Archive for August, 2011

IMF Chief Throws EU Banks Under The Bus

I thought we got this under control a couple of years ago: Sounding a stark warning to stronger European countries such as Britain and Germany, the new IMF chief (Christine Lagarde) said: “We could easily see the further spread of economic weakness to core countries, or even a debilitating liquidity crisis.” To reduce these risks, […]

Obama’s Headwinds

I’m not really much for predicting Presidential elections, particularly this far out, and I usually don’t spend a lot of time following tea leaf readers. So, take this from James Pethokoukis for what it’s worth: But if Obama wins four more years with this economy, it will be almost as historic as his win in […]

Dissecting The Texas Jobs “Miracle”

Before you start throwing darts at me, know that this isn’t a pro-Rick Perry post. I don’t know too much about the guy at this point and by and large what I do know hasn’t caused me to conclude that he’s the man. What this is about is a recommendation to read a post at […]

Bankruptcy’s Ultimate Victims

Just a moment tonight but I want to pass along a link to Walter Russell Mead’s recent post on the Rhode Island legislature’s disenfranchising of their public employee’s. Specifically, they passed a law providing for the subordination of pension obligations to municipal debt. You can read the details at Mead’s blog with appropriate links, but […]

Inflation: A Cure For The Great Recession?

It’s getting to the point that you almost feel sorry for economists. Kenneth Rogoff has an opinion piece in the Financial Times in which he seems to be groping for the next magic bullet to fire at economies. Indeed, the question of whether the largest advanced economy regions are going to experience a double-dip recession is […]

Robots And Manufacturing Employment

I meant to post this some time ago and as usual time ran away from me. So, a bit late and dated here is a report from the Financial Times on the future of manufacturing employment worldwide. Foxconn, the world’s largest contract electronics manufacturer by revenue, plans to have as many robots as workers in […]

The Obama Response To S&P’s I Would Like To Hear

– We have lowered our long-term sovereign credit rating on the United States of America to ‘AA+’ from ‘AAA’ and affirmed the ‘A-1+’ short-term rating. – We have also removed both the short- and long-term ratings from CreditWatch negative. – The downgrade reflects our opinion that the fiscal consolidation plan that Congress and the Administration recently agreed to falls […]