Early Bird Headlines 07 June 2015
Econintersect: Here are some of the headlines we found to help you start your day. For more headlines see our afternoon feature for GEI members, What We Read Today, which has many more headlines and a number of article discussions to keep you abreast of what we have found interesting.
Global
- OPEC Shows It Still Matters, and Right Now It’s Bearish for Oil (Bloomberg) Oil is poised for the biggest weekly drop since March after OPEC (Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries) left daily output at 30 million barrels. The outlook in the near term is for lower prices, but eventually the strategy should produce higher prices if OPEC can force sufficient shutdowns for high cost producers.
U.S.
- American Pharoah wins first Triple Crown since ’78 (CNN) This great horse led wire-to-wire and won pulling away with the second fastest Triple Crown winning time in Belmont Stakes history and only two seconds off Secretariat’s all-time track record.
- Consumer Borrowing in U.S. Increased $20.5 Billion in April (Bloomberg) Consumer borrowing in the U.S. rose more than forecast in April, boosted by the biggest increase in revolving credit in a year. The $20.5 billion advance in total borrowing followed a $21.3 billion gain in the prior month that was larger than previously estimated, Federal Reserve figures showed Friday in Washington. Non-revolving credit, which includes student and automobile loans, increased at a slower pace. Credit is increasing faster than income and that is not a sustainable relationship. This was part of the weekly review discussion by Steven Hansen at GEI Analysis: The Road to Hell Is Paved With Good Intentions.
- The EPA Fracking Miracle (The Wall Street Journal) This Op Ed claims that New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s ban on drilling is a fraud. See GEI News summary by Sig Silber.
- Former NYPD ‘Cop of the Year’ sentenced to 10 years in prison for Florida cocaine deal (New York Daily News) Hat tip to Alice Marshall. A former two-time NYPD “Cop of the Year” was sentenced to 10 years in prison in Florida Friday for providing security to a cocaine trafficker during a federal sting.
- 5 reasons why US employers are showing confidence in economy (Seattle PI) Most of the reasons are employment related.
EU
- ECB Increases Purchase of Public, Private Debt Securities in May (The Wall Street Journal) The European Central Bank purchased just over €63 billion ($68.75 billion) in public and private debt securities last month under its three-month-old quantitative easing program, according to ECB data released Monday, slightly higher than the €60 billion monthly purchase target that the ECB has set for the program. More that 80% of the purchases were public-sector (government) bonds
Greece
- Greece is bankrupt: it must break free from its economic prison (The Telegraph) Greece is diverging in ever more extreme fashion from the rest of the eurozone. It is time to admit a basic truth: Greece is insolvent. Its national debt is falling, albeit very slightly, but its economy is shrinking even faster.
Iceland
- Iceland’s Sovereign Money Proposal: A Response to Bill Mitchell (Positive Money) A discussion of differences between MMT (Modern Monetary Theory) and Positive money. Of course there is the obvious difference that MMT deals with endogenous money created by banks and government deficits while Positive Money separates money creation by sovereigns from credit creation by banks. That leads to a number of secondary differences.
Australia
- Arnold Schwarzenegger tells Australia cutting emissions is good economics (The Guardian) Actor and former governor of California describes claims that climate action hurts the economy as ‘a bunch of nonsense’ and urges all countries to cooperate.
BECOME A GEI MEMBER – IT’s FREE!
Every every afternoon What We Read Today featured column is available only to GEI members.
To become a GEI Member simply subscribe to our FREE daily newsletter.
