Megan McArdle wrote a nice piece about why she opposes national health care. It’s well-reasoned and well-written and you should read the whole thing. For purposes of this post I want to focus on one point she made. Here is what she had to say: The other major reason that I am against national health […]
Archive for July 29th, 2009
PIMCO Versus Barclays: Economic Pessimist – Economic Optimist
You couldn’t find a more divergent view of the future of the US economy than those offered up today by Bill Gross of Pimco and Tim Bond from Barclays. Gross is not deviating from his persistent call of chronic low growth while Bond says we have it all wrong, a boom is coming. Gross spends […]
Frank Threatens To Bring Back Cram-Down Legislation
Barney Frank is blustering about the slow pace of mortgage modifications again and threatening to bring back cram-down legislation if things don’t start going the way he thinks they should. From Bloomberg: “People in the servicing industry and in the broader financial industry must understand that if this last effort to produce significant modifications fails, […]
Some Good News And Some Bad News On Foreclosures
The housing market is getting back its sea legs or the housing market is still wobbling. Depending upon what set of statistics you want to look at, you can make the case for either scenario. The good news from HousingWire: In particular, roll rates — which measure the volume of loans moving from good to […]
Durable Goods Orders Disappoint
The string of happy news ended today with the government’s release of new orders for durable goods. Orders for June declined 2.5% from May. The growth rate for May was reduced to 1.3% from the previously reported 1.8%. The drop in the June numbers was the largest in five months but it was driven mostly […]