Vietnam Cuts Refinance Rate to 12% From 13%, Effective May 28
United States Channel: Latest Posts
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United States
The War on Data Collection
Ignorance is bliss edition. From BusinessWeek: [The Census Bureau, BEA and BLS] have always had to fight for more funding. Now they may have to fight just to keep their budgets intact. As part of $19 billion in nondefense discretionary cuts in Paul Ryan’s (R-Wis.) budget—recently passed by the House of Representatives—the agencies are likely [...]
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United States
Monetary Policy Change James Hamilton Can Believe In
What more can the Federal Reserve do at this point in the business cycle? Can it really help spur a more robust recovery? James Hamilton is not so sure and is concerned that calls for more monetary stimulus may come at a high cost. He believes that further large scale asset purchases (LSAPs) would have [...]
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United States
Social Security Matters
Catherine Rampell wrote a post last week about how Americans expect to retire later and how more elderly Americans are working. Her last chart also showed that a growing proportion of nonretirees expect Social Security to be a major source of their income in retirement. That shows that Americans are becoming more realistic. But still, [...]
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Geostrategy
Shale Gas Hype: Subprime 2.0?
If my RSS reader is any guide, most of the press about shale gas has focused on two issues. First, shale gas is in considerable supply, cheap to produce, and burns far cleaner than other fossil fuels. Second, shale gas does not look so hot environmentally, all in. Fracking can pollute ground water (and potable [...]
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United States
A Question of Timing: What America Can Learn from the Revolt in Europe
Who’s an economy for? Voters in France and Greece have made it clear it’s not for the bond traders. Referring to his own electoral woes, Prime Minister David Cameron wrote Monday in an article in the conservative Daily Telegraph: “When people think about the economy they don’t see it through the dry numbers of the [...]
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United States
Strategic Briefing – Fed Governors and Monetary Policy Under Pressure
The Most Important Economic Story Nobody Is Talking About The Atlantic | May 3 By failing to appoint new members to the Federal Reserve, Obama has failed the economy…. Behind every great central banker stands a great central banking committee. Or at least a pliant one. It’s this latter reality that President Obama still has [...]
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Geostrategy
Class Warfare
I spoke recently at a conference where I was followed to the podium by Fox’s Tucker Carlson, who, among other things, railed against the instigation by the left of “class warfare”, pointing out that doing so is little more than singling out an unpopular minority group, (i.e., the rich), for higher taxation. (Though the minority [...]
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United States
The Answer Isn’t Socialism; It’s Capitalism that Better Spreads the Benefits of the Productivity Revolution
Francois Hollande’s victory doesn’t and shouldn’t mean a movement toward socialism in Europe or elsewhere. Socialism isn’t the answer to the basic problem haunting all rich nations. The answer is to reform capitalism. The world’s productivity revolution is outpacing the political will of rich societies to fairly distribute its benefits. The result is widening inequality [...]
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United States
America’s Jobs Challenges Are Increasingly Structural
In February 2009, I delivered an address on the prospects of the U.S. growth and unemployment prospects. Only days earlier, Christina Romer, then-chair of President Obama’s council of economic advisers, had stated that the unemployment rate had risen to 7.6%. “Prompt, well-designed fiscal policy is necessary to stop the decline and heal the economy,” Romer [...]
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United States
The Best Fed News of the Week
Matthew O’Brien reports in the Atlantic that one important Fed official has taken the NGDP plunge: Chicago Federal Reserve president Charles Evans doesn’t look the part of a heretic. But in the cozy, conservative club that is central banking, he certainly qualifies. While most of his colleagues at the Fed have recently taken an even [...]
