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| Economy ended year on high note Jan 4th 2013, 01:25 The economy appears to have ended the year on a high note despite hand-wringing in Washington over the "fiscal cliff," according to data released Thursday. Businesses kept hiring, and consumers opened their wallets for cars and holiday gifts — seemingly shrugging off the shenanigans in the nation's capital. Read full article >>   |  | The White House calls Utah's Obamacare bluff Jan 3rd 2013, 21:10 For months now, Utah has put the White House in a sticky spot on Obamacare. Unlike most Republican-governed states, Utah has been eager to run a health insurance exchange. In fact, it already has one: When the Affordable Care Act passed in 2010, Utah was one of two states running a marketplace where consumers could compare and purchase coverage (Massachusetts was the other). Read full article >>   | | The Fed isn't very bullish on '13, and five other takeaways from the new minutes Jan 3rd 2013, 19:28 The Federal Reserve released minutes of its Dec. 12 policy meeting Thursday afternoon, offering a window into how leaders of the central bank viewed the economy and monetary policy at the end of the year. This was the meeting, you'll recall, where the Fed said it expects to keep easy money policies in place until either unemployment declines to 6.5 percent or inflation is forecast to rise above 2.5 percent. Here are the key points from that Federal Open Market Committee meeting: Read full article >>   | | The fiscal cliff deal helped wind power. But our wind policy is still insane. Jan 3rd 2013, 18:45 It took a lobbying blitz and a little bit of luck, but the wind industry eventually got its hoped-for reprieve in Tuesday's fiscal cliff deal. As part of the bargain, Congress extended a key tax credit for wind power for another year — at a cost of some $12 billion over 10 years. Not only that, but Congress made a small tweak: Wind producers won't have to finish their projects by 2013 to qualify for the production tax credit. They'll just have to begin building this year. That's a crucial change that could give the U.S. wind industry a boost in the decade ahead. Read full article >>   | | Why we need a currency war with China (and Denmark and Kyrgyzstan ) Jan 3rd 2013, 18:13 Every now and again, policymakers express interest in cracking down on foreigners — particularly the Chinese government — who buy up stocks and bonds in the United States to keep their own currencies cheap and their exports high. Senator Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) sponsored legislation, which passed the Senate, authorizing tariffs against currency manipulators such as China. Just a month ago, Schumer attacked the Obama Treasury Department for not formally designating China a currency manipulator, a demerit which Mitt Romney promised to bestow during his presidential run. Read full article >>   | | New Year, big fiscal changes Jan 3rd 2013, 17:43 Enough. That's probably the word you've used to express your frustration with the fiscal cliff negotiations. And now we all have to digest what was agreed to and how it will affect our finances. Lori Montgomery and Rosalind S. Helderman of The Washington Post report on the changes that prevented tax increases for millions of middle-class taxpayers from taking effect this month. But the deal does increase tax rates on wages and investment profits for households earning more than $450,000 a year. Read full article >>   | | An amazing mea culpa from the IMF's chief economist on austerity Jan 3rd 2013, 17:17 Consider it a mea culpa submerged in a deep pool of calculus and regression analysis: The International Monetary Fund's top economist today acknowledged that the fund blew its forecasts for Greece and other European economies because it did not fully understand how government austerity efforts would undermine economic growth. Read full article >>   | | The world is becoming less scary, in four charts Jan 3rd 2013, 14:51 All kinds of analysts spent a lot of time during the fiscal cliff standoff fretting about what the markets would do. At what stage, we wondered, would there be wild fluctuations on Wall Street that my give lawmakers more sense of urgency toward a deal? Read full article >>   | | ADP: Happy New Year! We gained 215,000 jobs in December. Jan 3rd 2013, 14:22
Last week, we awarded the Wonky for most overrated economic statistic to the government's monthly jobs numbers, which are prone to considerable error and tend to get way more hype upon release than they deserve. However, an alternative metric -- the ADP employment figure -- is, if anything, underrated. Collected by the payroll processing firm ADP, the report has offered a more accurate first guess of the actual, final job numbers during the current economic crisis than has the Bureau of Labor Statistics' initial release for the month. ADP has since switched its methodology a bit, but it's definitely worth paying attention to. Read full article >>   | |
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