Econintersect: Click Read more >> below graphic to see today’s list.
The top of today’s reading list reports that the Cash for Clunkers program was very inefficient stimulus …….. and the last article shows that year-over-year employment gains are actually surprisingly strong.
- Cash for Clunkers: An Evaluation of the Car Allowance Rebate System (Ted Gayer and Emiuly parker, Brookings Institute) The authors say this was the least efficient government stimulus effort in 2009-10.
- Do investors have too much information? (Eleanor Bloxham, CNN Money, Fortune) Huh?
- Ambitious China goes land roving (John Lee, Business Spectator)
“It is easy to forget that for thousands of years, China was a country with a continental economic, trade and martial outlook, before it emerged as one of the great maritime trading nations over the past three decades.”
- US public investment falls to lowest level since war (Robin Harding, Richard McGregor and Gabriel Miller, Financial Times) We think the headline is slightly off mark, because the first graph indicates investment has fallen to 1948 levels. But the second graph indicates that, with current projections, the headline could be true in a 3-4 more years.
- J.P. Morgan’s Legal Woes Extend to Oil Patch (Gregory Zuckerman, The Wall Street Journal) It seems JP Morgan thought it could make a lot more money if it sold the same piece of oil patch to two different buyers.
- Fed Should Target Spending, Not Inflation (Ramesh Ponnuru, Bloomberg) Very logical argument to target nominal spending targets, but no discussion of how the Fed could get money into the hands of spenders. It is certainly not getting there now.
- US Economy Mired in a Sea of Contradictions (Gary Halbert, Advisor Perspectives)
- CCB Said to Be Close to Deal to Buy Brazil’s BicBanco (Cristiane Lucchesi and Dakin Campbell, Bloomberg) China has four of the world’s ten largest banks and are increasing their global presence.
- The T-Report: What $45 Billion a Month Looks Like Over Time (TF Market Advisors) Is QE bad for the dollar? This article says yes but inflation has nothing to do with it. These people say leakage into foreign investments will drive the dollar down.
- Chart of the Day: There’s Something Weird Going On In the Jobs Data (Sam Ro, Business Insider) Year-over-year data is much stronger and steadier than the seasonally adjusted monthly changes.
