14 | December | 2012

Saturday, May 25, 2013

Image credit: Kevin Shorter (Flickr) (CC BY-SA 2.0)

Mission misfire: 50 years of failure at the FHA

Edward Pinto | December 14, 2012, 3:16 pm

Since 1962, the FHA has been selling the American Dream of home ownership, but delivering despair. For fifty years, commentators have pointed out how FHA’s poorly designed underwriting policies result in financing failure for working-class families and a plague of … read more >

Economics, Taxes and Spending

Cantos on the fiscal cliff

Stan Veuger | December 14, 2012, 2:30 pm

Over at the Atlantic, my colleague Michael “Tax and Spend” Strain argues that the most effective way to keep tax rates low is to raise them. read more >

Economics

The IMF’s 10 lessons for fiscal consolidation

James Pethokoukis | December 14, 2012, 1:02 pm

Ramesh Ponnuru and David Beckworth look at how the Fed could offset the fiscal cliff. On the same topic, the IMF looked at fiscal consolidations and came to these conclusions: 1. The idea that fiscal austerity triggers faster growth in the short … read more >

Economics, Taxes and Spending

The ‘abused’ federal employee?

Andrew Biggs | December 14, 2012, 11:45 am

Pilar argues that we “abuse” this “exploited, under-compensated and under-appreciated workforce.” Not based on any evidence he cites. read more >

Politics and Public Opinion, Polls

Why do so many overestimate the number of gay people?

Andrew Rugg | December 14, 2012, 11:28 am

With the Supreme Court set to take up two cases concerning same-sex marriage, one question seems important to ask at the outset. How many people would these decisions impact? If you had to guess, would you say that one in … read more >

Image Credit: Nick Knupffer (Flickr) (CC BY-SA 2.0)

Economics, Taxes and Spending

Sorry, conservatives: Tax rates are going up

Michael R. Strain | December 14, 2012, 11:14 am

From my latest article in The Atlantic: Given that our structural deficit overwhelmingly reflects a spending problem and not a revenue problem, it is unfortunate that the Democrats have succeeded in making the opening battle in the fiscal cliff a … read more >

Economics, Pethokoukis

Is this the deal the GOP should make on taxes?

James Pethokoukis | December 14, 2012, 11:06 am

AEI’s Michael Strain: 1. How to structure the deal? Publicly and unequivocally accept rate increases, but insist that they come paired with true spending cuts. Agree only to pass a tax rate increase, but not all the way to the … read more >

Carpe Diem

Equation of the day for supercharging the US economy

Mark J. Perry | December 14, 2012, 10:53 am

From the Forbes article “How Unconventional Oil And Gas Is Supercharging The U.S. Economy“: The commencement of the crude oil and natural gas revolution can be boiled down to one simple equation: Abundant resources + cost effective extraction = high … read more >

Economics, Pethokoukis

The 1 chart that shows America is not Greece — yet

James Pethokoukis | December 14, 2012, 10:48 am

Spain and the United States have roughly the same debt-to-GDP ratios. So why has Spain been suffering through a debt crisis while US interest rates remain low? The key metric isn’t debt/GDP but rather the difference between government interest costs … read more >

Economics, U.S. Economy

The 1-page mortgage form rises again?

Alex J. Pollock | December 14, 2012, 10:35 am

The new bureaucracy of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has discovered how hard it is to develop single, mandated financial disclosure forms that are effective and meet the requirements or demands of all the constituents. The CFPB has therefore … read more >