" was a caricature, particularly his discussion of the view he ascribed to the Republicans
Investors | Obama Creates a Nation of Food Stamp Dependents
Dependency: When New Gingrich called President Obama "the best food stamp president in American history," the media pooh-poohed it. But, in fact, Obama has aggressively pushed dependence on government for food.
Forbes | How to Contain a Financial Crisis Without Bailouts
Four years after the fall of Bear Stearns our fallback policy in a crisis is just as it was in 2008: rely on emergency, ad hoc lending by the Fed. We should not settle for this approach.
Daily Finance | The Complete Overhaul Social Security Needs to Survive
In this DailyFinance exclusive, two retirement experts propose dramatically different solutions to the Social Security crisis. Below, Chuck Saletta weighs in.
Blogs
Heritage Foundation | An Alternative Energy Efficiency Program
Adding to a long list of energy-efficiency legislation, two Members of Congress—David B. McKinley (R–WV) and Peter Welch (D–VT)—recently proposed a federal energy-efficiency bill that gives tax rebates to homeowners who make energy-saving improvements to their homes. This bill and its predecessors reward consumers for saving money.
CATO | Red Team, Blue Team, and Gas Prices
Pretty clear Red Team/Blue Team answers. Republicans in 2006 accepted that there wasn’t much the president could do to reduce gas prices, but most of them think Obama could.
Calculated Risk | Schedule for Week of March 25th
The key reports this week are the January Case-Shiller house price index, to be released on Tuesday, the February Durable Goods report on Wednesday, the February Personal Income and Outlays report on Friday, and the third estimate of Q4 GDP on Thursday.
Keith Hennessey | Subsidizing wind and solar because China and Germany are doing it
The President has picked three industries and is arguing for an industrial policy to subsidize them in part because other countries are subsidizing them.
CATO | Don’t Look to Government If You Want Equality
In a not so subtle brief for taxing the rich, Washington Post business and economics columnist Steven Pearlstein looks critically today at Rep. Paul Ryan’s latest House Republican budget proposal.
Calculated Risk | Unofficial Problem Bank list declines to 949 Institutions
Here is the unofficial problem bank list for March 23, 2012.
WSJ | What if Young Adults Don’t Want to Leave Home?
78%: Percent of 25-34 year olds who have lived with their parents and are satisfied with the arrangement.
CATO | Why Is the Recovery Slow?
Everyone wonders why the recovery is so slow and unemployment remains so high. Just read the papers — in detail.
Health Care
News
CNN Money | What if the health reform mandate dies?
Is the new requirement that people buy health insurance unconstitutional?
National Journal | Legal Insiders Expect Supreme Court to Uphold Health Care Law
As the Supreme Court prepares to hear historic oral arguments on President Obama’s health care reform law this week, a survey of legal insiders released Monday morning found a widespread expectation that the Court would uphold the central pillars of the law.
Econ Comments & Analysis
WSJ | Liberty and ObamaCare
Few legal cases in the modern era are as consequential, or as defining, as the challenges to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act that the Supreme Court hears beginning Monday.
Washington Times | Obamacare’s hefty tax bill
President Obama promised to make health care more affordable, but instead he’s done the opposite.
CRS | Affordable Care Act: Litigation Resources
In March 2010, Congress passed P.L. 111-148, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 (PPACA), and amended it by passing P.L. 111-152, the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010 (HCERA).
CNN Money | What if the health reform mandate dies?
Is the new requirement that people buy health insurance unconstitutional?
National Journal | Legal Insiders Expect Supreme Court to Uphold Health Care Law
As the Supreme Court prepares to hear historic oral arguments on President Obama’s health care reform law this week, a survey of legal insiders released Monday morning found a widespread expectation that the Court would uphold the central pillars of the law.
Econ Comments & Analysis
WSJ | Liberty and ObamaCare
Few legal cases in the modern era are as consequential, or as defining, as the challenges to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act that the Supreme Court hears beginning Monday.
Washington Times | Obamacare’s hefty tax bill
President Obama promised to make health care more affordable, but instead he’s done the opposite.
CRS | Affordable Care Act: Litigation Resources
In March 2010, Congress passed P.L. 111-148, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 (PPACA), and amended it by passing P.L. 111-152, the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010 (HCERA).
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