We had a couple of data releases this week telling us something about inflation. Today’s release was the CPI data for March, which comes on the heels of yesterday’s PPI data release. Today’s news release showed surprisingly high inflation in non-energy consumer items. For some, this has raised alarm bells: WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — U.S. core […]
The spot price for Cushing, OK WTI just hit $70 per barrel. Edit: Spot prices were briefly above $70 last year due to Hurricane Katrina. Click on graph for larger image. Dr. Nouriel Roubini suggests that $70 oil may have a significant impact on the US economy: ” … if oil prices were to drift […]
Thomas Nugent coins a new term – Graham-Schumer-push inflation only after he tells us that the labor market is wonderful: Heretofore, the gloom-and-doom crowd fixated on the slow creation of jobs during this economic cycle and on the idea that outsourcing and illegal immigration were combining to steal American jobs. But at the current unemployment […]
On March 31, David Altig discussed this paper by Stephanie Aaronson, Bruce Fallick, Andrew Figura, Jonathan Pingle and William Wascher: On balance, the results suggest that most of the decline in the participation rate during and immediately following the 2001 recession was a response to business cycle developments. However, the continued decline in participation in […]
While I profess to being a Keynesian economist, I have never bought into the notion that fiscal stimulus is the only way to reverse a recession. Max Sawicky – who may be more Keynesian than yours truly – writes: My question in all this, which no conservatives are rushing to answer, is this: What sequence […]
This is one of those milestones (in some ways like the Dow breaching 10,000) that obviously means nothing from a strictly financial point of view, but is an important psychological threshold. If nothing else, this news draws our attention to the real story, which is the slow but steady upward march of interest rates that […]
Bruce Bartlett has been invited to contribute to the National Review: The question is ambiguous because it is not clear whether people are being asked about the effective rate of taxation (taxes as a share of income) or the marginal rate of taxation (that which applies to the last dollar earned). But either way, taxes […]
Phil Kerpen & Mallory Factor attack the Sarbanes-Oxley legislation citing two sources: The staggering costs of Sarbox bear repeating. An analysis by Sarbanes-Oxley Ivy Xiying Zhang of the University of Rochester measured the total stock market impact of the law, and found that it has cost over $1 trillion, with a “T.” About a third […]
After reading the recently released FOMC transcripts from the year 2000, Dr. Altig laments on The Woes Of Making Policy In Real Time. Dr. Altig also provides excerpts of Greg Ip’s FOMC transcript summary from the WSJ. In 2000, as the economy slowed from the booming ’90s, the Federal Reserve, for the most part, missed […]
Secretary Snow testified before the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Transportation, Treasury, and Housing and Urban Development, the Judiciary on Wednesday: The economic indicators since the President signed the Jobs and Growth Act in May 2003 provide validity to this notion. Since that time, we have seen eleven straight months of positive business investment; nearly five […]