Texas; #1 in Job Growth

37% of all net new jobs created since the recovery began were created in TX. TX has added 265K net jobs. NY was 2nd with 98K, PA 93K. TX is also one of 4 states that has more jobs now than when the recession began; the others are ND, AK and DC. Over the last…

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Costly Crown Celebration

Economists, those killjoys, are busy adding up the cost of the UK royal wedding, and all associated matrimonial festivities. At one end an economist thinks it will knock 1.5% or $15 billion off UK GDP as that equals one day’s work. Another says it will cost just 0.2% or $2 billion or 1/5th of a…

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Bin Laden Dead, Markets Shrug

The death of bin Laden is a non-event in the markets. Had there been a rally, the US dollar, precious metals and commodities should all have weakened and stocks should have rallied as investors moved from safe havens to riskier investments. But, everything is up! The dollar is slightly higher, stocks are up marginally and…

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Courting Debt Ceiling Disaster

During the housing bust banks held mortgage debt they thought was safe. It wasn’t. In the crunch, they got scared and froze; so did the economy. If Cong fails to lift the debt ceiling the chain of events will be similar but worse as the assets will not be Frankenstein bonds made from mortgages but…

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Republicans Budgeting Badly

The Ryan G.O.P. Budget Proposal to abolish Medicare and replace it with vouchers to be used to buy private health insurance may be a great idea but privatizing Medicare does nothing to limit health-care costs. In fact, it almost surely raises them by adding a layer of private sector bureaucracy.Yet his plan assumes that we…

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ECB Wrongly Raises Rates

The ECB hiked its main interest rate to 1.25% from 1%, yet inflationary pressures and growth prospects are no different in Europe than in the US and UK and they are not raising. This decision marks the moment when differences in analysis and not divergent economic circumstances, affect policy decisions. This decision will hurt the…

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