Euro Area to US Contagion?

I was wondering why the Reuters website wasn’t loading on my computer. Then I got a phone call from a reporter asking about the US stock market meltdown in response to Greece…which struck me as an odd linkage. It still strikes me as an odd linkage.

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Employment Bounceback?

Dobridge, Hooper and Slok in “Jobless Recovery III Seems Unlikely” Global Economic Perspectives (April 21, 2010) [not online]:

The sluggish performance of payroll employment and
jobless claims in recent months despite well-above-trend
growth in output has raised the specter of another jobless
recovery. …

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Why Adam ate the apple

In my last post, I discussed how the run-up of U.S. mortgage debt during the last decade was funded. One important element was the sale of commercial paper that helped fund the purchase of some mortgage-related securities. Here I comment on why it was hard for some institutions to resist buying that commercial paper.

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