From the WSJ yesterday:
After a sizzling start to the year, gasoline futures prices are sliding, easing pressures on drivers and the U.S. economy and raising the prospect that prices at the pump could be headed lower still.
Recovery and Rebalancing
Several new items regarding assessing recoveries, here and abroad; and the prospects for rebalancing.
A ban on oil speculation?
Joseph P. Kennedy II, former Congressional Representative from Massachusetts, and founder, chairman, and president of Citizens Energy Corporation, has a proposal to make energy affordable for all. All we have to do, Kennedy claims, is “bar pure oil speculators entirely from commodity exchanges in the United States.”
A Little Less Unscorable
In a previous post, I noted that Governor Romney’s budget plan was essentially unscorable (as he himself stated [0]) because he was so vague on the tax expenditures he was going to eliminate. That fog of obfuscation lifted slightly yesterday, with Governor Romney’s not-for-public attribution comments to donors. From Sara Murray, in the WSJ:
The current recovery in historical context
Or why Ed Lazear should have heeded R&R a bit more.
From “Credit: A Starring Role in the Downturn,” by Òscar Jordà, based on an examination of 14 advanced economies over 140 years:
We are unlikely to learn how the United States will recover from the Great Recession by examining other post-World War II downturns. In the United States, the past six decades have completely lacked another financial event like the one experienced from 2007 to 2009. …
Links for 2012-04-14
Quick links to a few items I found interesting.
Some Implications of the Trade Release
So-so news, and how we can sustain net export growth
From BEA/Census:
The U.S. Census Bureau and the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, through the Department of
Commerce, announced today that total February exports of $181.2 billion and imports of $227.2
billion resulted in a goods and services deficit of $46.0 billion, down from $52.5 billion in
January, revised. February exports were $0.2 billion more than January exports of $180.9 billion.
February imports were $6.3 billion less than January imports of $233.4 billion.
Professor Lazear Doubles Down on 1980/82 = 2007
Professor Lazear on CNBC yesterday reiterates and unhedges his thesis that the causes of the 1980 and 1982 recessions are essentially the same as that of the 2007-09 recession.
Managing strategic petroleum reserves
The Wall Street Journal suggests today that part of the latest surge in China’s oil imports is attributable to a desire to boost the country’s oil stockpiles.
The Recovery Compared
Following up on my post The Recovery According to Ed “We are not in a recession” Lazear
, reader Rick Stryker writes:
Lazear’s points are clear: 1) Real growth has been sub-par in this recovery compared to previous recoveries…
This point is clearly falsified by the graphs from the St. Louis Fed: