Submitted by CARPE DIEM
Watch this week for the debut of guest blogger Peter Schweizer, who will help out over the next few weeks with posts on CD during my travels to Russia, where my access to the Internet might be somewhat infrequent. Peter is a research fellow at the Hoover Institution, and author of […]

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Submitted by The Capital Spectator
No one will find encouragement in today’s update on wholesale prices, which posted a troubling 1.1% rise last month. So far, however, the Fed funds futures market is still inclined to see another rate cut when the FOMC meets again on April 29 and 30.
Perhaps, although the time has passed for […]

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Submitted by CARPE DIEM

The chart above is from the Joint Economic Committee’s (JEC) report Overview of the Federal Tax System As In Effect for 2008, showing the distribution of taxpayers (including nonfilers and dependent filers) by marginal Federal income tax rate (MTR). The JCT staff estimates that approximately 62 million “taxpayers,” or 37% of the […]

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Submitted by CARPE DIEM

RealtyTrac, the leading online marketplace for foreclosure properties, today released its March 2008 U.S. Foreclosure Market Report, which shows foreclosure filings — default notices, auction sale notices and bank repossessions — were reported on 234,685 properties nationwide during the month, a 5% increase from the previous month and a 57% increase from […]

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Submitted by EconWeekly
Recession buzz remained stable from February at a moderate to elevated level. The Washington Post and the New York Times printed an average of 4.8 stories per day containing the word “recession,” 0.2 more than in February. And among the set of eight major US newspapers that I track every month, each one […]

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Submitted by Econbrowser
Was this the new (reverse) “Plaza Accord”? From Bloomberg:

Figure 1: Log nominal value of US dollar against other major currencies. NBER defined recession dates shaded gray. Source: Federal Reserve Board via FRED II.
Lagarde Says G-7’s Dollar Shift on Par With 1985 Pact (Update2)
By Christopher Swann and Kathleen Hays
April 14 (Bloomberg) — French Finance […]

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Submitted by CARPE DIEM

Here’s a cold reality that none of the presidential candidates want to tell you: a shrinking number of Americans are bearing an ever bigger share of the nation’s income tax burden. In 2005 (the most recent year for which data is available), the bottom 40% of Americans by income had, in the […]

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Submitted by CARPE DIEM
According to Paul Krugman in today’s (Apr. 14) NY Times: The official unemployment rate may be relatively low — but the percentage of prime-working-age Americans without jobs, which isn’t the same thing, is historically high.
According to a comment on this earlier CD post about Krugman and Don Boudreaux’s response, Krugman was […]

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Submitted by CARPE DIEM
Paul Krugman in today’s NY Times: The official unemployment rate of 5.1%, though rising, is still fairly low by historical standards. Yet economic attitudes are worse now than they were in 1992, when the average unemployment rate was 7.5%. Why are we feeling so down?
Our bleakness partly reflects the fact that most […]

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Submitted by A Dash of Insight
Normally we post a weekly update on recommended sectors each Thursday.  In a small office there are sometimes disruptions.  We had some surprises last week, including some emergency absences as the same time others were on leave.  In addition, some of my best friends from my Wisconsin days appeared in […]

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